happy 4 year anniversary of bells hells! a while ago i had the idea to try and write a comprehensive post explaining why i love this campaign and these characters. this is…not exactly that because it turns out i have way too much to say, and a fraction of my thoughts on a few topics amount to [checks word count] 4,000 words, but i had a great time trying to articulate even some of the myriad of reasons bells hells mean so much to me, so here we go!
first and foremost, i love how ambitious campaign 3 is, not just in terms of scope to bring ten years of storytelling together, but thematically. it takes bravery to tell a story like this that forces the characters and, more starkly, the audience to reevaluate their view of exandria, its history, power structures, and gods. c3 presents a more nuanced, morally grey reality, demonstrating that this society, one many people uncomplicatedly love, is not a meritocracy and the line between a “good” god and a “bad” god is blurry at best. matt has said repeatedly he wanted this plot to be multi-faceted, including room for people to disagree and even argue. i think, on that at least, there’s no question he succeeded.
moving into c3 proper, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: the first 38 episodes of this campaign are narrative perfection. bells hells come out of the gate with incredibly strong, consistent characterization (their personalities and motivations, yes, but down to their physical body language, too), which the beginning in jrusar gives them time to establish, before moving into the bassuras arc, where we start getting into almost all their backstories:
ashton (it’s his home, finding out about the nobodies and their accident);
fcg (it’s also their home, dancer, having his first stress breakdown);
imogen (finding out about her mom, discovering she’s ruidusborn and what that means);
fearne (seeing more of her feywild connection through dusk/yu, meeting her parents, finding out she’s also ruidusborn);
and laudna (finding out her backstory, getting more depth to her relationship with delilah and the trauma that comes from it, i.e., her reaction to fcg’s stress breakdown).
all the while, matt is beginning to set up the threads of the main ruidus plot, introducing new concepts and characters like otohan and the paragon’s call, from which comes “blood and dust,” one of my favorite episodes in all of critical role. the fight with otohan is inarguably the defining moment of early c3. it’s tense, and the stakes are high. the emotions of everyone as they realize how in over their heads they are and things get worse and worse with more of them dying makes it utterly compelling to watch (which i have…probably too many times). the aftermath is even better. the coin flip! what brilliant moment: funny, true to character (fearne is fey! she, less than anyone, is prepared to process the reality of this moment and the impact it will have), with ripple effects that reverberate through the campaign forever. there’s a reason otohan is the person who would haunt the narrative for the next sixty episodes and permanently change how bells hells approach combat, and it’s completely deserved.
then, my beloved laudna resurrection arc. these episodes rely on the previous two arcs’ strong foundation of character and relationship development to work as well as they do. we know bells hells. of course they’d do whatever they can to save laudna, and throughout we see their palpable grief, especially imogen’s, which includes some of cr’s best rp and honestly some of the best acting i have ever seen. getting to go back to whitestone and see vox machina is so fun, but it never detracts from bells hells.
in my sincere opinion, “from the boughs,” the one where they go into darkstone to rescue laudna’s soul from delilah, is the most singularly perfect episode of critical role ever. is it my personal favorite? no (though it is up there), but it tells an emotional, interesting, unique story that’s self-contained while also contributing immensely to the overall story and flawlessly balances action and character. matt weaves in laudna’s memories, giving us insight into her past we never would have gotten without character infodumping, and ends with imogen getting the hdywtdt. you couldn’t write anything better.
laudna’s actual resurrection episode is equally wonderful in many of the same ways, so i just want to tell everyone they should rewatch the scene of laudna and the sun tree. you will not regret it.
similarly, the ending of c3 is exquisite. that final run of episodes (117-121) showcases bells hells at their most bells hells: flawed but ultimately, above everything, kind. orym feeds strawberries to the myceits. they plant the all-minds-burn because it’s a friend that “wants a home to explore,” and ruidus lets it because it (just like bells hells) “understands very well what it means to be lonely.” they try to talk to predathos before they kill it, instead of assuming its inherently malicious or evil. they are told over and over again their only choices are to keep the status quo or to kill the gods, but they find the third option, one that gives the gods, for the first time, the ability to grow and change, to not, for some of them, be mechanically bound to evil, to perhaps be more than what their creators intended for them. in their speeches to try and convince the gods to become mortal, they say not just that but how life can be fun and they deserve to rest as much as anyone. bells hells argue passionately that ruidians should be allowed to come to exandria. imogen talks about how ruidus is a planet full of life and people just like them, that they have a chance to give them back the home that was stolen from them. braius says everyone deserves a chance at redemption like the one he got. they intimately know so much of the joy and the pain of mortality, and while i’d never truly doubted it before, the ending concretely solidified that bells hells, as, in marisha’s words, “the party of the people,” were the perfect protagonists for this story.
now, the action: i’m someone who initially found the ludinus fight a bit underwhelming, but in retrospect, matt played it masterfully. killing bells hells was simply not ludinus’s priority—he could have if he tried!—and on a meta level, he was never the intended final fight. the choice to make it “easy” served to underscore the difficulty of the predathos and make it so when they inevitably do fight ludinus for real, likely in a live-show or other one-shot, it’s new and fresh. predathos on the other hand? that combat is awesome from start to finish. dorian accidentally discovering predathos was vulnerable to thunder damage in the first round and subsequently giving the hells a massive advantage. the interludes of imogen in predathos’ consciousness and everyone trying to reach out to her adding emotional stakes. fearne’s natural 20 sneak attack flame blade hit. orym spending his action giving dorian a healing potion, then dorian doing a mass heal that likely kept the party from tpking. laudna’s disintegrate into ashton’s hammer that if it failed would have permakilled them. imogen’s combined 2,000 points of transmuted thunder damage and hdywtdt on predathos. i’m not typically huge on combat, but what i’ve always loved about bells hells is them being “weaker” or “less optimised” means no two fights go the same way, which actually keeps me more engaged as someone who’s not typically as interested in this aspect of dnd. i was always guessing their next move, and these episodes embodied that. i watched all ~8 hours enraptured.
i’m going to touch a bit more on the middle arcs later, but here, i wanted to specifically highlight the amazing places we get to see for the first time, like jrusar, yios, the shattered teeth, and most especially, ruidus. we got to go to the moon this campaign. the choice to make ruidus part of exandria and its people descendants of exandrians is one of matt’s best. it’s alien in so many ways—the people differ in appearance and social norms. there are so many topographical quirks and new weird little creatures—but their connection to exandria is clear and does so much to ground both the audience’s understanding of it and their investment in what happens there. i also loved seeing more of the feywild and having more fey characters. ira and morri were incredible every second they were on-screen, and we really got to see matt stretch his physical acting muscles more than we ever have before.
c3 is, in many ways, the obvious prototype for c4, from the extended guest characters to the multiple concurrent narratives and switching dms to having swathes of episodes without the full founding cast. for the most part, i think this worked very well (and clearly so did cr, considering we have c4!).
i love the split arc. it allowed us to spend time with so many extraordinary guests and tell two very different types of stories. the uthodurn plot was generally lighter. they were able to find non-violent solutions to their problems, like saving umudara and sending him to the savalirwood, and it featured a lot of positive development for those members of bells hells:
chetney got closure for his past and reconnected with deanna;
imogen gained a lot more confidence in herself through her circlet and her relationships with frida and deanna;
fcg learned more about what it means to be aeormaton and finally met someone who could relate to their struggles;
and fearne took on a bit more of a “mature” role and was really an emotional center for the group.
plus, there was a threesome and lots of robit kisses.
meanwhile, the issylra plot had a much darker, more serious tone. it dealt with political corruption, the questionable actions of a prime deity’s followers and maybe that prime deity itself. it ended in a betrayal and a guest character death. there, the hells ended in a worse place than they started:
laudna killed bor’dor, triggered delilah coming back, and put her on a downward spiral she would stay on for most of the campaign;
orym co-signed bor’dor’s death, something that still haunts him post-campaign, and went deeper into his often self-destructive black-and-white soldier mindset;
ashton tried his hardest to be everyone’s rock (ha!) while being exposed more to his past and what it means, which sets up his journey in the shattered teeth and the shard.
individually, these are both great, then, once they come back together, you get to see how those characters, who went though such different experiences, interact with each other in new ways.
in addition, i love the crownkeepers interlude. i admittedly didn’t at first, mostly because of its placement right after fcg’s death, but in its own right, these episodes are fantastic. aabria (to the shock of no one) was absolutely locked into the themes of c3 regarding the gods. the interactions between opal and the spider-queen, fy’ra and the wildmother, the wildmother and the spider-queen, etc. all added such depth to the question of the difference between prime and betrayer if they were willing to work together for their own protection at the expense of mortals. aabria has a different dming style than matt, and because of that, this type of slow, very narrative combat that allows us insight into where these characters have been and what they are feeling works wonderfully without being too disparate from the episodes that come before or after. they’re sad! they have great character work and dming! they tell their own story while adding to the themes of c3! and for the sake of brevity, i will just say, all those points are true of downfall as well. downfall also gets a million bonus points for cassida previn and another billion for introducing us to abubakar salim as the arch heart.
as is probably obvious by this point, i could go in-depth about every one of the hells, but for the sake of some semblance of brevity, i’ll start by just saying one thing i love about them.
chetney: unironically, having an old character in this specific story that is so much about history where the most visible antagonist is a 1000 year old elf rocks, and within a group of characters who skew younger or at the very least lack a lot of practical life experience, it allows him to fill a needed niche of someone confident enough to stand up for them in a way the rest of the group usually isn’t, like the scene where keyleth tells them they need to go to aeor.
fearne: HOW CAN ANYONE HATE C3 WHEN IT GAVE US FULL-TIME ASHLEY JOHNSON?? my favorite thing about fearne has always been her feyness. ashley plays that sort of “chaotic” thought process so brilliantly because it is different than your typical mortal plane person but so internally consistent. i always think about the moment where orym makes a joke about fearne being “their fey sociopath,” and fearne’s response is a heartfelt, “that’s true. i belong to you all :)”. it’s a perfect encapsulation of fearne’s fey view of relationships. she’s at her best in her element, in the feywild, and i’m so glad we got to finally see a fearne feywild adventure in “oaths and ash.”
imogen: this and laudna were probably the hardest for me because i love and talk about every aspect of them so much already it’s hard to pick one, but i’ll say, imogen’s journey with her telepathy, seeing how much she struggled, and how getting the circlet truly changed everything for her, and let her be fully herself in a way she just couldn’t before is such a meaningful story to me personally, and knowing it comes from an authentic place that reflects laura’s own sensory processing issues makes it even more special.
laudna: her form of dread reflecting her characterization and mental state at any particular moment is magnificent, like it looking like the sun tree after her resurrection or “it’s just delilah” on the roof after swordgate.
fcg: fcg is a masterclass in playing a character’s flaws. people (including, to be fair, me) can sometimes have a rose-colored view of them, but man, they could be frustratingly self-righteous, dismissive of other people’s feelings, and unable to see outside a black and white view, but i never felt as if any of that behavior was, on a meta level, without reason or reflection on the core of who they were, and i appreciate that fact more and more in retrospect.
ashton: ashton is, out of all the characters, probably the one i’m most grateful for. it’s not a secret to anyone that they are incredibly divisive. i haven’t always loved him. in fact, there was a time when i really hated him, but i genuinely believe talking to people who understand them on a level i can’t and helping me understand him too has made me a better, more empathetic person in real life. he can be angry and caustic, say the wrong thing, or make choices that seem selfish but never without reason. they care about “everything they can see,” especially their friends, and are deeply unjudgmental of them at their worst because he’s seen and helped so many people like them before. also, they’re a physically disabled character with chronic pain who is never “fixed,” and all of that is so important.
orym: orym is usually the (metaphorical) straight man in bells hells, but that makes his moments of silliness even better. the “oh god, i told you all i loved you” / “haha, can’t take it back. fuck you” exchange between ashton and orym is one of my favorite moments in the finale, and seeing him in the live-shows making jokes is so much fun.
dorian: HOW CAN ANYONE HATE C3 WHEN IT GAVE US ROBBIE DAYMOND?? one of my favorite things about dorian is still one of the aspects i found most surprising initially and that’s how, despite his appearance as a rich boy bard, he has a spine of steel and a willingness to indulge in darkness without remorse that most of the group doesn’t. “kill your mother” and his conversation with opal about finding and killing the mortal spider-queen are moments that live rent-free in my head.
braius: for all sam jokes about not watching the show or paying attention, he has one of the best grasps on theme of anyone in the cast, and braius’ little arc is a perfect demonstration of who bells hells are. he meets the group jaded and alone with no support other than an evil betrayer god, but the hells show him friendship and kindness even when he betrays them. the same kindness they showed every time one of them messed up and did something others may have seen as unforgivable, and that was what gave him the strength to redeem himself.
bells hells have, both positively and negatively, often been referred to as “a party of npcs.” this is a description i generally agree with, not because they have no agency in the story or refuse to take an active role, but because they are truly “the little guys” even to the end. i made a whole post about the difference between mechanical and social power, so i won’t go too far into that specific point, but it is one of my favorite things about them.
i also love how, in one way or another, they showcase the type of collateral damage a story normally brushes past. orym was a guard whose husband and father were killed in a seemingly random attack; laudna a poor farm girl killed to send a message to a group of adventurers she’d never met; chetney an old man whose family abandoned him hundreds of years ago; fearne and imogen children left behind by their parents for a greater goal; and fcg a remnant of a millennia past built to hurt people against his will. ashton’s parents tried to use them as a tool for their own gain and left him orphaned in a body changed forever. braius lost his whole life because of someone else’s flippant prank. even dorian, the wealthiest and most “normal” of them all, was a second son, inherently less “important” than his brother and always aware of it. this goes hand-in-hand with the fact that almost none of them had personal villains from their backstory that could be physically defeated to signal the end of their arc, no ripley or kevdak, no uk’otoa or obann, not even a syldor or a thoreau lionett. they struggle in different, less concrete ways against themselves whether that be fcg with his stress, chet with his werewolf instincts, imogen with her powers, laudna with delilah, ashton with the trauma that affects them every day, or braius with his own redemption. they suffer against ingrained social prejudice for being undead or ruidusborn or an aeormaton or just looking too poor or weird or out of place and against expectations.
in a different campaign, delilah’s “death” in “from the boughs” followed by the beautiful scene of laudna at the sun tree would have been the “end” of her arc and an indication she was now going to start a linear process towards healing, but not this one. here, development is messy. many of the hells start in a better place than they are towards the middle. they progress then regress then progress again, and all this is what makes them so beautifully real and their endings feel earned. you rarely get big moments of individual catharsis. orym kills ludinus, but after, he’s just tired. for him, healing looks more like holding dorian and letting himself think, “this is okay.” similarly, the final turning point for laudna is not delilah being trapped in a soul gem, it’s episodes before that, when imogen says, “i’m going to miss our little cottage,” and laudna realizes just how much she wants that future, a development demonstrated through blink and you’ll miss it moments like her saying, “when we finish this, and we have infinite free time, we should go back and find [fcg’s] coin,” when an episode before she told imogen she was a dead end and they might be better off if she died fighting predathos. bells hells is so much more about this subtlety in so many quiet, “mundane” moments, which makes being an engaged viewer who pays attention infinitely rewarding. this is also why i enjoy the god debates! seriously! they’re far from a fluke in the campaign, they’re inherent to the premise! and if you pay attention, the non-static nature of them, especially post-downfall, is super interesting. imogen going from “it’s the way we've been for such a long time” to “things can’t go on the way they’ve been” is the most clear evolution, but every character has a changing perspective that makes sense for who they are.
lastly, i love how bells hells became friends immediately. this was a group of deeply lonely people, and their response to that loneliness was not, as it so often is, to isolate themselves further, but to cling to the first people who gave them community. it makes perfect sense. they also just liked and were kind to each other. it’s refreshingly uncomplicated but never superficial. they have compatible personalities and share similar struggles. over the campaign, it becomes clear how flawed they all are, and when their ticking time bombs exploded, the people they hurt were most often their friends, but even at the worst times when the group would waver, they never left each other’s sides. as a drama lover, sometimes i wished the pvp was worse, but in the end, i can’t be upset. choosing kindness and empathy over being “right” is the core of why i love bells hells so much to begin with.
i planned these sections in advance, but as i was writing, i realized so many of the themes about this campaign i love so deeply naturally emerged: destiny vs. choice, forgiveness and redemption, who deserves what and what “deserving” even means, finding and keeping community, breaking cycles, and so many others. rather than rehash what i’ve already said, i’ll just give you the quotes i feel best embody c3, most of which i think about almost every single day.
“we’re more than just what our creators intended for us.”
“all it takes to start again is to wake up one morning and decide to.”
“i don’t deserve you, but i’m so glad you’re here.”
“pain is better when it’s shared.”
“you can’t save everyone, but everyone is worth saving.”
finally, i won’t dwell on it, but i will end here: the fact c3 is the most female-led campaign, that every pc is canonically queer and multiple are nonbinary, that the main relationship, not just romantically but period, is between two sapphic women, and we have disabled representation at the forefront is fucking awesome. we need so many more stories like it, especially now. i will forever be grateful for this one.
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