Not gonna lie, I'm kinda glad Demodus called Murray out on the way she's been treating him.
Is he young and inexperienced? Yes. Is he a bit naive/too trusting? Maybe. Is he a Silly Goose? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But he is NOT a fucking idiot, and he’s a full-ass adult. If he’s a grad student, he’s minimum early twenties, maybe mid-twenties. Probably older than Occtis by at least a couple years, and not THAT much younger than Azune, Wick and Julien. Decidedly NOT a child in the way Murray's been treating him.
I especially loved Brennan highlighting how Demodus' experience as a gnome makes him KEENLY aware of how danger surrounds him every day.
He's SMALL - literally, like, in terms of game mechanics. People can and do just pick him up and move him around without even thinking about it. Average-sized people can carry him around without suffering a penalty to their movement speed, which means he's easy to just snatch. He's already been kidnapped once (that we know of).
Murray may be a dwarf, but dwarves still qualify as Medium creatures in DnD. Most people who might try to kidnap her will have to move half their movement speed while they carry her (unless they're classified as Large or bigger creatures). And, while I doubt that this is in anyway Murray's intention (she mostly focuses specifically on Demodus being young rather than small), the relative size difference contributes to a certain ableist undercurrent that runs beneath her treatment of him.
Every day, Demodus has to navigate a world full of people who could (and might) quite literally crush him under their feet. By accident or otherwise. He knows how best to navigate those challenges and how to protect himself in most circumstances. He only slipped up and got in so much trouble this time because an institution he trusted (the Penteveral) advertised a good-paying job offered by the Tachonises that turned out to be a ruse in service to a larger, more nefarious plot. And once he realized exactly what he'd gotten himself into, he split.
Remember, Demodus actually managed to evade the Tachonises entirely! The only a reason he got caught by the Crowkeepers was because he trusted Pimley (another gnome, notably, someone who should have understood and empathized with his everyday struggles) to help him. And Pimley turned around and sold him out.
Demodus knows perfectly well how much danger he's in and how to take it seriously, even if he maintains an air of levity through everything. The humor is a coping mechanism. If he doesn't laugh, he's going to cry. Better to take what joy you can, where you can find it - not just in spite of the horrors, but because of them.
He might be a bit of a clown, but he’s not an idiot, and he's not a child. He's perfectly capable of making serious, informed decisions about his life, and I'm glad he called Murray out for treating him otherwise.
