#orym discourse

[xombigirl]

EVERY FUCKER WHO HAS EVER SAID ORYM HAS NO HOPE, THAT HE'S GOING DARK OR THAT HE'S JUST GOING TO FULLY BREAK OWES ME $500 AFTER LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE.

[septembermonologues]

I understand that some may be concerned about orym letting laudna slip into darkness with delilah and telling keyleth about lillianas connection to imogen (which even then, I understood why he did it) but takes like that annoy me because it discredits how good of a conversation that was!!!! keyleth validating oryms anger is good actually imo!!!!! he's lived through weeks of people telling him that these people, who have taken lives for their selfish agendas, may have a point because of their use of the gods as a scapegoat!!!!! it's so powerful to me that his leader, someone he looks up to so much, is on the same page with him, not making him feel like he has to hide his feelings or battle with the anger inside of him!!!!!! it's natural!!!!!!!!! she's putting trust in him, believing he can lead and fight!!!!!!!!!!! he is not acting against his people, he is standing with them as they are with him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am both scared and EXTREMELY EXCITED about where orym is going to go as a character I can't wait for the YouTube vod to come out on Monday and cry over that convo again

i was just hoping that meeting his family and talking to keyleth about it in full might like... be a moment of reflection or contemplation or realization for that crowd but it seems to have made them worse.

i don't want to say it's not possible that he hasn't or won't make some questionable choices but i've been struggling with people who seem to blame him entirely for delilah possibly having more control on laudna, especially after the talk laudna and imogen had last ep! like i feel like they totally ignored it because it would minimize the role they forced orym into taking.

and i'm glad he said something about liliana now because that's a big fucking thing to just be upfront about given their involvement and the current stakes. i don't think it was to throw her under the bus, i think it was a 'there's no point in lying about or hiding this because you can take one look at the two of them and connect the dots'.

they have both lost people they love. they both have to right to be angry and want justice. idk why they can say that for keyleth but not for orym.

[milquetoad]

actually i still think it’s crazy that orym just said “no one here can guarantee that the actions they are proposing will not cause devastation on a cosmic scale, until we can then i am not interested in entertaining said proposals at all” and a lot of people went ohhhh my god. this guy is so annoying

[imperial-cat]

Reading Orym discourse on twitter is kinda funny, "it's unfair that he has a trump card and can shut down any conversation with it", like, I don't know but, if I don't have a counter argument in a discussion, maybe this means the other person has a valid point?

[the-big-nope]

See, my thing about people getting bent out of shape about Orym listening to the Imodna conversation is that they seem to automatically ascribe some suspicious intent to it when that’s not actually a confirmed thing at all. Orym could very well have just been hanging back and tuning into different parts of the collective conversation, and just happened to catch that bit. It’s like these people have never been at a party and just casually eavesdropped on conversations they’re not a part of. It’s not actually a part of the text that Orym was listening deliberately or out of suspicion, it occurred in that moment because Liam wanted to underscore a point in the narrative, and then Orym tuned out of the conversation before it was over. I don’t understand why people are so determined to read everything Orym does involving Imogen and Laudna specifically as hostile. My dude was just wallflower-ing it up and happened to be listening at a narratively poignant spot.

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[revvethasmythh]

You know, I think there's something so, so insidious to the idea that Orym's perspective of the Vanguard is "flawed/human" or that him repeatedly reminding his friends what the Vanguard does (kill innocents to achieve their means) "blocks nuance" in the conversation, etc, because it implies that, in this mythical "objective" perspective that apparently exists, the Vanguard aren't so bad. If only Orym could put aside his petty grievances, such as the murder of his father and husband, and let people be nuanced about this situation, he'd see there's two sides to this story. And why discount the Vanguard's perspective just because *checks notes* they're a massive, manipulative cult that preys on vulnerable people to join their ranks and turns them to violence, or that they work with a centuries-old fascist eugenicist literally mind-controlling psychic government with the goal of freeing a creature that could very well destroy the world as we know it and even if it doesn't, will leave an enormous power vacuum for that fascist government to potentially occupy when they invade Exandria?

I think there's some misconception people have that they think war shouldn't ever be personal and if it does become personal for someone then their logic is too clouded by their feelings to see the situation clearly, just automatically. And perhaps sometimes, in some contexts, this can be true! But not here. It's actually quite cut and dried that Orym's "flawed, human" perspective is the one reminding everyone of the human cost to Ludinus' grand plans, all in the name of so called "progress"

[zwoftt]

people being mad and hating c3: me in the corner liking c3 because of how relatable dorian storm is as a character to me personally and being very invested in dorym:

[swordscleric]

What is it about Orym that makes a certain subsection of the fandom lose their goddamn minds! The Wildmother is not manipulating him by showing him his dead husband like lads (gender neutral) cop the fuck on

[californiannostalgia]

the Exandrian gods are not gods of a religion.

functionally speaking, they are billionaires sponsoring their favorite projects and striking down any potential competition to preserve the existing world order.

yes, there are good billionaires. does this solve the bad billionaire problem? does this make the absolute concentration of power controlling global socioeconomics moral? can they guarantee an eternity without corruption? can they guarantee a decade of it?

can any decisions that they make be in consideration of the whole picture, when they are so separated from the realities of the vast majority? do the gods listen if they aren't Divine Champions or PC adventurers (which are a privileged few)?

come on.

what do we do to the billionaires?

We eat them.

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Something that really makes me feel insane about Ashton is the way a solid chunk of their arguments have always been that they’re Just A Guy. They’re nobody. They’re nothing. The gods never paid any attention to me, I don’t matter. I’m not special. And sure, with the information that was available early in the campaign, that was a reasonable conclusion for them to have drawn.

But now? When they know the powers that live inside them, powers that never have been combined before and likely never will be again? When several people have all independently pointed out how unprecedented their existence is? That basis for their argument loses all credibility. How many people on Exandria are walking around day to day with a fragment of a titan and a piece of the Luxon inside them? One. Ashton is a singularly unique being. “I’m nobody, I don’t matter,” bitch you’re the main character in a YA novel, calm down.

[song-of-baldy-ron]

I feel like it’s getting missed among everything but let’s be clear: the #1 reason Laudna tried to steal the sword was to claim its power

She rationalized it with another true statement that the sword was a symbol of what they faced with Otohan and that Orym shouldn’t have claimed it without speaking to the group first, but her goal was to absorb it and give it to Delilah

She is great at choosing her words carefully

[septembermonologues]

i absolutely agree about chetney being written off but why is orym catching strays when way back in EXU he was saying he's not a leader and doesn't want to be one and regularly holds imogen up as the hells' leader/spokesperson oh my god

[burr-ell]

love that matt saw people woobifying the vanguard and went "the people who started the campaign on murder? lol anyway their besties suck ass too"

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[bread-wizards]

I think that Orym actually does doubt Imogen, but this isn't a thing that is unique to Imogen. Orym doubts all of them to an extent, because paranoia is something he struggles with (and this is continuously reinforced by the story).

It's not a 'good' thing that he should never get over, nor is it an immoral character flaw that proves he actually hates Imogen. However it's also not something I think he can get over as long as the threat of having to possibly fight his friends exists.

"I have all the faith in the world in you guys, all of you. And I have also spent time thinking how to neutralize each of you."