caeslxys

[caeslxys]

i so love that being The Children is part of bh's identity, i'm just sad that even above table the focus was ultimately pulled towards "the parents" (other established characters, the future of the gods, even anniversary stuff tbh) and that meant very little discussing of what bh and other "lesser" npcs think of the endgame. i get why they're overlooked in-universe, but lots of stuff in the party's journey was swept aside in order to build up to this final arc and then it kinda opened up very quickly to many others who do not share their position. and everybody cheered, i guess because at least they got to see their faves (which makes sense!). i probably feel this way because i only followed c3 and i am invested in bh's perspective, which by now makes me feel like i'm trying to take a test and i suddenly found out the reading i did wasn't even the bulk of it lol

I'm the last person who would argue that those final twenty-fiveish episodes weren't bizarrely paced or that they didn't very clearly start c3 with one intention and end it with another, but I genuinely don't think above table it was their intent to push bh to the side in favor of other established characters. Sometimes, I find, it's worthwhile to remember that the fandom bias does not reflect the cast at all. Marisha recently said she genuinely thought the toss up between Veth and Braius at the chicago live show would be a close one, for example 😭

I've talked about it a bit before, but a lot of the less than stellar narrative decisions made in that final act of campaign 3 feel less driven by a disinterest in their characters (in fact, the amount of potential left to explore and already-stated excitement to do so would suggest the opposite) or their character's importance and more driven by a frankly still bizarre decision to get everything (namely: divergence) out by their tenth.

I'll probably always fundamentally disagree with that decision and think it weakened c3's final act in ways that I am simply not parasocial enough to overlook, but, hey! hopefully one day we'll see them animated, and that will be a structural thing that with the magic of hindsight they will be able to fix.

[caeslxys]

glad as i am that cad approves bh's decision i'm also like. yeah the stakes were super high, everybody was affected, it's fair. but why is the hells' perspective on the whole thing last on the list of opinions people are interested in (i know why). they really pulled off a cosmic-sized move and the person most asked about it in the wrap-up was matt. same goes for bh's lack of influence at the end of the campaign, which is a very interesting aspect of the party to me, getting brushed off because the grown ups are gonna take care of everything and we like the grown ups because a. they're still their characters lol, and b. they were nice to us as bh. wasn't (one of) the point(s) of questioning the gods that powerful entities being nice to some doesn't mean they're not capable of violently fucking over others? sorry for the rant hope none of this gets caught in discourse

In fairness the wrap up was...overall bad lmao. The questions themselves weren't awful (though there were a lot of things that either had already been answered or were so clearly going to be answered with 'I don't know! guess we'll find out!' by matt that asking them at all seemed a waste of time), but One singular Laudna question from a whopping TWO in total for marisha was an unbelievable oversight on their part—especially bc it was absolutely not due to a LACK of questions or interest.

But irt to bells hells as they are perceived within exandria and the sect of fandom who believe themselves infallible in their totally unbiased logic, you're spot on! That was absolutely a massive part of c3's story—issue is, lots of people do not want to acknowledge that and make it everyone else's issue by just straight up lying all the time.

What's REALLY interesting to me about bh is something you mentioned at the top—how bh's opinions were looked to last even within exandria's leadership, and when they finally did they did so both reluctantly and conditionally (not to mention untruthfully, as well). This is actually the thing I think is most WHY bh were not only the only ones who could make the decision they did, but that their decision was the right one—whatever "right" means to you.

Another perspective I've loved to take apart in this campaign is perhaps the more obvious one of viewing it through the lens of parent/child relationships—specifically, the need for parents (the gods, vox machina, m9, and to a more individually obvious extent: liliana) to let the children (exandrians, bells hells, ruidians, imogen) make their own decisions and decide what the world they inherit will look like. A decision many bucked at, as so many do. It's the most obvious perspective bc it's built into basically every major moment (liliana and imogen, ludinus and the gods, even laudna and delilah) of the campaign, and it makes that dissonance with bh all the more real and poignant. They ARE last to be heard! Maybe if, for once, they and those like them weren't pushed to the side or ignored or hated than the outcome may have been different! Especially given how bh were practically begging for fifty episodes for someone to give them the easy answer. Ironically, if the exandrian accord and gods treated them and those they were witnessing with even a hint of regret, it might very well have been an easy answer. Even in the face of annihilation, they were incapable of that. Down to the very, very end they were planning on betraying the hells if they had quietly done exactly as they asked.

And see now I'm ranting. bc there's so many rants and breakdowns in my head. so no big deal I love rants I just spat out like three different ones that are only tangentially connected.

[caeslxys]

People are seriously writing angry spiteful fanfic about the Hells? WTF

I haven't, as a personal rule, kept close watch on cr discourse in a few months so I can't direct you in any particular direction off the top of my head with proof of this, but there is at least one instance of this that was making the rounds for a bit right when c3 ended, yeah. Lots of people mad at the "maybe the gods are different than you knew from previous campaigns" campaign for daring to insinuate that maybe the gods are different than they knew from previous campaigns

[caeslxys]

struggling to find time to finish this 😩 its almost done i promise

[caeslxys]

Dawg, C3 haters are so silly…why is your hatepost 5 pages long…it’s been months since the campaign ended. I’m sorry you can’t handle peak but please we don’t need a dissertation.

[caeslxys]

the thing about "Chetney and FCG couldn't control their actions, Imogen is influenced by Predathos, Laudna has her abuser in her head, it's not comparable to what Ashton did!" is that you can split hairs and build a decent case for why what Ashton did is uniquely terrible, and how no amount of trauma and desperation can compare to a biological imperative or an outside malevolent influence, if you think they specifically deserve punishment. if you think he alone is unworthy of sympathy. but that's missing the point, which is: these conditions are essentially fantasy representations of the same types of real things that drove Ashton to take the shard. the Hells' monstrosities and wisdom saving throws don't separate them from their humanity but underline it, and the people who don't have the exact number of stress points they can take before they have a violent meltdown written on a sheet, or whose voice in their head telling them everyone they love will betray them isn't actually attached to an evil wizard.

the point of the Hells is not that there is a clear delineation between when someone is in control of their actions and when they aren’t but that there isn't, and that everything we do is buried beneath the weight of our desires and our histories and our bodies, and ultimately our responsibility. the point is that they’re all 'ticking time bombs' because of the lot they've drawn in life and the lessons it has taught them, and the point is that they're gonna fucking make it work anyways. the point is when Ashton tells Chetney that the next time he fucks up massively they'll be there for him and help him pick up the pieces, and that that's what the Hells are doing for Ashton right now. it's Chetney telling Fearne that both she and Ashton fucked up, and finding a way for her to get her anger out that isn't hurting either of them. it's Laudna knowing she can't control herself around Ashton and the shard and running away until she's calmed down. and it's the rest of the Hells welcoming her back with open arms in the morning, giving her patience and not judgement. the point is that these people who have been rejected and punished for their fuck ups their whole lives can try to be the best versions of themselves for each other, and be loved and forgiven even when they fail.

[caeslxys]

at the very least c3 fans are not writing angry spiteful fanfic about the mighty nein being executed for working with essek while bell's hells laughs at them

the bar may be in hell but it's true that at least we clear that much 😭

[caeslxys]

So gratifying to hear Taliesin say Caduceus and Ashton both think the gods becoming mortal was the kindest option for everyone, including the Betrayers, the Primes, the faithful, and the ones who wanted the gods gone. Everyone got a little bit of a gift.

That was also my interpretation. I'm sure it's not going to please a certain segment of the fandom.

[caeslxys]

i'm sure people have already thought about it, but. if laudna's thoughts are musical to imogen...could they sound like a lullaby to their potential telepathic kid...with bonus implications if you've read what doesn't break!

I see your "laudna's mind acts as a lullaby to their telepathic baby" and raise you "imogen sings the melody she hears in laudna's mind as a lullaby to their non-telepathic baby"

[caeslxys]

No but really I have so many head canons about Imodna biokids because I think as soon as the first kid showed up with even one single trait of Laudna’s… like they might have purple hair but they open their eyes for the first time and it’s just those deep brown voids staring up at her Imogen would be ready for four more of them. Statistically if they have more than one, one of them would be Laudna’s little copy and our girl would be here lamenting the fact that this one looks nothing like Imogen while in fact this was her whole fucking goal.

In my head I do think they'd only have two kids, but I do ALSO think you're absolutely correct that the minute imogen realizes she can print off laudnas it would be hard to stop that woman from inundating the world with laudnas. she's insatiable and insane like that.

[caeslxys]

Hey, just wanted to say that I agree with your opinions (I am one of those critters who happily jumped in at the beginning of C3 thinking it would be a good starting point, so...) but mostly - sorry for inviting discourse in your inbox. Talking about C3 and loving BH is really not for the weak. Have a good one!

nah, you're good! I truly do not care lol. I actually love debating stuff when it's in good faith and when it isn't, well. that can be fun in it's own way too even if I shouldn't engage w it lmao.

[caeslxys]

c3 was never about bells hells and the moon. the moon was just the holding box for predathos. c3 was about Exandria as a whole and its future going forward. a future bells hells showed they wanted no part of working towards when they whined about having to speak up for the reilorians and when none of their epilogues involves any plans to tackle any harmful systems currently present in Exandria or any future ones when the betrayers pop up. imogen invited the god of slavery and tyranny to become a king and fucked off to some woodland cottage. none of them even gave a shit enough to find out about ludinus, tell anyone he was still alive or make any plans to actually defeat the campaign villian.

When I mentioned in my last post that most criticism of c3–especially on here—is often misdirected this is exactly what I mean, so thank you for the flawless example to use to prove my point.

C3 was always about bells hells and the moon. It was, also, always about the gods and predathos and the breaking of cycles unending. What you are saying, that you feel the campaign ultimately wasn’t about them, is a result of my last post’s criticism of c3’s final act’s pacing, but not true of the campaign on the whole in the slightest. I do find it hard to argue this point only because if you managed to watch 400+ hours of this story and come out the other side willfully misunderstanding it this badly, I’m not sure there’s an argument to be made that someone who thinks this may consider worthwhile.

As for their epilogues—well, one this is yet another thing my post specifies as something i wish were different, so it isn’t like I think it was handled all that well—but it is a blatant lie. Imogen specified—before she mentioned her cabin, if you could stop hating the concept of these characters having internal motivations and desires separate from the plot long enough to listen to what is happening on screen as well as reconcile that, again, this is ultimately a flaw that resulted from c3’s act 3 pacing—that she spends the following months helping ruidians acclimate and helping them feel accepted. Do I wish we had more time there, spent actually with bells hells doing this work? Absolutely, that’s kind of the root cause of my criticism of act 3’s pacing as a whole. They dropped the ball there, but that doesn’t magically erase the character work done to establish that bells hells cares about these people and actively defends them at every chance they get. Especially Imogen Temult. If you think otherwise, you did not listen to a word she has said, but especially none within the finale itself.

I, truthfully, have no idea where the concept of bells hells “whining” about helping or speaking up for the ruidians came from. I can’t argue it because it is, also, a blatant lie. At absolute most they expressed exhaustion after fighting a god and keeping two friends from near (and actual) death. Which is not at all the same as “whining”, either literally or in an internal character sense.

As for Ludinus, I would argue that I think that’s fitting. Ludinus was always a conduit for the larger themes at play in c3, never “the” conflict, as it were. It would make less sense to me for bells hells to focus on finding him if he got away—especially if he’s inactive, as he seems to be. Ultimately they did kill him where it mattered most. I’m not sure I would want the story to end with bells hells seeking out and killing someone who i can’t imagine even wanting to fight back at the moment. Not that he wouldn’t deserve it, but that bells hells was never actually centered solely on him on a macro scale, and it would feel unsatisfying.

Also, respectfully, the “imogen invited a god of tyranny to be king” thing is just a blatant twisting of the scene and of her words. She was clearly being facetious. It was a mocking line. She was making fun of him.

All that to say: most of what you pointed out—the part, at least, that wasn’t an outright lie—is not a result of the text simply “never being about [x]”, but specifically is a result of the final act of campaign 3 falling short of the narratives it had always set up. Therefore, as I began, it is a criticism that is fundamentally misdirected.

[caeslxys]

Your tags...you're right and you should say it, honestly. Saying C3 deserved a few more episodes could sound like your average "I wish my show never ended" take, except...what was everything for, if BH don't get to exist in the aftermath? Their endgame choice, everything they've been working towards, was informed by them having been on the moon and met its people. Final episodes aside, if the Ruidus plot is The BH Thing, I really wish the first trip could've had them less in a rush to report back. I wish they had the opportunity to connect even more with Ruidians and, yeah, I wish they had fought the Weavemind. I'm also rambling, sorry! I just can't believe it's controversial or made to sound like hate to say we shouldn't be begging for Moon x BH crumbs in the Moon x BH campaign.

Prefacing this with reinforcing that I truly, deeply adore those final bells hells episodes and what they contain. They’re fantastic critical role episodes in general but more importantly to me they are fantastic bells hells episodes. In a vacuum, i’m extremely happy with what we got.

That said, yeah, c3’s ending on the grander scale of its narrative structure in totality was unbelievably (and, frankly, unnecessarily) rushed. Everything since episode 91 has been in a spiral towards a finish they simply could have chosen not to spiral into so quickly. And this is seen in several things: from how Delilah was “handled” with next to no actual processing or difficulty, to the nein’s inclusion not bearing any narrative weight beyond the vague feeling of having some “avengers assemble” moment i simply did not care for and think ultimately took from bells hell’s story rather than added to it (which, were it not all rushed, is something it could have been given to them and their inclusion in the way that vox machina’s inclusion did), to the hells not even actually being able to participate in what their own campaign was ultimately about beyond quick epilogue scenes and one political discussion that they didn’t even all need to participate in.

I think the decision to have c3 be “the end of an era” irt to critical role’s ten years deeply hurt both its structure and its narrative intent. I still remember them marketing this campaign as a good jumping in point for new critters, and yet the finale doesn’t even end with bells hells. It ends on vox machina. That, to me—and in addition to the vox machina and mighty nein solo episodes—showcases a clear shift in intent that happened way, way too late to feel at all fulfilling as an audience member looking in. I’m sure as players it rocked, which I point out because obviously the fun factor matters substantially as well, but that has no bearing on criticism of the narrative it produces.

All that said: it’s truly incredible to me how much of this would have been fixed very simply by just…having more episodes. You could say this of anything but I feel it’s extremely noticeable in this story—the one thing it needed to make the constant rushing pace of its forward plot land was a denouement that allowed the characters and story to breathe for more than one eight hour episode. Bells Hells needed to learn about the culture on Ruidus. They needed to spend more time with the volition—more time even with Liliana, I would argue. They should have had their story structured in such a way that they fought the weavemind and ludinus both (especially if matt knew ludinus would ultimately make it out). They should have actually had to delve into what the story had set them up to delve into.

I adore, to pieces, campaign 3 and bells hells. I think much of the ire thrown towards it is unwarranted at best and often misplaced. But I will likely also always be at least a little mad that their final act was so clearly rushed.

[caeslxys]

I can't stop thinking about the new shift in reiloran culture since seeing your art. Like - how are telepathic children raised? (we know upper ranking reilora were discouraged from speaking verbally under the weavemind) Are they just constantly beaming ideas and questions into their parents' minds?

Can they conceptualise ruidisborn getting overwhelmed by hearing everyone's thoughts, or is it also a problem for them too?

These are my favorite kind of questions to consider!!

I like to the think that the culture on ruidus, at least, was opposite to, say, Imogen’s experience. We didn’t get enough time to really speculate deeply on ruidian telepathic culture specifically (a criticism i have of campaign 3 on the whole for another post), but i do love the thought of them just nonstop blasting their parents with mental images that resemble nothing at all, really. Mostly because the thought of that and attempting to figure out what the fuck it means is extremely funny. Why did my baby just inflict upon me the ratatouille colorful flavor profile screen and why are they screaming.

I half expect this idea of overwhelm to be something they dealt with naturally on ruidus, as telepaths in the form of most reilora are as common as elves on exandria up there and society has certainly shifted to accommodate their growth and prevalence, that will soon become a hurdle with any ruidians that decide to migrate. Which is part of why it’s so, so, sososo flawless that Imogen’s epilogue included her spending months making sure these new people acclimate—she knows better than most what existing in a world not prepared for natural-born telepaths (even one, let alone an entire culture of them) feels like.

Would they begin to experience overwhelm in the face of people who have no concept of “quieting” their thoughts as, potentially, a common courtesy? Is quieting their own thoughts so ingrained in them at that point that it’s something that would only affect the younger generation of reilora? Would the non-telepathic peoples of ruidus develop a further disdain or bias once exposed to an entire world of people more in-line with their life? I’m leaving the script of just telepathic child rearing now but all of the things this finale could mean for ruidus and its people—as well as exandria’s, obviously—has been spiraling non-stop in my brain since the finale ended lol. But these are good questions! We should demand to find out in a one-shot that will definitely happen extremely soon and not in a few months.

[caeslxys]

love the new art so much <3 also give us the wisdom please...imodna bio kid resembling dadna...

aw thank you so much! I'm glad you liked them, I'm currently deeply brain rotted about them.

I've had the vividly clear image in my head for quite a while of their little bio baby and I touched on this in the tags of that art but yes, I think she'd look more like laudna than imogen, and that imogen would just be SO happy about it.

mostly because imogen's likeness to her mother has haunted her so deeply all campaign and that was, well, before bells hells made world changing decisions that would absolutely follow their children. even if they had gone the extremely boring (and narratively unsatisfying) route and changed nothing substantial at all, though, I still think the aforementioned liliana look-a-like trauma of it all would have made her more anxious for her baby resembling her than not.

but laudna? laudna, who she thinks is the most beautiful and spooky and wonderful person and who has already irrevocably changed imogen's life? who was there for her when even her own parents had pushed her away? laudna, who lost her family and anyone who resembled her or took pride in her own resemblance to them in the most violent way possible? I think imogen would adore having a child who looks exactly like laudna.

of course in the end this is all subject to whether or not laura bailey wants a baby with purple hair or not lol

[caeslxys]

i think their other daughter would be relentlessly envious of this

if imogen and laudna adopted a reiloran they would have the same smile :)

[caeslxys]

if imogen and laudna adopted a reiloran they would have the same smile :)