criticalroletheoryhouse

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

the world should accept that Margot Robbie and the costume design team behind the birds of pride created a new aesthetic, which i propose we call glittergrime. a shiny antidote to dark times :)

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

I love them so much. 

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) dir. Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

absolutely love that Essek heard that there’s a Fjord decoy hidden in a bed on a boat in the middle of the ocean and did not ask for a single explanation. just nodded, mentally went  “yep, there sure is,” and moved on. 

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

jester: can you feed us please >:(

essek: ….my only friends…. i am so sorry…. that bakeries are not open…. at 3 in the morning…..

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Veth isn’t sure that she’ll ever stop flinching when strangers look at her.

Will she ever stop expecting fear or scorn in their eyes? Will she ever stop feeling like she needs to explain herself? Will she ever be able to accept a smile from a stranger, kindness from a stranger, with the knowledge that if she had green skin they most likely wouldn’t be nearly as kind?

Her people are outliers.

Her people are special, they looked at her in her green and her mask and her bandages and they fell in love with her but she doesn’t pretend that the rest of the world could do that. She doesn’t pretend that the young man working the ice cream stand would give her a wink and a free extra scoop if she had all her extra teeth and long pointed ears. She doesn’t pretend that the old woman whose handkerchief she returned when she saw it drop to the ground would have rewarded her with a piece of gold instead of a scream and a smack with her cane.

How do normal people know that they're really, truly loved?

How do they go through life believing that their people love them when they haven’t seen their husband give them tender looks even though they’re not the person he married anymore? How do they know they’re really part of a family until someone kisses their goblin head and holds their hand, claws and all, and tells them ‘Hey, no matter what, I’m on your side’ while looking directly into their wide, yellow eyes? How do they know someone would miss them when they’re gone until they’ve seen someone cry over a dead goblin girl with a stupid, made-up name?

How do they know true friendship until they’ve had Jester come in the first morning after changing back like nothing was different and braiding their hair like normal without pause?

How do they know true companionship until they’ve heard Caduceus say “Nott, I mean- I mean Veth. I suppose I mean Veth… Do you want me to say Veth? Okay, then, Veth it is,” and then transition without another misstep?

How do they know the feeling of being truly protected until they see Beau instinctually step between them and a stranger, then apologize under her breath when she realized it wasn’t necessary for them to hide anymore?

How do they know true compassion until Yasha comes to the ship with a flower she found and tells her “It reminded me of you because it is green on the outside and bright pink on the inside. Well, pink like love, not like blood, although there is that inside you also but that wasn’t… Nevermind.”

How do they know true kinship until they find Fjord asleep in a chair below deck after having spent the evening adjusting the grip of her weapons to fit her new, slightly larger hands without her having to ask?

How do they know true love until they’ve sat beside Caleb as he read and had him idly run his fingers over their wider shoulders as a quiet reminder that he was there for her?

She almost feels sorry for them all sometimes, all those people out there who never got to be Nott The Brave. Those sorry fucks don’t even know what they’re missing.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

An incomplete list of things I want to write about from episode 97 when I have time, which is probably tomorrow because I’m gaming tonight and fuck I have not prepped the battle map and I do not have the loot specced and also my place is a wreck.

“You are Nott the goblin I first met”, and “you are the second love of my life,” and that entire relationship and the very first time Caleb has ever said the word “love” in this campaign.

Also–Veth is Nott, the goblin we first met, because only Nott would crawl under the table and paralyze Essek in the middle of a dinner party and uuuugh.

Speaking of Essek, aside from the Essek everything meta, which I definitely need to do (and I need to rewatch all of Essek’s stuff so far, because I never quite trusted him and I never quite mistrusted him but now that we know who he is I need to understand everything we’ve seen so far)

I want to ask so many questions about what Essek’s been doing in his Thane disguise.  Is there a real person whose place he’s taking, or has he spent the past thirty years of this deal with the Empire carefully building this charade?  What has that been like for him?  Has Essek Thelyas, in fact, slept with Jester’s mom?

Okay and back to talking about sex, I am not a die-on-any-hill shipper but I have so many emotions and also questions about so many things in this episode?  The Beau and Yasha fish market date was so much.  Caleb and Essek was so much.  I sat down in that seat shipping neither of those pairings but now I have so many questions.

Caduceus always choosing Beau to be the person he decks out with spells and turns into a walking badass.  (How often does it actually work?)  “How would you like to be your best self for an hour?”, and Cad with no idea how to help Beau with what she’s going through right now (Cad who’s thought of Beau as the group’s Competent Adult for months, which is such a fascinating thing to think), and Beau who spends an hour high instead.

Possibly more than anything at all–Matt’s plans and what the party does to them, and the ways they surprise him, and the patterns all of those surprises take.  Matt wanted Essek to get away so badly.  He was happy enough to let them find out that Essek was the mole, but he wanted Essek to escape so badly, and what did he think would happen?

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

BONUS:

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

so like. you’re the elf equivalent of a 19 year old who’s working on his second PhD while also in a powerful political position. everyone is super impressed with you but also, you’re a fucking baby to them. They’re all hundreds if not thousands of years old with multiple lifetimes under their belt, and all they see is someone on his first life who has spent far too much of his first hundred years buried in books.

it’s not that they don’t think you’ve earned your place. but you are quite literally peerless. you substitute your own growing ambition and thirst for knowledge for friends. you’ve accomplished more in one century than most of these pretentious fuckers have in a millennia. you don’t need them. you need them to let you do your work.

but they’re too obsessed with ~religion~ to let you do anything interesting. so. you make a deal with mages from the empire. you’re basically committing an act of both treason and heresy, but like. hey. if they’re going to stick to their stupid rules and grudges at the expense of progress and knowledge, someone’s gonna have to do it.

obviously everyone is super upset over this, but you figure they’ll figure out how to fucking deal with it. things are tense but more or less okay for a decade-ish. no one suspects you, and you begin to think that you got away with it. then shit falls apart, and you realize you don’t have control over the situation anymore. your country goes to war, which turns out to be incredibly inconvenient, because your job during wartime is 1000% suckier and you barely have time to study things you’re actually interested in.

then some foreigners show up with the beacon you traded away, claiming they want to end the war.

you try not to panic. you keep an eye on them, try to figure out what these shifty weirdos know, what pieces of information they continue to uncover. one of them is a wizard with direct ties to your collaborators, and you’re not sure if this a test or some bizarre coincidence.

but shifty as they are, they do seem to be telling the truth, or at least an abbreviated version of it. they’re bizarre and unpredictable and have no sense of decorum, but they’re endearing and they’re trying so hard. 

and. they seem to like you? treat you as a confidant of sorts, send you ridiculous messages at inopportune moments, ask you to teleport them around to find an ancient dragon (how are these idiots still alive) or chase after their lost friend (whoops we actually meant a different spot) or or or

you try to be annoyed. you try to view it as a transactional relationship. you tell yourself this is a preventative measure to prevent them from uncovering your secret. but they’re trying so hard, and you want them to succeed. and that feels. 

bad. 

because you have always been the enemy they’re hunting, long before you wanted to be their friend. you started this fucking war they’re trying to end—indirectly, yes, but callously, knowing it was a possibility and not caring.

and now you care about someone besides yourself. it is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to you. it used to be that discovery would mean your death. now it means that you will die knowing that the mighty nein hate you. betraying your country meant almost nothing, but this—

Essek. We don’t know anything about you, we just realized—do they suspect?—we should really hang out more. Are you single? Do you have kids? Swipe right? Also, mom’s name? 

…you don’t deserve this. you’re going to go over for dinner anyway, aren’t you? 

(they ask you what the worst thing you’ve ever done is and for one insane moment you want to tell the truth.)

you help them and use them in the same breath. you want—need—this war to end. if you do things carefully, they never have to know, right? you’ve lost your resolve, your unwavering confidence in your own arrogant importance, but it’s worth the trade. you can simmer in your own private guilt for years, lifetimes, as long as you don’t have to see a look of betrayal on their faces.

you’ve never regretted anything this much. you’re starting to hate yourself.

then. of course. they’re on the fucking ship. you feel as if you are being watched, but maybe that is just your newfound conscience hounding you. you go to the damned party. you avoid them. it is in Jester’s nature to be completely unavoidable. she makes idle chitchat while you stew in your own anxiety and guilt. you’re terrified. you’re tired. you take a sip of your drink.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Fucking Called It!!!! Sort of...Somewhat...

A Wizard's Intelligence Intrigue

Today I wanted to talk about fandom darling Essek Theylass and the recurring question that has incited more than one fandom conflict: Can we trust him?

There’s been hefty evidence for both sides, but today I wanted to talk about my own personal suspicion, that Essek is working with the Cerberus Assembly. Please note, this will tie into my own personal theory that Trent Ikathon is part of the Angel of Irons cult so if you want more clarification on that, read that first.

I honestly followed a different trajectory than many other watchers of the campaign, I wasn’t super suspicious of Essek to begin with, however in the most recent episodes my suspicion has skyrocketed. This started with Nott’s successful insight check about Essek’s behavior after their interrogation of Taskhand Adeen Tasithar of Den Tasithar, thought to be working for or with the Angel of Iron’s cult.

During Fjord’s interrogation of the prisoner it became clear that there was some level of mind control applied to Adeen when he acted in concert with Oban. The group noted that when the mind control had broken on Yasha it had left a mark on her neck, however when Essek went into the cell to check he stated that there had been no corresponding mark on the neck of Adeen he reported that the man bore no such mark.

Interestingly when Nott took an insight check on this statement’s veracity (22), Matt gave Sam a whisper and Nott later expressed a certain wariness about Essek to Caleb, notably it  wasn’t that she thought he was lying but rather that she thought that there was something funky with Essek’s manner, saying: “Essek seemed okay with you today, right?” to Caleb. She went on to express concern over the prisoner’s welfare after Essek’s visit as well, however the fact that she didn’t just accuse Essek of lying outright means that Matt’s whisper to Sam was more complex than a simple yes or no to Essek’s answer about his neck.

That turn of phrase that Sam uses “Essek seemed okay with you today?” made me take notice because Essek’s main relationship within the Nein is with Caleb, and their kinship as Wizards is both sweet and disturbing in turns. The bedrock of my suspicion of Essek began with this insight check but ballooned when he began talking about his attitudes towards the Kryn dynasty and the relationship of the Kryn religion to arcana. When talking to the Nein about the Kryn system, Essek makes it clear that he doesn’t really regard the beacons as being religious in nature and the fact that magical research is limited with regard to the beacons frustrates him. In particular his comments touched on how he respected the Empire’s veneration of arcane research in their governance.

This comment in particular was aimed toward Caleb in a way that (with Caleb’s background in mind) seemed almost calculated to generate a reaction, and at the very least (without that background) was an attempt to create sympathy or commonality through agreement. Essek makes it clear to the group through subtext: his hesitancy with the Bright Queen and Den, and explicitly: his veneration of the Empire’s relationship with magic, that he has a deep kinship with the mages of the Empire that he thought the Nein would find sympathetic.

However this begs the question: How come you think that Essek is working with the Cerburus Assembly, sympathy doesn’t mean betrayal?!

This is speculative, but Essek being a traitor would wrap up many of the loose ends in understanding how the theft of the beacons (which prompted the whole war) might have occurred. It also might explain just how the Cult of the Angel of Irons had managed to infect the highest echelons of The Kryn Empire.

1.     We know that Oban had contacts in the Kryn government, namely Adeen Tasithar, but it isn’t at all clear how Oban would have had access to these figures, or why the control over Adeen wasn’t lost when Oban died—which would seem to imply that whoever had control over Adeen was a figure other than Oban. Essek has the capability to do so and perhaps enough sympathy toward the Empire and interest in the magical power of the beacons to make Adeen trade them to Imperial Mages. This evidence feels thin however as Essek knows that the Angel of Irons cult is a front for the Chained Oblivion. If he were responsible for Adeen interfacing with the Cult, it would likely be from the perspective of a Cerberus Assembly double agent ostensibly trying to ‘control the situation’ or take advantage of the confusion the cultists were all too willing to create. More likely, Essek gave the information about who would be best positioned to take the Beacons to an Empire scorger or intelligence operative and who then set up the Cult to take the fall.

2.     While it would seem that Adeen Tasithar was working for the Angel of Irons, it is also clear that he stole the beacons and “sold” them to someone on the Empire side which we know resulted in the Cerberus Assembly having at least one of the originally stolen beacons and some level of contact between the agents of the Empire and the Angel of Irons. This connects to my Theory that Trent Ikathon is the actual head of the cult of the Angel of Irons. As the puppet master behind both the scourger faction, which act as intelligence operatives and the Angel of Irons cult which seeks to sow chaos and disorder, Ikathon could easily have had the means before the war to flip Essek, another intelligence operative with promises of magical research and access to the beacons for research purposes, which we know Essek has been wanting. We know that the intelligence forces between the nations were in contact before the war and throughout the conflict. Other small things such as half of Star Razor being in the hands of a Cerberus Assembly researcher and the other half being in the care of a researcher for the Kryn indicate a level of potential connectivity in their inteligencia. We know that Essek thinks the world could become a better place if the beacons were studied, perhaps he thought the war was a just cost for that. He certainly reacted negatively about the prospect of trying to force the Empire to turn over the Beacon that they had come into possession of in addition to the one they had found in favor of ending the conflict.

3.     This will be divisive, and honestly this is less evidence and more of a gut discomfort so bear with me. I find the way he talks about magic with Caleb uncomfortable especially in comparison to Yussa and other Archmages that we’ve encountered like Allura. There is a certain focus on the superiority of arcane magic when he talks about spells with Caleb that rubs me the wrong way, in particular because he seems to use that perspective to try and make Caleb feel superior by devaluing other members of the party. To be fair, coming from a society like the Dynasty, which doesn’t respect the arcane in comparison to the divine, might particularly engender that attitude as a defense mechanism, but it still gets my hackles up because it is very akin to that extremely damaging mindset that is at the root of a lot of the corruption and violence at the heart of the Empire. The focus on debts and favors only further makes me nervous because that language speaks to a mindset that seems to be in conflict with genuine and abiding affection. There’s something exploitative about a lot of Essek’s interactions with the Mighty Nein, which make me anxious from a narrative angle.

4.     Matt keeps saying that Essek is a very complicated character, and it seems to me that the emphasis he keeps putting on Essek’s complexity wouldn’t be fulfilled by Essek just being lonely and socially awkward. We know that Essek is involved in political machinations and intelligence work outside of the view of the Nein that he has told them he will be calling in a debt to have them help with. Whatever that situation is isn’t going to be easy; I simply think that the debt will be connected to intrigue a lot closer to home than the Mighty Nein are expecting.

I don’t think that Essek is a bad person and I think that he genuinely likes the Mighty Nein, Caleb in particular, but I don’t think that precludes him from working with a government that he views as better and more progressive. It’s also entirely possible that he got in over his head and doesn’t know how to back out it’s impossible to say what is up with him at this point because he hasn’t ye. We know that Essek is the Shadowhand—and intelligence position—and that he has significant sympathies to the Imperial view of magic, to the point where he wouldn’t tell his Queen that a Beacon, a focal point for the reincarnation of their people, was still in the hands of their enemy.

As always, only one man (*cough* Matt *cough*) knows the answer and as of right now he’s not telling. Let’s see what fate has in store for the story.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

I've got more to say.

Liam said that Jester has her whole life ahead of her, and implied Caleb is afraid of doing something that will jeopardize that somehow. And it's true that Jester is young, and hasn't seen the same traumas that Caleb has, and her world is full of dick jokes and unicorn hamster and giant pink lollipops.

But her world is full of those things because she puts them there. She works very hard to be a fountain of joy and love for her friends, and she pours herself into the work she and the Traveler have created. It's natural that Caleb, who was alive for years without actually living, would be drawn to her.

But I think it's also natural that he's not going to do anything about that, not until after the M9 deal with Ikithon, if ever. And so much might happen between now and then-- Jester might pursue a relationship with someone else, Caleb's own feelings might change, she might leave with the Traveler, one or both of them might die... the probability of this ship being endgame is not high.

I like it that way. I like stories with angst and mismatched needs. I like the hopeless pining of the moon for the sun's light. I like a Jester who outgrows her romance novels and falls in love with herself first and foremost, who never puts anyone above the Traveler, who loves everyone in her family to the utmost but never kisses a single one.

What does it mean for Caleb to be "uselessly" in love with Jester? It means he puts her needs-- or what he thinks are her needs-- above his own, it means he leans into the pranks he already likes to play. It means he tries to impress her god and casts spells to make her happy and finds it almost impossible to say no to any of her ridiculous plans. It also means, most likely, that he is not going to pursue a romantic relationship. They both have other goals.

He's not the only one in the Nein who loves her, and the great thing about love is you can love more than one person at a time. You can be in love with more than one person at a time. You can build a life with the people you love, if you are willing to move forward with them. Caleb's working on that. They all are, and they're all helping each other.

The story will go where it goes. I'm excited to see where that is, and excited to spring my own stories off of it.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Caleb Widogast has been falling in love with Jester Lavorre for 72 episodes- two years of content. Truly, a slowburn for the record books.

When Caleb started falling for Jester- Molly was still alive. Fjord still spoke in a texan accent. As far as anyone knew, Nott was a true goblin.

72 episodes. 216 days.

All the longing, lovestruck glances. The check-ins to make sure she's okay, to let her know she's not alone, that he'll get her home. Asking her not to run off from the Dome- wanting to know that she's safe, even though he's perfectly aware that she is strong enough to handle herself. All the times she's made him smile and laugh and feel hopeful and inspired and loved, simply by being herself. All the times he's had her back and made her smile. All the times he's supported her in her faith and friendship with Artagan.

That resigned look when he and Fjord used the blood altar, and the horrified "I don't see Jester," when he left her alone with the blue dragon.

All the way back when Jester jokingly asked him "Are you secretly in love with me?" and all he could do was sigh. I am glad you see good in me.

That vulnerable, intimate moment when Jester told him she liked the way he smelled, when she apologized and said she didn't think he was dirty, and he finally took off his bandages, baring his scars to her- and the wonderful symbolism in Jester reaching out to catch him as he falls, Beau and Fjord bracing themselves below them, before she pulled him up alongside her to climb towards the daylight.

A little Jester snow angel, drawn in the snow by a teleportation circle.

When Caleb first confronted the scourger- Jester was there, supporting him, trying to defend him, healing him. Later, she stayed with him and laughed with him about pranks and magic and confided that she didn't really get it- but that's okay, Caleb says, she's way better than Essek and her magic is different anyway. It's miracles.

She buys him 300 gold worth of paper- and it's such a stark parallel to that argument all the way back in Zadash, where Caleb told her that 50 gold was more than his parents would have made in their entire lives. I'll tell you later.

Jester, I need you. I don't want you suffering in a little ruby prison!

Jester, taking his hand in Rexxentruum, letting him know that she's there for him.

I'm the transmutation wizard, but you're the one that changes people.

Caleb sees Jester for who she is- who she truly is. He sees her strength, her stubbornness, her ferocity- he sees her loneliness. He sees the wonder and excitement at the world she sees, the yearning for fantasy, and he sees the heartache she holds for home and safety. Caleb understands the love she has for the Traveler, for her parents, for the Mighty Nein, for all the friends they've made along the way; he understands her paralyzing fear that her love may not be enough to keep them.

Over and over again, Caleb sees the iron, unwavering, almost selfish loyalty she holds for those she loves; he witnesses her need to protect them, to have them laughing and smiling and filled with peace. He sees the ease with which she becomes whatever others want or need- a friend, a confidant, a protector, a jester, neglecting her own pain and sorrow all the while. Caleb sees the profound effect of her love and her light, the way she changes people by simply existing, her truth hand-in-hand with her trickery and her cleverness.

Caleb sees Jester's flaws; he sees her strengths. In spite of himself, he falls- and it's awful, it's doomed, it's too late. He can never be the person she should be with. There are so many others who would be better for her- so he thinks. She turns him into a mess; he sees her smile, and it reduces him to awkward stutters and blank, blushing looks.

Caleb is in love with Jester- plainly, uselessly, completely.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

A Wizard's Intelligence Intrigue

Today I wanted to talk about fandom darling Essek Theylass and the recurring question that has incited more than one fandom conflict: Can we trust him?

There’s been hefty evidence for both sides, but today I wanted to talk about my own personal suspicion, that Essek is working with the Cerberus Assembly. Please note, this will tie into my own personal theory that Trent Ikathon is part of the Angel of Irons cult so if you want more clarification on that, read that first.

I honestly followed a different trajectory than many other watchers of the campaign, I wasn’t super suspicious of Essek to begin with, however in the most recent episodes my suspicion has skyrocketed. This started with Nott’s successful insight check about Essek’s behavior after their interrogation of Taskhand Adeen Tasithar of Den Tasithar, thought to be working for or with the Angel of Iron’s cult.

During Fjord’s interrogation of the prisoner it became clear that there was some level of mind control applied to Adeen when he acted in concert with Oban. The group noted that when the mind control had broken on Yasha it had left a mark on her neck, however when Essek went into the cell to check he stated that there had been no corresponding mark on the neck of Adeen he reported that the man bore no such mark.

Interestingly when Nott took an insight check on this statement’s veracity (22), Matt gave Sam a whisper and Nott later expressed a certain wariness about Essek to Caleb, notably it  wasn’t that she thought he was lying but rather that she thought that there was something funky with Essek’s manner, saying: “Essek seemed okay with you today, right?” to Caleb. She went on to express concern over the prisoner’s welfare after Essek’s visit as well, however the fact that she didn’t just accuse Essek of lying outright means that Matt’s whisper to Sam was more complex than a simple yes or no to Essek’s answer about his neck.

That turn of phrase that Sam uses “Essek seemed okay with you today?” made me take notice because Essek’s main relationship within the Nein is with Caleb, and their kinship as Wizards is both sweet and disturbing in turns. The bedrock of my suspicion of Essek began with this insight check but ballooned when he began talking about his attitudes towards the Kryn dynasty and the relationship of the Kryn religion to arcana. When talking to the Nein about the Kryn system, Essek makes it clear that he doesn’t really regard the beacons as being religious in nature and the fact that magical research is limited with regard to the beacons frustrates him. In particular his comments touched on how he respected the Empire’s veneration of arcane research in their governance.

This comment in particular was aimed toward Caleb in a way that (with Caleb’s background in mind) seemed almost calculated to generate a reaction, and at the very least (without that background) was an attempt to create sympathy or commonality through agreement. Essek makes it clear to the group through subtext: his hesitancy with the Bright Queen and Den, and explicitly: his veneration of the Empire’s relationship with magic, that he has a deep kinship with the mages of the Empire that he thought the Nein would find sympathetic.

However this begs the question: How come you think that Essek is working with the Cerburus Assembly, sympathy doesn’t mean betrayal?!

This is speculative, but Essek being a traitor would wrap up many of the loose ends in understanding how the theft of the beacons (which prompted the whole war) might have occurred. It also might explain just how the Cult of the Angel of Irons had managed to infect the highest echelons of The Kryn Empire.

1.     We know that Oban had contacts in the Kryn government, namely Adeen Tasithar, but it isn’t at all clear how Oban would have had access to these figures, or why the control over Adeen wasn’t lost when Oban died—which would seem to imply that whoever had control over Adeen was a figure other than Oban. Essek has the capability to do so and perhaps enough sympathy toward the Empire and interest in the magical power of the beacons to make Adeen trade them to Imperial Mages. This evidence feels thin however as Essek knows that the Angel of Irons cult is a front for the Chained Oblivion. If he were responsible for Adeen interfacing with the Cult, it would likely be from the perspective of a Cerberus Assembly double agent ostensibly trying to ‘control the situation’ or take advantage of the confusion the cultists were all too willing to create. More likely, Essek gave the information about who would be best positioned to take the Beacons to an Empire scorger or intelligence operative and who then set up the Cult to take the fall.

2.     While it would seem that Adeen Tasithar was working for the Angel of Irons, it is also clear that he stole the beacons and “sold” them to someone on the Empire side which we know resulted in the Cerberus Assembly having at least one of the originally stolen beacons and some level of contact between the agents of the Empire and the Angel of Irons. This connects to my Theory that Trent Ikathon is the actual head of the cult of the Angel of Irons. As the puppet master behind both the scourger faction, which act as intelligence operatives and the Angel of Irons cult which seeks to sow chaos and disorder, Ikathon could easily have had the means before the war to flip Essek, another intelligence operative with promises of magical research and access to the beacons for research purposes, which we know Essek has been wanting. We know that the intelligence forces between the nations were in contact before the war and throughout the conflict. Other small things such as half of Star Razor being in the hands of a Cerberus Assembly researcher and the other half being in the care of a researcher for the Kryn indicate a level of potential connectivity in their inteligencia. We know that Essek thinks the world could become a better place if the beacons were studied, perhaps he thought the war was a just cost for that. He certainly reacted negatively about the prospect of trying to force the Empire to turn over the Beacon that they had come into possession of in addition to the one they had found in favor of ending the conflict.

3.     This will be divisive, and honestly this is less evidence and more of a gut discomfort so bear with me. I find the way he talks about magic with Caleb uncomfortable especially in comparison to Yussa and other Archmages that we’ve encountered like Allura. There is a certain focus on the superiority of arcane magic when he talks about spells with Caleb that rubs me the wrong way, in particular because he seems to use that perspective to try and make Caleb feel superior by devaluing other members of the party. To be fair, coming from a society like the Dynasty, which doesn’t respect the arcane in comparison to the divine, might particularly engender that attitude as a defense mechanism, but it still gets my hackles up because it is very akin to that extremely damaging mindset that is at the root of a lot of the corruption and violence at the heart of the Empire. The focus on debts and favors only further makes me nervous because that language speaks to a mindset that seems to be in conflict with genuine and abiding affection. There’s something exploitative about a lot of Essek’s interactions with the Mighty Nein, which make me anxious from a narrative angle.

4.     Matt keeps saying that Essek is a very complicated character, and it seems to me that the emphasis he keeps putting on Essek’s complexity wouldn’t be fulfilled by Essek just being lonely and socially awkward. We know that Essek is involved in political machinations and intelligence work outside of the view of the Nein that he has told them he will be calling in a debt to have them help with. Whatever that situation is isn’t going to be easy; I simply think that the debt will be connected to intrigue a lot closer to home than the Mighty Nein are expecting.

I don’t think that Essek is a bad person and I think that he genuinely likes the Mighty Nein, Caleb in particular, but I don’t think that precludes him from working with a government that he views as better and more progressive. It’s also entirely possible that he got in over his head and doesn’t know how to back out it’s impossible to say what is up with him at this point because he hasn’t ye. We know that Essek is the Shadowhand—and intelligence position—and that he has significant sympathies to the Imperial view of magic, to the point where he wouldn’t tell his Queen that a Beacon, a focal point for the reincarnation of their people, was still in the hands of their enemy.

As always, only one man (*cough* Matt *cough*) knows the answer and as of right now he’s not telling. Let’s see what fate has in store for the story.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Step one: Form a protective circle around the Wizard.

Step two: Plot a murder.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

He’s so evil.

Honestly, I cannot state how strongly I disagree with commentaries that Ikithon’s interaction with Caleb suggests he doesn’t actually care about Bren, and that Caleb’s paranoia has been an overreaction this whole time because Ikithon barely spared him a thought.

Even besides the fact that we already know Ikithon cares (the Scourger, ep. 77: “He’ll be happy to finish what he couldn’t. He doesn’t like it when people don’t do as he says.”), his behaviour at the end of the episode was not some casual, amiable acknowledgement of a long-lost acquaintance. It was an act.

Ikithon is an obsessive, creepy, deeply disturbing individual. We know this. Yet Matt describes Ikithon as wandering and sauntering up to the Mighty Nein, like he has all the time in the world, and then uses this terribly light, conversational tone… specifically to make sure the Mighty Nein know he remembers them from Zadash, and especially that he remembers Bren. And then he leaves.

That is not casual. That was a calculated move to destabilise the group, and Caleb, following their diplomatic victory, and it worked. It incited terror, but more than that, it incited uncertainty. And that’s exactly what Trent Ikithon wanted.

[criticalroletheoryhouse]

Fjord/Jester + little parallels.