#I want to study him like a bug | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

edelgarfield · 2 months

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god damn it all this Aeor and Calamity lore has me liking Ludinus a lot more than I ever wanted to. I find him so fascinating and compelling as a villain, in the way that he reflects a lot of my favorite characters' flaws particularly from CR2, but CR3 in Bell's Hells at times self-defeating pursuit of power in order to win.

I'm thinking abt a couple quotes from Essek, bc he & Ludinus obviously have so much in common. By Essek's own admission, it was his inability to trust people that made his pursuit of knowledge at the cost of others so appealing, that made him lose sight of the hurt he was causing

In particular the second quote: feeling personally responsible for doing something because of your inability to trust anyone else. I think that encompasses Ludinus's ideology & motivation so well.

The idea of longevity/immortality being a barrier to intimacy is something that gets talked about with respect to elves a lot, and I think Ludinus encompasses that to its logical extreme. Ludinus is one of the last survivors who actually lived on Exandria during the Calamity. Most elves actually fucked off to the Feywild and didn't return until long after the fighting was over. Given Ludinus was a child when Aeor fell, I would assume that means his parents chose to stay on Exandria & he was born afterwards. (Which if that's the case, adds another layer to his resistance against the gods bc he was doomed to live through the war on the surface of Exandria bc of a choice his parents made before he was born.)

All the elves born at the tail end of the Calamity are dead by now, Ludinus lived at least 160ish years of it, and most of the elves born around that time would have been in the Feywild and wouldn't have the experience of seeing what happened to the world. Everyone else who survived the Calamity would have died hundreds of years ago, not to mention that only a third of the population even survived it in the first place. The thing that's saved the PCs (& Essek) time and time again is their bonds with others, having other people to support them & remind them that all the power in the world means nothing if you lose yourself in its pursuit, that there are good things in this world worth living for.

Anyone that might have had the chance to sway Ludinus from his path is long dead, either from the Calamity or old age. Liliana seems to be the only person he feels close to, but they're both bonded through their shared cause. Even other elves, the people with the longest memories, don't understand what living through the Calamity was like. They weren't there.

I know it was mostly a joke when Laudna suggested Ludinus go to therapy, but at the same time where would he go? One of the things that helps PTSD is a sense of community, feeling like there are other people who share your experience, but there isn't anyone that shares Ludinus's experience (Not to mention anything resembling a therapist on Exandria would most likely draw power from a deity, which Ludinus is understandably opposed to).

That sense of isolation is something that comes up again & again among CR PCs. CR2 is the most obvious, but it's something plenty of the CR3 characters have been through as well. Ludinus would have been alone in his trauma for hundreds of years. That's completely incomprehensible to us. He would have watched the world move on and forget something that's so deeply affected him. Any attempt to confide in someone about his anger & pain would often be met with "this is punishment for our hubris" "the gods love us" "don't question their will." The very, very few allies he had would die out over the years until one day he's the last and he would be the last for centuries more. I feel like that sense of isolation, feeling removed from the world, bottling up centuries' worth of emotion would make anyone numb. he withdraws further and further into himself bc he doesn't belong. he works for centuries at removing the gods, becoming more and more desperate as he grows older, without anyone else to provide perspective as his plans grow more and more ruthless. (i also have a theory that this loneliness is part of what makes him sympathetic to predathos but that's a separate post)

Given his age & being the last survivor of the Calamity, I think it's nearly impossible for him to connect with other people. The only thing that gives him any sense of connection or community is his crusade against the gods; he only feels connected to others through their shared pain & anger, which never allow him to move past it. He can't trust anyone bc no one else understands what the gods are capable of like he does, nobody else understands what's at stake. He's the only person remaining who does, which means he's the only one who can do what he believes needs to be done.

There's a sense of duty. He needs to eliminate the gods because he doesn't trust the future inhabitants of Exandria to be able to protect their world. He owes it to all those who've been trampled on by the gods to do what they no longer can. I think he genuinely cares about mortals & he wants to defend them from a threat that he believes only he can see, but I think he cares far more about the thousands of dead he carries on his back than anyone alive. He can't simply live a happy life bc everything that once made his life worth living is gone. He can't let go of that pain & anger and move forward. His trauma is what gives him purpose and meaning; healing from it would be a betrayal to all the people that have suffered beneath the gods.

I don't think he's wrong about the gods, but I think he's seeking freedom from the gods' control, not realizing that he's letting himself be controlled by the dead. I think it's been a very long time since he spared a thought towards actually living. Bell's Hells keeps accusing him of wanting to take the place of the gods, or wanting to be seen as a messiah, but I truly don't think that's it. I don't think he cares about what comes after, if he's even thought about it at all. I don't even think he wants to be a martyr. His goal has never been for him to live in a free world, it's to ensure that there will be a world after he's gone, forever. he thinks if he dies without securing that future, he'll have failed Exandria & all the souls that have ever lived on it.

He's been completely ruthless in his pursuit of power because to him, he is fighting for Exandria's survival. That's exactly the trap BH has fallen into in the past, pursuing power even when it hurts themselves & their friends, losing sight of the actual people they claim to be protecting. Ludinus surrounds himself with terrible people; Otohan and Trent to name two, bc he wants the power they hold without getting his hands dirty himself. but in doing so he immediately removes any possibility of emotional intimacy. the people he works with don't trust him & he doesn't trust them. the one exception is Liliana & unfortunately I think she just met him far too late.

so much of CR is about the importance of feeling connected to other people, how those connections remind us of what's truly important, and keep us grounded, how when we begin to lose sight of ourselves, it's those we're close to that remind us. I think of Caleb & Essek, they both had goals they wanted to pursue, but in finding a place to belong realized those goals wouldn't actually make them happy. Ludinus doesn't want to be happy, he wants to have a purpose, and I know I'm a bleeding heart, but I think there is something incredibly tragic in someone who can't even imagine what it would be like to live a happy life.

I think of Fjord & Percy & Imogen & Laudna & Dorian, people who nearly lost themselves in pursuit of power, but chose to turn away because living for their friends was more important that dying for the world. Ludinus is the pendulum swinging in the other direction. It's incredibly tragic bc imo his intentions are genuinely good; he's arrogant and selfish and ruthless but i think he truly does want to protect Exandria.

I think there was a point in the past where someone could have reached him & he could have chosen a different path. i don't even think he would have necessarily had to give up his goal of removing the gods. if he had other people working alongside him instead of under him, who knows what he could've come up with? if he had people to pass the torch onto once he was gone, maybe he would feel like there was time to come up with a solution besides Predathos.

But he doesn't and he can't trust anyone bc no one else believes in his cause as fervently as he does. he can't trust anyone else to make the sacrifices he's willing to make so he never tries. He denies himself the aid & perspective & closeness that comes with trusting someone and becomes further and further entrenched in his mission to remove the gods at any cost. He's the only one alive left to remember the trauma of the Calamity: he has to carry all of it because no one else can.

#critical role #ludinus da'leth #cr3 #cr spoilers #it's the ludinus essay #i feel like i shouldnt have to say this but obv none of this is an excuse #i just think viewing the themes he represents and how he acts as a foil to so many other characters #and the REASONS other characters on similar paths chose differently #is so fascinating #i think interpreting ludinus as a man who truly does care abt the world above all else #is soooooo much more interesting #than seeing him as someone obsessed with revenge or power #i want to study him like a bug

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