#but especially cuz literally I don't understand how you witness 'dragged in to hang like a sword of damocles over caleb's head'

[essektheylyss]

I do think it's worthless to try to argue with the "amount of screen time = relative significance" crowd, but I really cannot stress enough how great this episode was for me personally, as an Essek stan.

I was doing the math between the mention of the war in the prelude (instead of a more general, 'since the Mighty Nein largely parted ways') and Trent saying, "Don't you want to know what I have?" and sat in my chair for ten minutes before Trent actually said it like, "Surely this man is not about to threaten Essek. That is way too much wish fulfillment for me personally. There is no way that's what he's about to say." AND THEN.

Fundamentally my opinions of an episode are not predicated on whether my fave was physically in attendance, nor even whether he was relevant, but it does show how reductive the measurement of screen time is as a metric considering Trent didn't even have to mention Essek by name to drag his living soul in kicking and screaming to briefly haunt this narrative.