#hurts twice as hard

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[casualavocados]

You took the blame for me. ...Give me a break. [...] Besides, it's been four years now since Zhang Teng's death. Why are you still hung up on those solved problems? What are you trying to do? Who says they're solved?

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 10

[ghostinthegallery]

Oltyx was (and is) so deeply loved by the people around him, but I imagine even post-Reign that's a difficult thing for him to accept. Because throughout his whole life the way that love showed itself was painful. It manifested in the deaths of 50 innocent people to teach him a lesson. In being sent to war when he didn't want to be. In excoriation and exile. In manipulation and lies "for his own good." In death and sacrifice and the looming threat of betrayal. How can he receive anyone's love when that is what love was shown to be? How can he give it in return when to him love expressed brings inherent suffering?

[cream-and-tea]

[ID in alt]

pallas + giftgiving ❤️

[my-current-obsession]

My hyper-specific type when it comes to otome guys:

- Absolutely pathetic - Cannot speak to a girl normally to save his life - Tries to be calm/aloof, but turns tsundere when flustered enough - A good and pure man at heart, yet does some questionable things - ...Little Red Riding Hood???

[permanentreverie]

.

[cakemoney]

it is extremely teenager-coded to not even think to ask for help or not be able to articulate the help you need, and also i understand these High School Junior Year Struggles exist for the sake of the season arc and individual character development and that's probably why the entire gang isn't breaking into porter's house to christmas carol him into approving gorgug's multiclassing, but also it is super jarring for there to be both a literal trust fund baby living unsupervised in his massive house and an orphaned (?) teenager who needs to get a part-time job to pay for her school supplies. fabian's house definitely has barrels of diamonds just sitting somewhere, but instead adaine has to cut the Infinite Strudel for eight hours a day.

[cosmic-ships]

I had to add to my description.

First part is about the canonxcanon shippers finding me and the second is the t r a u m a I cannot even deal with him being platonically shipped :c

[this-love-is-delicate]

I just feel like when it comes to guys I'll always be passed up for things I can't change about myself like I'll always be the kind of girl that gets settled on but I also know there has to be more than that like there has to be someone who actually wants me, and isn't ashamed of me, and doesn't just wanna use me. Like there just has to be more.

[drysauce]

truly a blessing that im not home right now or i don't what i'd do to my roommate. fucking audacity

[mildmayfoxe]

usually i feel ok about living in a shoebox room (just about 88 sq feet) (it really could be worse i’ve seen smaller rooms) but sometimes i kick something on the floor that’s in an inconvenient place because there’s no where else to put it just one too many times while i’m trying to also move something else that’s in my way while im trying to access something like, for instance, my bed, and i fully want to scream

[secondexwife]

sleeping on the couch is one of the most exciting things you can do as an adult

[themosthatedbeingg]

{ if you see a wild streak of fire suddenly shoot out amongst the street — He just Sneezed like super super hard— “ woah.. I think my heart stopped for a second there .. “ }

[moonlightcookie]

people are being murdered by the thousands while everyone sits and watches. im seeing way too many ppl care more about whatever the latest fandom drama is rather than using their voices to uplift Palestinians'

[chiherahcreations]

Nightmares

~A Caulmeric (my wolmeric ship) Comic~

[CW: blood, gaslighting, panic attacks]

***(Shadowbringers Spoilers!)***

After Elidibus forces him to fight shades disguised as his loved ones, Caul's nightmares often reenact that traumatizing moment with the fake Aymeric, but worse.

(See alt text for transcriptions!)

[they-call-me-hippie]

Guess who almost died in a car crash