#i was originally gonna work on fic today but i guess i'm just rambling about the m9 and character development now

[disasterhumans]

All the posts about Nott, Caleb, and Beau flying around this morning have me thinking more generally about the growth and development we’ve seen from various characters throughout the entire group. I think in some ways Beau and Caleb are both the most different now than they were at the start of the campaign. Beau actually softens to people pretty easily, but she’s gone from person with a lot of self-professed moral apathy, to one of the only people in the group with a moral framework she consistently works at, and reminds the others of. She’s also worked really hard both to open up to the group (even if she still has to do it on a one-on-one basis for now), and to be someone dependable that people can come to with their own baggage. She’s gone from broadly being considered a liar, to genuinely being one of the most trustworthy members of the group. Caleb has gone from being incredibly self-centered and ready to leave the group at the moment, to the person to most frequently call the group a family. His selfishness hasn’t disappeared by any means, but it is far more often subsumed into the needs of the group, and he will sacrifice his own desires in order to further the wellbeing of the group. He’s gone from being extremely withdrawn and tight-lipped about himself, to being the most open and vulnerable member of the group.

But it’s really interesting to think about how Beau and Caleb both got to that point. Because while it definitely took time for them both to get where they are, it also didn’t quite happen organically. Caleb—at various turns—has been pushed into his openness and vulnerability. First with Beau in episode 18, but also by Nott in episode 27 (where she tries to get him to admit he loves the group), and again by Nott in episode 48. The confrontation between Nott and the rest of the group in episode 13 also contributed to a lot of Caleb’s early changes in how he interacted with the group. Without those big, specific moments (and also a lot of tense Team Human conversations along the way), I don’t think we’d have the Caleb we do right now. I imagine/hope Caleb would have slowly come to a similar place of loving and caring for the group so intensely, but without the big moments where he was challenged and backed into a corner, I don’t know if he would have ended up as open as he’s starting to be.

Beau, meanwhile, had her foundational sense-of-self rocked to its core by Molly’s death. She walked away from her conversation with Molly in episode 26 realizing just how much she’s willingly caused other people harm, and then after he died she made a strong executive decision to change that. As with Caleb, I think that she naturally would have ended up at that point on her own. Beau has always been good at apologizing, has always sought to seek self-improvement, and has always actively listened to the people around her when they offer constructive criticism. But I don’t know if she would have adopted such a strident moral code without Molly’s death. Not a quotable one, at least. Not one that she uses as an overt guide when she’s not sure what to do. And likely not one that she would consistently repeat to a group as a whole. That big moment propelled what might have been natural development further a lot faster.

Yasha also fits this pattern—it’s a bit harder to track her development due to Ashley’s absences (curse you, Blindspot), but she’s gone from being flighty and avoiding forming interpersonal bonds to sharing her story more-or-less willingly with the whole group. This happened after a couple very intense Stormlord-induced confrontations that forced her to acknowledge the strength her friends lend her. It has forced her to confront her feelings and fear about loss head-on.

But the big moments Fjord, Jester, and Nott have experienced haven’t quite cut into the crux of their personal flaws in the same way. And the three of them all have very similar flaws. Namely, they’re to people in the group most likely to lie, deflect, and obfuscate their feelings. I think Fjord started working through exactly what he wants (at least as far as his pact is concerned) during the Pirate Arc, but so much of the circumstances of that arc forced him to lie about how he was feeling (e.g. with Avantika), and deflect. This is especially true given he was predominantly experiencing a lot of uncertainty during that time. Fjord likes looking like he has his shit together, and so many of the big scary things that have happened with him have happened out of sight of the group. In the recent past he’s been getting better at opening up to Caduceus, but even this is because Caduceus has seen the aftermath of his dreams, and because there’s now a tie between them that plays into Fjord’s god-curiosity. I’m hoping this will grow into Fjord being more open with the rest of the group, especially now that Caleb has also confronted him, but this all remains up in the air.

And while it’s not as though no one has asked Jester how she’s doing, or talked to her about her tendency to obfuscate her feelings of sadness, she also hasn’t really been pushed. When she’s feeling distraught and questioning her faith after the Iron Shepherds Arc, the Traveler reassures her, but also does so by directly referencing her joy. Aside from her conversation with Beau after the blue dragon fight, there hasn’t been a huge external moment that challenged the way she hides behind her happiness. 

Nott’s big moments have also prompted her to double down on the ways she deflects and obfuscates. Nott deflects to cope—she has a hard time dealing with big emotions, so she plays them off. Nott was moved and clearly deeply affected by Molly’s death, but it didn’t get at one of her flaws in the same way it did with Beau. Nott has never had trouble admitting to loving or caring for others. Discovering Yeza had been captured prompts her to reveal her backstory to the group, but unlike with Caleb, keeping her past secret wasn’t really the thing holding her back with the group. Her biggest thing has always been that she tends not to be honest about herself in a more fundamental sense. The group certainly knows more of her and her complexity now, and being in Xhorhas has made her more comfortable with some aspects of herself, but she’s still not really being open and honest about her fears. She’s tried with Caleb, but she’s also in a place where she just wants him to fix it, more than trying to have a conversation about what her specific fears are and trying to have an actual conversation about that. 

And another problem, is that while Caleb and Beau are starting to get pretty good at interpersonal conversations—especially with each other—they are both also people inclined to deflecting and holding back. When someone comes to them they are good at having an open conversation. They’re both—especially Beau—getting pretty good at checking in with people. But they’re both also likely to let someone to deflect, or to wait for someone to return to them instead of following up on a difficult conversation. In some ways that’s good—I think it would be more of a detriment than anything for Caleb to try to push Fjord again—but in others it means that everyone is generally keeping up with their typical patterns.

And then there’s Caduceus, who falls outside of this in a lot of ways, but who also has his own trouble opening up. Part of Caduceus’ thing is that he is almost too easily comforted by the concept of destiny. I’m really genuinely happy that he’s not experiencing any trauma over literally dying. But the extent to which the Wildmother’s vision comforted him means that we also lost out on what might have been a productive conversation between him and Nott. Jester comforting him during the Pirate Arc was important and sweet, but it also meant we didn’t get much of an idea of what Caduceus wants from the group. The fact that Caduceus—for whatever reason—seems to be reluctant to open up to the group means that even while he is an important steadying and nurturing presence in the group, he feels at a remove from the rest of them in a lot of ways. And while his judgy-streak isn’t overt in exactly the same ways as Molly’s or Percy’s, he tends to carry himself in a way that can make him come across as a kind of moral authority that I imagine might make it difficult for people to feel like they can come to him with the uglier bits of themselves.

Every week we’re all exhorting the group to just talk to each other, but even when they try to, they’re all so frequently lying and deflecting—and believing each other’s lies and deflection. And I’m so fascinated by how everyone’s gotten to the places they are at, and where they’ll all go from this point on. As always, I hope that this bout in the tomb will prompt a larger group talk with Nott, but I’m nervous that it will take something in the drastic range of, say, Nott’s recklessness killing her or a (different) party member before that happens.