#it’s magic how that happens. i figure out my thesis halfway through my essay

[goldensunset]

share ur theories abt khml pleaseeeee im dying over here

ok ok i’m thinking. i’m thinking ummmm

so as pointed out in this post it’s odd that master’s defender is on freya’s weird conspiracy board/wall. seems like she’s gathering and analyzing important things to try to figure something out, right? so what’s particularly and immediately relevant about the founder’s keyblade?

i’m feeling like master’s defender is either 1. missing (even stolen), like that post was talking about or 2. they know exactly where it is but there’s something weird going on with it lately. like is it really just a regular keyblade? surely not

basically i can easily see this item as being central to whatever the conflict of this game is about. it is The Missing Link™️. like it’s clearly culturally very important to the people of scala bc their founder wielded it and he’s been immortalized in a statue holding it, and we know its history (having come from brain, who got it from ava, who may or may not have gotten it from MoM bc of the insignia) is a plenty interesting one. so there’s a lot they can do with it here

we also know its future is clearly an interesting and relevant one because eraqus inherits it. we can be absolutely certain without a doubt it was a nepotism thing as opposed to merit bc it’s been pointed out that he’s a blueblood and also there’s no way that doofus earned it by his own right or whatever lol. so like… khml is surely gonna feature the themes of bloodlines and inheritance, right?

but it’s super interesting bc (presumably) eraqus’s ancestor is brain, right? i mean he could possibly have dual lineage and also be related to ephemer at this point but like i feel like what they’ve been going for all along is that it’s brain. but then you consider how if master’s defender is associated with ephemer then surely his (main) bloodline would be the ones inheriting this keyblade right? assuming they don’t like have it in a museum being treated like a relic or whatever. (also assuming the one ephemer’s statue is holding isn’t literally the keyblade itself baked in there but that’s a thought tangent for another time)

my point being. it seems odd that eraqus would end up with it. that his ancestors would have it. and therefore i’m thinking possibly part of the plot of the game is that brain takes it for himself or something. i mean like it was his first and ephemer himself was like ‘ok i’ll take it but in my mind it still belongs to you’. would it really be in character for brain to steal like that? dunno. but there are a multitude of ways it might go down

like maybe it’s a national treasure-esque situation where he steals it to prevent someone else from stealing it. like he’s just holding onto it for safekeeping and ends up keeping it. alternatively he takes it bc there’s something weird happening with it and he wants to solve the mystery. basically this is how ‘brain gets arrested’ becomes real

much to think about

[night-filled-mountain]

Out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, a rambling incoherent list of things about Nott and Nott-and-Caleb that give me Feelings.

On Veth Brenatto/Nott the Brave:

Nott’s entire life is all about seeing/presenting herself as less than she is.

She was bullied as a child, by her brothers and the neighborhood boys.

Then she was a contented housewife and mother, but always saw herself as second to Yeza--a support figure, depending on him, learning from him, not even necessarily deserving of his love.

“Not pretty and not brave and not coordinated and not smart and just...not.”

“He didn’t mind my strangeness...He was a brilliant chemist. I helped him and he took care of me.”

(When she reunites with Yeza, she undermines her ‘dabblings’ in alchemy in comparison to his apparent brilliance.) (Yeza himself disagrees.)

When she does acknowledge her strengths, she also acknowledges their origins, and they are either very sad (“I’ve been chased a lot in my life by boys making fun of me. I’m pretty fast.”) or serve to highlight someone else’s assistance and forethought (“a vial of acid that Yeza handed me”).

The transformation she was forced to undergo was a curse straight out of a fairy tale. It made her what she thought she was, and forced her to appreciate what she had been, but it was too late. (“But you’re so pretty!” / “I was.”)

But her whole life is about other people turning her into things, isn’t it? The bullies made her a victim, Yeza made her a wife/mother/alchemist’s assistant, and the goblins and their mystery woman made her a monster.

She was someone beautiful who could not see her beauty, someone wildly unique and “strange” who could not embrace her strangeness and flaunt it without apology...

...Until she was turned into a goblin.

Being a goblin has been so weirdly freeing for Nott. She felt that she had hit rock bottom, and in many ways, she just...let go. No more struggling to fit into social norms. No more squeezing into boxes of other people’s making. The Nott we know has always fought and shrieked, drunk to excess, stolen anything she admired, openly shared all her most outrageous suggestions, shown off her weird collections without shame.

I’m not saying all of this is healthy! Some of it is clearly coping mechanisms, and dangerous ones at that. And Sam has stated that he sees some of her excesses as being related to her goblin physiology, which emphasizes once again that this role, like all of Nott/Veth’s previous roles, is one that was forced on her. But. But.

So much of it (I would even say that “all of it” is a valid interpretation) is really just...Veth. Just Veth dialed up to eleven, without the constraints. Is she embodying a stereotypical view of goblins, or is she just letting herself be angry, messy, hedonistic, and weird for the first time in a short, sad life in which other people made her smaller than she was until she learned to do the same thing to herself?

Nott wants her true body back. She wants to be a halfling again. But she is not at all sure she wants to “go back.” To Felderwin. To her old life with the husband and son she loves. Of course she isn’t sure.

Because she’s grown so much bigger than that. Bigger and stronger and louder and messier than anything she used to be. Bigger than all the boxes she used to occupy. Bigger than anything Yeza or Luc can quite understand, because they weren’t there by her side, watching it happen.

On Nott and Caleb:

Nott defines herself by the people around her. She always has.

She met Caleb in that jail cell, saw him as small and weak and needy, and jumped at the chance to occupy a familiar role again: mother.

...Except that it was never that simple. That’s the piece that, for me, was missing from their relationship for so long. The piece that fell into place when Nott’s (former?) crush on Caleb was revealed, and made it all fit together. It was never that simple.

She wanted something from him. Veth never seems to have dared to want things from the people around her--she lived to serve her loved ones, to help and protect them. But Caleb? She wanted his magic. She wanted him to help her. And she didn’t tell him, not for the longest time. Call it ruthless, call it manipulative, or just call it a very understandable cocktail of hope and panic and shame--but it was her goal, her desire, and it meant that no matter how much she cared for Caleb and protected him, their relationship was never All About Him. She was playing her own angle the whole time. And also...

She was attracted to him. This was a fact that she absolutely could not acknowledge, because it was transgressive in so many ways. Extramarital attraction. A hideous, monstrous goblin attracted to a “handsome” human. A lifelong sidekick/helpmate/bit player in her own life daring to want a “great wizard” not only for his magic (that, at least, was permissible, because it could return her to her proper place, to her home and family; it could restore the status quo), but for his body, mind, and soul. She looked at him in that cell, in the moonlight streaming through the bars, and she wanted. And gods know it wasn’t because he ever invited her to.

(Though he didn’t scorn the idea either. I keep thinking about the scene with Keg in Shadycreek Run where she mistook them for a romantic couple and Caleb defiantly rolled with it. I even think about that early episode where Liam inadvertently used a German term of endearment for her that had romantic connotations. And the way they always slept cuddled together, and she rode on his shoulders, and they have always, always celebrated every aspect of each other--body, mind, and soul.)

But the point is that Nott’s relationship with Caleb is not one that he defined. She was always the stronger of the two; she called the shots. It was she who chose to be his “mother,” and the twin secret desires that burned deep down in her heart were entirely her own.)

On Nott and character development (ok, I just wanted to break up the bullet points a little, because goodness, this has gotten long):

...And she fundamentally did not know how to handle that. So she kept those desires buried, kept them secret. She tried to move back into her comfort zone, letting others define her and her relationships, going along with their assumptions without protest.

It is fascinating to me that the other players and characters and the viewers spent much of the campaign assuming Nott was a child. And she just...let it happen.

“I’m of child-bearing age,” she said when Jester asked, but even then, some of us (myself included, I confess!) just mentally aged her up to a rebellious teen.

To a man who she regarded simultaneously as a son, a love interest, and a tool for her own redemption, she was seen as a daughter or a little sister...and she went along with it in so many ways. It’s the lie she embodied from the first moment Sam introduced her, and referred to her as “a little goblin girl.”

Nott has always made herself lesser than she is...or let other people do so. She is so used to being diminished and self-diminishing, so leery of her own messy desires, that she would not even insist on her own adulthood until...until.

Nott’s heroic moments--the moments when she fully unleashes her own courage and strength and anger--are always the moments when her loved ones are in danger. She is the classic self-sacrificing wife/mother figure, whose self-dimmed light only shines out when others need it to.

Like when she fought the goblins and helped Yeza and Luc escape.

Like when Fjord threatened Caleb, and the others were all turning on him, and she needed to assert her own right and ability to protect him. (“But I am the parent, you do realize that, don’t you?”)

Like when she led the lizardfolk away from the others on Urukaxl. Like all the times she dove into the water for Fjord. Like when she didn’t disengage from the dragon.

“Nott the Brave” has so many layers--an ironic, self-mocking epithet, a badge of honor, and a promise to be brave for others. Only for others.

Because then it’s not really her bravery, is it? It’s borrowed from her loved ones. She is a coward who is occasionally made into something else by the brighter, stronger, worthier people she surrounds herself with.

“Self-diminishing” and “being defined by others” are the absolute fundamental cornerstones of Nott’s character. And this is both reinforced and very much complicated by her recent status as a goblin and her relationship with Caleb. (...You know how sometimes you don’t figure out your thesis statement until halfway through the essay?)

On Nott and Caleb, part 2:

The M9′s trip to Felderwin changed everything--everything--for her and for him and for the two of them. It was one of the most staggering turning points of the entire campaign.

I’ve written about this before. How one of the central “Will they or won’t they?”s of the campaign was about Caleb and Nott deciding to trust the group, and that was the point where it was resolved...

...and how, in trusting the group, they sacrificed their codependence to a large degree. How Nott’s infamous “Fuck him!” was less about anger, in the long run, than about taking her best friend off the pedestal she’d put him on, about acknowledging his fallibility, and being comfortable openly disagreeing with him.

It was about Nott becoming her own person, and Caleb learning to see her as her own person, and not just his “little friend” or protector.

But. But. It still followed the pattern.

It was about Yeza and Luc. It was about her family. It was the greatest disaster that had befallen her loved ones since the goblin abduction, and her reaction was correspondingly big.

Of course she could be brave. Of course she could be angry and assertive. Of course she could, for once, discount the feelings of her beloved wizard. Because her husband and son were in danger.

When will Nott get to be brave on her own behalf? To be angry on her own behalf? To want, want, want something, something ever so much bigger than a button, openly, unashamedly, on her own behalf?

And I think I might know the answer to that question: When she openly acknowledges something that she has already hinted at, danced around, in conversations with Caleb here and there.

“I ditched my husband in a den of monsters to go adventuring with you.”

She said this to Caleb while they were riding a moorbounder together in Xhorhas, and something about it has resonated hard with me ever since.

That conversation--and the other couple of conversations Nott has had with Caleb that deal with her own conflicting desires--felt strangely like a failure. Like Caleb was sincerely doing his best to help her, but wasn’t quite getting what she was putting down.

He doesn’t know how to stop her drinking, her constant anxiety. How to soothe her fears about the future. He doesn’t know what she needs.

Is it reassurance of her family’s love? That’s been offered to her repeatedly, by Yeza, by Luc, by Caleb himself, but it’s never had much of an effect on her darker moods.

Is it her own body back? That would help a lot, for sure. Like every other member of the Mighty Nein, she’s on a journey to find herself. She thought, initially, that it was purely a journey to find something she’d lost. Caleb and the rest of the M9 think so too, I think. But there’s more to it than that.

What Nott Really Needs:

“I think you have to find those answers,” Caleb said to Nott as she expressed her ambivalence about returning home and resuming her housewife role. “Can’t you just tell me?” she pleaded.

That’s it right there, that’s the crux of her journey. And it isn’t just a journey back to a body or a family or a life she lost--it’s a journey to something entirely new. Nott craves the familiar, the safe, the known; she keeps trying to make herself small and unimportant again, to convince others to define her. But they can’t. She is too much, too big, too weird and messy and wonderful, for anyone else to squeeze her into a box anymore (she always was; she just didn’t realize it). And Caleb is the one to tell her that.

“I ditched my husband in a den of monsters to go adventuring with you.”

“I love you,” she told him on the beach of Nicodranas, and sure, she meant it platonically (probably) (mostly), but it was more than friendship, more even than romance. She loves what he represents. And--the one thing she can never, ever, ever acknowledge, because it is completely antithetical to her journey as she currently sees it--a part of her loves who she has become while traveling and fighting by his side.

“These days I’ve spent with you are the most exciting of my entire life.” That’s something Fjord said to Caleb once. And I’ve posted before about how eerily similar Fjord and Nott’s journeys are.

They both had rocky childhoods marred by bullying and badly bruised self-confidence, then embarked on simple, well-defined lives/careers in which they felt utterly content...and then they both literally drowned, both lost their friends/family/life roles in the process, and both got transformed into something “dark” and “ugly” that they couldn’t come back from.

And the clincher? The thing Fjord was able to admit to himself and others, but that Nott carried around like a deep, dark secret and is still struggling hard with to this day?

They both fell in love with their new lives and roles in spite of themselves.

Yes, Fjord renounced Uk’otoa in favor of the Wildmother...but he still retains his warlock powers. Yes, Nott wants to, can, and probably will be turned back into a halfling--but she will never again be a person who was not a goblin.

She does not want to be a person who was not a goblin.

She wants Caleb, and all he represents. She wants adventure and excitement. She wants to be strong and brave and important, not only to protect her loved ones, but because those things bring her fulfillment. Because they have shaped her self-image in new ways that she cannot discard.

The duality of her names reflects this perfectly. She always uses “Veth” around Yeza and Luc, and wants them to use it for her, but with the M9, she’s still “Nott the Brave”-- or is it “Nott, the Brave”?

Caleb uses both names for her.

Caleb. Uses. Both. Names. For her.

Nott needs to be herself. It’s what all the members of the Mighty Nein need, really--this is a campaign about identity, as Matt has said--but I think it’s coming harder to Nott than any of the others, and that’s why I’ve had such a hell of a time pinning her down as a character...because she has had a hell of a time doing that, too!

Because she can’t acknowledge what may be the greatest possible shame for a stereotypical girl, wife, mother, or monster...

Wanting to be herself. Wanting things simply because she wants them. Wanting to be someone you can’t pin down, either literally (in a cozy little cottage in Felderwin) or figuratively (in any of the aforementioned roles).

Nott wants to define herself. But she doesn’t quite know she wants it. And she doesn’t know how to do it. But part of her definitely sees that getting her body back, while essential, is not enough.

And so she panics and drinks and goes into existential tailspins because no one else will give her the answers. Caleb has come closest, in telling her to seek them for herself...but Caleb has his own baggage, and can’t quite let go of his great ideal of Family, of Going Home Again. Of turning back the clock and erasing the dark corners of one’s past.

So he sees Nott’s happy ending as husband and son, hearth and home. And it isn’t enough. It’s as tidy and false and messy and comfortless as his time-travel fantasies. And that’s where their stories ultimately intertwine...their desires at cross-purposes, their solutions at odds. Nott longing for something that Caleb is giving her (adventure, excitement, a purpose, the privilege to bear both her names and faces and diminish neither, to be fully herself for the first time in her life). Caleb wants something that was taken from both of them. Neither of them yet fully understands that you can’t go back, that the only direction is forward. Into greater messiness, greater complexity, greater understanding of themselves and the things they can accomplish, alone and together.

But they’re getting there. They’re both getting there. And I absolutely cannot wait to see where their stories lead.