#pls Brennan prove yourself to be the great storyteller we know you to be instead of an anticlimactic non-sequitor

[diocletianscabbagefarm]

Wait, no, this Kalina thing is driving me slightly insane I feel like I need to write it out rather than do shower-thought-analysis.

- Kalina was pretty adversarial with Kristen at the start over what their plans should be, but that seems pretty understandable considering A) they were literally fighting to the death the year before when she was the NMK’s familiar B) her goddess existence - and by extension her own - was super precarious (or “instantly killable” as she put it) with only two followers, with the cleric kinda dropping the ball on their responsibility to spread Cassandra’s worship. Cassandra was noticeably anxious about straight-up dying, and Kalina was forceful on her behalf in advancing the argument since Cassandra was afraid and hesitant to be pushy about it C) Her character trait is being a petty bitch like that and honestly good for her; maybe she was even trying to be Cassandra’s favorite over Kristen but that’s just inside politics.

- Kalina advocated going to the mall, which is where the attacks took place and that can be construed as suspicious or purposeful, as the Bad Kids concluded later in the season. However it could also just be a story excuse for Brennan to get them at the mall to use the battlemap, and there are some alleviating factors; before the attack Kalina went to Adaine at the strudel bar to ask her if she could get Kristen to come (if she orchestrated the attack it would’ve been better to keep a high level cleric absent), and as Cassandra was initially affected by the shatterstars she again told her to get Kristen there asap. During the attack Brennan described multiple times through insight checks that Kalina was horrified, stressed and panicked.

- She threw herself in the path of a shatterstar headed for Cassandra (bloodily piercing through her paws to halt it), and even then first rushed to heimlich the shrimp out of Cassandra’s throat before the rage effect took hold (her eyes go red) and she says she liked Cassandra more when she was the NMK and slits her throat. Before being affected by the shatterstar she also quickly shouts out Ragh’s name as a hint to the Bad Kids to help them solve the mystery.

- Aelwyn said Kalina had come to her to modify the spy’s tongue curse so that it’d work on herself (being a non-humanoid) at some point near the end of freshman year (so before the Bad Kids destroyed her in Sophomore), so working together with Porter seems to have been an old plot from back when she was the NMK’s familiar rather than a recent thing. Aelwyn also mentioned she seemed rather pissed about needing it, and of course she mentioned Ragh’s name already to try and lead the Bad Kids down a trail of questions that’d end up pointing them to Porter (how did Ragh become able to see Kalina -> barbarian healing)

- In Baron’s Game she manages to push through the rage to repeat Ragh’s name again, and then when Cassandra offers her a moment of clarity she clarifies the hint (“it’s the only name I can say”) and < SNAPS! HER OWN! NECK! < in order to not be a threat to the Bad Kids anymore, like how hardcore do you want your sacrifice to help the heroes be because even if you can be brought back, that one is pretty hardcore.

- The Bad Kids discover some medicine in Porter’s desk to help with cat allergies. Could be recent, but could also be old from when they worked together in the past. This seems to be what leads the Bad Kids to conclude Kalina is still evil, but I can also construe it as Brennan trying to offer confirmation they correctly identified the link between Kalina and Porter.

Like, with all this I find it kinda hard to square Kalina was being evil and working against Cassandra; her actions at the start of the season speak more of protectiveness and anxiety, and after being shatterstarred she used every opportunity available to help the Bad Kids crack the mystery, why would the final reveal be she was actually still a villain - why actively sabotage herself, without any payoff? I can understand her to be bad if all she did was trick Cassandra into going to the mall in the astral, and that was the end of her role in the season, but she did so, so much afterwards to help the Bad Kids. To me this speaks at most of her having been a participant in the past, prior to being reconstituted, unless I am missing something major.

The logical followthrough for a Senior Year season - if it were to happen - would be to run with the thread that accusing her of being evil was a hasty judgement, and that because Ankarna was all to happy to smite her wife’s cat she never liked (even at the end Cassandra meekly protested, but was overruled by everybody), Kalina knew to make herself scarce. Great story potential, with the reason for the Kalina-Buddy teamup being that though wrongfully accused she was now on the run and grabbed the nearest ally to hand. Being able to be summoned by Bakarath could indicate Kalina was forcibly disowned from Cassandra as her familiar, and if I were a familiar unceremoniously dumped like that because someone else said you’re bad, I too would probably become the champion of a tiny god of rage because I’d sure be a teensy upset about it. Imagine the potential emotional payoff and catharsis to resolving such a false accusation during the story, Brennan doing one of his monologue things, and proving the faith Cassandra seems to have in her familiar correct despite everyone else insisting otherwise. I really really really hope that’s the direction they take it, rather than doubling down she was bad the whole time (fully ignoring the ways her help was integral to sabotaging the plot) and randomly slaughtering her in a Night Yorb treatment.