#ok also though: tales of exandria following her WHEN like she is compelling as HELL she's just. you know. a villain and a terrible parent.

[utilitycaster]

I've talked before about how the metaphor of Imogen's powers as queerness or neurodivergence fails miserably in trying to understand her time in Gelvaan due to the implications it bears; but a place where it does work is in understanding her relationship to Liliana.

It's a bit difficult because Liliana left when Imogen was so young, and so they lack a strong parental bond, but it reminds me of some parents who grew up without their neurodivergence or mental illness being diagnosed, or who suppressed their sexuality or gender expression due to the time in which they grew up and are then confronted with a child with that diagnosis or with that information and improved acceptance. Her response, rather than to nurture Imogen and perhaps even learn from the way things have changed is to stick to the "right" way to deal with her own issues and insist her child to do the same despite their wishes - with fantasy Qanon thrown into the mix.

It's not a perfect one-to-one in real life, obviously; there are plenty of parents who, when confronted with their child's autism or genderfluidity say "oh, huh, this explains a lot of things about myself" and learn from it and explore what they thought was "wrong" about them and often find new joy in adulthood from it. But there are many Lilianas as well; the people who say "well in my day you just needed to work harder and stop getting so easily distracted", and who punish and who push their own coping mechanisms they understandably developed for themselves but which are not healthy for their children, in a slightly more informed and understanding world, to adopt. Liliana is representative of this deeply sympathetic but also immensely conservative and harmful mindset.

I think what tempers my sympathy for Liliana is that she was not there for Imogen at any point, and is now pushing this without even attempting to listen to Imogen's repeated requests for answers or assistance. Had she been present, and had she been guiding Imogen through her powers when they appeared, then this would be a much more heartbreaking scenario, of Liliana genuinely trying to help but being stuck in her ways after so many years (and perhaps even terrified to try something else, given how hard it was to get to a place of numbness rather than outright pain). As is, however, her story is tragic, but my heartbreak is entirely reserved for Imogen. To continue the metaphor, Liliana left the people trying to understand and mitigate and even fight stigma, and fell in with the liars promising a cure, and in the process not just abandoned her child without even the flawed resources she'd had, but indeed worked with people who sought to destroy them.

#critical role #ok also though: tales of exandria following her WHEN like she is compelling as HELL she's just. you know. a villain and a terrible parent. #liliana temult