#it’s the one way that Percy & Keyleth aren’t like Melora & Erathis

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Episode 106

Returning after several weeks away from writing these! Huge thanks to @loquaciousquark​ for jumping in. <3

The episode begins with Matt and Marisha lint-rolling Darin’s suit.

Marisha officially started as CD of Geek and Sundry back in January or February and finally feels like she can start talking about how the work she’s been doing has been coming to fruition.

No TM next week due to travel.

There were four police helicopters circling Matt and Marisha’s place, during which a police dog came through their backyard and destroyed their backyard couch.

Marisha’s doing an AMA on the subreddit tomorrow.

Brian: “Banned from every single Critical Role Q&A as of this moment are any and all High Noon-related questions.”

Once the party rested for the evening before going to find Ioun, Matt knew they would be too late to prevent Vecna’s ascension, and from there he was just waiting for a good narrative beat to reveal it.

Darin thought Sprigg was going to have to sacrifice himself to keep Ioun alive. Matt wasn’t sure how that was going to end, either, but as soon as Sprigg started offering his services, Matt and Darin both saw the opportunity for a redemption arc 37 years in the making. 

Sprigg never actually learned anybody’s names in the party.

Sprigg’s advice to Vax was something Darin took to heart during a hard time in his life: “Life is loud, and noisy, and it should be a celebration.”

Marisha points out that just because Keyleth’s taking a more neutral or cynical worldview in some situations, that doesn’t mean she’s losing the empathy that’s the core of her character. The two aren’t mutually exclusive; she mainly sees it as Keyleth becoming less “stubborn in her self-righteousness.”

Matt felt Percy was beginning to fall into the nature of someone who was a seeker of knowledge, but it was knowledge that he coveted for his own enlightenment, as opposed to sharing it with others. “He prided himself on knowing things and being the one who knew things.” Not so much even keeping the guns secret, which was more about the danger involved, but more “just his personality and his lack of faith in the gods in general.” Matt thought about Scanlan, who’d spent his life learning about the world and then conveying and sharing that knowledge to uplift and inspire other people. Between Ioun being a goddess devoted to the sharing and spreading of knowledge, and Scanlan’s newfound interest in faith, those elements came together and made Scanlan “a more pure candidate than what Percival was at the moment.”

Matt didn’t have any idea how everyone was going to solve the puzzle, what groups they were going to break into, etc.---he’d thought of a few possible ways for them to succeed, and then had to sit back and hope they’d figure it out.

Keyleth doesn’t think being faithless would necessarily disqualify her in Melora’s eyes, especially given the conversations she’s had with the gods thus far; it’s the difference between belief and reverence. She’s more concerned about time right now than anything else.

The gods can only give their gifts once. If they give it away to the wrong people, it cannot be given again, which is why they’re running these tests (also because it’s more fun that way). If Scanlan had failed the test, Ioun would not have given him her blessing, and would’ve waited for another powerful adventurer to come by. Matt points out that while Vox Machina are among the most powerful people in the world right now, there’s a lot going on in the world, and other candidates could potentially arise.

Darin thinks Sprigg is going to enjoy accumulating so much knowledge and living everyone else’s adventures; it’s his version of heaven.

Vecna fundamentally seeks knowledge; he hangs onto it, keeps it secret, and kills anyone else who knows it. Brian points out that Sprigg is also essentially hoarding knowledge (he’s chaotic evil, but he’s not necessarily a villain: he’s selfish), but now he’s learning to give a bit of that back since Ioun shared some of herself with him and he returned it to her.

Keyleth is genuinely delighted for Percy and Vex, but thinks Percy is “a little bit of a fucking dick for not telling me.” Keyleth’s also got some jealousy going on given Vax’s situation right now. “Good for her. Good for her. Good for Janet.”

Matt points out that the gods they’ve seen are just the most readily available ones to them, and so it’s possible for them to actively seek out the others: Kord, Erathis, etc. But now they have to weigh it against the time (and other things) they’ll lose in doing so, versus deciding to engage in the final conflict earlier. Marisha points out how much Matt loves his timed challenges.

Matt: “Someone please make a half-orc named Thigh Gap as a D&D character.”

After it appears in somebody’s screen name, Darin learns what “grundle” means. Pointing to his suit: “You know what, this is linen. I spent a couple bucks on this. There’s a fake carnation. Thank you for your username.” Matt suggests “grundle” be replaced by “humble bundle” in the common vernacular from now on.

Matt and Darin agree that Sprigg’s alignment has shifted more toward chaotic neutral. Darin: “You get older, you change. You can’t stay the same.” Marisha: “People change you. If you’re left alone, you stay the same.” 

During the discussion, Darin and Matt segue naturally into a brief scene together as Sprigg and Dimitri the imp.

Marisha talks about the parallels between Keyleth’s connections with Kerrek and Sprigg: both arrived right in the midst of her being stuck in a rut where she didn’t feel like anyone in the party was available to mirror her inner worries back to her. Sprigg talking about forgetting his companions’ names brought up a new fear in Keyleth about her future, but at the same time, his statements about the importance of memory are helping her start to process the possibility of losing Vax.

Darin talks about how roleplaying can let you tell a friend how deeply you feel about them without having to say it directly. Brian points out that the genuine openness and emotional honesty between the players is one of the biggest draws of the show.

Matt is deeply moved that the show fits into that rare space where people watching the show can relatively easily go out and emulate it themselves. It’s not just knowing people like the show, it’s knowing the show pushed them to start their own adventures and make their own connections that could play out for years... possibly even 37 years and two generations of players.

Matt loves having a villain that can pop in and taunt VM whenever he likes. Vecna’s pretty much just going around and trolling everyone who doesn’t believe he’s already won. Having a recurring villain like that also gives Matt more opportunities to develop him as a character and to build more interactions with the players.

Brian thinks of the Raven Queen-Vax interactions as a Galadriel-Frodo relationship... but if Galadriel were played by Helena Bonham Carter.

Blocks Machina:

The inspiration for Vecna’s voice is a bit of Orson Welles with some gravel and a little rounding.

Marisha and Darin encourage Matt to look into voice directing, and he thinks he’d enjoy that, but he also thinks there isn’t really a gap there right now with all the wonderful folks directing at the moment. He also finds directing exhausting and has one or two other things on his plate right now...

Darin on taking risks like traveling across the country for something you’re passionate about: “You can only take the first step.” Marisha: “It’s good you’re scared. You should be. That’s healthy.” Matt talks about how it’s important to go into it knowing that persistence may not be enough to pay off, and you have to keep checking in with yourself to make sure it’s still something you’re passionate about. It can take a long time, and you have to be prepared for bad years among the good years. Brian points out that wherever you start out, you should already be doing your craft there, because you’re not magically going to find inspiration and the ability to do the work by moving across the country. Marisha talks about the isolation of moving to a new place, and also talks about checking your ego at the door and trying to find ways to pay it forward as you go.

Matt talks about how he grew up with the old-school tabletop RPG communities and always wanted to be an ambassador to help bring the old-school fans into the newer/transformative stuff, so in spite of himself he still gets very bummed out when he stumbles across a whole thread of D&D fans talking about how much they hate him and think he’s singlehandedly ruined the game and the genre. Getting that kind of negativity is almost inevitable, but getting it from a group that he considers himself a part of hits a lot harder.

Darin mentions that Sprigg’s last thank-you was, of course, to Matt rather than Ioun.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post