#and molly's obvious foil is lucien lol

[nellasbookplanet]

So we're all pretty agreed that Essek and Caleb are narrative foils, right? Right. But what about the rest of the nein?

After the most recent episode, I saw some interesting discussions on how Cree & Lucien's relationship is almost a dark mirror of that of Jester & Artagan; a cleric who's best friend is also their "god". But where Artie truly cares for Jester, Lucien was only ever using Cree, leading to her horrific downfall. So, Cree is what Jester could’ve been, had Artie been as selfish as many (including several of the nein) feared he'd be.

For Fjord I'd say the obvious candidate is Avantika, but that a strong case could also be made for Lucien. Both grew up as outcasts, largely due to predjudices set against them, who came into a dangerous power that allowed them to step above those who mistreated them. Fjord however chose a different path, thanks to the support of his friends, whereas Lucien is fully set on embracing as much of said power as he can, no matter the harm it causes others (including his friends).

For Veth I think most people would probably say Otis due to her visceral hatred of him, but personally I don't see them reflecting each other much aside from both being halfling rogues. I'm going with a longshot here but I actually think Halas makes a stronger case as her foil. They both seeked to gain "new" bodies for selfish reasons (Halas for immortality, Veth so she could be herself again). Where Veth was tempted to make bad deals to obtain said goal (with Halas himself and with the hag), she ultimately relied on her friends and therefore succeeded. Halas however worked with the wrong person (someone gave him that ruby) and not only failed because of it, he completely lost the body he already had, becoming just a disembodied consciousness trapped seemingly forever.

With the rest of the nein I'm less certain. I think maybe a case could be made for Caduceus and someone in the Vokodo cult - they had that same blind trust and devotion to their "god" wich was slowly leading to their downfall. For Yasha maybe Jourrael? They are both a chosen fighter of their respective god (notably, one evil, one not) and they have a shared history with Obann and mind control. Ultimately, though, we don't really know enough about Jourrael's goals and motivations for this to work (the same reason I don't really think Otis works for Veth). With Beau I can't really think of anyone at all.

#i started thinking about this when i realised i was writing Jourrael as a dark reflection of Yasha in among the nein #and now i cant stop thinking about it #maybe dairon is beau's? #they’re both monks with trust issues but that’s pretty much as far as it goes #and molly's obvious foil is lucien lol #critical role #critical role meta #nella talks cr