#anyway sorry for making this about orym again but I think it's necessary context for understanding why i'm like ashton's fine

[utilitycaster]

I know there have been many Takes about Laudna and Orym after latest episode. Yours saying that this is not a bad development for Orym is interesting to me because my knee-jerk reaction while watching was being horrified he went so cold about Bor’Dor’s death. But after some time, I guess him finally choosing to be pragmatic after days torn by his own idealism would be a much healthier route for him in the long run.

I want to know what you think about Ashton, though. Some people are saying, they “let” Laudna kill Bor’Dor because they thought it’s what she needed. That sits wrong with me because Laudna made that decision and she’s not a child, but Ashton is my favorite character and I can’t help think I am biased lol.

Please excuse my badly structured sentences, I’m not native speaker.

Hi anon! Your English is great!

I think this is a revealing question in that, in fandom, I think a lot of people lead with "well, obviously, my favorite character is clearly morally in the right, or, failing that, the character I don't like is morally in the wrong" rather than considering the situation, the context, the genre norms, what makes for the most interesting story, etc. So recognizing that Ashton's your favorite and that might be coloring your opinion puts you ahead of a lot of people.

Anyway: I think it can be true both that Laudna made her own decision and that Ashton could, had they wanted, chosen to make an effort to stop her and they didn't. I don't think that means Ashton is responsible for what Laudna did per se, but I also don't personally think he had a moral imperative to save Bor'Dor. I think someone who thinks he did have that moral imperative might disagree, but they should also be blaming Laudna just as much in that case.

Someone else remarked to me that based on the discourse you'd think Orym - the only person who did not attack or restrain Bor'Dor - executed him in cold blood. Just to recap the fight: we only really had one round during which Orym gave Prism a potion to heal her up and did bait and switch to protect her; Ashton hit, with non-lethal intent; Deni$e restrained Bor'Dor; Laudna cast Hunger of the Shadow, knocking Bor'Dor unconscious; and Prism punched him. The following round was technically not run as combat in initiative order, and had it been, Bor'Dor could theoretically have died of a failed death save before Laudna's turn, but Orym and Deni$e made no attacks and Ashton chose to lead away Prism. Probably any of the three martial class characters could, had they wanted to, stopped Laudna. None of them did.

Which I think goes back to the second paragraph: In the end? I think most people are making their judgments of whether or not they think Bor'Dor should die, and even further back to whether or not the Ruby Vanguard is a cultish, terrorist organization, deciding on whether his death was justified or not, and then, if they think it was not, pinning blame on the character they like least. You can argue for any, though frankly, I think Orym is the weakest argument: Laudna is the one who literally killed him, both knocking him unconscious and taking the final death save. Prism took the most death saves with her punch. Ashton dealt a significant amount of damage and did not intervene when Laudna had an unconscious Bor'Dor at her mercy. Deni$e is the one who initially brought up her suspicions, forcing Bor'Dor's hand, and similarly made no physical effort to stop anyone. Orym indicated his approval to Laudna and did not try to stop her.

I think that had Bor'Dor not attacked the party, and had instead simply run away, tracking him down and killing him would have been excessive, but on the other hand, he had a lot of information that could have been extremely dangerous to Bells Hells, so at the very least I think they needed to take him prisoner; but he's not wanted by any specific legal system, so I think he'd just be their hostage, dragged along, indefinitely, as they attacked his friends over and over again. There isn't a nice, neat solution where everyone is happy. Deradicalization is an admirable goal, but it requires a massive amount of effort and resources that I don't think Bells Hells have, and no one should be expected to deradicalize someone who is actively committing violence against them. Once Bor'Dor attacked, to me, this became self-defense and an admission that he was lost: that he'd spent several days with them during which they were kind to him, but because of their ideologies, he attempted to kill them anyway. At that point, I don't fault any of the characters present for killing him/letting him be killed in response.

I guess the last point I'll make is that while, in terms of empathy, there is obviously a huge difference between killing someone regretfully, and killing someone and relishing it, they are, in the end, dead either way. I don't interpret Orym's behavior as cold, but rather merely calm acceptance that he can no longer avoid the inevitable war - and I do think that acting as though Orym's subjectivity in this situation is problematic while ignoring that Prism and Laudna were in no way objective either is an incredibly poorly considered argument, and deeply unfair- but in the end, whether Orym is stoic or whether he breaks down crying, Bor'Dor is still dead. I am not going to fault a character for having an outward emotional reaction that doesn't match what I think it should be when I think their motivations were reasonable.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role #I think a lot of people are mistaking empathy for forgiveness or mercy #i think Orym's actions are deeply empathetic. I think he sees that a few differences in circumstances could have made him a vanguard member #and he also sees that the vanguard's response to their own pain is to make more orphans and widowers of innocents in the name of ideology #and that prism - the one person who believed bor'dor - would have been the collateral damage #anyway sorry for making this about orym again but I think it's necessary context for understanding why i'm like ashton's fine #bc they're all fine imo