Classic "promised-at-birth-to-the-Ghost-King" story, except the contract never states how, exactly, the King is to use the offered soul. Usually, one would be offered as a bride or sacrifice. But with Pariah Dark sealed away, his retainers got a little lazy in the last few millennia. They just made some generic contracts and practically handed them out like candy.
When Danny took over as king via conquest, that included all the weird and messed up soul contracts the previous retainers had signed. And since ghost magic was a thing and seemed to have it out for Danny personally, many of these contracts updated their terms and conditions as soon as that crown hit Danny's head, reflecting the new King's subconscious desires and personality.
This caused many issues with those still around to profit from these contracts. Some people lost their power, some gained more, and some were unbound and kicked to the curb. A few special people found themselves dropping dead after their less-than-ethical abilities disappeared.
Danny was unaware of the chaos he had unintentionally caused for quite a while. It was only brought to his attention when a letter arrived on his desk one day with a copy of someone's valid contract enclosed. The new changes have been highlighted, and a separate note is attached.
It seems that in exchange for blessings of near-immortality for her infant son, a mother had offered Pariah Dark both their souls in order to ensure her child's survival during harsh times. (The souls were to be collected upon death and were to be used as soldiers in the King's Army.) The mother's soul had returned to the Keep decades ago and was recently assigned to tend to the gardens, while her son seemed to have grown into a fine gentleman and was still alive. He used his mother's gifts to serve his country and loved ones well, it seemed.
At first, Danny didn't see what any of this had to do with him. If the mother was already a part of his kingdom, and the son would be eventually, why was a letter about the whole thing showing up before him?
Then he read the revised contract, which bore his magical signature. A signature that overruled the power of Pariah and binding it to him.
'...and as such, in return for the abilities stated above, [Mary Pennyworth] and [Alfred Pennyworth] will fulfill the conditions detailed below, upon pain of Ending.
[Mary Pennyworth], when returned to the Kingdom of Dark Kingdom of Stars, will work as a lieutenant in the Skeleton Army caretaker in the Gardens of Pluto.
STATUS: COMPLETED
[Alfred Pennyworth], when returned to the Kingdom of Dark Kingdom of Stars, will work as a general in the Skeleton Army caretaker of the King and his Court.
STATUS: PENDING'
Danny had to re-read the contract several times to understand what it was saying. He now had a caretaker? What did a caretaker do? Was it like a ghost parent? Could this guy ghost-ground him??
He sighed and pressed the speed dial on his phone for Tucker. Time to find out who the hell this Alfred Pennyworth guy was, and how to break a magic contract when it wasn't even fulfilled yet.
Meanwhile, Alfred had just found the original copy of the contract amongst his mother's belongings after it glowed and drew him in. The paperwork cleared up a lot of mysteries he'd always wondered about himself, even if he disapproved of his mother's methods. Nonetheless, he smoothed out the aged paper with dark green ink, noted the fresh (sloppy, a teenager?) signature, and began preparing to meet this supposed new King and his Court.
It wouldn't hurt to make introductions before he died, after all.
"Iroh ignored Azula” Well what if I didn’t believe that and the greatest irony of Avatar is that Iroh was one of the folks who encouraged her strategic thinking that she would use to later hunt him down
i don't know why, but in the sparse five hours of sleep i got last night, my brain decided to plague me with dreams of lilia taking care of an elderly silver, up until the final moments of his life. i could hear silver's thoughts the whole time, and he was so absolutely inundated with shame and guilt it almost seemed like he was suffocating. he kept thinking over and over and over again that this all should've been the other way around. he should've been the one looking after his father in the twilight of his life. he should've been his aging father's rock, his safe place to land, his stalwart defender against a world so unbelievably cruel to its most vulnerable denizens. again and again his heart cried out in vain, it should've been the other way around.
as a child he had once wished - prayed, even, to the same force now threatening to reclaim his spirit back into its unconscious designs - for his father to live a long and prosperous life, and it was as though that very wish had backfired on him in a way he never could have possibly imagined
I just thought of the most hilarious next protagonist of Baldur's Gate saga.
(Note what most of the outcomes used as background info here come from the characters' "good" endings. Proceed with caution.)
A child of Durge and Gortash, killed inside their parent's womb when Durge denied Bhaal, resurrected alongside them by Jergal.
A child any of The Dead Three can lay a claim on because they are:
A child of previous chosen of Bane
A child of Bhaalspawn, a bhaalspawn themselves, albeit striped of that when Bhaal took his essence from Durge, killing them instantly.
DIED before even being born, so clearly Myrkul's subject.
Resurrected by Jergal, so there's ties to that as well.
Can be compelled to follow any of The Dead Three paths, or try to play them and set them against each other, or follow Jergal, or forge their own path.
Essentially a child with no fate.
Can look either as Durge (and be any race Durge presented as) or as Gortash.
The last possibility bringing unique encounters and dialogues and character never knowing they can use being Lord Gortash's child to their advantage or ppl they meet were their father's enemies and they need to dash.
Having ties to different fractions depending on who Durge romanced or if Durge not romanced anyone.
Being raised in Underdark if their parent ended up with Minthara.
Same with unascended Astarion, + lots of acquainted spawns in the Underdark.
Being raised in Hell if their parent went to Avernus with Karlach.
Being raised either in Waterdeep if Gale is their stepfather or with Duke freaking Ravengard as a step- grandfather.
Having ties with Selunites if Shadowheart is a woman they call mother.
Being raised in the nature and having Druids call them their own if Durge and Halsin were involved.
Being raised amongst githianki revolution if Lae'zel was their parent's choice of heart. Having their mother leading a rebellion against a god.
Having lots of unique content regarding that.
Possible companions include:
Arabella
Mol
Yenna
That girl who was kidnapped and eaten by auntie Ethel.
yeah alice is the favorite sister, the favorite cullen to everyone who meets her, to her brothers, to bella especially— but rosalie is carlisle’s favorite daughter. and I don’t want to hear anything else
begging twitter to stop showing me tweets of people with no reading comprehension misrepresenting things I said but since i was going to make this more in-depth post Anyway .
when i say imogen is better read as a metaphor for generational trauma than she is a metaphor for queerness or chronic pain, i’m not talking about legitimate traits she has as a character. obviously she is queer. obviously she experiences some form of chronic pain (though i would argue her magic better suits chronic illness not pain because she states that it’s Not always painful, but it does always influence how she lives her life).
when i talk about how well she’s understood as a metaphor, i’m talking about when i’m looking at her as a part of a story, as an arc that i am witnessing rather than in the more typical fandom way of this is a fictional person who interacts with exandria as real people do. and that is a fun way to interact with characters, i enjoy it a lot! but when i say imogen (to me, as i for some reason have to clarify on my own blog which implies that these are my own opinions and not absolute fact that needs to be accepted by people on the internet with different experience and opinions than me) is best read as a metaphor for generational trauma, it isn’t a dismissal of her queerness or her illness, it’s just me thinking looking at her from that angle is more compelling.
imogen has been one of my favourite characters and least favourite characters in campaign 3 because i tend to analyse her through a lens of generational trauma and she ends up looking extremely familiar to me as someone with a family that carries their’s heavily which is as comforting as it is frustrating.
for me the main thing that looking at imogen through a queer lens of literary analysis fails to account for is harm. on the one hand - the harm that imogen experiences, not because of how people treat her for who she is, but that exists simply as a factor of her being ruidusborn. on the other hand a the harm that imogen causes. not to say that she is some malicious villain waiting for her chance to harm others, but that there are things about being ruidusborn that very much do incline her towards violence in a way that she might not otherwise be - i think about the conversation after she went nuclear and chet brought up people being scared of her connecting that to her father keeping distance. the only harm that queerness provides comes from society, and that isn’t the case in exandria. even metaphorically, the thing that society fears in ruidusborn people (while it has certainly been exacerbated by centuries of superstition and practices like we saw in zephrah) is a tangible threat. imogen’s magic when not controlled can wipe out a city block, but queerness poses no threat.
that’s why i’m not compelled by imogen’s backstory as a queer metaphor. not because i’m some imodna anti (i very emphatically am not but this fandom kinda makes me wish i was sometimes) or because i think exandria’s lack of homophobia/transphobia means that characters can’t be viewed through a queer lens or that critical role doesn’t contain some of the most compelling queer metaphor i’ve encountered. imogen just isn’t one of those characters, not because she isn’t queer, or because i think her story shouldn’t resonate with queer people, just because i find the generational trauma angle more consistent.
it’s similar with the chronic illness angle, which i will refer to as illness but you’re welcome to emphasise pain, we all have different vocabularies for the experiences we face. but just to give context i’m running off laura’s comparison of imogen’s powers to her own sensory issues and anxiety which while often Lead to pain, fall more into chronic illness in imogen’s context to me. and i do think there’s substantial comparison for imogen’s story as a metaphor for chronic illness, but i think that was much more true earlier in the campaign than it is looking at her from the current context. her beginning motivation being her search for knowledge about her powers really resonated with me as similar to someone experiencing symptoms of chronic illness but who could neither figure out how to treat them or what they were caused by.
but then imogen got more information, specifically about her mother, and her priority became not understanding her powers but understanding her current state as a person - how had she become the person she is, inclusive of her powers but very much emphasising her lack of a mother who became more and more present in the unweaving web of ruidusborn lore. that’s when i was less compelled by the chronic illness reading and more compelled by viewing her as a metaphor for generational trauma. had that not been enough on its own, imogen’s visit to relvin and her recent thoughts on her mother would be enough to convince me.
the part that makes me hesitant about this post is that generational trauma is so intensely linked to the contexts under which it is created and perpetuated. so i can’t really point to specific scenes as evidence of specific things that prove generational trauma is the most compelling and i don’t really want to unload that much of my own experience to clarify my thoughts on a character. but vaguely, i will say that imogen’s relationship with her parents is obviously the clearest source for my reading her as a metaphor for generational trauma. the fact that relvin, the only person in her family without the thing that draws society’s ire, is also the person that she has the most willing anger at is also indicative of this to me. in general, imogen’s rage that so easily transitions into sadness and vice versa comes out a lot in conversations about parents. most recently, i think about ashton’s lovely speech about found family and his distrust about parents and how as they were speaking, laura seemed to be playing imogen as sadly in thought versus months ago when fearnes parents showed up with striking similarities to liliana and imogen’s words of wisdom were let’s hurt them all.
and like. to me that angersadnessvengeancegrief is particularly evocative of the feelings that arise when you are in a family with generational trauma, especially when you are aware of it. because imogen can and has followed the logical steps that have led her and her family to where they are. early on when recounting her relationship with her dad she seemed wistful but understanding of the distance between them. in nearly every encountered with a parental figure imogen seems to be some level of distrusting for the most part, but she’s still holding out hope that her mother will see the good side. and further, there’s the complication of how dire her losing her powers seems to be, and how inextricable her powers are from every aspect of her life. she’s also southern and from a blue collar family. this means nothing except it also means a whole lot.
this is messy and not well organised but if you want a good essay you’re gonna have to pay me money for it but tldr: i say things i believe on my This Is My Opinion Blog and i don’t think i need to explain my thoughts to strangers on the internet but this was already half written in my drafts and if people are gonna shit on my opinions please at least do it in good faith and shit on my actual opinions not the ones you’ve decided i have.
Scout can NEVER try cooking an omelet because Spy would walk in and see Scout's first ever attempt and since its not a perfect omelet Spy would give criticism and then try to teach Scout how to make a perfect omelet to honor his french heritage but Scout would be so outraged by what he perceives as Spy insulting his attempt and then trying to take over so he would just leave the kitchen and not eat anything for lunch, leaving Spy alone in the kitchen with all the omelet materials wondering why trying to teach his son how to make the french meal did not work
Jotaro is all three of his parents child, because listen
Usagi:
He looks like a carbon copy of the guy and acts similarly to him, same drive, same temper, everyone points these two things out
Kenichi:
I like to make the cuck joke as much as anyone else but let's not forget that he and Jotaro have a real father-son relationship!!!! Jotaro calls him father and loves him like one!!! Kenichi knows Jotaro isn't his and his rival is his sire but doesn't care and loves and raises him anyway!!!! Also I'm pretty sure that Kenichi is always/mostly wearing purple in colored comic issues and what is Jotaro wearing???? Purple!!!!! The symbolism????? Because Usagi may be Jotaro's biodad but he is not the man that raised him, fed him, clothed him, Jotaro is wearing Kenichi's colors!!!! Because he is as much Kenichi's son as Usagi's!!!
Mariko:
obviously he has her ears and nose but also! May be grasping at straws but! His clothes have a pattern like she does and(correct me if I'm wrong) Kenichi doesn't! Kenichi's are plain with only the reigning Lord of the lands Mon and Mariko's and Jotaro's has a design! Similar in how they both love Kenichi but they also love Usagi! Jotaro wants a father-son relationship with Usagi but not at the cost of one with Kenichi! Mariko has affections for both Kenichi and Usagi but it's pretty obvious her feelings for Usagi run deeper than for Kenichi, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love him! Because for all that she loves Usagi, he didn't love her enough to stay and Kenichi did. Even though Kenichi had to leave the Dogora school in shame he still could've been a retainer to a lord like Usagi but instead he stayed! This man raised her child knowing damn well how he came to be and didn't care! Married her knowing she could never return his feelings with the same fervor!
Jotaro loves his parents and wants to respect all their wishes! This poor fucking kid...