#(the others woulda got him eventually but laura grabbed him by the throat first session and said
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Every single time Caleb talks about how the things he did were awful and irredeemable Astrid is internally screaming
Caleb failed on their graduation day
He made it through training, and yeah, did awful things
Astrid and Wulf passed that graduation, finished training, and spent 17 years in the real world doing the actual job
The parts too hard, too bloody, too dangerous, to trust to teenagers
Caleb knows Trent is awful and all of the terrible things he put children through, and every dreadful thing he is capable of, no question
But Astrid and Wulf, looking at him after the Mighty Nein? Not when he was in the Sanitarium, broken by Feeblemind, but a whole, complete person?
A wizard powerful enough to stand toe to toe with their master, and what did he do that they didn’t to get there?
He ate pastries. Wore bread as mittens. Made dick jokes and found love and forgiveness and people who may not understand, but who don’t care that they don’t understand and accept him anyway
People who looked at this sad, broken man with up to seven years of guilt and terrible deeds weighing him down (depending on when you think Trent started scourging ‘em, seemed young in the campaign but much later in the comic)
Knowing that they spent every one of the years he was in the Sanitarium and then after he escaped still under Trent’s thumb, still doing everything they’d done as kids and more, doing it with higher stakes, higher costs
And he talks about those childhood sins as unforgivable
He tells them that they too can be redeemed, as if nothing and no one could be worse than he was
But Astrid and Caleb are the same person
So you know she’s just as convinced that her sins were actually the worst, and there’s hope for anyone else but her
And she has the resume to back it up
And no matter how much she wishes she could have what he has, be free and redeem herself and maybe admit she shouldn’t have had to do any of it…
If Caleb doesn’t believe he can be redeemed, how could there be hope for her?
(And absolutely none of it will stop Jester Lavorre from scooping up another two formerly evil wizards and tucking them gently into her pocket and woobie-ing them to death with sprinkles and muffins and love)
look me in the eyeballs. astrid and caleb (imo wulf is a slightly different story but that's another post) are textually, canonically narrative foils. i think a better, less literary term-y way to put it is that they're variations on the same person. like. canonically. astrid is caleb if he didn't fail the training. caleb is astrid if she got out. they're like if you took one person and laid out two seperate options on how they would react to a major life-changing incident (hmm. i wonder what that might be in this context). astrid. caleb. they look at each other and see themselves. caleb is alright with this. astrid was holding on for her life for a little bit, trying not to lose her shit, because. he is who she would be if she was free and she figures that out during c2 yknow. caleb always knew that he was almost astrid so he just had to. like. look at this woman he loves dearly and fucking. wretchedly. and cope with the fact that 1. he loves her 2. she's awful 3. she could be so much better than she is 4. she's too far gone for that. but he's been coping for a long time, and she's not unreachable she's just. she's never gonna be him. meanwhile she has to grapple with the fact that she will never be as free as him- i don't know if she really wants to be, but he's proof that her life didn't need to go the way that it did and that's brutal. anyway. they're the same guy. it is so so important to consider that in relation to the dynamic they have going on. is this mic on
#critical role#critical role meta#c2#caleb widogast#astrid becke#my babygirls okay#you don’t understand i am feral for them#also wulf we love wulf but he learned to work out his muscles too and snuck some himbo energy#like yeah yeah essek and caleb are narrative foils we all know#which. means. astrid and essek are foils-in-law#and i think they both know that and they would both be much happier to admit how much they have in common with each other#because they both think caleb is better and closer to redemption#and the secret is the dick jokes it’s the only thing astrid and essek didn’t do it’s why they stayed evil for sure /j#(the secret is jester specifically liam didn’t think caleb would warm up to anyone until laura Assassinated Him)#(the others woulda got him eventually but laura grabbed him by the throat first session and said#‘HEY LOVE THE NEW EDGY CHARACTER WITH THE TRAGIC BACKSTORY LIAM#BE A SHAME IF SOMEONE… DREW DICKS IN HIS SPELLBOOK’#and liam lost his goddamn mind because he is also a chaos gremlin at heart)#trent can do all the scary traumatising training he wants jester can undo it with 3 texts and a dream#cuz she literally doesn’t fit in his worldview. like. fundamentally incompatible. she shouldn’t exist.#if trent was right and the world was as bad as he thought and all of his bs was actually necessary… jester woulda died in nicodranas#her just bopping around happy and carefree and It Works proves every single thing trent ever told them wrong#‘oh we must ruthlessly train you and destroy all empathy and torture you for magical power’#‘orrrrr have you considered loving your friend so hard he becomes a god nd just gives you cool magic?✨✨✨hey now watch me raise the dead!’#caleb and astrid are the same person and this is why jester fucking broke them both#jester lives in a different world to everyone else cuz until they meet her everyone assumes her world couldn’t work#but it does#cuz she had no reason to think it wouldn’t so she tried it anyway
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