#Asmodeus played Zerxus like a casio keyboard and it's painful to watch

[thought-42]

A thing I keep coming back to when thinking about Calamity is how, in another story, Zerxus and Laerryn would have been heros. Like we talk about villain-coding our characters but in some cases that can be so dependant on what the in-story environment is and also what genre they exist in. Zerxus, especially-- I feel like in young adult fiction and nineties/2000s sci-fi movies, the whole point of the narreative was demonstrating that large systems/institutions cannot be trusted, especially those that provide you with one narrative that you're meant to adopt as your history and is meant to inform your entire belief system. If Zerxus had done exactly what he'd done in a dystopian novel/movie, listened to someone who society told him was bad, didn't fully trust him but gave him an opportunity? He'd be the change agent that revealed the dark truths of his society and we'd all be cheering for him. Laerryn I would not call a hero in a different context, but I also have a hard time reading her as a villain even within the canon (but I'm biased). What I will say, is do we all remember that Star Trek (or similar space opera show of your choice) episode where the secret project that somebody was working on saved the day? Or countless pieces of media where acting instantly and thoughtlessly to save someone you care about is romanticized? Yeah. Anyway, disclaimers, this is purely my own reading of the text, I'm probably wrong, I am not in any way saying that what they did didn't have horrific consequences. I am just saying that if we scooped up at least half of the Calamity gang and plunked them down in a different genre and they took the same actions, they'd be the good guys without question.