#and most of the rat grinders get a shot at redemption

[halcyon-autumn]

Jace’s end is so funny because he’s ostensibly the right had of the big bad but half of his duplicates got killed via lava shove - and that’s STILL way less embarrassing than getting arrested by the Elmville PD. He must be soooooo mad that Porter got a cool death via god sword while he gets arrested by the most embarrassing police department in Spire.

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)

[arainywriter]

this is going to probably be the longest post of my life, and i HATE getting into fandom discourse which is why i don't usually write anything about fandom discourse, but i just want to address some things about our favorite rat grinders so if you want to read, click below

as someone who loves the rat grinders as nuanced antagonists who are also teenagers, i think the rat grinders before they ever joined in on porter and jace's plan were assholes.

i think they were the quiet bullies, the mean people who you never notice until they are mean to you, the ones who seem nice and respectable up close, but talk shit about you the minute you're gone.

i think most of them (kipperlilly in particular) were looking for a reason to be bad. and i know we might not ever get this confirmation, but based off kipperlilly's file and other moments with the trg, i think it's possible this is correct.

they were assholes who needed a reason to be even bigger, more dangerous assholes and most of them took it. and yes, it was either that or be dead, but i want you to know that sometimes that's not even a question. sometimes you don't even care about the other option, you just want to rage.

i think the one time all of them or maybe some of them even thought that what they were doing could be was when lucy died. and that's when i feel bad for them. they had to lock in right there because they all had made a decision, and they all needed to continue it. that's the manipulation.

i know they are kids. they are just teenagers. i work with teens, and guys, let me tell you, some teenagers are assholes. and i don't mean say a funny mean joke asshole, i mean literally going to grow up and be a shitty person asshole. i think some of the rat grinders were those kind of teens.

did they deserve to be redeemed? i think some of them do. i think buddy has a big shot at being redeemed, and i genuinely hated that he died in the last stand and had to make that decision. i think ally is going to try if they can. i think mary ann might be redeemed.

but also, you guys have to remember that this is dnd. i don't think many of you have played dnd before, or if you have you're just really conscientious about everything you do. because as a dm who has played dnd and has made nuanced antagonists, your players are gonna straight up kill them.

brennan knows that. i'm 100% sure he knows that. this isn't scripted. the intrepid heroes aren't thinking about what the fans want every time they play. in dnd, ESPECIALLY in brennan's dnd, it's kill or be killed.

the rat grinder's weren't going to use non-lethal attacks. they were going to kill the bad kids, and they were going to be UNNATURALLY happy throughout it all. they were going to spit in their faces and roast marshmallows on their bodies. they were going to not feel guilty.

sound familiar?

i think the bad kids have been nice to the rat grinders since day one. not kind, nice. they've been polite and nice to them, not going all in until this fight. if this fight happened before the finale, i think the rat grinders would have had more time to be redeemed (ex. see Ragh in season 1 who def would have died in the finale battle if the bad kids hadn't fought him earlier). but the bad kids are stressed and done.

there is no time to be polite and nice when the world is going to end.

i know you liked these characters. i did too. i'm sad to see them go, but even when someone is nuanced and could be redeemed, the person they were a piece of shit to doesn't have to be the one to redeem them. they don't have to be the one to keep them alive and make sure they only get taken the police instead of dead. cause trg would have gone to jail.

aelwyn did. so would they.

people you've wronged don't owe you forgiveness or redemption. trg didn't wrong tbk that bad, but they made them angry, they tried to kill them, and they're probably almost close to ending the world.

i'll miss you rat grinders. you guys were perfect narrative foils, but it was always going to end like this.

now stop being absolute assholes to the intrepid heroes just cause they didn't play how you wanted.

love this fandom, and yeah, d20 get shit wrong sometimes. always make sure to critique your favorite piece of media.

but at the end of the day, this isn't your table to play dnd at. this is theirs and they are having fun. why don't you go and play as the rat grinders in your home game and give them the ending they deserve, or make fanfiction about it?

put your anger into that.