earlier this year i broke my 860 something day duolingo streak by accident and ive barely opened it since and i feel so free
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Can I just say, I really appreciate how Critical Role plays the Devil trope straight. There's been this phenomena in a lot of modern media (I'm not going to mention specifics but I'm sure a few examples pop up in people's minds) where Hell and the Devil aren't scary or malevolent forces. Hell is portrayed as being basically the same as our world just "edgier", and the Devil is a pretty decent guy actually. Heaven are secretly the real bad guys!
But Critical Role doesn't do that. In Exandria, Asmodeus *feels* like the Devil. He's malevolent and manipulative and terrifyingly powerful and he hates you, personally. We never see that type of portrayal anymore! And it's amazing! And he still manages to be sympathetic and tragic without losing his edge!
And the "Good Gods" are portrayed as flawed without being secretly evil or something! Like, actual nuance? In my Heaven/Hell dichotomy? What!?
It's just such a breath of fresh air after so many "The Devil was right, actually" stories. So props to Matt and Brennan and the cast.
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There's just something so fascinating about the way the Exandrian pantheon has decided to handle the Aeor Situation™ - by electing a few of their kind to be born as mortals in order to infiltrate the city.
The first to bring herself low was Ioun, and I can only imagine how lonely that must have been for her. To feel infinite wisdom creeping into her adolescent mind? To rise through Aeor's ranks knowing what they'd do to her if the authorities discovered the truth of her existence? Waiting, hoping, perhaps even praying that the other gods would follow through with the plan.
Sarenrae has a husband and children as Trist. I can't help but consider the parallels to Liliana Temult, with a 'higher calling' pulling a mother away from her family. The conversations in the temple suggest that she would have been aware of what she was by the time she started her family. Yet she loves them, cherishes them, even knowing that she might not see them again. Will Amaris, Haylie, and Topher learn that Trist is a goddess? Or will that only be discovered when they find their way to her realm in Elysium?
The Matron was once mortal, and she willingly returned to that form in order to help her newfound siblings dismantle the Aeorian threat. Her steward since childhood was Purvan, helping raise and guide her despite his old age. Imagine being a little girl, guarded by the Champion of Ravens himself and his wolven companion, completely unaware of your own divinity until later in life. Imagine the night she woke up, remembering her ascendency, seeing Purvan and recognising him.
And what of the families that gave birth to and raised the four Betrayer Gods? What of the halfling family who watched their precocious daughter scale a fence with far too much ease than it should be? The day the tortle's parents found him crying in pain and tearing at his skin to distract himself from a memory so distant and yet so real? Or Milo, who became a priest, not to follow in the light of the Dawnfather (like his parents may have thought), but to mock his brother even as a mortal?
These gods spent entire childhoods with families and friends, taking refuge from the skirmishes caused by their other siblings. Who, despite those similarities, have very different opinions of humanity, of Aeor, and themselves.
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