#discussing the roles of fandom

[nellasbookplanet]

people have been fawning over how humanlike the gods are for a month now, but now its wrong to compare them to mortal powers because they're otherworldy beings that can't possibly be thought of in human terms? or is the suggestion that they're like mortals, but they're just an innately superior group of people that deserves to have power over everyone else?

Hello anon! Are you the same person who got all up in my askbox yesterday? You certainly seem to have an equally poor grasp on what I actually said and a willingness to make it somebody else's problem. However, I no longer have a headache and am feeling less cranky, so lets treat this as a genuine question.

I never said it's wrong or even inaccurate to compare the gods to humans/mortals. What I said is that some seem over-eager to equate them with groups or systems where they don't actually fit, or to project our own world onto them. This tends to lead to poor textual analysis. For example, equating the gods with mortal rulers (specifically tyrannical rulers, even), the one percent, a higher social class, rich people, or colonizers of mortals all read as comparisons made from the assumption 'gods are the most powerful sentient beings of Exandria; therefore I will compare them to the most powerful people of our world'. Do these comparisons make actual sense as parallels? No! Kings and rich people and colonizers aren't innately more powerful than others because we don't live in a fantasy world where magic is real. You can take said power from them and redistribute it fairly. You cannot do this with the gods.

Ultimately, the last few words in your ask neatly sum up the problem with this mindset: do the gods deserve to hold this power over everyone else? Lets look at this through a comparison: do sorcerers like Imogen deserve to hold power over everyone else? She, like most sorcerers, was born with powers others do not have and has no way to get rid of them. They cannot be taken from her and redistributed to the masses to make things more equal, because they are a part of her innate self. In using them, Imogen can do good, but she also sometimes ends up hurting people by reading their thoughts without consent or, at times, even meaning to. So, does Imogen deserve this power? By now, you might see the problem. It doesn't matter whether she deserves her power because you can't take it from her without killing her, no matter how unfair you think it is that she has it. 'Do they deserve their power' is an irrelevant question that people keep coming back to. What you're actually asking is, 'do the gods deserve to live', or even 'do we have the right to kill them' which is a lot more loaded.

The gods already evened the playing field as much as was possible by locking themselves behind the divine gate, severely diminishing their influence on Exandria. They can no longer cause any more harm than any mortal, because now they must act through mortals such as clerics and paladins, through which they do a lot of good (or have we already forgotten about c1 and c2, or even the resurrection of Laudna by a divine cleric and the actions of FCG in c3?). If this still isn't enough for you, you might want to ask yourself whether what you actually want is fairness and the good of the people of Exandria, or if you're just looking for pointless revenge for the sake of it.

[fromtheseventhhell]

I love how people are only ever interested in defending Arya's right to be weird-looking. It's never defending her intelligence from people who claim she's incapable of thinking for herself, highlighting her importance to the plot and refusing to see her as just a prop, acknowledging how much of her story gets stolen and given to other characters, talking about her trauma or how often it gets erased and overlooked, seeing her as more than just an attack dog/bodyguard, etc. Nope. It's just a "why can't people let Arya be ugly/unconventional looking? :(" post every other week because people are, for whatever reason, obsessed with how Arya is visually perceived. One of the most misinterpreted characters yet the issue is only ever with her being portrayed as "too pretty" or the wrong "type" of pretty. This fandom will entirely rewrite a character's motivations, values, and role in the story to the point that they consider references to canon "hate" but! The true injustice to canon is we acknowledge that she is described as pretty several times. Arya simply existing as her pretty, important, and non-conforming self is too complex and confusing for people to comprehend 😔.

[pocketgalaxies]

"you're a caleb apologist in bowlgate? i see how it is" the speed at which robbie has integrated himself

[utilitycaster]

This is coming up with Orym, and it came up with Yasha and to an extent Keyleth too (as well as many other characters; see tags). Anyway: there is never going to be a moment when those characters are not grieving. If you wait for them to stop grieving, you will wait until they themselves die - and to be clear I do not mean this in the sense of “the grieving spouse clearly seeks death so that they may be reunited”; I mean “that loss will always exist in their lives, and they will grow around it and find other joy and love, but there is no moment when the hole that person left closes and is gone.” You can interpret where those characters are in their grieving process, which is a complex and nonlinear one, and you may perhaps feel they’re not ready, but if you do, it’s worth asking yourself what “ready” would look like because it will not look like an absence of grief. More specifically to Orym, if you are rethinking this because there was a scene at Will’s grave, that’s a big part of the nonlinear aspect - how someone will speak about the death graveside, or how they may speak about it in specific places, or on anniversaries, is very different to their day-to-day experience with grief.

Which isn’t to say you can’t interpret Orym as still in, for lack of a better term, the full mourning period; I’m noting it both because it is a pattern in the fandom for characters who have lost spouses, and because within that pattern, the discussion seems to treat life after the death of a partner as a dichotomy of “grieving” and “not grieving”, in which romantic love is only possible when one is in the "not grieving" state, which is fundamentally untrue to life.

[kuroananosanji]

Thriller bark discourse is funny coz people act like Zoro can’t be devoted to Luffy’s dream AND want to protect the crew. It’s clear that Sanji wanted to sacrifice himself for Zoro’s dream, Zoro refused to let his friend die, so he sacrificed himself for both Luffy and Sanji in the very end? Do people really think Zoro knocked Sanji out because Sanji was “getting in the way of him sacrificing for Luffy”? It always feels weird when some people frame Zoro and Sanji as two harem waifus competing for Luffy’s attention when they just love their crew very much and would do anything for them.

[ittybittyremy]

I really hate the use of the word "hypocrite" in the CR fandom because it doesn't let people appreciate the nuances of the characters/situations. This is not to say that the characters don't have their hypocritical moments. I just think there are people who slap the word on a character and call it a day, not even bothering to try to understand it.

I have more to say but TLDR: Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

You won't like to hear this but everybody (including you) is/will be a hypocrite at some point. There are many cases of this, some more severe than others.

As a small example, I hate the sound of other people clicking their pens repeatedly but I click my pen repeatedly all the time. Is that hypocritical? Yes! You could slap that label call it that and call it a day and it wouldn't be technically wrong. However, you could also figure out why these contrasts exist. In my case, my thing with noises has to do with control. I don't mind my pen clicking because I can choose the tempo and decide when to stop it. But others make that exact same noise, I can't control it and I don't know when it'll stop.

Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

This is not meant to say that all hypocrisy makes sense or has reason. Reasonless hypocrisy is one of the foundations of prejudice/discrimination but that's a whole other conversation.

There will also be reasons of hypocrisies existing that you disagree with. However, just because you disagree with the reason doesn't mean that the reason does not exist.

Back to Critical Role

I made this post because of people's reactions to Ashton regarding their views on the gods versus the primordials. During the CR Cooldown, the cast calls Asthon out for their hypocrisy of their views on the gods versus the titans. This is what Taliesin says about it:

"It's the difference between the feeling of being small in front of someone rather than being small in front of everything. Is really what happened, which is instead of having the smallness and raging at the big person, it was 'I'm in the middle of this.' [Asthon] didn't feel separated from it... It was more feeling the place in the cosmos, rather than actual people going 'oh it's you' and you're like 'fuck'."

Of course, you can understand Ashton’s hypocrisy and disagree with the reasoning. That's fine, as long as you see their reasons and acknowledge that they exist. It may not make sense to you but it makes sense to the character.

[katsmtmsdoodles]

Reblog for bigger sample size! Based on this post by @rigorwhoring

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[nezumidou]

Let people be disappointed.

Let them complain on their personal blogs and share opinions about the show they took the time to watch as everyone else.

(And if they only have praise, that's fine too.)

That's what fandom is all about.

How boring not to be able to dissect a piece of media and exchange different perspectives.

Every piece of criticism and praise comes from a place of respect and admiration for Critical Role and their stories. Whether it's love for the source material, the characters (or NPCs), the cast, etc.

No one would take the time to comment on something that means nothing to them.

Being disappointed in some aspects of TLOVM (to a greater or lesser extent) isn't a bad thing, it means someone cares.

[wreckrinho]

Rob was feeling watched, but he didn't think it would be a big deal...

Meanwhile, Gumball was watching, trying to think of a new way to end the cyclops' hopes and dreams...

Sam doesn't approve/srs

[ludinusdaleth]

i wish people realized when someone is talking about characters such as liliana or bor'dor that not one person is asking them to worship at their altars and call them their favorite characters, but just to acknowledge that they were built as People with stories in the narrative. someone comparing them to essek isnt asking you to like them as much as essek but to see how they have all been affected by ludinus's propoganda/manipulation, and why they believe it and got to that point. if your instinct is to call any and all analyses of a villain crazy and indicative of choosing their side, im sorry you're missing out on so much juicy narrative. it will not make you suck ludinus's cock to break down what makes an antagonist tick and compare them to more protagonistic characters whose themes they expand upon.

[astralleywright]

"orym is just a little guy" as a way to reject any analysis of his actions and words that suggests they might reveal or create unresolved tension and damaging thought patterns: boring, bleh, can lead to placing his feelings and judgement above that of the rest of bells hells

"orym is just a little guy" as a framework to understand orym's position in the world as someone who has never stood out, leaving him with a very different understanding of the world than the rest of the hells, and who has never had the power or ambition to enact the kind of change he's now being asked to, leaving him overwhelmed, paralyzed, and desperate: interesting, sexy, engages with the larger themes of the campaign

[revvethasmythh]

I think it's very interesting--and I mean that genuinely--that overwhelmingly in the past week or two, the responses I've seen about Relvin have centered around the idea that "he should have fought" for Imogen or that "he should FIGHT" for Imogen. I've seen this particular line pop up quite a few times in slightly different ways, and I think maybe we should unpack this a little.

Because in the physical sense, Relvin can't really fight. By that, I mean his stats probably look like Gilear Faeths and like, yeah, you can argue that Gilear tagged along during Sophomore Year and therefore, so could Relvin. But Gilear also *spoilers* died three separate times in a 20 episode span, and is only alive at the end because Emily loves him so fucking much and Brennan's resurrection rules in FHSY are more lax than Matt's. Particularly post-Solstice, where there is no resurrection to be had at all if Relvin were to die. If you want Relvin to join the Hells and Fight The Moon And Ludinus Too, it's really not feasible even on just a physical level. That's not even engaging with the question of "why would the Hells even want him there?" They wouldn't. He'd be a nuisance at best and a liability at worst.

If you want to him to Fight The Moon sans the Hells on his own, he's really not capable of that either! He's not a scholar, he's not a magic user, he's--he's a groom. A stablehand. He can't "pick up his pitchfork" (that he shovels manure with) and stand defiantly against the forces that face Imogen & Co. He's really, truly Just A Dude. Which is kind of the point I've been trying to make about him. He's lived his life around extraordinary people, and he is not extraordinary. He doesn't have the tools to fight something like this, which is part of his tragedy. Is there a world where he quits his job, leaves his horses and his home and his life and tries to become a warrior for the sake of his absentee wife and the daughter he loves but doesn't know how to love the right way? I suppose. But wouldn't that be a different story than this one? And isn't it worth finding the meaning in the one we're experiencing now?

If this argument is that he should have fought for Imogen on an emotional level i.e. having been there for her more or more outwardly shown her affection, we kind of run aground of the same problems. The ask here is that we fundamentally change Relvin's character to make him something that he is not. He is a man who struggles with emotions, and was probably desperately scared about what Imogen was experiencing when it happened and didn't want her to feel his fear. Or his thoughts about her mother. And so, yes, he pulls away (for a variety of reasons). And there is a conversation to be had about his choice to withhold information about Liliana--it's questionable. But, then, every option he was presented with was questionable. What do you tell Imogen, who was abandoned by her mother when she was two? That her mother is dead, or that her mother abandoned her? You pray Imogen never develops the same debilitating powers as her mother, but when she does? Do you give her the comfort of knowing someone else had the same powers, the same struggles, at the expense of prompting more questions about her mother? Do you take the chance to be peppered with questions about how these powers work only to helplessly look on and say "I don't know," and maybe send Imogen down the same road as her mother even sooner than she actually did?

There is no good option. There is no heroic version of Relvin that makes all the right choices and becomes Imogen's white knight father, endlessly supportive and wholly committed to her. The situation is too complicated, and Relvin, frankly, is far too much Just Some Guy to be able to really grasp what Imogen is going through or to fight it in an active way. But I do think it's interesting that this seems to be the version of Relvin that the fandom would have found acceptable.

[phoenyxdrowning]

can't stop thinking about how imogen thinks laudna is beautiful and that's supposed to be, like weird and freaky and Not Normal but actually it's the most natural and obvious thing in the world if you think about it

imogen grew up surrounded by all these nice, normal, even pretty faces but hearing all of their darkest and ugliest thoughts. then she met laudna, almost certainly in their minds before she ever saw laudna's face, and was amazed and comforted and delighted by this person who was kind and generous and also had an appearance most people would consider disgusting and terrifying

so for imogen the association of "outwardly pretty = good" is all twisted around and reversed. where other people see horror and death and wrongness she sees kindness and strength and honesty and love

she doesn't think laudna is beautiful in spite of her appearance but because of it

[celtrist]

Feel free to put down any fandoms your interested about in reblogs (if you care to, thank you btw) in tags. Just for broader results.

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

"For particularly important things, it's always more reassuring to write them down like this." - Zhang Beihai

[ID in alt text]

[aeruthien]

My main problem with the current Orym discourse (and the Ashton discourse before that, and most of the other discourse surrounding CR) is that on both sides of the argument, most people are concerned with how Problematic TM the character is behaving, instead of how it ties in with the grander narrative, the themes, the structure, and so on.

The end goal of these arguments is to determine how moral the behaviour is, and if not, if you as an audience are still allowed to like him. As such you see arguments like "Orym is a soldier so what he did was ok and Imogen needed some though love, so I still like him" or "Orym is mean to Imogen and he is horrible, so I hate him", or "Orym is mean to Imogen but I still like him because you can like horrible characters without being horrible yourself, I swear!"

However, regardless of which side you are on, the discussion tells you more about the person making the argument, than the character, and as such, it is pretty much worthless as a true critique of the source material.

It is irrelevant to me if this anonymous Tumblr user thinks it is morally correct if you pressurize your friend to keep her head together during war time.

What I am interested in is how this, in combination with everything that came before, reflects on the themes. On the narrative structure. On the story as a whole. What does the story and the characters say about morals? What does it all mean?