#i wanna drag like five different showrunners in by the ear to view this scene so they understood HOW TO WRITE A COMPLEX VILLAIN

[coffeenonsense]

the thing that is the most terrifying about ketheric thorm's introduction is not the visceral bloody horror of it but how it establishes from the jump that this guy truly does not care, at all, about ANY of the major plot points he's surrounded by.

none of what happens during the cutscene where you first meet him suggests ketheric thorm is a zealot like any of the other people you've meet in moonrise. He doesn't seem remotely interested in the goblins, what you say or even the words coming out of his OWN mouth, and you think that disinterest is a predictable kind of arrogance up until he invites the goblin that just speared him in the heart to "try again", stands there placidly waiting for the goblin to take his head off, heals from death again, and then kills the goblin almost as an afterthought.

That's when you understand intimately that ketheric thorm could care less about the absolute. He could care less about the moonrise, the grand mysterious plan, the lives of anybody around him, including his own. He has his own (at this point unknowable) purpose that's keeping him going and he honestly seems tired of even that. He's been hollowed out by that purpose to the point that there's not even ashes left and yet he's going to keep going toward that purpose anyway, by rote, until he succeeds or until his invulnerable, immortal body finally gives out, and he doesn't seem to care which happens first.

It's a bloodchilling introduction and just yet another reminder of how much love and attention everyone in this game put in to building out every single character.