#like compare how we saw the wildmother all through c2 to how taliesin plays asha. or the raven queen's visions in c1 to laura playing emhir

[keyleth-clay]

One the one hand: I 100% agree with you about how nuanced and complex Pelor is.

On the other hand: when you say "just because YOU cannot handle nuance does not mean the story of exandria has not contained it and done so consistently. in fact the first in depth interaction that any party had with pelor [...] was a portrayal of him that was explicit in his complexity." -

I think a little more benefit of the doubt could go a long way. The thing is, not everyone has watched Campaign 1. There's a HUGE amount of people who jumped in with Campaign 2, and a large number of people who jumped in with Campaign 3, and many of them haven't watched C1 for a variety of reasons (tried but just couldn't get into it, don't have time to watch it, only just got caught up but intend to watch it in the future, etc.). On top of that, for some of the people who did watch Campaign 1, it's been long enough that they didn't remember those details. I know I sure didn't!

In comparison, the two most recent depictions we've had of the Dawnfather in CR canon was Calamity (striking down Asmodeus with the full intensity of the sun and his foot on his brother's throat), and C3 (the very tense conversation with Deanna, all of the stuff from Vasselheim with Team Issylra). It doesn't at all surprise me that people either didn't know or forgot that he could be soft.

if i keep seeing so many people refer to ayden as an indication of an unknown softness in pelor i will start setting things on fire. just because YOU cannot handle nuance does not mean the story of exandria has not contained it and done so consistently. in fact the first in depth interaction that any party had with pelor (vex becoming his champion) was a portrayal of him that was explicit in his complexity. taken straight from the transcript for 1x104 elysium, “[vex you] spin and look, whereas there once was a burning star-- and to the rest of [vox machina], you see the painful, endless light that averts your gaze-- it doesn't hurt your eyes as much, and you can see the faint features, the soft cheeks, the hairless head, and the bright warm eyes of he who brings the dawn. And you can see the smile there, behind the light. “there is hope.”” sunlight can warm you and burn you in equal measure.

that burning image of the sun has much in common with a teenage boy who steps into a dark room, and reminds the dm that it’s not dark. the same way that a teenage boy who stands by as a woman who will not give up her worship of pelor is punished because he has more important responsibilities he must honour has much in common with a seemingly benevolent lord of the dawn might respond harshly to a cleric who asks if he is worth saving while he is trying to find a way to survive so he might keep helping to provide light. the gods aren’t simple and they never have been. i am as psyched about the particular angle that downfall is taking as anybody but it is already frustrating watching people act like the gods are suddenly more nuanced because they’re in literally mortal bodies when the entire Point of the gods in exandria in the various stories we’ve seen so far is that the only difference they have with mortals is the bounds of their power. they carry all the same flaws and the same profundity. just because so much of the fandom has reduced that to black and white flatness or faulty mapping onto real world religions (or the various traumas those might have caused individuals) doesn’t mean that complexity has been missing at all from the story.