#not the gods of Exandria

[willowbirds]

Do Bell’s Hells understand the motivations of the Ruby Vanguard and believe that people shouldn’t be forced to worship the gods: Yes

Do they want to release Predathos and have them eat the gods: No

This whole situation in Exandria is incredibly complicated and Bell’s Hells are right in the middle of it and likely don’t know how to properly handle it. The one thing they do know is that they can’t let Predathos get out, because it could spell death for Exandria. They may be indifferent about the gods, but they know that what the Vanguard is doing is wrong and won’t stand for it.

[artistic-cocoon]

Saw someone on twt say they wanted to see Percy drawn like Yusuf Dikec and I couldn't help myself

[nellasbookplanet]

The tragic idea that the Betrayers loved their siblings so much that it ended up being what drove them apart. They didn't want to settle for anything that could hurt their family, and mortals were doing so, either directly (a mortal usurping one of them) or indirectly (emotionally hurting them during the Schism by just. dying so much). To the Betrayers, it wasn't worth it. They wanted their beloved family to leave and go somewhere that wouldn’t hurt them.

To them, it's the primes who are the betrayers. The primes were motivated by more than just love for their immediate family - they loved their creation, too, and more than that, felt a responsibility for it. They would rather fight their own siblings than leave it.

We saw all the gods love and protect each other during the opening of Downfall. The Betrayers were not uniquely evil from the start. They wanted to save themselves and their family from hardship and suffering, even if it meant leaving their creation, their game, and in response their siblings locked them away. Not only do they not love mortals, they view mortals as this corruptive force that somehow turned their family against them. Do they think that, if they succeed in exterminating them, the Primes will be freed from their influence? Maybe - perhaps some of them are waiting to forgive and embrace their siblings, but far from all, I suspect. Asmodeus certainly expressed during Calamity that he didn’t so much want to be reunited with his siblings as he wanted to punish them. He was betrayed by the ones he loved most for the sake of a game! Maybe togetherness and forgiveness was once an obtainable goal, but not anymore. Even if the Betrayers succeeded in ending Exandria, the Primes would never forgive them, and they would never forgive the primes. Their family can never be whole again because of, as they see it, the toxic influence of mortals. So they hate mortals for this influence, but more than that, they hate their siblings for being so weak as to fall for it.

[arielbonestrike]

I am re-watching Exandria Unlimited: Calamity on @criticalrole

It is one of my favourite pieces of media ever released, and it always rips my heart out.

Laerryn Coramar-Seelie is played by @quiddie

Patia Por'co is played by Marisha Ray

Based on the original character art by @agarthanguide

[ittybittyremy]

I'm sorry but some of you really overestimate how pro-god Orym is

[dragonageruinedmylife]

With the conversation with the Arch Heart and some of the things brought up, I keep coming back to the idea of: You live in a world where Gods are fully confirmed existing beings. You are a cleric of Bahamut. You are a Paladin of the Everlight. You are a believer that makes small prayers to the Wild Mother for safe travels on the sea. You find comfort and solace in your faith and in serving the Gods.

Then one day, the gods are suddenly gone. The powers they blessed you with are gone. Perhaps on a random Tuesday for you. Perhaps in the middle of a battle when you needed to save your friend's life. You can no longer hear them. You're panicked, you're scared. You finally learned what happened and it is people saying "the gods left! we're not beholden to them anymore! We can live our own lives!" And your entire world has been ripped apart without anyone asking if this is what you wanted.

[undead-knick-knack]

Would somebody smite his ass already please 🙏

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

That final scene with the gods discussing the future of the Divine Gate was incredible - everyone was at the top of their game!

A huge reason for why I found it especially good, was watching Tal as Melora bare her teeth and refuse to indulge the others' idea of leaving Exandria. She helped lead the pantheon to this rock of elemental chaos, she bound herself to the natural world, she is as much a part of Exandria as the titans had been

But now she's being confronted with a future where she must leave it behind for the sake of the little creatures that inhabit her world. And sure, she made the world liveable for them, but she also made it liveable for her family - of course she wants to stay!

The thing, though, is that we know they leave. In the present day, the Wildmother is tucked behind the Divine Gate where she and her kin cannot physically interfere with their creations. But after learning what we have during these three weeks of Downfall? That feels so much more tragic

Melora has chosen to sever a large part of her connection to Exandria, her home, for everyone's sake but her own

[ludinusdaleth]

with the obligatory precursor statement of "the gods are not based on any earthen pantheon and thus cannot be drawn directly to any of our dieties, but downfall is heavily intentionally pulling from religious imagery": it is insane (in the best way) of nick marini to show up to critical role for his very first time and play pelor as the messiah shepherd giving food & shelter to poor refugees. whilst boarding a ship of regufees. to nuke the city that harbors them

[maestache]

Emhira watching over Ayden. Though he cannot save everyone, he will still try

For @artists-guild-of-exandria Calamity Project

[chaoticcomposition]

"Oh, Vierna. My heart sings to see you."

lolth tells athalia she wants to speak to vierna to reestablish a connection, vierna complies. I don't think lolth knows what personal space is

[utilitycaster]

Brennan: If there were real gods I'd hope they'd be like Ayden and Trist

[nellasbookplanet]

The fandom god discussion is interesting, but I feel it’s sometimes hindered by an unwillingness to separate gods from mortal society, or even a sort of over-eagerness to project our own reality onto them, which simply doesn’t work. I've seen the gods referred to as rulers or tyrants demanding worship (which I kinda understand because it’s something Ludinus says in-game, though it’s funny to see fandom corners confidently repeat the inaccurate talking points of the antagonist) but more interestingly I've also seen them referred to as a higher/the highest social class, as colonizers imposing themselves on mortals, the raven queen specifically as new money. Overall these comparisons tend to talk about the gods and their actions regarding Aeor in the past and predathos/the Vanguard in the present less as if they're about saving their own lives and more as if they want to preserve their powerful position.

The gods, by their very nature, are above mortals. They cannot be compared to any mortal ruling class because they didn’t choose or strive for that power and cannot feasibly get rid of it/step down/redistribute it (nor do they actually in any sense rule; killing the raven queen, unlike killing an actual queen, will not end the 'tyranny' of death), they simply have it by virtue of being gods. Saying that’s unfair or unequal and that the gods should be killed because of it is akin to saying it’s unfair a mountain is bigger than you and demanding it be levelled, except the gods, unlike mountains, are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t have to die because some people can’t stand the idea of not always being top dog. Thing is, the gods themselves ultimately understood this power imballance and that they can't help but hurt Exandria the way humans can't help but step on bugs, and thus removed themselves from the equation by creating the divine gate. Saying this isn’t enough and that they're clinging to power is just demanding they line themselves up to be killed.

[balleater]

something i've already posted about in the past but am thinking about again because of the conversations in this episode is that i still truly do not understand bells hells'(well, particularly ashton's) view on what is going to happen if the information about aeor gets sent out to the people of exandria. obviously, i'm not an average person living in that world and am instead a viewer of the media with fairly extensive knowledge of the lore, so i could definitely just be missing what the impact would actually be! but the insistence that it would be a world shattering revelation that completely turns everyone against the odds just... doesn't make sense to me?

unless ludinus has a way of editing the information he presents and can take away the context, which would basically make the "footage" even more strange, what they're going to be seeing is... the gods saving themselves from people with the active ability to murder them all and having a rather humanizing crisis of what they should do about it? i guess the working with the betrayer gods part could be considered the controversial aspect of it, but overall, considering everything else that was destroyed in the calamity, aeor really was the one instance that was closest to being "justified". i don't think anyone who cares enough about the gods for this to cause any sort of big disruption of faith would have as big of a problem with it as they are assuming, nor do i really think it's something that would cause mass revolts against the gods in people who aren't devout.

[song-of-baldy-ron]

Today I’m thinking of how different a mortal’s fear of death must feel in a world with an established and known afterlife like Exandria. Clearly there is still a natural fear of death/ survival instincts that keep life on Exandria intact, but what of the fear of the unknown/oblivion/simply not existing anymore that is so intrinsically linked to the fear of death in our world?

Are most of Exandria’s mortals even capable of understanding the fear the gods have of beings like Predathos? Is this what the Dawnfather may have meant when he told Cassida there are things she doesn’t understand?

And if the gods are in charge of mortals’ afterlives in Exandria- what happens to those souls when Predathos is released? When Predathos consumes a god, does the god’s followers get eaten/removed from reality alongside them?

[ariadne-mouse]

"Predathos won't cause any collateral damage because it can only metabolize the proteins in gods" -the Ruby Vanguard, probably