#they do pick up kima and allura at some point this season again so i cant wait for that

[gorgynei]

saying this bc i know you’re as invested in the lore as me, i do wonder why they decided to merge the temples of bahamut and erathis? perhaps copyright reasons or perhaps it’s too confusing to have a good dragon god in a season about evil dragons, regardless i think it’s interesting since kima *had* the symbol of bahamut on her design in s1 and guards of the platinum sanctuary have similar armor but with the axe symbol instead of the dragon

oh interesting! i actually didnt notice that when i was watching it. i went back to rewatch the scene a few times and i think whats actually going on is the dawnmartials (which includes highbearer vord) are just holding a meeting in the temple of erathis, percy even says they come from different temples. bahamut probably still has his own somewhere, we just dont get to see it, i dont think theyre merged. but the choice to show less bahamut in general could be because a "good dragon god" might be confusing, like you said

as for the armor, i bet its probably just the traditional/standard issue armor for vasselheim soldiers

[aspiringsophrosyne]

The Legend of Vox Machina: Season One and Two Post Mortem

So, season 1 and 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina are now out.

Let's do a post mortem on them.

One caveat: the CRew has said in interviews and behind the scenes videos that they wanted to take future events into account when writing early seasons. This means some things in the first twenty-four episodes aren't meant to pay off until later, or won't make sense except in hindsight. Especially if the story's significantly changed from the stream.

However, keeping that in mind, I think we can still look at what the episodes we've seen so far have done right and wrong on their own.

So, let's get to it!!

Episodes 1-2: The Terror of Tal'dorei

Given that the kickstarter for this series was only meant to pay for a thirty minute special that grew to an hour long season opening, I had certain expectations going in.

Basically, pilot energy.

And I was not disappointed. That isn't necessarily bad, but you could detect an extra hard push in this series' beginning. A push to prove itself, establish that this was a capital 'A' adult animation, and that it had somewhere to go from season one. Again not bad....except that some of that energy may have overstayed its welcome at this point.

But we'll get there.

First, let's talk about the good.

The Good

The VAs of the main cast are of course spot the fuck on, which was a given. They are all talented professionals who made these characters, after all. But it was still a thrill hearing them voice VM again after they'd been playing as the Nein and the Hells for so long.

The guests are no slouch either: David Tenant is in turn affably and menacingly Scottish, Indira Varma and Stephanie Beatriz are perfect as Allura and Kima, and Khary Payton, in very little time, portrays Uriel as a regal and noble ruler. Tony Hale makes for a great red herring, and Sunil Malhotra brings a warm, playful yet sincere portrayal of Shaun Gilmore to absolute life. As much passion and verve as Matt poured into the character, I'm glad he handed the role off to someone who's taking such good care of it.

Emon is beautiful. No notes whatsoever. The palace, the city, Gilmore's Glorious Goods....all of it is like a dream come to life. Art team is killing it.

Character design? For these characters? Pretty spot on. Everyone has great, economical designs that are still very recognizable as the Vox Machina we know and love.

Neil's music is sweeping and gorgeous. He brings such a grandiose sense of scale to the world; a scale which Exandria deserved, but I wasn't sure she would be able to get. His use of Your Turn to Role in the soundtrack is always fun to pick out. And last but not least, the themes of the Iron Storm fights in particular serve to get the blood pumping.

Said fights are also a blast. The second one obviously wins out just by nature of it being more of a contested battle, but both have just the right amount of a struggle to make the survival and eventual victory of Vox Machina feel earned. Everyone building on each other's efforts, one after another, in order to bring down Brimscythe once and for all is just perfection. That was the moment it really felt like Vox Machina had truly come alive in this new medium. It's still so much fun to look back on.

One thing the show devotes itself to frequently (sometimes very well and sometimes quite ham-fistedly) is set up for future events. In this instance, I think this was done quite well in the décor of Krieg's abode, and in the orbs (that, according to the cast, were straight out of the home game) that tie the rest of the Conclave to Vox Machina, and specifically Keyleth to Raishan, for future conflicts.

Alright, so? On to the shitty bits.

The Shitty Bits.

In all honesty, there's not much to write here if only because the two parter that starts things off is such a short, self-contained story. Most of my complaints here are nitpicky and come down to personal preference. My bigger problems are things that have carried over into the series at large, and, as of my writing this, either have not gotten better or have gotten better only a negligible amount. These I'll be addressing in full later, so I won't waste time on them here.

Nitpick: Allura's line about capturing the creature is a little awkward. I would switch it around.

From:

"With all due respect Sir Fince, we don't even know what the creature is. Demon? Elemental? And how do you propose we capture it?"

To:

"And how do you propose we capture it? With all due respect Sir Fince, we don't even know what the creature is. Demon? Elemental?"

And of course the "dumbass" remains unsaid, because Allura, in every iteration, is classy like that.

Nitpick: I'm disappointed that when Vax was accused of being "Too weak to tickle [his] own pickle." Pike didn't pipe up from the other side of the bar with: "No he's not!"

Nitpick: The bit with the sandwich feels very contrived in order to get Vax a toothpick and ruin said sandwich. Just saying, could've done it in a way that felt more natural. Or done something else entirely.

A couple of times in Season One Grog get's knocked out of the fight early. This could be an example of the Worf Effect, where a threat is made to look particularly dangerous if it takes out the big/strong/especially skilled guy in the group. However, if you want to pull this but you don't give the character a chance to prove how strong they are in a challenging battle before you do, it's not going to be incredibly effective. (We only had the tavern brawl before this, and just about everyone had a good showing there.) And even if you do give the character that chance, depending on how you use this trope, it can come off as cheap.

This comes up again later, so I'm just pointing it out now.

This next bit is one that'll come up again as well, so I feel like I need to bring this up here before getting into it again later; Scanlan is the first to declare they're killing the dragon. It's not unlikely that he's just reading the room and realizes that everybody else is turning to the idea already.....but he doesn't try to dissuade them or try to get out of it himself.

This is important for season 2.

That's it for now. On to episode 3: The Feast of Realms.