So, dipping into Critical role, watching, reading, whatnot, about Campaign 2, and- alright. So, I should say I love all the characters in the Mighty Nein and their actors. I am not an anti or something, just, once I noticed I just couldn’t unnotice-
Caleb really should have bailed from the group, like early on. I get why he didn’t, but Christ alive, they were not great. They seemed just really intense about Caleb. Like, they are all shady asshole criminals, plus whatever you’d classify Jester as, but Caleb is the one, early on, who seems to catch shit. Like Nott is a kleptomaniac alcoholic and she is generally treated with a lot more trust and respect in the early times. Because Caleb is dirty, stingy and traumatized??? I guess??? But it was at manageable levels until bowlgate.
I know- I know, fucking bowlgate. I’m very good at both siding arguments. Very good. But Beau was straight up wrong. Caleb found a thing, identified it, and brought the decision about what to do about to the group. Just like they’ve been wanting him to do. And it somehow came up and bit him in the ass. He got snapped at and dogpiled on for asking if it was a good idea to give a powerful magic artifact like this to someone they’ve just met. He wasn’t letting his past shit dictate anything, he was just doing what he thought the group wanted. Beau projected what she was doing onto Caleb and because Caleb is the most obviously traumatized everybody just went with it. If he was trying to control the situation himself, he would of hide to bowl away to try and destroy himself or even try to keep it for himself as a nice backup for if he didn’t figure out time magic. Maybe a deal with the devil would help with his goals if nothing else worked. But he didn’t do those things. Beau was the one making her trauma someone else’s problem, and they just let it happen. Like, I love Beau, I get why she did that, I even get why the other characters didn’t really see what had actually happened there.
But boy, I wouldn’t have blamed Caleb for not accepting Beau’s shitty apology and leaving in the night once they got to town if he decided to do it. Because at this point, he’s with a group of loud attention grabbers who just don’t understand how dangerous the world is like he does. And they don’t understand anything at all, they really don’t. And the person who used an ultimatum to get him to tell his secret backstory too just threw it in his face just days later (I think). This group don’t just want him to move on from his past, they want him to ignore his lived experience so they can make shitty choices. Like, yeah, Cal was being honest and was good, but if she wasn’t? If later, they were all in deep shit because they let her have the bowl, with the way they treated him generally at that point, would the Nein really have not given him shit for letting them give it to her when he knew better? At this point, from Caleb’s point of view, nothing Caleb does is right, he seems to catch shit no matter what, and because he hates himself he rolls with it, but I could totally see him being like “I’m all for getting punished for being the piece of shit I am, but if I’m going get shit on, I’d rather it be for shit I actually did or that is actually wrong.” And just dipping. Like, good that he didn’t, but oof.
Like past his early hoarding issue, most problems with him either aren’t problems, just him acting logically based on the info he has and his goals, or are just him being cagey about his past. Or atleast nothing worse than what everybody else was doing. But after Molly, there was really no good time to leave, and the group’s general lack of ability to understand the forces at play and how deep of shit he’s in only gets worse. As much as I love how the story played out, after bowlgate or Molly he should have dipped. Because that group was just straight up not equipped to properly deal with his ptsd and the widespread consequences of his backstory. Love them all to pieces, but oof. They had him like… constantly in danger of blowing his cover. And really didn’t understand what that would mean for them. Like, if his cover got blown any earlier than it did, their asses would have been grass. Until he showed up right in front of him, Trent didn’t know if he was dead or alive, he might have suspicions that the wizard in that mercenary group he’d heard about was Bren, but he couldn’t be sure until he saw it himself. If he knew earlier, he probably would have been getting harassment sendings well before that point-
I’m getting away from myself. This got really rant-y. Very uncoordinated, oof. Rip. I’m sorry about this, I promise I’m not a hater. Swear.
