The play may be over, but the show goes on

"I'm very much alone now. I am more alone than I have ever been," Bolaire retorts in the conversation at Hal's, after Thaisha tells him "You're not alone anymore, Bolaire." He is immersed in his differences from the party, their perception of Thjazi versus his own experience, the rediscovery of (and schism with) Termina, and his general grief about losing his Panto family. He cannot see the commonalities between his own tragedy and those of his peers, instead isolating himself as uniquely miserable. And so Brennan leverages Bolaire's drawing of himself - made with paint of raw potentiality - which talks to him, learns they are both "Bolaire", and says overjoyed and weeping, "I'm not alone!". Bolaire is surrounded by people; being alone is partly a function of whether you are willing to build connections, to see the self in the other, and vice versa. Sometimes you just need a tiny little avatar of your own face to tell you it's possible.

And then the coffin. Bolaire at this point in the conversation has been leaning heavily on his self-identity as a thing, a tool - a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill a very specific god: Rauwyn. Even though he vocally despises Thjazi for treating him like a thing, he's also struggling with the idea that it might be true. He cannot bring himself to declare he is a person and that he has agency over his choices and destiny. Can things dream? Can things create? (Can things improvise and choose new paths?). He's not sure. He's not ready to forge a new sense of self yet. And so upon a successful arcana check on the coffin of Olbalad, Brennan gives him an echo of Rauwyn's revelry and frames it very clearly that so long as Rauwyn's afterlife remains sealed away, and the souls trapped, the goddess is still exerting influence. Her oppressive power lives on. And should Bolaire wish to interpret it this way: his job as a weapon is not done.

And so whether Bolaire rises to the challenge of building connections and recognizing his personhood and agency (I'm Bolaire! I'm not alone!), or for the moment falls back on his original purpose (I'm a tool and my purpose is to vanquish a god), or combines them and chooses to echo his old purpose with a new sense of agency, all of these paths tie him firmly to the party and their goal of freeing the various afterlives. Tying him to the group that is leaving the city in particular also moves Bolaire out of his familiar environment and into a scenario where he will have to improvise more, rely more directly on the party instead of his own local network and resources, and otherwise be pushed to change and confront his own perceptions about himself and the world.

He said, "Not you, anyone but you" when he saw Azune was the Arcane Marshal assigned to scan him, so he realised what position this would put him in. He knew Azune would immediately be arrested if he escaped. But - he only realised he had to actually die when he saw Mara. So there were a few minutes in there - standing on that stage, joking around with his brother over their lunch plans - that he was fully prepared to snap the glyph and put Azune in the noose instead.

there’s just something about bolaire starting the episode saying he’s more alone than he’s ever been and ending it standing there in his apartment looking at a flip book about the cat that escaped the story that was written for it, made by a young wizard who attributes everything he has to bolaire and didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, and when brought to tears by it, presumably crying from the eyes of the man who first found out what he really is and instinctively pushed in closer while everyone else, to some extent or another, pulled away.

like, i’m pretty we’ve heard bolaire talk with other people about his own views on his personhood (or lack thereof), but azune is the first who really seems to have his own thoughts on it — he believes bolaire is a person, even if bolaire doesn’t, and he’s started sort of…softly but firmly making it clear that he believes that. azune was shaped by thjazi into the man he is now in so many ways, but where thjazi called bolaire “it” and refused to even look at him, azune reaches out to touch him and insists on looking for signs of personhood where even bolaire himself can’t see them. being shaped by someone doesn’t mean becoming them — in a lot of ways, bolaire was shaped by thjazi too, and they came out of that experience feeling very differently about the man but very similarly about themselves in ways that they’ve now been able to start untangling together: the man who watches other people having moments of closeness and joy from afar and then sits in front of a mirror privately making himself look like the man who was almost his father, and the one watching life through plays and stories and seeing the truth in it but assuming himself to be incapable of being a real participant in that truth and then withdrawing into his mind to privately play out a better version of recent events where his sister loves him and is glad to have him back.