Hello There!

"He kills people!" Yes, and so do all the other people in this campaign. There are very few saints in an adventuring party.

"But this is different!" Yes, it is. Because Bolaire was a tool given sentience by people who never gave any thought to what would happen to him or his siblings once they served their purpose. Maybe they were all supposed to be destroyed in the same play that destroyed the halfling shaper? Maybe the people doing the crafting were so desperate that they had neither time nor energy to give a thought to what happened after the death of a god? Maybe they couldn't spend any time considering or discussing it for fear of being discovered? We don't know and we may never know for certain, but that lack of consideration definitely impacts who and what Bolaire is now.

How does a disposable sentient object learn morals? Most creatures are taught that sort of thing in their childhood by their parents. Bolaire and his siblings had no parents and never had a childhood. They knew each other for a day before the play. What they knew of each other, the world, and their personalities was "programmed" into them for one purpose: to get a job done. For decades after that, Bolaire had no sense of self, he was simply a tool of war. He was used by mortals when they needed to destroy and kill, and put away whenever he wasn't needed for those roles. When he began achieving sentience, who were his first teachers about how to treat other beings? The very people who were using him to kill and destroy. Is it really shocking that he treats (some) people as disposable? As means to an end? The traveling play may have given him goals to strive for, but the people who wielded him for decades gave him the roadmap for how to achieve those goals.

How do we gauge how old Bolaire is? Do we date it by his creation or by when he gained sentience? How do you gauge a sentient object's intellectual or emotional age, their level of culpability for their actions? They have no life cycle, no developmental period. Is Bolaire an adult or a child, or do those designations even matter for an entity that never ages? For example, Azune probably killed people as a child soldier but do we give him as a child the same level of culpability for those actions that we expect of him as an adult? Both legally and ethically the answer is usually no.

If Bolaire isn't a person, how can he be culpable for his actions? We don't sentence cars to jail for hitting pedestrians. But unlike cars (as far as we know), Bolaire has thoughts and feelings, so he must be a person. So then why did/do so many people treat him as if he isn't? What is their role in making him what he is now vs his own responsibility for how he shaped himself once he found out he could?

not only he found out that the person who made his life miserable might still be alive but everyone else (exept maybe julien) is so excited about this. he has to watch hal have so much hope again while barely registering bolaire the whole time

the only times hal acknowledged bolaire were to express worry about the body he was inhabiting (totally valid btw, since he was not sure bolaire could inhabit someone without killing them). he didn't say "please don't punch my friend (bolaire)" he said "please don't punch my friend (misha)"

now pair this with thjazi only speaking to bolaire through thimble, calling him an it, now acknowledging him at all

in his mind one of his biggest fears came true. hal is finally seeing him how thjazi saw him

he finally has no one. he's alone. he will leave in the morning and get out of hal's hair. he has to look for his sister's because she's dangerous and hal has to look for his brother because he loves him

Another late night reflection about Bolaire, this time through the lens of my own experience with abuse and trauma.

TW: abuse

'god damn I totally get why Hal reacted the way he did to Bolaire wearing Misha, considering what he knows of Bolaire; and why he was so unreceptive to all the accusations Bolaire made about Thjazi during the Convergence. His reaction was incredibly understandable from the perspective of a guy who is already fucking REELING from so many revelations about a man he loved'

AND 'I think Hal was horrified that Bolaire insinuated that because of Thjazi, Hal might technically be his owner if Thimble isn't, and given the history of the Orcs under Azgra, no wonder this instigated such a disgusted reaction.'

AND 'that doesn't make any of Hal's words justified. It was, in fact, incredibly fucked up that Hal IMMEDIATELY aggressively pinned Bolaire to a sofa rather than simply asking if Misha was alright; and was ONLY concerned with Thjazi hurting Misha, not Bolaire, when Thjazi swung for him; and was so dismissive of Bolaire when he was trying to talk openly for the first time about how Thjazi mistreated him and reduced him to an owned object, in front of a room of people who predominantly love & glaze Thjazi'

AND 'this clearly negatively impacted his relationship with Bolaire and I think Hal realised that and regretted it, when Bolaire was apologising constantly and promising to leave the life he had built with Hal at its centre, and when he specifically asked Azune to help him rather than Hal'

AND 'I think Hal has so much on his plate with the Creed and the incredible work he did with KoTher'ai, his fears for his family and his complex feelings for Thjazi, that it's completely possible that he won't acknowledge this for a long time'

AND 'I think they both need time apart so Bolaire can figure out who he is without Hal, and Hal can come to his own conclusions about whether their friendship was 'real' or not'

AND 'the revelation of how little Hal cares about Bolaire in comparison to other important people in his life (Thjazi, Misha) is going to be devastating for our fucked-up little mask guy who has codependently entangled their lives'

AND 'this will be very good for Bolaire in the long run if the Seekers become part of his wider friendship/support network, which will in turn be VERY good for Hal because their whole ish wasn't healthy in any way and Hal has enough going on that he genuinely can't give Bolaire the emotional support he needs right now'

AND 'I think this is all far more crunchy and interesting than if they had just spoken about their problems like normal people and hugged it out'

Also: “What did he used to say?” “Thimble, please tell it what to do next.”

What did Thjazi have Bolaire do? And was it just a one time thing or multiple times? I need to rewatch Bolaire’s confession in episode 4. I really hope we get a flashback or something. There’s more there and I want to know. I genuinely find Bolaire fascinating and I want to see where Taliesin takes this next arc.

+

Bolaire saying to Hal the first opportunity he gets, three times like a fucking fairytale, "I'll be gone in the morning."

Bolaire completely dropping the Curator's accent and personality, because the role is at an end.

Bolaire saying twice that he had been mistaken in his dream about having a family, once for the Panto and maybe once for Hal and the Schemers.

Bolaire giving Misha the mental theatre experience he had been planning for Hal, with all his architecture books, paper models and talks with Demodus, because he is out of time and gone in the morning, and Misha *is* part of Hal's family, so it was kind of like giving the gift to Hal by proxy, and also maybe Misha would tell him the story of it.

Realising that Bolaire was so angry (frightened?) about Thimble leaving town way back when because he was like a dog left chained up in the backyard when everyone else had moved out, there was no one there to let him go.

Realising that Bolaire's relationship with Hal might have been the first equal relationship he'd had, right up until Thjazi took hold of Bolaire and made Hal part of his line of ownership.

Hal's immediate reaction to seeing Bolaire and Misha - full bardic voice, "this is Not A Thing" - demonstrating that despite everything he still doesn't really trust Bolaire, how it felt like a test imposed not by Bolaire but by the narrative and Hal *failed* and maybe that's when Bolaire knew he didn't have a family here either.

Hal watching how all these other people reacted to learning what Bolaire is for the first time, realising that Tyranny had known Bolaire for less than a day total but still put on the mask and was willing to vouch for him, how Mara's reaction to the revelation of Bolaire's identity was an apology and a promise that she'll protect him, how Azune immediately agreed when Bolaire asked if he would wear him to his apartment (and the pain on Hal's face when that offer wasn't made to him), how Misha talked about his lovely conversation with Bolaire.

Bolaire looking at Mara and recognising parts of himself, especially when she said that she was a soldier, and *then* seeing her keep pushing back loudly and assertively when people around her tried to attribute all of Thjazi's sins to her.

Thjazi never looked at Bolaire because he didn't *want* to see him as a person, because if he did then what he was doing was unconscionable.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III from How to Train Your Dragon is aroace!