#2x115

as always with beau & caleb they’re masters at being on the same page but expressing it differently. and we haven’t had them do that for a while so i guess it’s easy to forget that they butt heads like this sometimes. but like. by the end of the episode the whole of the m9 are on the same page, in that they’re going in with a plan that involves caution and potential diplomacy rather than outright violence. the sticking point is just how long that diplomacy lasts

beau’s suggestion is smart, & is no different from what the m9 did with avantika -- or the gentleman, or even the dynasty, but avantika is the most apt comparison. i think the difficulty for the others is that, with avantika for example, the plan was always to fake being on her side and then escape/kill her when the opportunity presented itself. so when beau replied to caduceus tonight that there wouldn’t be any deceit in their joining the tomb takers, that they wouldn’t just be pretending, that worried a lot of folks

& i mean, what i took from that is that beau meant they wouldn’t just be faking that they were joining, that they actually would join up with the tomb takers, but they would presumably be faking their allegiance. but it’s a thin line & a difficult one to express and honestly even my reading may be off base, so it’s not surprising that folks jumped to conclusions and made wrong assumptions. it’s especially not surprising that caleb and fjord did so: caleb who has had trust issues for as long as we’ve known him, and fjord who is still dealing with the repercussions of joining up with a morally questionable cult member

so when beau says ‘let’s join up to find out what’s going on’ she’s being smart, but caleb ‘i don’t want to join something if i don’t know what i’m joining’ widogast just hears sirens. he makes it clear he’s down to pretend, to have a conversation with the tomb takers rather than go in guns blazing, but i think it’s the suggested continued involvement that skeeves him out, even though it’s a smart play for sure

i do! or at least, i definitely think there are allegorical elements in the story for sure. tbh it seems to me that it’s about 60-40 allegory for jester to allegory for caleb himself

i think it’s pretty clear the ways it echoes jester’s childhood & her relationship with artagan, as you say. & like. it’s such a perfect little gift for jester/laura, & a really good encapsulation of how well caleb gets jester’s relationship with artagan. here’s this child who’s introduced to a magical world far more exciting than their own, who has a strong connection to a morally-ambiguous fey entity, who deeply loves their mother, & for whom the experience as a whole is a good one

where i think the caleb allegory comes in is with the ending. bc while the boy in the story decides to leave the magical world to return to his mother, jester’s never done that. she’s never had to choose between artagan and her mother, that we know of. she did have a momentary crisis where she regretted leaving home, when the adventuring life became frightening and overwhelming, but she didn’t actually return to her mother. she still lives in her magical world, she’s never had to leave, she’s never had to choose

on the other hand, caleb, like jester, was brought into a more exciting, magical world at a young age by a powerful mentor. ofc where they differ is that jester’s guardian is, as they put it, sometimes questionable but overall pretty good, whereas caleb’s teacher was... not. so while caleb might not have returned to his mother like the boy in the story, we know he wishes he did -- and for a long time, still intended to, in some way or another. unlike jester, he was forced to choose, & he bitterly regrets the choice he made. the ending of der katzenprinz is the ending caleb should have had. & i think it’s no coincidence that he mentioned his mother reading this story to him, whether that was caleb drawing a connection or liam ensuring we had caleb’s mother fresh in our minds for the story

HUH that’s a super interesting observation actually. there were a bunch of parallels tonight, thinking about it -- from early empire siblings vibes to that sun tree scare with the two humans and a goblin, & even fjord and jester being helped out of a net by fellow iron shepherds abductee yasha

jester’s quiet sadness in her message to molly/lucien is actually very reminiscent of how she behaved immediately after being rescued from the iron shepherds, how subdued she was. & fjord being so protective of jester but also the entire m9 in how he spoke to the scrying orb reminded me a lot of how personally responsible he felt for them being kidnapped, & by extension molly’s death