Playlist Breakdown: Thjazi Fang
Critical Role DJ Masterpost
Nothing of what we’ve learned about Thjazi from Bolaire or Azune & Julien’s exchange has inspired me to add further songs to Thjazi’s playlist for the time being. However I will add more once when/if we get a more well-rounded vision of his actual relationship to Bolaire, and if we find out what actually happened between Julien and Thjazi at the end of the Rebellion.
Going forward though I will be explaining why I chose and/or am removing songs from each of my character playlists going forward and I don’t feel like I can do that unless I explain why the base 25 are there in the first place!
SO! Musical meta deep dive for Thjazi Fang under the cut!
Hero by Heather Dale “We left behind a message that cannot be claimed by death.” I am, and have been for a LONG time, an absolutely huge Heather Dale fan. I intended this playlist to roughly outline Thjazi’s life in reverse more or less. I feel this song strongly encapsulates Thjazi’s words and sentiment seconds before his death. Decrying those who were soon to execute him and leaving behind a message and a martyrdom that has set all of our central characters into motion.
Across the Seven Realms from The Bard's Tale “Now I shine above her, the town from where I roam. Forever looking homeward, but never going home.” Thjazi clearly lived a life of many battles, adventures and was a great agent of change with the best intentions at heart. He fell seemingly trying to make right the machinations of others. This song encapsulates, I believe, less so his personality and more his legacy and the tales that are sure to be woven of him by friends and bards alike.
Burn the Witch by Shawn James “Oh, I won’t scream, won’t give them the satisfaction. I won’t confess my false interaction. Now as I breathe deep and prepare for my passing. I hear them chant ‘Burn the witch!’” I absolutely love the way that arcanism/wizardry is framed as the magic of the people in the world of Aramán. Amongst Thjazi’s many crimes was “befouling arcanism”. That combined with the Halovars having a large hand in his death and he himself saying he was falsely accused in his final words. This song sprung to mind for me almost immediately.
Dearest Sarah by Goodnight, Texas “Understand my inner fight I didn’t choose the war. I sided with democracy and that is what I’m dying for. Oh Sarah, my love for you is deathless” This is one of four songs I placed on Thjazi’s playlist influenced by his relationship with Aranessa. It is multilayered for every battle we know he fought circles back to her in some way. The War of Axe & Vine is what made him a hero and we can assume led to their meeting, and their parting due to the Falconer’s Rebellion. I sincerely believe this song captures the spirit of what he might’ve said to her if he’d gotten the chance before his untimely demise.
Amen from Frankenstein: The Musical “I have my sins like any man, but none more dark than yours. If it is I you choose to damn, innocent blood will stain your hands forevermore.” Again running with the theme of his execution with a layer of personal bitterness. However, if we’re using Thjazi as the man who becomes Frankenstein’s monster. The role of Victor Frankenstein could, depending on the context, be filled by Halandil, Occtis or even Wicander depending on how you’d like to interpret it!
Inkpot Gods by The Amazing Devil “If I don’t make it back from where I’ve gone, just know I loved you all along.” Yet another song devoted in pat to Aranessa, though you could interpret one of the two members of this duet as Thimble or even Halandil if you’d like. A bittersweet mix of knowing you’re going to die and wanting to assure others to be brave and to leave behind a legacy of standing up for what is right, and one of love for those you’re leaving behind.
Farewell by Bernth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C5fUQYHyPE There are quite literally no words for this song, I highly recommend however, checking out this YouTube video on how this song was made, essentially the swan song of a dying guitar being played as it slowly drowns in water. Not entirely unlike the slowly fading hope that Thjazi will be rescued before his final bows. I thought it a good way to bookend the cloister of songs that provoked images of his final days to me.
Black Fox by Heather Dale “Ride on, my gallant huntsman, when must I come again. For you should never want for a fox to chase all over the glen.” This song inaugurates the chapter of this playlist devoted to Thjazi’s post-Rebellion machinations devoting his time to machinations unknown, save for their intent to foil the plans of the Sundered Houses. It, after all, took them over a decade to catch him, those devoted to hunting him down could be the very hunting party in this story song!
Vampire by People In Planes “Who is the spy in your campaign, is it the wife or is it your advisor?” Believe it or not, I had this song on this playlist before I made that it could be a symbolic connection to Obalad’s coffin and Bolaire’s reveal. I intended this to represent Thjazi’s under the table dealings and the less than savory company therein. However it also happens to double in representing Thjazi’s apparent deep distrust of Bolaire as well!
Aha! by Imogen Heap “Aha! Caught you now, caught red handed in the biscuit tin. ‘Cause you didn’t keep me quiet.” This song popped into my head as Thjazi’s many faces include a solver of puzzles. Thimble and Thjazi’s clandestine exploits stealing the Stone of Nightsong and Coffin of Obalad. Perhaps sparked by his discovery of the Tachonis’s plan. As well as being generally disdainful of those in power.
Cult of Personality by Living Colour “Like Mussolini and Kennedy, I’m the cult of personality.” If Thjazi left nothing else in his wake both in his life and in his death, it was in fact a cult of personality. Charming to the last, even after defeat and driven into shadow. A rebel leader in disgrace to some and a martyr to others. I can only imagine the Torn Banner’s persistence and his machinations after the Rebellion were helped in no small part by his charm.
2 Falken by Faun “Two falcons came flying from up there, and one of them flew hard into the other, and red drops fell down.” (Translation from German to English) This beautiful and grim song tumbles the sadness and chaos of Thjazi’s (alleged) capture by Julien Davinos in one part. His and Aranessa’s final parting after Thjazi begged her to run away with him in another. As well as ultimately foreshadowing the death that waited for him due to the life he lead after the Rebellion.
Firefly Main Title by Sonny Rhodes “Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me.” From the get-go, the Falconer’s Rebellion and its loss called to mind the failed rebellion from the sci-fi series Firefly, a heroic Rebellion lost to the rich and powerful. Symbolically this is more or less a kindred spirit to the many interpretations of the “Broken Wing” Rebellion song whose many interpretations have yet to breach Spotify.
Last Night Of The Kings by Van Canto “We are the folk and we have the right to stand up and to fight for an independent life.” This song symbolizes the Rebellion at its absolute height. Determined, outraged and confident, an eagerness to spill the blood of unearned wealth and privilege. I figured the rockapella version of this song would be a wonderful fit as disparate voices all did their part to hold their own, however fleeting, against the Sundered Houses.
Change on the Rise by Avi Kaplan “Fend off the enemy, sing out the jubilee, with all the fire we can breathe.” A twin song to Last Night of The Kings, however I believe it bridges the gap between that song and the symbolism behind the next song. A rallying behind a promise and a symbol that has turned from mere words to violence and the promise of a war against the nobility oppressing the masses.
Ede M Chante (Help Me To Sing) by Boukan Ginen “There are too many problems in my country. We cannot find a way. I have to sing this song.” (Translation from Haitian to English) I consider this song to represent Thjazi embracing whatever call to action allowed him to throw aside the fruits of his heroics that the War of Axe and Vine had won him. Whether he was inclined to violent Rebellion right out of the gate or not. This song is deliberately more joyful, declarative and optimistic than the violence that precedes it in this backwards journey.
Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas “And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don’t know.” This is the crescendo of the cognitive dissonance between Thjazi’s knowledge of the oppression of the commonwealth by the Sundered Houses and his happiness as a newlywed member of House Royce. All in the two brief years of peace which followed the war that allowed him to rise to such a station in the first place.
Fearless Hero by Antonio Banderas “Who is your favorite fearless hero?” Could I offer a song with which to drown your doubts about your own heroics and faltering sense of bravado by embracing the hype that surrounds you in order to feel like you earned the position you suddenly find yourself in, anyone?
Dancing Through Life from Wicked “Stop studying strife, and learn to live the unexamined life.” The birth of cognitive dissonance, the death of the honeymoon phase of heroism. You won a war and you’ve got a wife who loves you and a new best friend. You live in a ritzy palace! Soooooo… Why are you unhappy?
Tam Lin by Anaïs Mitchell “And he has laid this lady down among the roses green.” Who is Tam Lin and who is Janet in this love story, who can say? Did Aranessa’s Fae charms lure Thjazi to Carterhaugh or did Thjazi’s heroics whisk Aranessa away? Both? Both is good. An old faerie love story for a tale as old as time, leaning into the whirlwind classic romance of a hero and his lady fair that followed the War of Axe & Vine.
Brother by Kodaline “And if you were drowned at sea, I’d give you my lungs so you could breathe.” My thoughts linger on the oft passed over factoid that Halandil fought in the War of Axe and Vine. Perhaps the Fang brothers were conscripted, perhaps not, the details are yet to unfold. I can only imagine they looked out for each other, a through line that carried their lives until the present.
Bremen by PigPen Theatre Co. “But how long did we think we could walk we could sing before our voices gave out and our limbs gave in?” The beginning of tale to hint at the diverging paths of a playwright and a swashbuckling legend. Hal and his creator (Liam) have hinted that the Fang brothers did not and perhaps never did see eye to eye on certain things and ways of looking at the world. This is the call to the response the following song sets out.
Secret Worlds by The Amazing Devil “And on that tree, I’ll carve your name. ‘Cause in years to come we both know we won’t be the same.” There is no lyric or implication in this song that does not shriek of Thjazi and Halandil’s childhood to me. Wild and reckless, together yet also wildly different. The shadows of hubris and understandings of the world I tried to invoke with Bremen become more wild and desperate in this song’s reply to its whimsy. The themes and place in time is more fluid for this song, it’s floodplain reaching the post-mortem present. As I’m almost certain Hal will have to write to get his feelings around his brother out at some point.
All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix “There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief.” Two young orcish Dol-Makjaran boys, literally brothers from another mother. They look upon a world that restricts them in some ways, sets them free in others. Each decide, in their own form and fashion, that they want to be something more. Who is the joker, and who is the thief?
Here's a Health to the Company by David Coffin & The Revels Chorus “For we know not when we will all meet again.” This final song sits in all points and times of Thjazi’s life. Thjazi was a many of many faces and many, many friends from a ridiculous diversity of walks. His legacy is not wicked, but it is not wholly good. If anything even remotely simple comes to mind to sum up the life of this once presumed titular character, it would be “reckless abandon”.
