Talesin reminds me of a guy I play DnD with who's a fine guy but very rigid in his thinking and once spent literally ten minutes explaining step by step in the vaguest way possible how his character made a shiv, and when the DM, his wife, asked early on if he was making a shiv he was literally like "let me cook" only to proudly state he'd made a shiv several minutes of agonizing description later and he insisted he both did not recognize that he'd ground the pace to a total halt and did not realize his wife had lost her patience like ten minutes ago.
ok I'm going to answer this one because it's a good anecdote and I have stuff to say but I am going to pre-emptively note that like. I think a lot of people in the fandom are frustrated with specifically how Bolaire is being played and not just Bolaire as an individual, ie, this is a question of craft and not just character; but I'm going to stick to this one post for today unless I get questions that are like, deeper dives into my shit. If you have similar feelings, great, I support you, but please make your own posts; I will elaborate in my final paragraph as to why.
More than one person has privately said something to me to the effect of "I would move heaven and earth and fall to my knees and thank the ghost of Gary Gygax for my good fortune to have a player like Aabria or Travis or Liam or Luis at my table; and also I played with someone who was doing the same kind of shit I'm seeing with Bolaire's portrayal and I did not care for it." I also share this feeling, for what it's worth; two of my least favorite things in D&D as both a DM and a player is "person who tries to avoid consequences for the whole table when I, personally, am interested" and "person who is being cagey for no particular reason" and I have encountered both. I am not saying this is a truth universally acknowledged, but like. this is becoming a very common complaint across the fandom not because of some sort of groupthink phenomenon (see end of the post for commentary on the fandom situation), but because a lot of CR fans have played D&D and independently recognized that Bolaire is reminding of them of Annoying Stuff From Their Personal D&D Experience.
I do feel it's specific to Bolaire and maybe started with Ashton because again, I don't feel like this was a problem with Percy and Caduceus. I also feel, to be blunt, that Brennan (and the rest of the cast) is not treating Taliesin differently than anyone else, but is like, putting in place consequences for Bolaire's action or inaction. Like, yeah, actually, because you did not listen to Amariya and carefully manage her and let her think you're doing what she wants while working against her, the way that Murray is doing with Kora and Hal did with the Halovars and Azune is doing with Einfasen, she is fucking mad at you. Because you did not do anything when Termina showed up in the coffin that had already been a major obvious neon sign INVESTIGATE ME macguffin from episode 1, Termina is out and on Lady Cormoray's face and also mad at you. Because you keep showing up to your grieving bestie and talking about how horrible his brother was except the one time when he was mad at his brother, your friend is now growing frustrated with your fixation on that. Because you keep saying shit with no evidence other than vibes, other characters are pointing that out as a pattern. Like, nothing seems unfair and everyone who is irritated in-game seems absolutely justified - and for what it is worth this is not solely negative! Demodus thanked him! He got to fuck with the Mercanauds in a way that was pretty fun! His drawing of Figment and himself has come to life from the paint! It's just, there's consequences for all of his choices that, if you look at my post just now about signaling, are saying "you will be rewarded for engaging with the plot hooks that are provided or for taking interesting risks, and you will be discouraged from inaction or playing it too safe". And also, this goes both ways. If you aren't investing in relationships with other characters, they won't have reason to do so with you. If you don't reward people asking you what your deal is but just sulk, then they'll stop asking you what your deal is. If people ask to run a scene with you and you say no, they won't keep asking.
here is where I am going to briefly take the opportunity to go off on the fandom situation. Look. I get it isn't fun if the bulk of the fandom is getting frustrated with your blorbo or your favorite player. I have in fact been in that spot. and you know what I did. I wrote a lot of posts. and people liked them. and I grew popular from making a lot of good posts. If you are whining about how the bnfs have it out for your poor baby and have bewitched the sycophantic hivemind fandom? that is a convenient lie you are telling yourself to avoid the truth, that you are not the Chosen One Main Character who perceives reality and everyone else is mindless sheeple under the control of a small group of Evil Sorceresses, but rather that many people, all of whom are just as capable of independent thought as you [and it's deeply fucked up and shitty of you that you automatically assumed they weren't] don't like your blorbo and have the free will to say that they don't like your blorbo and you are powerless to stop it - as you should be. I am powerless to stop people saying they don't like my blorbo. I can argue why I disagree, but I cannot shut down anyone else's blog nor should I be able to. All any of us have is our knowledge of the text (which is equally available to everyone and available in searchable format for free) and our words. So you can keep throwing tantrums, but all you're saying is "I think people are obligated to agree with me without me doing anything about it" like no wonder you're into a character who seems to feel the same.
ANYWAY. back to the original point. yeah it's just a matter of, and I've been saying this for weeks, a very uncollaborative approach that is not focused much on story in the collaborative storytelling game, and I was over the "well it's everyone else's fault actually" excuse before it even began. I really do hope that being in a large group away from dol-makjar and the archanade is going to help and if it does I will gladly begin praising the character, but like, I don't give prizes until you've won them.
