Off To Adventure (loosely defined)

That list might say things like “Paint a picture. Go birdwatching. Finish that great novel I started reading. Call my grandma. Learn to bake a cake. Visit my sister. Play piano.”

So I wanted to write a post about Thimble because I've looked into the Thimble tag and found a lot of posts about Occtis, and Julien, and Bolaire.

I'm a big fan of Laura-Fuck-the-Healing-I'm-Doing-Damage-Bailey. I've talked before about how much I loved Jester as someone who, when they were younger, felt like they had to distance themselves from all the girly bits of fantasy because it was a genre of big important heroes and girly stuff marked you as firmly a side character, and often an obnoxious love interest who, the second she walked away, all the REAL characters would shrug their shoulders and shake their head and be like "who can understand women?" Because Jester WAS girly and silly and naive and all of that, but she was a whole character and one of the most interesting ones in the show, and everyone around her just wanted to be around her more.

There's still a part of me that feels absurdly bouyed by the cast saying "well, Vox Machina doesn't have a leader, but also the leader is Vex".

This season Thimble has been the absolute best for stand up and cheer hero moments. She's an absolutely filthy build that maybe shouldn't have been allowed when she only had 3 strength, nevermind now at 19. She is a rogue who is able to disengage and move vertically. She has a spell like ability that grants her automatic advantage against everyone of her choice in 60 feet, and as a swashbuckler she also gets sneak attack as long as she's fighting someone on her own. She's got a misty step according to the wiki.

I love that she's been consistently willing to, well, swashbuckle. To be this daring front line person with the understanding that others are behind her to support. That she makes decisions like "I'm staying behind for Teor." I love that she's been right up there in taking desperate measures.

I have definitely enjoyed the situations her small size has put her in. Grates, bags, some dude's pants. Might get accidentally stepped on while stoned. No one will be able to find her if she hides.

I love that she is as connected as she is to this part of Araman that's inaccessible to a lot of the other characters. I love that, while she's not making a huge deal about it, her body has become uncomfortably mortal, and it's possible that's the fault of her best friend in the whole world. I enjoy that, while she fits comfortably into adventure-genre expectations about heroic violence, she's also a commentary on how hollow revenge can sometimes be. I think there's a good chance her tininess and air of whimsy are mitigating some of horror of the murder lust- though also it helps that she's mainly been going after absolute ghouls (sometimes literally). I mean, that's the genre too, isn't it? There are things that are actual evil and they have to be stopped.

Then Primus Tachonis walks in and slams out instantly-recognizable 9th level spell Power Word Kill, which can only be cast by a character level 17 or higher.

(hannan himself, also at least that old, an active druid this whole time, couldn't have been more than about level 12 or the PWK wouldn't have worked, and i'd guess that he was somewhere more in the level 5-7 range)

and then just in the overture we saw primus use two 7th level spells on the same day (upcast bestow curse on murray, plane shift to find occtis) and a level EIGHTEEN sorcerer ability (umbral form, to steal raimond davinos' skull)

(and while i agree with you wholeheartedly that nothing shows the level of power more than the casual use of power word kill, the 5th level telekinesis on your sister just to make a point is also nothing to sneeze at)

brennan was not at all kidding when he said trying to push amariya cormoray (who is not the head of her house and not yet on primus or yanessa or otto's level) down the stairs was like starting a fight with a dragon