S03.E12: Souls in Darkness

[AnimeMania]

(Season Finale)

Merging her soul with a red dragon corpse, Raishan becomes an unkillable, undead monstrosity. She battles Vox Machina in her lair, trying to erase them before they can foil her plans.

Premiere Date: October 24, 2024    Prime Video 

[PurpleTentacle]

I really thought it would be Pike's journey that would lead to the resurrection. Especially since Ashley Johnson hinted that there was a lot more to come for her character and then there was nothing. Although they are already well under way with the production of season 4 and I think they were even written together, so maybe she meant that.

Speaking of, I think they should be able to wrap this up in one season and then it's off to the Mighty Nein. Or do you guys think they'll take two more seasons?

So Kashaw is most sincerely dead? That's a wild thing to do. It might lend credence to my theory, that Bells Hells is the last campaign in Exandria. They basically know that he won't play a bigger role in the future, since they are almost at the end.

Speculation that could be a slight spoiler:

Spoiler

I think we won't be seeing a certain artificer, for whom women really aren't the right fit. Bummer, but understandable with how you'd streamline this story.

Though maybe I'm wrong and we'll see him next season.

Great season. Can't wait for more. We should be getting the next one sometime next year. So not such a big break this time.

Edited October 24 by PurpleTentacle

[Spaceman Spiff]

This season didn't wow me like the prior 2 did, and I think it's because they changed a lot from table to screen, or I felt they did. My memory of the later half of campaign 1 is iffy.

I don't think we needed the back story of Allura and Kima, as well tossing those 2 into the White Dragon fight, but since they removed Raishan from helping during that battle I guess they needed to add "someone" and, frankly they are paying the voice actors already, may as well give them more to do.

Also no need to throw in Zerxus from Calamity, just cause.

On 10/24/2024 at 4:23 PM, PurpleTentacle said:

So Kashaw is most sincerely dead? That's a wild thing to do.

This bothered me, especially since Kash and Zahra help them when they eventually go after the Whispered One (S4 arc). Unless that is part of my hazy memory.

Other things I found questionable.

J’mon Sa Ord being absent from the from the battle.

The dragon eggs never hatched, yet here they did and attacked White Stone as if that place and it's people haven't suffered enough. It was Fort Daxio that was attacked by Thordak's forces.

Having Ripley being killed by just Vax and Vex. It was all of them that took out Ripley and that is when Percy fell. She seemed to be "getting away" too often in the show

Pike forsaking the Everlight because her blood was magical...??

I really liked the Percy/Vex romance in the game, it was always understated and subtle but appreciated. So I felt the full on sex scene was a misstep here, IMO it should have ended with Vex dragging Percy into the room and throwing him against the wall, we as an audience can construe the rest.

I knew that a Bard Lament wasn't going to occur, and glad they skipped it.

The long time it took them to resurrect Percy he was there for the Raishan fight.

I get they felt they had to streamline some things, so this season was meh for me.

 

 

 

 

[AnimeMania]

On 10/24/2024 at 5:23 PM, PurpleTentacle said:

So Kashaw is most sincerely dead?

I thought they showed his soul being captured by The Raven Queen, so I figured he would become something similar to Vax'ildan. 

[PurpleTentacle]

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought they showed his soul being captured by The Raven Queen, so I figured he would become something similar to Vax'ildan. 

The Raven Queen is the godess of death. She farries all souls to their appropriate afterlifes. She only has one champion and that is Vax. So she didn't capture Kashaw so much, as escorted him to the afterlife.

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

This season didn't wow me like the prior 2 did, and I think it's because they changed a lot from table to screen, or I felt they did. My memory of the later half of campaign 1 is iffy.

There were quite a few changes. But I think most were necessary. It just got more combat-heavy with ever bigger combats and you can't really go "Yeah we are all HP-sponges!" in an animated show and still keep it exciting. So they had to come up with something that would be believable.

Interestingly as a result Draconia wasn't destroyed. Another point towards them knowing that the change won't matter in the future.

I think the Mighty Nein will be easier to adapt.

Spoiler

They stoped at a lower level and really only face humanoid-ish villains.

 

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Also no need to throw in Zerxus from Calamity, just cause.

Well, they had to combine their trips to the hell and the fire plane, because otherwise that would have been repetative. Then they needed an interesting advesary in the hells and so why not Zerxus? It's not like they set up that Rakshasa from the campaign.

Might as well use Zerxus, maybe set up for a Calamity movie that may or may not happen. (I personally really hope it will. Calamity is my favourite thing they've ever done.)

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Spoiler

This bothered me, especially since Kash and Zahra help them when they eventually go after the Whispered One (S4 arc). Unless that is part of my hazy memory.

Spoiler

They do help in the final fight against Vecna, yes. Zahra even has a bun in the oven, by Kash, at that point.

 

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

J’mon Sa Ord being absent from the from the battle.

The dragon eggs never hatched, yet here they did and attacked White Stone as if that place and it's people haven't suffered enough. It was Fort Daxio that was attacked by Thordak's forces.

Having Ripley being killed by just Vax and Vex. It was all of them that took out Ripley and that is when Percy fell. She seemed to be "getting away" too often in the show

Most of these can be chalked up to better flow. Although I agree that Ripley got away one too many times. Really could have tightened that up.

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Pike forsaking the Everlight because her blood was magical...??

Basically they want to give Pike a storyline. She didn't have one in the original campaign, since Ashley was constantly in New York, filming Blindspot. So they went for the most generic one you could think of for a cleric. The crisis of faith. It is yawn-inducing, I agree.

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

I really liked the Percy/Vex romance in the game, it was always understated and subtle but appreciated. So I felt the full on sex scene was a misstep here, IMO it should have ended with Vex dragging Percy into the room and throwing him against the wall, we as an audience can construe the rest.

Agreed. It was always nice that it wasn't the vomit-inducing Vax/Kiki romance.

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

I knew that a Bard Lament wasn't going to occur, and glad they skipped it.

Also agreed. That was so flimsy and clearly just Sam trying to get out of having to play Scanlan any longer. Some fans are pissed though, let me tell you. And their explainations of why the Bard's lament was the greatest thing ever are just as flimsy as the lament itself...

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought they showed his soul being captured by The Raven Queen, so I figured he would become something similar to Vax'ildan. 

The Raven Queen is the godess of death. She farries all souls to their appropriate afterlifes. She only has one champion and that is Vax. So she didn't capture Kashaw so much, as escorted him to the afterlife.

I thought maybe The Raven Queen had more that one champion since Vax'ildan said that he and the guy that give him the information about the boat were the same, so I don't really know what he meant by that.

[PurpleTentacle]

1 minute ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought maybe The Raven Queen had more that one champion since Vax'ildan said that he and the guy that give him the information about the boat were the same, so I don't really know what he meant by that.

Oh, they were/are both in the clasp, which is a thieves guild. That Vax was in there came up in an earlier season. I didn't even remember it from critical role, as that was pretty much done with before they started streaming, so mostly confined to their home game.

Gods can have more than one champion, but then the power will be split up between them, making each champion weaker than a single one would be and it might lead to infighting, which is why the primes tend to only have one and the betrayers tend to have multiple.

It's reasonable to assume the things you did. I don't think they established super well what the matron (raven queen) does, or if they did it was long ago. But yeah, if you know a bit about the background it's pretty clear that Kash is dead and she just sheparded him over to the afterlife.

[Spaceman Spiff]

11 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

It's reasonable to assume the things you did. I don't think they established super well what the matron (raven queen) does, or if they did it was long ago. But yeah, if you know a bit about the background it's pretty clear that Kash is dead and she just sheparded him over to the afterlife.

The other odd thing is, during the game it was clear that Kash followed, was a cleric of a different god (his ex wife to be exact), but don't know if it was established on screen. I thought in Exandria that the prime gods took care of their own followers, so when you saw the Raven Queen in that shot I thought, gee Kash's ex is gonna be mad the Raven Queen is taking her follower.

[Spaceman Spiff]

13 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Basically they want to give Pike a storyline. She didn't have one in the original campaign, since Ashley was constantly in New York, filming Blindspot. So they went for the most generic one you could think of for a cleric. The crisis of faith. It is yawn-inducing, I agree.

Yes (aware of Ashley's constantly being gone from the table for Blindspot) and during the Briarwood arc she went through the whole crisis of faith. It was done well for the show, and she got her big damn hero moment when she showed up in Whitestone to slay the newly risen dead.

I am referring to her trying to get the armor to work. When she tosses aside her medallion of the Everlight because "I don't need her, the power was inside ME the whole time (my blood)"

[PurpleTentacle]

6 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

The other odd thing is, during the game it was clear that Kash followed, was a cleric of a different god (his ex wife to be exact), but don't know if it was established on screen. I thought in Exandria that the prime gods took care of their own followers, so when you saw the Raven Queen in that shot I thought, gee Kash's ex is gonna be mad the Raven Queen is taking her follower.

The matron is the godess of death, not the godess of the afterlife. Think Thanatos and the Keres combined with Charon, not Hades.

She transports the souls to the appropriate god's domain. That can be the god you worshiped in life or, if you weren't religious, the god your life was most closely aligned with. She also makes no difference between primes and betrayers in that regard. If you followed Asmodeus, you are going to the hells.

Also Kash's wife clearly wasn't really a god, even though she was warshipped as such (the Wiki even spells it out). That doesn't fit in the exandrian pantheon. There are powerfull beings that will pose as gods from time to time. One of the Nein warshiped such a being for a while. And yeah, I don't think that aspect of his character is even a thing in the show.

6 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Yes (aware of Ashley's constantly being gone from the table for Blindspot) and during the Briarwood arc she went through the whole crisis of faith. It was done well for the show, and she got her big damn hero moment when she showed up in Whitestone to slay the newly risen dead.

I am referring to her trying to get the armor to work. When she tosses aside her medallion of the Everlight because "I don't need her, the power was inside ME the whole time (my blood)"

Yeah, they are retreading that arc, which makes it extra annoying.

I don't remember her saying anything about her blood. I guess we'll see where it goes. As said, Ashley hinted there is more to come and I think the show foreshadowed it as well. I'm not very optimistic for this storyline, but we shall see.

[livinforthetea]

I'm not a Vox Machina expert, so don't roast me for this, I have siblings and I understand the love you can have for them, but the whole "I would sacrifice my soul, for one day of your happiness" seems a bit overkill for me.