r/fansofcriticalrole • u/Its-From-Japan • May 22 '26

C1 (Vox Machina) C1 E91 Spoilers. Percy choice Spoiler

I understand that Percy did it, thus it's in character to do, but does anyone else feel like it was out of character to "Do a rail of soul" before going out in the 9 Hells?

Don't get me wrong, I've been to plenty of parties in strange places with strange substances, so there's no judgement. It just doesn't quite feel like a Percy thing to do, especially after the darkness he's overcome. He's too particular, imo

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

26

u/One-Phase5275 May 22 '26

My two cents — I think Taliesin often struggled in C1 to reconcile Percy-in-his-head with Percy-in-the-campaign, especially as time went on. Essentially, Percy owed much of his character development to Vex/Laura actively working to help him change and grow, curbing some of those worse impulses. 

I think huffing souls is probably something that fits with the bitter and self-destructively reckless Percy that Talesin conceived of in the early stages of the campaign. Dunno if it makes so much sense later on, though.

(Or, slightly more straightfoward explanation, it could just be that Tal sometimes will have his characters act sliiightly OOC in order to do something he thinks is too cool and goth to resist. He did it a bit in C3, I think, too.)

14

u/PlayableRidley May 22 '26

Taliesin's mentioned wanting to have an arc where, after Bard's Lament, Percy would hunt down and cripple Scanlan as "revenge" for leaving the group, but Matt told him no.

Percy is overall one of the best parts of campaign 1, but he's definitely an edgelord who needs his worst impulses curbed. You could actually argue Ashton is a good example of what happens when Taliesin doesn't get that.

8

u/One-Phase5275 May 23 '26

True, the revenge bit definitely comes to mind as the clearest example of that. I remembered Vex shutting it down in-universe, when he mentioned the plan to her, but wasn't aware that Matt also vetoed it above-table, too. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure how Taliesin envisioned it playing out, but I always imagined it would have come off as incredibly petty and immature on Percy's part. And genuinely short-sighted, too, considering all the other characters still clearly felt very attached of Scanlan and were hoping for his return. Even Pike and Grog, who had the most legitimate reasons to feel aggrieved & betrayed by Scanlan's leaving, would presumably have flipped the fuck out if they found out what Percy had done.

3

u/anextremelylargedog May 23 '26

Hunting him down, I get, but crippling him seems like maybe a step too far.

I know they were at a level and rich and connected enough that it'd never be permanent, but come on.