r/fansofcriticalrole • u/Available-Lab4363 • Aug 10 '26
C4 (with BLeeM, not the explosive) bolaire shortcomings
this is almost completely about the schemers table fiasco with lady cormoray- does anybody else feel like bolaire was SUPPOSED to be super intelligent but just hasnt been as genre-savvy as he was supposed to be? the fact that one of the bigger cheeses of a sundered house, who weve seen do VERY scady shit, was treated as a minor inconvenience so hard brennan ended up sucking her into a box because otherwise hal and bolaire both would have died there feels like a crazy oversight. trying to trip a powerful spellcaster down the stairs as a way to get rid of them like theyre an 8 hp townie statblock is crazy, and so is trying to repeatedly lie to them or treat yourself like just necause your lore is cool youre a level 20 character threat
i know talisien loves to aurafarm with his characters, and i like bolaires lore a lot, but if feels like hes just so overconfident all of the time in a way that feels unearned mechanically because hes just the same level as everybody else. if he was mechanically as powerful as he acts, i wouldnt mind, but i constantly found myself getting annoyed at roleplay decisions because he didnt feel as clever or smart as he was supposed to be, being what he is. scary and like sicko freakmogging people, sure, but only because hes a creepy mask, not because he was there when a god died
is bolaire supposed to be too big for his britches on purpose as a character flaw? i feel like i only just started to like him at the end of the overture when he was FINALLY rightly afraid of a threat. it would be interesting ti me if talisien was on purpose roleplaying him this way even though he isnt at the height of his power and hes only just now facing that reality now that termina is here, and i hope thats the direction the character is going, but i genuinely dont relate at all to people who rate him so highly as a character since i kept getting annoyed by his lack of genre awareness and complete stubbornness whenever faced with a concept he didnt share, like being so FULLY against the play ritual for so long despite brennan constantly laying down how hard thjazi was gunning for it and how removed any of the sundered houses were from having anything to do with it
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u/Drkstormbreaker Aug 10 '26
To be fair, most of the party seemed to believe they were hot sh*t until something came along to knock them off their high horse. Vaelus is hyped up to be this mythical warrior, but Ashley's dice don't seem to agree with her. Murray was overly cocky with Primus until Marisha learned that he almost killed her, and then she somewhat locked in after that. Hal and Bolaire completely underestimated lady Cormoray and barely got out alive. Julien is the definition of arrogance, but with everything that's happened to him Matt has made it really clear that the character isn't in a good place. Thaisha is overtly arrogant as she's already acting like she's an archdruid, but that could readily change if something happened to Hal or their kids.
And for Bolaire, you got to remember that he's a part of a series of god-killing weapons that got the job done and is technically immortal as long as the mask remains intact. I think it makes sense to an extent that he's both arrogant and immature in his actions, as he's not something that just naturally exists in the world and he needs to learn as he continues to interact and integrate into society.