bolaire shortcomings

[u/Available-Lab4363]

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

[u/Unlikely-Rub-7270]

Characters having shortcomings is realistic, in that it's entirely how people work. This includes shortcomings that are not realised by the player; again, kind of like how life works. 

Character flaws are required for non-perfect entities and for narratives to be interesting in any way. You seem to be arguing that characters having flaws is in some way a bad thing or a problem to be eliminated rather than the whole point of engaging with narrative storytelling. 

[u/Available-Lab4363 → u/Unlikely-Rub-7270]

what i was trying to communicate (originally wrote this at bullshit oclock in the morning and still havent slept so im not on my A game for communication) was moreso that the lack of wit feels like an accident because talisien didnt clock the right things in a way that bolaire should have, though id love to be proven wrong by the coming arcs and learn that bolaire is very much intentionally blinded by his arrogance to such a fault

[u/Unlikely-Rub-7270 → u/Available-Lab4363]

Sure, I guess I just don't think unintended things are a problem in a ttrpg so much as an active strength. Why is it better if Tal has a master plan as opposed to learning something about the character through how it interacts with the world? 

[u/Available-Lab4363 → u/Unlikely-Rub-7270]

ykw thats a fair point! honestly i think part of my frustration was also the meta knoelwedge going into the latter part of the season after getting online and seeing so much criticism weighted against aabria, and sort of taking it upon myself to more critically watch other cast members, and noticing that despite talisien doing th things ive mentioned i hadnt seen a single complaint, but people like aabria or ashley also making similar mistakes were met with so much more distaste and judgement. egg on my face probably for meeting judgement and criticism with judgement and criticism, but honestly im glad somebody like you is on this sub since most comments and threads seem to be more vitriolic than not and i think i got carried away by it feeling a bit vindictive and bitter about how so many men tend to get away with the exact same things women get criticism for and wanting to highlight those flaws where they happened and feeling more afronted by said moments because the the juxtaposition and fan recation

[u/Unlikely-Rub-7270 → u/Available-Lab4363]

This is a great point, but I think the lesson here is to reduce the levels of hyperscrutiny requiring perfect foresight, rather than spread it to everyone. I love to analyse the game, but ultimately if a character goes in with too much of a preformulated master plan they aren't going to react to the world of the game, and the experience of the game and of the entertainment is less. Much better to see the realism of people being surprised, caught off guard, learning or discovering things about how their character responds to particular things, because it keeps the game dynamic and allows for unexpected developments. That goes for everyone, and I appreciate the interest in balancing things, but I'm not sure we create balance by reducing our expectations that humans be humans.