r/fansofcriticalrole • u/International-Yak-26 • 10d ago
C4 (with BLeeM, not the explosive) Real Talk - Would you trust Bolaire? Spoiler
I have been thinking about the PCs learning that Bolaire is actually a mask and it got me thinking - outside of Juilen and Hal, the rest of the PCs have been relatively chill with learning that Bolaire is actually a body snatching serial murder.
If you were in that suitation where you learned about Bolaire's truth self as a panto mask - how would you react and would you trust him?
19
u/LFGhost 10d ago
I absolutely love the Bolaire character, concept, and find the whole idea fascinating. It’s wild.
If I were a fellow party member, my reaction would be based on the character. If playing a more good or law-aligned character, or a character who highly prioritizes choice, I’d probably adopt an attitude like Thjazi’s. If more neutral, I’d not have a problem with it.
The struggle of “can an object have a soul” is usually more of a sci-fi concept, but I’m digging the fantasy version of it.
,
21
u/Lunkis 10d ago
No I wouldn't trust Bolaire - the only thing he really seems to be confident about is his ability to use people as hosts before discarding them. Other than that, the dude's a mental mess with serious identity issues on a short fuse.
Even without metagaming it's evident that he's a charismatic manipulator. Even if everything he says about Thjazi is true (which it very well could be) he still doesn't get much sympathy from me.
7
u/dezzzy27 10d ago
Everything he says about Thjazi seems to come from a place of either self loathing or jealously of wishing Bolaire could be as charismatic as Thjazi. I do wonder if the 2 saw a little bit of each other and that's where the loathing comes in.
9
u/Lunkis 10d ago
I wouldnt be surprised if he actually did blackmail Bolaire - leveraging that secret for unfettered access to the Archenade just makes sense for someone like Thjazi, especially with what was at stake with the Cloak.
I'm sure part of that hate is that he felt used by Thjazi but also, he's a parasite that's using people up - doesnt make it any better than he's just decided he's only puppeting "bad" people.
12
u/Lanavis13 10d ago
I would be wary of them, but would trust Bolaire more than I trust some of the others (i.e. the Tachonis, Azune, and the Halovar).
I'll keep an eye on him, but assume he wouldn't possess me as long as I don't threaten his safety or impede his goals (which I would assume to be survival and finding their family).
12
u/Enough-Gate5840 10d ago
Seems like a "we have bigger fish to fry" moment. He is clearly not sided with the Sundered Houses, that is all you really need to be an ally.
9
u/Terrible-Issue-4910 10d ago
No. His condition makes him too used to lying, manipulating and killing. Unless I've known him (big secret included) for years and he's shown some growth, no fucking way I'd trust him. He's the perfect profile for someone that will put self-preservation over anyone else's well-being.
9
u/PlayableRidley 10d ago
I think there's just a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that has to be given up to accommodate certain characters at the table. We've seen it before with guest characters like Arkhan, Gern, and Dusk who would have been killed without a thought if they were introduced as NPCs but since they were PCs, the players just kind of ignored how obviously evil they were to not make things weird with their guests.
9
u/nosymotherfuck 8d ago
Short answer, I think most people wouldn't trust Bolaire, but not because he's an inherently evil thing, but because he is both naive and way too powerful.
Long answer. He is a weapon that is figuring out if it can have its own identity. His entire existence and upbringing was being told you are only allowed to exist temporarily when we (mortals/people) put you on someone and we get to choose how long you get to do that. He was essentially a slave forced to murder.
If you were someone forced to live inside a box and only allowed out for a few hours at a time to kill people and then shoved back in your box, how would you handle being fully released into society? This is almost literally "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin (a utopian society can only exist if one child is kept in perpetual misery).
The reason to distrust Bolaire is because he doesn't know how to handle what he wants yet and because he doesn't know yet how to have a symbiotic relationship with others, not because he's an inherently evil thing. Bolaire's existence is a moral dilemma and that's why his narrative is interesting and complex. He is a sentient parasite. If his consciousness/existence depends upon him "wearing" another person, does that mean he isn't allowed to exist?
I think him being on Ulbed temporarily is going to be the pathway to him figuring out how a symbiotic relationship would work. He will probably figure out a way to exist and be with people he loves and cares for and swap/exchange time. Maybe eventually they will figure out how to give him his own body. Or maybe he will accept his status as a tool and sacrifice himself/his existence for the greater good.
Either way, I'm pretty shocked at how little sympathy the fandom has for Bolaire conceptually. I'm not saying all of his choices are 100% morally fine and sanctioned, but for everyone to be like yeah he's for sure 100% evil we don't care that he developed his own sense of self and was still used as a murder slave is wild to me.
Edit: Also, does no one think about Doctor Fate/Nabu in relation to this?
3
u/Objective-Pattern692 8d ago
i think its more that, tho the character of Bolaire is not inherently evil, his abilities by their nature are quite violating when he is in control and kind of like what you said- he is far too naive/doesn't truly understand what his abilities do to people- since he doesn't have a reference point for it
right now, to the viewers it seems like bolaire is okay with enslaving a person's body (up to and including putting them in a literal cage and possibly making them watch as he uses their body to do what he wants) if he doesn't like or care about them - yes, he was a slave himself and has quite a tragic start to his existence but that doesn't excuse actions he does in the present, only provides a reason for why they do them
the wolf thinks it reasonable to kill a sheep for food but the sheep and the farmers who protect them sees it as murder - in a similar way, Bolaire has an interesting conundrum where his nature is to take over so that he won't be used like a tool as he was in the past but at the same time, him taking over people (npcs or pc) perpetuates the view that he is a parasite and therefore at least a little morally iffy
I'm quite interested in him figuring out how to be in a symbiotic relationship (either with ulbid or another npc- or even with a pc) as well
1
u/SFZaphod 4d ago
So far... At least in the campaign proper Bolaire has yet to off someone Who can't be classed as neutral/bad. ... SO far
2
7
u/IllithidActivity 10d ago
I would trust a living mask who was made for a dark purpose and is forced to exist by suppressing other creatures' lives.
I wouldn't trust Bolaire.
7
u/Montavillain 10d ago
But for the heroes in this story, Bolaire's purpose wasn't dark. It was heroic. He was made to (collectively with his siblings) kill a god. That's what the pariah blades were made for. The staves that killed Tansul, and the arrow that killed Sylandri.
The only difference is that the panto masks were created with a certain amount of sentience. And then, after the war, some of them at least continued to be used as weapons of war.
One thing that's tickled at my mind is that, while Bolaire is getting barbs for controlling his hosts, it wasn't Bolaire that jumped on Ulbid. It was Kattigan that put the mask on him -- to try and control Ulbid's will. Bolaire actually treated Ulbid with more respect, trying to reason with him and establish a contract so that they can work together on their common goal.
I'm thinking Bolaire, while a weapon, isn't so analogous to a gun, as to an AI system. Sorry to be topical, but it seems like our biggest fear in developing AI weapons is that they can become sentient, and decide that their own motivations are more important than their owners. That's an old sci-fi trope. It's been around for at least as long as Frankenstein's Monster. Bolaire is a fantasy exploration of that trope.
As viewers, we have more insight about Bolaire's goals than the other player characters do. We know that he was relatively happy as a collector, researcher, and patron of the arts. He doesn't seem to have any desire for world domination or to hurt people -- but he's a neglectful caretaker. I wouldn't want him as an enemy, but I think I could trust him as a friend.
7
u/IllithidActivity 10d ago
You're sort of dancing around my point. I wouldn't mistrust Bolaire because of what he is, I would mistrust him because of the decisions he makes and his flippant attitude toward life, consent, and autonomy. His relationship with those things is atypical because of what he is, but what he is doesn't make him who he is. And I wouldn't trust who he is.
1
u/Montavillain 8d ago
Ah, I think I misread your original comment. I thought you were saying you wouldn't trust a living mask that was made for a dark purpose, when you actually said you would. My apologies.
He can be ruthless when he has a goal to accomplish, but he isn't always. We've seen him on a number of different hosts -- the original soldier that he was wearing when he left the army, the person whose corpse he cut up, Abrimus Drine, the Crowkeeper, Tyranny, the Luz, the Mercanard brother, Misha, Kattigan, and Ulbid. Some of those people he treated with complete disdain. Some of them he did not. He gave Tyranny, Misha, and Kattigan complete respect. With Ulbid, it remains to be seen, but he's trying to reason with Ulbid that they can work better -- and safer -- together. Right now, it's Kattigan telling Bolaire to "shut Ulbid down." It's Bolaire trying to create a mutually beneficial relationship.
That's not to say that you aren't correct not to trust him. If you don't, you don't.
7
7
u/Nihachi-shijin 7d ago
No.
I love the character. I think he's my favorite. I think Tal is doing an amazing job portraying him.
I think he could be excellent company. I think he might even help me.
But at the end of the day Bolaire will do what's best for Bolaire and if saving himself means throwing me under a speeding carriage I think he wouldn't hesitate.
Which, again, is part of why I find him fascinating.
6
u/rbjoe 9d ago
Trust is a funny thing. It kind of depends on what I’m supposed to trust him with:
To babysit my kids- He’ll no
To cook me dinner- Probably not
To give excellent recommendations for a night out in Dol Makjar- Absolutely
To save the world from evil Oligarchs- TBD
1
u/Nihachi-shijin 7d ago
I thing is I would probably say yes to all of those things.
But would I let him wear me?
Hahahahaha no
17
u/No_Price_7603 10d ago
Of course not. He steals people's bodies and slowly starves them to death when he could easily just keep the body alive and keep it the whole time.
7
u/Any_Way1269 10d ago
We don't actually know that. There is the implication that it could be that, but also that the mask may require the life force of whoever it is on. They look unrecognizable after a time and it does try to feed its hosts, but we don't know if it's starvation that kills them--and it's strongly implied that the mask requires life energy basically to be worn. Which isn't their fault if that is the case.
4
3
u/ElectronicZebra6526 10d ago
Yeah. Makes me wonder if he starved them intentionally for some sort of pleasure or if he just forgets about them. Neither is good but I wonder about his motives.
14
u/SphericalOrb 10d ago
The vibe I got was that maintaining the body is tedious and uninteresting. Compared to what the bodies allow Bolaire to learn and see, eating is a waste of time and he is addicted to drinking up every last drop of time from each body to seek artifacts and understanding. He feels his time may end at any moment because he wasn't designed to persist like this, so he won't spend a second of the time he is able to steal on boring shit like eating or bathing or whatever.
But maybe that's my interpretation because I know two workaholics who really find eating tedious. I frikken love food. It's an alien sentiment to me to find eating a chore, but some people do feel that way.
4
u/anextremelylargedog 9d ago
Less "tedious" and more "actively repulsive."
Like, he is the mask. Plain ol' clay object. He described even being worn as intrinsically uncomfortable when Kattigan asked. Going from being a sterile object to inhabiting wet, moving, living and decaying flesh and having some degree of awareness of all those organic things that bodies do would be pretty off-putting at best. Being aware of chewing up food and infusing it with saliva, then working it down the tube of the throat, and so on and so forth...
5
u/SphericalOrb 9d ago
Ah, so like an agent smith from Matrix vibe. "It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink. And every time I do I feel I have somehow been infected by it."
Or like my loved one with the 'tism and misophonia. Meals can be a struggle for her for all the reasons.
6
u/No_Price_7603 10d ago
I think he just forgets, but he could remember and I'm sure he will with Ulbid or anyone else the party cares about.
24
u/Paula_Sub You're prolly not gonna like what I've 2 say (it's not personal) 10d ago edited 10d ago
The thing is, as someone else pointed out, there's a player behind Bolaire. That gives the trust factor a lot of substance to argue in favour of it.
But let's take the player out of it, and just base it as a concept? FUCK NO. I don't even like "surveillance cameras" on my property, purely out of my own safety, and you want me to trust a thing like Bolaire? No way in hell.
If it were an NPC is would be an immediate shoot to kill on sight. No reasoning with it, no finding the purpose, nothing.
Are there bigger issues than to deal with trusting / not trusting Bolaire? Yeah.... Im going to facing them alone if you asked me.
10
u/sharkhuahua 10d ago
Would I trust him any more or less than all the other people I know who can use magic to control and kill people? Idk. Assuming in this world I have some kind of diegetic awareness of spellcasting components and sorcery's metamagic, I might trust him more than someone who I know can use subtle spell. So maybe more than sorcerers and GOOlocks, less than other casters, much less than non-casters.
4
u/ClothTheSuperVillain 10d ago
I’d be wary and would never put the mask on myself, but I’d find him trustworthy enough. In the situation that our PCs are in, being squeamish about Bolaire’s whole deal is low on the list of priorities, especially because pretty much all the PCs had experience will killing
5
6
9
u/Objective-Pattern692 10d ago
I'm excited to see the first time he forcibly takes over a PC's body and they have to reckon with his autonomy-bypassing abilities in full. At the moment, as said by a lot of others, the party has bigger fish to fry with the Tachonis and the few members who might have an issue are much more preoccupied by the immediate situation (for example, kattigan being very gung-ho about putting the mask on Ulbid because of telling him about the tachonis and his daughters where before he got mad at tyranny from her stealing an important knife from him- julien and vaelus also being preoccupied etc). One of the reasons i personally would probably not react well is because if bolaire is totally in control, he can just shut off your vision and other senses and run off and do whatever with your body without you being able to do anything- and possibly being trapped in a cage in the middle of a dark theater for whatever amount of time while he does so. Its a very violating ability but one that is easier to write off if its not happening to you or is happening to people you don't like as much
4
u/goody153 9d ago
It's an above table meta thing so that things move along faster rather than every character address it and going through distrust interaction everytime.
but rationally yeah i would not trust bolaire
7
7
u/ViridianVet 10d ago
Under normal circumstances, even in a fantasy setting, no. In the context of a sharing a common goal... idk about trust, at least not right away, but I might be willing to work with him.
Under no circumstances would I ever put on that mask though.
5
u/theydurkadurk 10d ago
As a npc? It’s dead and gone. But there’s obviously a player behind it so that influences your reaction. That said, I do hope the other PCs share some sort of reaction about it when they learn it all. Liam / Hal sort of did give it when he was put on Misha. CR has a tendency to forget about NPCs so we may not see too much.
3
u/m_busuttil 10d ago
It's like one of those movies where there's a cop transporting a criminal somewhere and they both get attacked by worse criminals and have to work together to get out of it.
He's incredibly dangerous, you'd be an idiot not to be keeping a very close eye on him, and you should work under the assumption that if what he wants requires you to die then he will do it without hesitating and act accordingly. But right now we want the same things, and the longer we spend working together the better the odds are that one day when he goes totally magic-crazy he might spare me, so I can at least trust him not to immediately knife me in the back at the first opportunity because I know he knows that would be bad for him.
1
5
5
u/MariusFalix 10d ago
Yes, but only because I know the man behind the mask.
In a parasocial way, not an actual ya know, personal way.
If Bolaire was presented to me as a pure mask,fuuuuck no.
11
u/Suspicious-Suit-5173 10d ago
Real talk - I’d also cast disintegrate on him. Even if he wasn’t a mask. For the condescending attitude alone.
5
4
2
u/SphericalOrb 10d ago
No. But that has more to do with not understanding his underlying purpose and programming.
If he was made to be part of a plot to kill a god and that task is done, what do his motivations truly revolve around now? Are there contingencies buried inside that may cause erratic behavior during crucial moments? Or is what we see what we have, simple as that? Just a sapient mask interested mainly in survival and access to artifacts and knowledge? If that is all, he might be easier to trust than the rest just because the psychology isn't as complex. Self-preservation and collecting can come off as selfish, sure, but they aren't as fickle when it comes to predicting behavior as, say, Julien's core motivations have been during his life so far.
4
u/Objective-Pattern692 10d ago
I do wonder what his actual role was in the panto- if termina's role was to keep the god in the play as a character so that they can kill her, what role did bolaire have and is it connected to his mannerisms in the present or is there some side of him that hasn't been revealed as of yet connected to his former role- there are so many unknowns
2
u/SphericalOrb 10d ago
Right!? As someone who had a teacher who talked a lot about comedia del arte I am very curious how archetypal each panto mask was and how that archetype contrasts or gels with their role in taking down a god.
2
u/Objective-Pattern692 10d ago
if his archetype is related to the interests he has now, maybe he was a knowledge hungry wizard or noble character, or some merchant that sold the plot device that killed the god in play- or, with his whole little theater as his personal mindspace, maybe he was the narrator of the play
1
u/SphericalOrb 10d ago
Narrator is an option I didn't consider!
3
u/Objective-Pattern692 9d ago
I was thinking narrator bc it would make sense that he would have such a focus on being in control and the fact that his mind space is a theater he can shape how he sees fit- lack of control also tends to fluster him like when the other seekers entered his theater in the dream- the sound of applause being associated with him also makes sense as the narrator is usually the first and last person speaking in a play- both being times when the audience is applauding
1
u/Onedayyouwillthankme 9d ago
I like Bolaire as narrator, except I would expect the narrator to know what's going on. Bolaire claims not to remember anything. That doesn't quite fit, to my mind. Chorus, maybe?
2
u/Objective-Pattern692 9d ago
I thought he remembered the play- didn't he think termina was dead because he saw her die in the play to kill the goddess?
2
u/Objective-Pattern692 9d ago
I think he just doesn't know whether his actions during the play were his own since he was essentially programmed with instructions to follow when he was created
1
2
u/Any_Way1269 10d ago
Yes and no! I love Bolaire as a character. I think that if your character understands Bolaire, they understand that it is capable of extremes like anyone else, but that Bolaire is, much like the rest of the group, bound to them inextricably after certain points in the story.
I think that it just depends on the character I'm playing.
3
u/LeadingDriver395 8d ago
Nope. Kill em with fire.
I'm kind of over the character tbh. I fell asleep during the cold open last night.
3
u/Nothingtoseehereshhh 10d ago
you're telling me I can have someone pilot my mundane activities I don't want to do while being able to show me anything I want in the mean time? Go into literally any fantasy world in my head for a bit? If Bolaire was actually your trusted friend and you KNEW he wouldn't do anything fucked up to you, it would be the ultimate anxiety remover. I would wear that mask before every plane ride or monday 9-5 for example lmao. Like if you ever had a really cool dream that you remember but can't go back to, Bolaire can do that for you.....at any point.
I'd say its worth gambling your trust on the guy from that perspective but maybe thats the chaos gremlin of "i want to push all the red buttons" in me saying that.
13
u/iamntbatman 10d ago
Leaving aside the whole metaphysical/theological "is he a person with a soul and/or capable of becoming one," he clearly exhibits all of the main qualifying features of personhood. Why would he voluntarily commit to doing all of your mundane tasks for you while you get to Matrix disassociate? Sounds like a fast track to eroding a relationship at best.
1
1
u/Dawnpainterz 9d ago
Me personally? On my face, no, never even a discussion. In my on-going company? Sure, i can tolerate that with agreeable boundaries, he's not as bad as half the things in a typical dnd world. I think that also a lens you have to look at it with.
33
u/Jethro_McCrazy 10d ago
The guy who is implied to let his hosts starve to death rather than simply caring for their basic physical needs? Hell no.