I’m trying to be fair here and really understand where people are coming from, but… I really don’t get why everyone seems to be so ride or die about Scanlan being Ioun’s champion?
Okay, from what I understand, he has an Ioun stone. That I don’t really remember him using ever since Tiberius traded it in for the circlet. I think last episode was the first time he actually pulled it out since then.
Sprigg called him intelligence, is a gnome, and has a connection to Ioun. Okay. I see how that is leading. Though to be honest, what we saw of him actually reminded me more of what Keyleth’s future is going to look like? Especially considering the emotional state she is now on? If there’s anyone most likely to be alone for 39 years, it’s her. Her enormous lifespan will all but ensure she will be very, very lonely, and it had previously been said that her best ending would be like Yoda, hanging out far away from civilization as some sort of woods witch. And, I mean Sprigg made as much of a connection with Keyleth, it seemed to me.
Still. If Sprigg was supposed to be the gigantic neon arrow pointing at Scanlan for Ioun, oookay. Scanlan seems like too much of a people person to find the goddess whose realm is a neverending library particularly appealing, and the only book he has ever shown interest in was a porn book. Okay, no, also the Tome of Leadership for the stats increase. So that’s two. He’s not the booksmart type, he’s the cunning and thinking on his feet type.
Sure, maybe that juxtaposition is supposed to be the point here. Maybe another point is that he is the teller of stories, and Ioun is the one that stores peoples’ life stories. Which seems to play into his insecurities about always being the story teller, but never part of the story. But hey, he wouldn’t be the only character whose meaningful development has been shut out by the narrative.
I just don’t get why people find that compelling. And I’m actively calling for debate here! Convince me!
Part of this weirdness is probably due to the fact that there are very few gods that have been relevant to the narrative so far. Sarenrae and the Raven Queen, of course. Their champions were never up for debate. Melora and Kord are kind of equally locked in. Unless Keyleth prefers to go full rage mode Barbarian and just violently refuse all the god stuff from now on, or go for someone more chaotic and destructive like Umberlee or Talos.
…Who may or may not exist in this setting. Back to the list. I will defend Pelor as patron of Vex until my dying day. Sehanine would have also been nice and more about her as a person than about the home she has found because of her husband (it feels weird not to write boyfriend), but hey, when does Vex ever get anything to be about her that she or Percy have not actively forced out of the narrative.
I’m pretty sure the only other gods that have been even mentioned were Ioun and Erathis. And don’t get me wrong, I am totally for Erathis being Percy’s patron. She is objectively the best fit – if she is at all relevant in this. She has literally not been mentioned in ages. Keeper Yennen is technically a priest of hers, but that was never really relevant, and Pelor told them to go find his sister in law without even mentioning his wife, so…
Percival is very much the book nerd, the one who volunteers for research and goes to libraries, and canonically has spent his pre-trauma days accumulating academic knowledge in addition to tinkering. This episode wasn’t the first time he was enthusiastic about a library.
Also, something people seem to have forgotten, his family literally died because they had a shrine to Ioun in their basement. That’s what the ziggurats were. We got descriptions of her defaced statues down there.
Which ties into another point. Ioun is the direct enemy of Vecna the same way the Raven Queen’s direct enemy is Orcus. Which is why Ioun’s temples were defaced in Vecna’s name in the first place. The fact that Whitestone is the place where Ioun was wounded is also really significant in that regard.
And Percy as a person has always been very preoccupied with preserving history and culture and the memory of things. See his reasoning for keeping Westruun running. This is probably based on the fact that memories is all that is left of 90% of his family (because they had an Ioun temple in their basement that was defaced in Vecna’s name). And that was what he was so delighted about when discovering Ioun’s library – it all matters, all of a sudden. People will be remembered, even if it is only as a book in this library. Which is also why he tried to find a book on Vesper – to make sure his family is remembered somewhere, somehow, for far longer than he and Cass will be around to do that.
Saying he doesn’t qualify as Ioun’s champion because she is all about freely accessing knowledge and Percy has kept a total of 2 secrets which didn’t even remain secrets (his marriage and the gun stuff) kind of rings hollow when at the same time, you claim that Scanlan is a dream fit despite being the one to lie and deceive the most and keeping the most things hidden out of the party, and has frequently attempted to twist, change, or delete a person’s memories for his own convenience.
How does that make him a better champion for Ioun than someone who made a dnagerous discovery and figured it’d be best not to share it with the world? Basically the same thing Ioun did with the knowledge of how to ascend to godhood, you know, the reason they are seeking her out right now to begin with.
On a related note, I don’t get how Scanlan is Intelligence but Percy is Secrets. You can switch that around and it makes just as much sense. And if THAT what it all comes down to, I looked it up, there is only a single god-like entity associated with secrets, and that’s fucking Vecna. As mentioned above, the reason 90% of Percy’s family is dead. So I feel a bit weird about using that to determine what gods everyone gets. Keyleth’s god most definitely isn’t related to love.
(Again, if Erathis suddenly becomes relevant again, I am all for Percy being her champion instead. Though I still think finding a god who is more of a people person and less about libraries and academic knowledge for Scanlan would be a waaaaaay better fit. Finding him a god of poetry and song would be a better fit, but that also kind of undercuts his personal crisis. Maybe a family god? Travellers? Luck? All better fits, we just have never heard of them before.)
Overdressed & Underappreciated 