Something I found interesting about the last episode was the realization that Keyleth and Percy’s dispositions on life have basically switched, but they’re still remarkably similar characters in unexpected ways.
Keyleth’s backstory specifically paints her as a wide-eyed idealist experiencing the outside world for the first time, while Percy starts out with a whole bunch of personal demons, both figurative and literal, and is usually the cynical one in the group.
When confronted with Ioun’s library, the way their characters have developed from that starting point becomes immediately apparent by their reactions. Percy has a restored city, a woman who loves him, and a group of very powerful and amazing friends, but his greatest fear has always been that it could all be taken away again in an instant, just like when he lost his family, and none of it would be remembered by history as anything other than a footnote. When he realizes that it does matter, that everything matters, he turns into a giggling schoolboy, in a manner directly comparable to the way Keyleth has gotten excited by things that no one else in the group understands.
Keyleth, on the other hand, has been through the shit. She found a man that she loved, and spent a year of happiness and contentment with him, only to get handed a raw fucking deal when he dies and comes back as a revenant. She starts getting violently, recklessly angry, the same way she did during the Chroma Conclave arc. This is how Keyleth deals with pain, and it’s not at all dissimilar to the dark places that Percy has descended to in the past.
Pelor calls both of them “faithless,” and while it’s true that they don’t place much trust in the gods, both Keyleth and Percy have always counted on their friends to rein them in when all they want to do is lash out at the world.
I just think it’s interesting how Percy is the beaming optimist in this situation while Keyleth is the bitter nihilist, but the truth is that both of them have fluctuated between those roles at various points in the story. Just something to consider.
Overdressed & Underappreciated 