So by now
we’ve all reached the conclusion that objectively, outside of the guns Percy
may or may not know about, nothing Scanlan has or Percy said he wants is
actually “his“ – the earring was a gift either by Tiberius or Allura because
Tiberius asked her to make it (they get the very last earring from Allura in
the earlier episodes), and the gate stone was technically gifted by Lilith to
the whole team.

And while I
think you could argue that both of these things were made “for the members of
Vox Machina,” so arguing that you lose all claim to them when leaving the team
isn’t that far out of it, that is really, really not what the entire thing was
about.

To quote
Taliesin himself from the subsequent Talks Machina episodes, Percy has anger management
issues and abandonment issues. He also fancies himself a very logical person,
the voice of reason, the only adult in the room at any given time. What he’s
trying to do here is attempting to rationalize the hurt he feels about Scanlan
leaving, by making it not about feelings but about material, tangible things. Something
you can build a logical case for or against.

That case
might be lacking in some way, as in the earring was a gift to each person
specifically and Vex gave the gate stone to Scanlan of her own volition with
the rest of the team agreeing, but Percy wasn’t there for that part of the conversation.
And it’s not really about having a waterproof case that would hold up in a
court of law here, it is, again, about redirecting the hurt and anger he feels about
what Scanlan has done.

Same goes
to his argument about how “useful” Scanlan would have been in hell or while
fighting the Kraken. First, this is objectively true. You can literally see Sam
silently panicking during the Kraken fight because Tary is useless and Scanlan
would have done so much better. You know who else was completely useless and
helpless during that fight? Percy. Just by design. He had to watch everything
go to shit, Vax dying, and not only was he completely incapable of doing
anything about this, there was also the nagging awareness that with Scanlan
there, things would have gone so, so much better.

Which, by
the way, also ties in back with his argument about stuff: Having the gate stone
and an earring for Tary would, objectively, have made every single adventure
they’ve been on after Scanlan left easier.

Of course,
feeling like he was only “useful” to the team and nobody cared about him beyond
that was one of the major points that made Scanlan upset enough to leave. Of
course thinking about people in terms of usefulness to a team is pretty blasé and
dehumanizing and inconsiderate and just not a very nice thing to do. But it’s the
term Percy has always been thinking in. And, again, a coping mechanism to avoid
dealing with feelings.

(Also,
objectively verifiable. That makes it an attractive way of thinking when you’re
trying to avoid actually feeling stuff.)

Another
thing to keep in mind is that Percy knows this about himself. He knows he’s not
really a very nice person. He knows he thinks about people strategically rather
than emotionally most of the time, especially where their adventuring lifestyle
is concerned, especially when it comes to keeping the largest number of people
alive as possible. Hence why he checks in with people he considers “nicer” or “better”
than him.

Exhibit A: Having
that conversation about stuff with Vex in the first place, and listening to
what she has to say here. Vex herself tends to err on the side of being rational
rather than emotional (in stark contrast to her brother), but she’s a lot more
in touch with her feelings and empathy comes easier to her. Which, by the way,
makes her uniquely equipped to understand where Percy is coming from, but also
to make him consider things from a less utilitarian standpoint.

Exhibit B:
Checking in with Pike and Kerrek before pulling the prank on Scanlan after the
resurrection, another scene that is quite frequently misinterpreted. Percy was
in a very bad place, hurt, had also just died for the second time, and he was
fully aware of his own mental state. He was fully aware that he was being
spiteful and that this is probably not a good idea, but Pike and Kerrek, at
least to him objectively better people than Percy himself, agreed that it was
okay.

Now, of
course, it wasn’t, and would have been in poor taste under any and all
circumstances, but up to when Scanlan woke up and it all went down, Pike
herself was convinced it would be okay. I’ve seen someone argue, I believe in
this tag, that if Scanlan had mentally been where the party thought he was, he’d
have found it hilarious. I think that’s stretching it a bit, and that the joke
was carried a bit too far in any case, but I can see why Pike and Percy wouldn’t
think so until it was too late. Scanlan did do a great job of hiding where he
was actually at, and the characters literally weren’t allowed to know any
better because of die rolls and meta gaming, making the entire scene so much
more infuriating on so many levels, but heeeey… Not really what I am here to
talk about.