Okay, I Have Picked Out One Of The Many Excellent Things In This Weeks Critical Role Episode To Talk

Okay, I have picked out one of the many excellent things in this week’s Critical Role episode to talk about! Let’s talk about, “am I the only one in this group who has any experience being trusted to do the right thing?”

The wording of it is so specific, and it’s so fucking telling.

Caduceus doesn’t ask if he’s the only one in the group who knows how to trust other people, although that’s here in this question and this conversation, the, ‘wow, NONE of you have any real faith in authority whatsoever’ bit of it all. But that’s specifically not what Caduceus is asking here, and that’s important, I think, because the truth is, the Mighty Nein have been learning to trust people little by little this entire way.

There’s a lot of conditional trust, of course, and there’s a lot of doubt, but–they trust Bryce. They trust Orly. Nott trusted Shakaste with her son, sight unseen, and Nott and Caleb and Beau were exhausted and desperate enough to trust Keg and Nila and Caduceus himself in the first place, and of course the group has been learning to trust each other, bit by bit, scrap by scrap. That’s part of why Yasha has hurt so very badly. Not because they didn’t trust her, but because all of those old instincts said they shouldn’t, and they did anyway. And yes, I am generalizing about the whole group, but I don’t think I’m wrong to do so. It’s obvious on Fjord, who still hasn’t even told anyone half of what he’s hiding or offered up his real accent, compared to Jester who’ll toss personal details around like cheerful party favors–but that just means the vulnerabilities and the soft spots are different. At least on the surface.

In fact, I think the Mighty Nein collectively have three great fears when it comes to trusting each other. They have a hard time trusting their companions not to reject them for their secrets (they’ll see I’m gross and evil because of my past crimes; I’ll be found unworthy because of my weaknesses and flaws). They have a hard time trusting their companions to bear up and handle certain things related to those secrets (if they find out about me they’ll be distracted, it’ll divert them from more important goals; if I don’t push aside my problems to take care of them then they won’t survive). And they occasionally have a hard time trusting each other not to simply turn around and betray the whole group out of never-having-cared-to-begin-with (what if Yasha was always bad?). Ironically, I’m pretty sure that up until last week, flat-out betrayal was at the bottom of all of their lists of mutual mistrusts.

And yet, little by little, they’ve been learning to trust each other this whole time. It’s always happened in spite of the fear: Caleb in one hotel room mechanically relating his life story, Jester in another squeaking with embarrassment at her own ignorance and hiding underneath the covers, all the way back to Mollymauk Tealeaf trapped between a tabaxi and a Zone of Truth place, hating to trust and too scared not to. They’ve offered each other little bits of themselves, already tensed to flinch away from an expected blow that all their instincts say must be about to land as they’ve flayed open each mote of vulnerability in turn. It’s been long and slow and they’re still skittish–but yes. The Mighty Nein do know how to trust.

They even know how to trust authority figures, sometimes, in that same flinching calculated risk desperate sort of way. Beau sprints halfway across Darktow Isle, Beau waits for the Plank King, because she doesn’t have a single option but to hope that thin strand of hope, to trust. They go to the Bright Queen after their scry on the Imperial war meeting. They place their survival and vulnerability and hopes in someone else’s hands.

Of course, there’s always the question of not just which authority figures they trust, but how far. They trust the Plank King to enforce rules he himself has set, and have his own self-interest at heart, not to be merciful. They trust the Gentleman to keep to the word of any bargain he made, not to be kind or any sort of good to the outside world. Beau trusts Dairon to honestly want to expose corruption, not to be unbiased. They trust the Bright Queen to want what’s best for the survival and well-being of her own subjects, when they trust her, not to care one bit about what happens to the people who live across the borders. And they never, ever, in any circumstance, have ever trusted an authority figure to care about their well-being at all.

See, that’s it. That’s where we get to the heart of Caduceus’s question, the truth he suddenly grasped with such clarity. The Mighty Nein are not good at trusting people, or at caring for them, but they’re learning, with fumbling fingers and out of necessity and loneliness and their own inherent humanity (in the metaphorical sense). They’re even learning, in the tiniest slivers and pieces, to maybe someday trust their own selves.

The thing not a single one of them knows how to cope with, none of them has ever experienced, is being themselves trusted. Not wholely or unconditionally. None of them.

Oh, there’s Vandren, who trusted Fjord with his job but not his secrets–there’s Marion, who trusted Jester to be sweet and delightful, but not to live up to any sort of set expectations–there’s Yeza and Luc, who trusted Veth to be a wife and a mom, but not enough to make up for everybody else she ever knew–there’s Beau’s old crews, who trusted her to do the occasional job and maybe take a fall but not enough to keep her around–there’s Astrid and Eodwulf, who trusted Bren to be competent and evil, but were, in fact, wrong in that after all. They’ve been trusted to do things they’ve already proven themselves competent to do. Sometimes they’ve been trusted to be tools. Sometimes they’ve been trusted to be harmless. Trust their capacities, sure. Trust their enlightened self-interest in not betraying someone far more powerful, absolutely.

But their judgment? Their ethics? Themselves?

I’ve seen a few people frame this conversation as Caduceus realizing he’s the only person in the whole group with actual self-esteem, and that’s part of it, a little bit. Being doubted by everyone in the world leaves a pretty hefty ding on the self-confidence. But it’s not just that–because like I said, in milimeters and hairsbreadths, they are learning to trust themselves, just that littlest bit. Proving themselves to each other, specifically, has started the M9 along the path to maybe possibly someday proving themselves to themselves. At the very least, they can try.

This isn’t about what the Nein think of themselves. It’s what they expect other people to think of them. And unlike the painstaking gains they’ve made in learning to trust, the group has collectively made almost zero headway in learning that they can be trusted. Not by people In Charge. Not by anyone outside their own small circle.

And that’s the thing Caduceus finally figured out, then pointed out to all the rest of us.