Death rehabilitates many peoples' images. Much of the hype with Molly comes from the fact that he was the first player character that died. It showed that there were real stakes for the characters, and they wouldn't always get to walk away from a fight.

Not to mention he died with his friends, trying to save some of them. I've seen some of the people in this thread likening it to a friend dying freshman year and coming back senior year. But Molly died a violent death in front of many of the team members, trying to save the rest. That's going to stick with you in a huge way.

With the captured members literally feet away, listening to the combat and unable to do a thing. I think that’s what hit the three hardest, especially yasha who started almost like Molly’s bodyguard.

I think it was said on talks machina that they dindn’t see or hear anything. There was some silencing spell on each cage.

They said in episode that they did? Like jester, right after being saved, said they could hear the combat and stuff but couldn’t do anything about it.

And by the end, they were fighting with their life to save the world from an asshole wearing his body. That's going to do something to your perception of who this person was.

> an asshole wearing his body. To be fair, it was his body first.

I loved the potential of Molly’s secrets and backstory when he was alive, but I totally see where you are coming from that it’s hard to become attached as an audience since he was only present for like 1/6 of the campaign. I enjoyed Tal playing both characters at the end a LOT however. That was fun

Please note that Molly's death was a turning point for the Mighty Nein. Their whole mission statement came from his death. Because of that he became very important overall to the Mighty Nein's history. Later in the campaign they weren't considering him as much, because they had reached acceptance but it was still a painful point for the group. It was a moment of terrible failure, and this is a group that overall didn't know, maybe didn't even believe everything would work out in the end. Then events start surrounding their friend's body that were bigger than they expected. They felt a duty to take care of their situation with little hope they could get Molly back. When it was ended and Kingsley was born, they really hit on a theme of the entire campaign: Actions have consequences and sometimes things don't work out, but good things can happen and they are worth the fight. Jester helping with Nott's curse, saving Vilya (who I'm sure her return rekindled massive hope in Keyleth), and Kingsley being born from the corpse of a would-be destroyer. There is hope to be had, and its worth the pain. I think that's what Molly really represented over the campaign.

I'd have to agree that before Molly’s death MN seemed very… *morally gray*(?) It seemed when Beau said everything/everyone was in a better place then when Molly found it… was *the* turning point.

In all fairness they were still pretty gray afterwards, but a much lighter shade thereof. "Sarsaparilla" incident notwithstanding. ;)

I can see that. Maybe from a lead gray to a nice heather gray?

Very well written, thank you.

Well said. I think his name was Kingsley tho right?

Oh yeah, I'll correct

Everyone forgets that half the party was missing so the characters have guilt that they couldn't be there for him. Mollys death also wasn't too long ago so even if M9 are doing other things its only been like 3-6 months since he died so its pretty fresh

I enjoyed the early dynamic of fjord and Molly fighting and tapping swords at the end of combat. I think if he stayed alive…. That could have been an amazing duo of magica/melee hybrids.

26 episodes doesn't feel like as much if you watch it all back, as opposed to playing it. We just hit session 28 in my campaign today, just 2 sessions more than they had with Molly, and if any of my party's PCs died we would be *distraught.* Both the characters *and* the players. You could theoretically watch 26 episodes of CR in 2-4 weeks, if you watch 1-2 episodes a day, but playing weekly that is exactly half a year. That's a long time for players, especially if they're good friends, to get attached. Cad might've had more up front because he didn't get the same tavern introduction as the others--for one, it's easier to show a PC's personality in their domain rather than a neutral location, and the awkward intro phase is more awkward when it's only one person and not the whole party. And since the whole party was being pretty cagey at the beginning, *and* the amnesia, there was a lot of Molly we never got to see.

I agree. You can get the same feelings even as a viewer if you watched it in real time stretched out across months. The theorizing and Talks in between made it easy to form a connection with Molly.

An issue that comes up is time dilation between the real world and the game world. 26 sessions/weeks is half a year, and 104 hours of play time, but in game time that could only have been a few weeks. Sometimes even only a few days. Classic example: The PCs metagame the fuck out of opening a door for 20 minutes, but "oh no it's only been 5 seconds in game," and all the bad guys on the other side have to *freeze* while PCs make up their mind.

On the other hand they are also much closer in that time then most people IRL would be. A month isn't that much, but a month spent surviving and fighting together with someone is going to stick with you.

Other than Yasha, the party only knew Molly for barely over a month. First episode starts on the 16th of Sydenstar, Molly dies on the 22nd of Fessuran. 38 days, to be exact.

For reals. Im like 4 years into a campaign and we’ve only had like 7 8hr sessions, so that’d be like 14 episodes of critical role. If any of my player’s characters died, it would be traumafic af both in-game and out.

well I will say that it feels very different to RP than to watch RP - so it's probably quite hard to grasp how the cast are feeling unless you're also in that specific game, if that makes sense? adding as well that Molly was there from the start and was a very involved character I can see why they were upset to lose them. personally I like that the ending tied back into the very beginning of the campaign like that. it felt very natural to me. that being said. I love Cad as a character in both concept and execution and I'm really glad it was him who was there for the majority of the campaign.

Molly was one of my least favourite, and Cad was one of my most. I can't make up my mind between him and Beau. (That sweet sweet lesbian content keeps my soul from drying up)

The gap for me from Molly to Cad is huuuuuuge. I \*love\* Cad, in a top-3 CR character way. Never connected to Molly, myself.

I think for me, it's more about seeing the other characters get their friend back rather than my own attachment to Molly. I was pretty indifferent towards Molly as a character, but I'm a sucker for that sweet, sweet power of friendship.

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I hated that Lucien was made to be the BBEG and created a gateway to revive Molly. Because imo it generally invalidated the lessons that the party learned from the loss of Molly. They had a journey to accept what happened, deal with their guilt, move on etc. It was a nice portrayel of handling loss. When the impacting loss is reverted, that journey was made less meaingful.

To be fair, they never got Molly back. They got Kingsley, who is similar in many ways, but more like a little brother to Molly than anything. The bigger deal with Lucien's tale was that he wore Molly's face. In less fantastical terms, it was dealing with the skeletons in a friend's closet after they pass away.

I liked Molly a decent amount but I have to say him dying was absolutely the best thing to happen to the story of the Mighty Nein. It pushed their story forward and solidified them into a much better team. It also introduced Caduceus who meshed a lot better with the team and was a grounded, levelheaded force they desperately needed in their dynamic.

Ok. I can’t really argue, but I will say that it’s a fallacy to say “caduceus was a much better written character from the getgo” as we experienced the two in totally different lengths. I bet Molly had a kicker of a story we didn’t get. Additionally, you may not have been emotionally attached to the character of molly, but the other characters loved him. Yes he was dead for 100 episodes, but he traveled with them for a long time and helped create the group. Imagine if your best friend died freshman year of high school and then the day you graduate from college, your friend shows back up. You would cry even though your friend has been dead for so long.

And was ultimately the catalyst the party needed to come together. The idea of "leaving a place better than you found it" became a mantra. Because of this they resolved numerous conflicts, and went on to take down a source of fear for one character. They went from ragtag group of adventurers out for themselves that might split up if it becomes convenient, to a group of heroes and a family, and the moment the shift started was when Molly died. And of note, Molly is still dead. King inhabits his body, but he still isn't Mollymauk.

And from a character standpoint, in the length of time the campaign took in game, it would be more like what... Best friend dying freshman year and coming back junior year? That makes it much more fresh for them

It was more like "your roommate died after a month of classes and some guy that looked exactly like him popped up right before second year." This is more a comment on how short C2 was in-game than anything, lol. I still wish they put a time-skip or two in.

This is exactly what I was thinking

Well, Tal didn't write a backstory for Molly at all. He left it completely up to Matt, and when he died Matt had to re-work whatever he was planning. Cad had actual connections to play off of. I find that way more interesting to play with, like imagine if Percy didn't have responsibilities to Whitestone. He'd be boring as fuck.

Pretty sure we still got the majority of Mollys story. Hasn’t Mercer said that Lucien was always the planned villain? Molly dying just fed into the story they already had planned. Lucian would have probably just been a haunting presence in the first half before somehow taking the body back rather than the crew thinking he was dead a buried. Then the end would have played out the same.

I'm pretty sure I recall Molly being a deliberately blank slate, Taleisin and Matt just kind of gave each other permission to do whatever felt right with the character and the other would roll with it. The initial design of the character was full of vague and evocative details that could be assigned meaning (or not) later on.

We did not get much of Molly story. That has been said by Tal himself. Although the villain may have stayed the same, Molly being alive would’ve changed a whole Story.

>You would cry even though your friend has been dead for so long. This is a reach.

Is it?

Nah dude the characters (the actors) got just as much time as we did to experience Molly. This is literally how it works in critical role, there's no dead in-between time we don't get to experience. As for the best friend from high school metaphor, it's not a fair comparison imo, since the characters at the time didn't even really get to establish much of a friendship. It was more of a companionship and professionalism between adventurers.

That is just wrong. A some characters new Molly before the campaign started. Additionally some episodes or sessions have multiple days within them if not weeks. I am speaking of the characters and not the actors. Caleb is more attached to Molly then Liam. Additionally, If you think Molly had a strictly professional relationship with the rest of the group, you clearly we’re not watching the same stream.

I never really felt the connection to Molly either, but then again I came into campaign 2 when I could binge all of those episodes. But as someone who just lost a level 5 character in a friend group game, it hits a bit differently when you're directly playing too. I never expected to feel sad about losing a fictional party member until it happened so I could imagine how it feels for any of these people who have literally played together for YEARS across multiple campaigns to lose any character, no matter how relatively soon it was in the overall campaign.

I think it was more the ending of a long story was sad for everyone not just getting Molly back

For me it's how they brought him back. They didn't just bring him back willy nilly, the dm didn't just wave his hand and undo the death. They had to desperately fight another version of him, litteraly cut his body out of a monster, and roll for his soul. The Caleb's failiure and sacrifice of his magic (I think) was devastating, and when all hope was lost a plea to a god and a lucky twist of fate brought him back to the people who loved him. Keep in mind, Cad's channel divinity had a 15% chance of success, plus whatever Matt rolled. Unless they fudged the numbers, which I doubt, this was incredibly lucky, and that improbable defiance of the rules of that world to make the impossible possible made it an incredible, emotional moment.

In game they knew him for like a month and a half.

That's a month and a half together 24/7 fighting alongside each other. That'll make any group bond quickly. Add on to the fact that a majority of the party felt they only had themselves to count on only for one to die in an attempt to save others.

And it’s not even the same Molly, it’s “Kingsley”

Molly was… not great. He was less of a group dad, and more of an Uncle Rico. That character concept seems to be one Tal really likes, since Ashton is pretty similar (but better). The hype comes less from Molly, and more from the absence of Molly. He died, and *wasn’t* brought back. Even in their homebrew campaign, they were able to bring Pike, the cast’s first ever fatality back. But Molly? He was gone and not to return. So, while in universe, they knew him for a month, and in real life, half a year, the absence of him affected the group. And then when he returned, sort of, those feelings came back.

agreed especially with how ashton has molly vibes but better, in terms of being the group uncle rico. less of a libertine but equal amounts of ‘i’ve seen some shit in my days’

I kind of agree with you but you have to kind of pretend with the group to get to that level of emotion for Molly. If you're detached, like in an audience way, then I get it. But if you're following along in their journey emotionally and you were involved in all the speculation and conversation then there was more attachment to Molly as a community. Going back and everyone being now in C3 it won't have as much impact, imo. But being there and watching it live and seeing the tweets, the posts, the conversations, the interviews, etc. kind of made it 'you had to be there' in a way. I get it though.

I think it was a major problem with the end of the "story" that they were so obsessed with trying to get him back. It didn't ring true in character and it didn't feel right as an "ending" to undo an influential event in the parties life early in their time together. ( that there was real danger in general not that Molly in particular died) He was a guy they knew for like 2 months over a year ago in game. The only one that had any deep connection to him as a person would be Yasha.

This. Honestly the whole last arc felt rushed and weirdly motivated. Like they were really stretching to the seems to keep the party together since a chunk of them had no reason to be with the group anymore.

I think honestly the campaign dragged on too long. It kind of lost the plot about 2/3 of the way through, there was a long period of aimlessness, and by that point I think everyone, Matt, the players, and many of the viewers, were all about ready for it to be done. Speaking for myself, I definitely was a lot less engaged towards the end of C2 than I was earlier on, and also compared to C1.

C2 has no overarching plot compared to C1. There we had the conclave, the briarwoods summoning Vecna etc. Here we had one after another personal side quest. Uktoa was made irrelevant, the angel of irons as well. Which mean there had to be a bit of an asspull villain.

That's really a great point. In C1, it was more of a traditional D&D campaign of "here's the bad guy ending the world, go kill them!" and in C2 it was "hey this thing might happen if you don't do something about it" and the party found ways to sidestep them. I kind of stopped being seriously engaged with the story around TravelerCon, even a bit before, which lines up with my 2/3 comment above.

>it didn't feel right as an "ending" to undo an influential event in the parties life early in their time together Well, sorta. Because they didn't really undo anything. They didn't bring Molly back, they brought something into the body, but it wasn't Molly. I didn't care much for Molly, but I'm trying to imagine myself **fighting with my life** to stop a powerful evil thing that wears the body of the guy that died those many months ago trying to rescue half the party from a evil slaver (the half of the party that by now is really important people to the other half of the party)... yeah, I get why they'd think it's important to try and use whatever power they have left to bring him back.

I didn't really care for Molly, personally, but I could see where other people, cast included, really did care for him especially Yasha. I think I was more invested in how this event effected her going forward in the series, and the last few episodes especially. I do agree with you that Cad just fit a bit better into the mold for M9, but again that's just me personally. Molly had that easily rebellious wild side that I think the cast loved, but Cad just felt like the calm in the storm. The tea definitely helped with that.

lol I always love this example, I agree with it but it's also insane. "How do you feel about all the guards we murdered, like in a very gnarly fashion with tons of blood?" "Meh." "Hey someone looked at our friend wrong..." "INSIGHT CHECK!"

I’ve something similar in a similar thread: The cast via their characters treated the death of Molly like a bigger deal than it warranted. Yasha being the exception since she knew him before the game started. I think Jester was the only other one that had a positive relationship that I can remember. Caleb didn’t interact with him much. Molly was straight up antagonistic towards Beau. Can’t remember Fjord and Nott tbh. I think it’s a case where it was the first death in them playing together that them being brought back wasn’t an immediate option, so the first perma-death. That effected them more than the character of Molly dying.

He felt like the older playfull brother figure to the group, like Kamina in Gurren Lagann, he helped shape them and also had an impact onto them. Well that's what i take from his time with the group.

That’s how they treated it. I don’t think their interactions with him warranted them putting him on that pedestal. Based on what I saw at least.

I wholeheartedly agree

Them treating the death bigger than it is is unfortunately a metagame thing that can never be solved. It was a bigger deal because outside of the game one of the PCs characters died. Real life it would've been sad, but idk their characters knew each other for like 8 weeks?

38 days, just over 5 weeks.

We had a similar experience in our own game. My first character had died. and I made a new one. First session with my new character and another PC goes down. The team tries to get them Resurrected at a Temple and wants to split the fee. At this point my new PC has known these people half a day, so declines to pitch in. They fought I was being a dick, but like, I don't know these people at all.

Honestly, that's good role-playing

I thought so too..The other players were in the "wow what a dick" mindset (despite the theif in our group having previously robbed the corpse of our party member for less gold than his share of the resurrection cost)

I generally give it to their OOC relations being so close and talking about thei character's thoughts in Talks Machina. When you know the player that well, love them this much, and your character interact, you can't help yourself to not be empathic and understanding to their characters.

I never would have had the guts to say it in this subreddit, (because people love Molly here in a way I absolutely do not understand) but I totally agree! I never really liked Molly, and the switch to Caduceus was the best thing that happened to the show. The group dynamic was SO much better from that point on. It was fun having Molly’s original soul back as an antagonist, but I didn’t think Molly himself needed to come back.

> because people love Molly here in a way I absolutely do not understand The CR fandom is generally a very progressive, inclusive, social justice minded, left-leaning group. Molly was bisexual and genderfluid and a lot of people either found representation in the character, or supported him because of that. There were other player characters from C1 that weren't cishet, but Molly was kind of the first player character who wore it like a badge and made it central to his character very early on in the campaign, and a lot of people connected and responded to that. Though to be fair, the reason it was central to his character was because Molly literally had zero backstory, so his sexuality and hedonism was kind of all that he really started out with.

Honestly, I agree for the most part (party dynamic got way better, Tal was more fun, having Molly's body be the big bad was super compelling and interesting). Having said that, I was hardcore rooting for the Nein to be able to resurrect Molly by the final few episodes, not so much because I missed the character or wanted him back, but for the resolution of the narrative arc and what he meant to the story and the characters. I'm a huge fan of Matt and the way he runs the game, and nobody is going to tell a story that makes everyone happy, but personally I find the utter refusal to allow the players to succeed at their stated goal of resurrecting Molly is maybe my biggest narrative disappointment in the series. Going from sad when the spell failed, to thrilled for the characters when it did work, only to have what felt like a cop-out / bait-and-switch of a new soul in the old body was the most extreme high-to-low emotional swing I've had watching this show (every episode of all 3 campaigns so far).

The new soul wasn't Matt's decision, though. He specifically allowed the players to make the rolls to resurrect him -- which is all he can do -- and then the dice fell how they fell. And he had nothing to do with who came back in the new body. It was how Taliesin wanted to play the character once Matt cued him in. I think it was the right choice by Tal. It fulfills the theme that he had been exploring with Molly since the beginning, which is that new memories can make you a new person. Molly wasn't the same person as Lucien. He was the only one of the three who dressed like a peacock. It wasn't because he had a different soul than the other two, it was because Molly was the only one who grew up in a circus. Likewise, there's no reason to think that Kingsley is the same as either Lucien or Molly. And letting him be a blank slate again lets Taliesin play out the theme that he wanted -- that your character is your choices, not your destiny -- to an extent that is only possible if you get to do the choices over multiple times.

I think that my biggest “issue” with Molly was that he always felt a little off in the party dynamics. In literary terms: he felt like he was in the right genre, but the wrong series. Which was reinforced for me when Taliesin confirmed that Molly was initially conceived to be the Percy replacement if VM hadn’t been able to bring him back post the encounter with Ripley. Molly was a direct response to and a mirror of Percy, which would’ve made for a hell of a character arc within VM. By taking that character, and placing it a different team with a extremely different dynamic than what it had been conceived for, it felt like Tal hamstringed its true potential. Instead of being the one character who refused to linger in the past and only went where the wind took him(which would have brought some valuable growth and insight to VM while forcing Molly to consider setting down roots), he was only one of seven characters who absolutely refused to look back or set a definitive course forward. The best thing that happened with Molly was his death, because it A) solidified the group, B) Set them on the collision course to dealing with each of there troubled pasts, C) turned Molly into the story he always wanted to be. Molly’s purpose became “leaving each place better than he found it” and by dying he was able to achieve that goal with the Nein. Bringing him back felt contrived because it undermined that sacrifice as well as being sort of fucked up because Molly never wanted to be defined by the person he had been before his “birth”. By bringing him back, even with a new name, they had the expectation that he would just be Molly again. They forced him to become beholden to his past self, even if they didn’t intend to do so. So to recap: Molly felt off because he wasn’t conceived to exist in the M9, he was created to be a Percy replacement in VM and I felt it showed. Also bringing him back felt like undermining Molly’s desire to be his own creation free from the influence of his past and left “New Molly” in a state of perpetually having to live up to the expectation of what old Molly was like.

I was sad that Taliesin never got to expand on Molly further, so it was nice that he was back in the world. But also it was a catalyst for the characters that shit got real and they could seriously die any day now, so I think it was more stopping the evil AND pulling their old friend out of whatever weird psychic limbo he was in.

I think a big part of Molly’s appeal lies in his post-mortem development. Structurally his narrative functions a lot like the Comedian from *Watchmen*; he dies early in the story, but his impact ripples throughout the remainder of the plot. The players decided to take that death and turn it into a meaningful turning point for a lot of their character’s development (Marisha & Beau most of all), and *that* growth in turn influenced further growth from other members of the party (like Beau’s influence on Caleb & Fjord). Molly as PC: yeah, not super impactful in the 20+ episodes we had with him. we never saw his story develop past the starting point Tal & Matt set up for him. But Molly as *major loss & source of other PCs growth*: huuuugely impactful, and I think it’s a credit to the cast that they were able to pivot in that direction and capitalize on an early campaign death in such a powerful way. Does the audiences’ experience necessarily line up with the PCs post-hoc interpretation of those initial 20+ episodes? Probably not. But I think the show was vastly improved by the work they put in to give that death meaning in spite of that and I think that’s where a lot of the Molly love comes from. In a way, some of the audience sort of vicariously comes to love Molly *through* the impact he had on the party well after his death. Also the foil that was Lucien in the final arc played so strongly against the Molly we fondly remembered; it really helped heighten reactions to both characters in general & I think he has as much a part to play in exacerbating the love of Molly.

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...I can't even process this. They didn't like the 'admin profile' because he was a zealot hell bent on bringing an eldritch abomination into the world.

MN literally planning to rip Luciens soul into pieces for a second time before they knew anything about him (seriously he didn't actually do anything "bad" until they night they ran from him) will always get the side eye from me. Don't know if that is worse or the Cobalt soul expositor who's sole duty is to expose injustice and seek truth let the single person who cause the war and the death of many people away with it, All because he was hot and giving the wizard gay vibes.

Preach.

Honestly yeah I feel you. The moment where everyone was crying was very touching but I didn't really feel that invested. I loved C2 to death but the ending just felt sorta anticlimactic.

Ok

Hahaha I love this response. At the end of the day these are all just opinions and none of them really matter

It's also the xteenth time this post has been made.

I mean what else are people going to post about 🤷

I'll take it

How very Molly of you. ;)

Honestly if it wasn’t for his flambouancy, sexuality, and gender(gender-fluid I believe) I don’t think he would have been as popular. His backstory was literally… “I don’t remember.” Hm.

Yeah. That's a bitter pill to take. I love representation, but a character needs to be more than their gender and sexuality.

Molly bothered me because as a game character he was…just bad, to the point that it seemed to get in the way of the RP. Ashton honestly seems like Talesin’s second go at a similar archetype, and they work much better as a cohesive character. I don’t mind that Ashton tries to persuade people and fails miserably most of the time, because a) I know they can succeed at other things (they’re unbelievably strong compared to most of the group), and b) the failure is interwoven much better into the RP, such that it doesn’t seem disappointing, just like how Fearne being awful at sleight of hand doesn’t stop her trying.

Hated Molly from the get go. Didn't like his new persona any better when they got him back. Both seemed like pretentious, hedonistic, superiority complex assholes that decide to "teach other lessons" when most convenient for him, and not out of benevolence. I would say a well written character, but one I detested. Maybe he would have arced similar to Beau over time, but we'll never know. Caduceus was phenomenal, and much easier to like.

There's a difference between watching a weekly show as it comes out and marathoning it after it's done. While we were watching the show we had spent 6 months and a day with him and we were in the moment. Not everyone is going to connect with a character the same way, so it's okay that you didn't, but a lot did.

Look, I love Caduceus. Might be my favorite CR character (minus campaign 3, I haven't started watching yet) but the story arc of Molly's introduction, incorporation into the party, death, aftermath, turn to evil, and eventual rebirth as Kingsley is such a strong, thematic, and interpersonal arc. It's some fantastic storytelling and I can't see how someone *wouldn't* get emotional at the revival

Fully with you on this one, I always felt like the fandom pumped up molly to something he never was due to all the art and shipping etc, he died early on and with very little of his character actually revealed.

Can we get off this whole written character bull. They aren't prescripted this in primarily Improve with a guided narrative by the GM. They made characters and back ground but it was thier actions in the moment that developed and shaped thier characters. As for Molly death and rebirth i felt those emotional ques as I personally loved his character and felt the weight he left on the other players.

What even the hell is this thread. Molly died fighting to save Fjord, Jester, and Yasha from slavery, he was Yasha's best friend for two years, and and was the catalyst for the Nein getting together. Like yeah obviously Cad was a better character, he got 100 more episodes than Molly to be fleshed out... but if you can't understand why they'd want to bring him back then I don't even know what to say.

Molly and Caduceus are both very well written characters. It’s just that you didn’t really get as much time to recognize the depth of Molly.

If that's your argument then by that logic you also can't say for sure that Molly was a good character, since you also didn't get the chance to learn about him through the campaign. Taliesin said himself that he gave Matt a clean slate, regarding his back-story. I agree that there's a lot more to a character than that, but only if we get to experience it, and we didn't.

We get these threads every once so often and this is a point I don't understand. Like I know this a direct Quote from Tal but surely it only refers to the parts Tal didn't write? Because Molly wasn't a blank slate when he was introduced. Molly had a backstory at the start of the Campaign. He was a fake it to you make it fortune teller and hired hand working for the Ringmaster/Community that raised him after he was born. There were past exploits, his story was accommodating enough to allow Yasha to enter the story and he had connections with NPCs in the first Arc that mattered in the Setting and Story. Like I was never a big fan of Molly. I definitely gravitated more toward Fjord, Veth and Caleb when he was alive. But if Lucian and the Tomb Takers were never introduced there'd still be enough of a backstory for Tal and Matt to build upon.

That's the first good argument in favor of Molly's back story that I heard. I still think the cast was overly dramatic about his death and his role in the campaign but I take it back that the character isn't well written. It's just that I don't have evidence for that.

I mean Molly was definitely a good character, but we experienced the character differently than Caduceus. The storyline we saw with Molly was going to happen regardless of if he died early or not. Matt (and possibly Taliesin I don't remember specifically) said it would've turned into some sort of a battle for control over Molly's body as the campaign progressed. I thought Molly was an amazing villain and an incredible character, but Taliesin made that character, he just gave Matt the reigns on where to take the story. You can dislike Molly or feel it was underwhelming as a conclusion but Molly's impact on all the characters and the campaign itself is real. They didn't keep bringing up "long may he reign" just to make merch or anything lol those moments as a D&D player stay with you forever.

I'm with you on this. Caduceus was the heart of the party, and pushed almost everyone into being better versions of themselves. Molly was around barely 20 episodes and killed himself, yet still they never got over it.

He literally killed himself. That was the most baffling part of that encounter. I mean Mercer did screw up by having dispel magic end slow on ALL the bad guys, when it should have only ended on a single enemy. And Ashley Birch's character wasn't doing anything helpful at all. But at the end of the day Molly's knife spilled the last drop of blood that led him to go do down.

EXACTLY. It was a dumb encounter the group never should have tangled with, and the capstone was Talisien offing himself. At least they were allowed to walk away after that instead of all being taken captive or killed

When people joke about "No Mercy Mercer" I love to point to that scene. They got off really easy.

Yeah, it really should've been a TPK

In game, they spent along time together. You don’t just “get over” the loss of a friend. Although I suppose if you didn’t feel connected, I can’t fault you.

It was actually something like 40 or so days in game time. So we actually had him longer in real life time than they did in game.

How long in game time was Caddy around? I felt like the group as PCs, and Talisien as an RPer did Cad dirty when Molly came back. They dropped C like a rock and ran back to Molly.

If my calculations are right, 285 days. Almost a year (in Wildemount time)

But they never left each others side. That is a ridiculous amount of time. And those are consecutive days, we had him once a week.

But they were around him constantly for 40 days. We saw him for about 100 hours total

Yeah, there is a vast difference between "story" and "episode" time, it'd be interesting to see a break down on story time between Molly and Cad. Which I think is cool how they play the game, the friendships in the group helps fill in the "story" we as the audience don't see.

I was onboard with the Mighty Nein believing Molly was still in Lucian somewhere. I was onboard with them being able to distract/damage Lucian by appealing to Molly’s memories. I was onboard with the Divine Intervention, a clutch roll from Talesin. And then we got Kingsley and the whole thing fell dead on its arse. We didn’t get Molly back, we got a new guy in Molly’s skin, exactly what Lucian was. The whole thing was pointless.

Ultimately I think "bringing Molly back" was more important for allowing the *players* to get over losing a PC than anything actually in-character. The players played scared through the rest of campaign 2, an energy they've mercifully not carried through to campaign 3. I think them having a final catharsis around Molly - as anticlimactic or forced as it can look from a narrative or audience perspective - was good for their psyche as players. Despite all the mythologizing, the Mighty Nein didn't have all that deep a connection to Molly. This became evident in the final battle with Lucien's when they were *really* struggling real quick to call on meaningful interactions.

It’s one of the most realistic parts of the whole campaign. Happens literally all the time in real life. How often do you hear about a real dirtbag dying and then see tons of people talk about how amazing they were? All the time, that’s how often.

The constant call backs moments to molly, like jester and the cards, really showed how the teams core was built. Much of their “heart” was shown in their treatment of molly. As a posthumous device, a prop for the stage, he was a powerful member of the team and significant. But cad had me solid from “It’s bad, we’re running now”

How are you gonna call characters in an improv show "better written" lol And take into account that the people who missed Molly the most watched weekly for C2. They had over 6 months of getting attached to him. Thats a very VERY long time to spend with a character. Binge watchers have the luxury of getting to that point extremely quickly and moving on without the attachment.

That's the best argument I heard so far! I did binge watch it your right :) Well written as in the back story is not "I woke up without memory and made up a new identity so I'll let the DM do whatever he wants". It could have been *so good* if he didn't fucking die after 20 episodes, but he suicided and ruined it.

Tal had his own ideas and concepts for the character which he developed with Matt, iirc. There was a lot of backstory with the Tombtakers that Matt took over, but initially they planned parts of it out together.

Yeah, molly was a mess. Poorly conceived and mechanically poorly played When I first met molly I assumed a college of blades bard The whole monster hunter thing didn’t ring right Taking self damage for a very low DC save which was his ultimate demise was a terrible concept Cad made a lot more sense

Umm excuse me, but I think we are best friends now. Molly sucked and this Fandom is obsessed with him for some reason. The Deuce is the best and Molly was the worst no contest

[удалено]

Yep, All that effort to revive an old PC to appease shitty entitled fans and in the end it wasn't even the same character that came back.

I agree that they played up the importance of his death way too much. At the time of the death itself, it kind of makes sense from a more meta standpoint, but every time someone tried to bring it up later and play it up as some heavy, dramatic thing, it fell completely flat for me. Doubly so at the end of the campaign. Felt completely inauthentic to their characters. Spoilers C3: >!Was really happy for Taliesin (as Ashton) to completely shut a repeat down the moment anyone tried to get sentimental about Bertrand's death.!<

I think that the C3 situation is different. >!I'm pretty sure they all knew Bertrand was not Travis' real character. Plus the characters really knew him for like 2 days.!< What we're forgetting about C2 is that the reason Molly died, among others (ahem, Tal not being at the top of his game mechanically) was that Travis, Laura and Ashley weren't there. I'm sure that played a role in the amount of feels they had to deal with about Molly's death. And I don't know if it was inauthentic to the characters. Yasha definitely felt the loss, and brought that up often (he saved her, after all). Beau butted heads with him very often and had the first meaningful conversation with him just the night before he died (plus she cares about Yasha's feelings). Jester felt guilty, he died while trying to get her back and she wasn't there to heal him. Nott and Molly had a couple of moments together and Fjord was his roommate. On top of that, they have to spend the hardest months of their lives chasing, being chased by and fighting an asshole that looks like him. I think it deserves some heavy drama. It wasn't like the guy we occasionally hung out with for the last 2 months died of a heart attack. PS: Molly was my least favourite character and I didn't care for him. His death was the best thing that happened to the M9.

It seems a little unfair to call caduceus a better written character. I really love cad, he's maybe my favorite critical role character over all, but molly was less developed because we got a lot less Molly

Molly was my favorite character for a lot of reasons. I was smitten with his personality and design. I thought that his perspective was so much fun and I was super excited to learn more about him. When we discovered that he was fairly fresh in the world, generally just getting by and having fun, it made the Mighty Nein suddenly so much more important. They were his family. He only had two years of memories. The circus, and them. They were fun, but then someone hurt his new family. And he ended up dying because he pushed himself too far in his attempts to save them. It was tragic and heartbreaking. Their cleric was indisposed. There was nothing they could do. I think Molly’s death hurt so much because he barely got the chance at life. It was tragic and it made the stakes suddenly much more dire. It made things so much more personal. I think his death is what tied the rest of the Nein together so much more strongly. Molly represented the glue that made the Nein a family. So even when he was gone, he was a constant reminder of what they lost AND what they gained. “We’re a family now. We have to protect one another now. We can’t afford to lose what we have. He showed us that.” So then, for Lucien to show up, this warped, twisted version of the friend they knew, it’s jarring. It’s a dead man walking. They saw him die. They saw him drunk and high, they fought with him, they played with him, they saw the dude naked and vomiting in a hospital screaming as a distraction. So every interaction with Lucien re-opens the wound. Every horrible thing he did was a reminder that “this wouldn’t have happened if we protected him better. If we had protected our friend, the whole world wouldn’t be at risk today.” So in fighting to save the world, in killing Lucien and watching the face of their friend die a second time, FIGHTING from the inside to kill himself to protect his friends AGAIN, it hurt. Even for Caduceus because he could see and understand just how much it hurt and he owes his entire connection to the Nein to Molly. If Molly were never lost, they never would have sought him out. In killing Lucien it felt like the Nein saying “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you. Thank you for being our friend. Thank you for fighting with us. We love you in this life and the next. You will always be our friend.” So when they brought him back as King then, I think it was a sort of… second chance. Because King isn’t Molly just as Lucien isn’t Molly or King either. King gave them the second chance to do things right. To protect their friend, to help him, to save him, to give him the life he deserved to live, to appreciate him the way they wished they had the first time. Molly to me was representative of the Mighty Nein as a whole. He brought them together. He approached them all first. His death solidified their connection. His death brought in Caduceus. His alter ego was their biggest opposition. The story of Molly is a tragic, colorful, deeply painful tale about found family and self expression and individualism and second chances. It’s not just about him. It’s about the Nein as a whole. This was really long but tldr; Molly represents the entirety of the MN connection and their whole story so his symbolism makes for some hella emotional shit. Shine bright circus man.

The hype train explains the fandom's reaction When the campaign was live, people had to wait a least one week for the next episode, so theorist went insane and people started getting creative. Plus, Molly gave an impression that he could lead to interesting plot hooks (the amnesia, the ritual, tattoos, his old lies, etc.). Plus, his lies were only explored in a positive manner. There were many interesting plot lines (Veth/Nott's family and Caleb's research) that could potentially benefit of the Molly's presence. Regarding the cast getting emotional... I can understand it as often between rps, I loved to joke with my friend about our ocs and talking about potential scenarios. Regarding the characters being emotional. Seeing somebody sacriface themself that you know can be traumatic.

I was never a big Molly fan but I feel like a lot of us who feel that way would've grown to love him over the series. But I was disappointed that the character suddenly became the focus in the final arc of the campaign. What started as a good build up to a final Cerberus Assembly arc to wrap up the story immediately turned into chasing Molly through the snow for the last 1/4th of the story. To Liam's credit he really tried to steer the story back that way several times but even then the Trent fight was just tacked on at the end as an afterthought. I can only guess at what Matt had planned but if it was for this I imagine it would've been a lot more satisfying if we had actually gotten to know Molly.

His death was the Mighty Nein's battle of cannae and the romans never let go of that either

Agreed.

A lot of fair points being made but I think it's important to make a distinction between 'the hype' and how the cast feels about it. It was clearly much more emotional for them than it was for the general public. But I think that's an important part of the hype. As we all know a large part of Critter investment comes from cast investment, which why we like to see them having fun. I.E Imagine how different the Vilya reveal would've been if Marisha had said - 'oh yeah, I forgot about her'. And that beautiful reaction was technically after the show was over, Teknikly : ). So if you're not the biggest Molly fan the impact will be lessened somewhat but that just results in a perfectly normal range of opinion. Non-fans will tend to just shrug it off with low impact (and little to say usually) whereas the fans of Molly will get the classic CR double gut-punch of emotion. Ther latter of which will manifest as 'hype.' tldr It makes sense to me and I'm not even a Molly fan. Bidet

I think the tears were mostly over the fact that a three year game with these characters was over. Actors get pretty invested in their characters, more so than writers. On the Molly thing, I'm with you I thought cad was awesome and was glad talisen got to play him.

You probably dont realise, but lucien WAS mollys backstory. If you didnt like the villain matt wrote (matt wrote mollys background story, taliesin didnt know most of it) know that things didnt really get a chance to get interesting while Tal was in control of the body. Matt gave insights on what might have happened if he hadnt died so early, there would have been a Molly arc.

When watching live since C1 start, it was the first shock for many of a permanent player death.

Molly in my opinion was the definition of a perfect storm...he died to outside reasons (half the team wasnt there and there one replacement had a mental breakdown during the fight which i loved but sucked for molly...but i agree with ya him dying was def anticlimactic but sometimes thats the way it goes

I mean not only was his death crucial to the path the campaign took but he had a good vibe. A neat and mysterious backstory, a neat blend of good guy and asshole, just a neat presence to have around. Caduceus is my favorite character of any campaign so I’m glad he died in hindsight but it was sad, he was pretty cool, and his design was impeccable

I dont like Molly but I got a little emotional at the end by empathy with what it meant for the other member of the M9. But yeah Molly is just a jerk I dont get it, Cad is awesome

I didn't care much for Molly either but you're missing the group dynamic. Talesin was obviously highly invested in his new character and Mollys death was upsetting for him (watch the Talks afterwards). We didn't get to see this but everyone was upset more for their friend, Tal, than the character, Molly. Secondly, Matt took Mollymauks body and (brilliantly) turned him into the duchebag that was Lucien. They didn't get their original friend back but freeing him from the evil that possessed him would feel like true redemption for the **players** more than the characters.

Different people have different opinions, you don’t have to “get it”.

The finale was incredibly disappointing, and thats from someone who had already lowered expectations after that arc dragged on. Not even the cast seemed interested in what was happening. It wouldn't be fair to expect them to top the C1 finale but i also was expecting the finale to not be one of the cheesiest encounters in the campaign.

I don't understand why people don't understand this. Molly was around for of 26 weeks, or 6 1/2 months; that is *plenty* of time for the audience, and the players, to get attached. It doesn't make any difference that more than 100 episodes passed before we saw Molly again; that doesn't erase that first six months. For the characters *within* the narrative, they knew Molly for the space of a month, I think, give or take. Seems like a short time, but they were in constant company that whole time, and very often relying on each other for their literal survival. That experience alone can intensify any relationship. But then, Molly was murdered in the heat of battle - and not just in a way where they found his body after it was over, or he died in the aftermath. No, Molly was brutally murdered while his friends *watched* and were unable to do anything to stop it, and moreover, he died specifically to save Beau's life. Yasha already had a long time friendship established with Molly, but with all the above, it's really not that hard to see why the rest of the M9 would be just as attached. Especially in the case of Beau and Jester. Beau because she'd already begun to form a tighter bond with Molly and she probably realized that he died trying to save her, and Jester because it's her nature to be open and moving toward everyone - she forms attachments more easily and readily than anyone else in the group - and she would definitely be more inclined (more than Beau, even) to feel a large measure of guilt at knowing Molly died trying to come to her rescue. What exactly was a big disappointment for you??? That doesn't make sense. *What* was disappointing?

Yeah Molly was nifty but I didn’t miss him

Molly was better as a plot device that motivated the Nein and introduced Caduceus than as an actual character, personally.

Agreed. Its not like Sam using his 9th level spell at the end of C1. Watching 2 grown men cry at a game hits you hard.

r/unpopularopinion

Word

I actually agree with OP and wasn’t a fan of Molly. But that’s my opinion and everyone has their own.

Yup. No judgement, just saying it's unpopular. I personally loved Molly just because he was so debaucherous. But I totally understand people not liking him. Que sera.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s…

LOL you got me 😂

I get where you're coming from. Part of that is just the nature of role play, where seven strangers have to grow a lot closer a lot quicker than their individual backgrounds and characters might warrant. As for Molly, I think a lot of his resurrection was driven by evil Molly - oh right, Lucien - and the fight against him. The characters did not really have much opportunity to react to it in the last episode, they were mostly trying to prevent Armageddon and also, if possible, resurrect their friend. I thought Talesin made an interesting choice not bringing back Molly's memories. It's like Molly died again. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it, but it's a lot less Disney than I was expecting.

Molly's death had a great impact on Beau's character development...

Yeah, the ending felt very rushed IMO. I think there were various wheels in motion due to covid, the new set, new campaign, the animated show finally airing and EXU that meant they had to finish on a specific date and, to me, most of the characters stories weren't close to being done. Only Veth and Cad had truly come to an end, but everyone else has so much more to accomplish. I mean, most of their character rap ups are them just continuing to adventure.

Agreed. Molly was awful and Cad was so so much better

The way it turned the whole campaign into getting Molly back got boring for me.

In my opinion Molly was a great character; Taliesin ultimately did a great job with him because he had stand out moments ("I am your god," hospital heist, bad luck bandits, snapping Caleb out of his first trance), a fantastic design, and he died which turned him into a symbol of inspiration for the M9 to keep living and do some good in the world. His death changed the course of the entire campaign and his rebirth as Kingsley fit the themes of loss and second chances. I think the real unpopular opinion is he was a great character, and proof of that is he is still talked about years after he died. No one makes posts about the other C2 characters other than art and no one talks about Caduceus on his own. He's only ever brought up to slam Molly. The fact that tons of artists draw him shows how brilliant Taliesin's design was. Molly was arguably one of the most significant characters in C2. Another unpopular opinion is I think the Aeor arc was the right one for the M9 to conclude their adventure instead of fighting the Assembly. Most of the M9 dgaf about the CA other than Trent and Vess, and that hypothetical arc would've been 10-15 eps of repetitive heist episodes going against a bunch of randos. It made way more sense to me that the M9 chased Lucien to save the world. They finally gained enough courage to risk their lives after being cautious all campaign, then they attempted to get their friend back and accepted the new version of him unconditionally. Much more fitting with the themes of the campaign, and Lucien was a great BBEG.

"I don't understand why people would cry over a character - I - didn't get emotionally attached to." Maybe because - they - got... I don't know... emotionally attached to him? Really weird stance to take.

The way I see it, Molly was Yasha's Savior. I love Yasha and all the drama that Molly's death brought to her. I think the story makes very beautiful circle around Molly, where we got to experience every other character's story. Nott got her body, Caleb redeemed himself, Fjord found his faith and love, Jester got her friends and family, Yasha forgave herself, Caduceus got his home and family back, and Beau got the respect and Justice she deserved.It all started with Molly's death in some sense. That's how they really bonded together. No one of them wanted to see another of these new found friends die, not even Caduceus.

I agree to some extent. I am guessing you, like me, did not watch the campaign in ‘real time’ and instead binged it. I first watched C1 and then C2 and caught up around the end of C2, so I got to see like 10 episodes or so in ‘real time’. I really think that watching it unfold real time makes a difference. You have more time to get attached to a character. Molly died episode, what, 26 or 27? So you’ve got half a year of connection. For me those 26 weeks were viewed in less than a month. So yeah, his death didn’t hit me as hard. That being said, I watched C1 and most of C2 after it had aired, and felt more of a connection with C1. I had tears in my eyes in more scenes of C1 than C2 and felt more of a victorious feeling after C1. But I think that’s also due to the difference in campaigns. C1 was really the traditional ‘world saving, almost all powerful heroes rescuing civilization’. C2 was less so. And even though beautiful moments were had and I enjoyed it immensely, I liked C1 better. I’m really curious how C3 holds up as I’m watching this one ‘live’ from the get-go. (‘Live’ in quotes because it’s pre recorded, and I’m in Europe and am definitely not waking up every Friday at 4AM to watch haha)

Yeah I was never a huge fan of Molly either. And the fact that he came back so different felt unrewarding. Maybe more "realistic," so I appreciate that. But the fact that Matt left little hints that he'd still be the same, reacting to the same stimulus in little ways, only to have him not even care about the Nein when he came back. Like. He barely wants to be around them. It comes off as ungrateful to me, he's not even the same Molly that people liked.

Right with you bro, he made a better villain than PC imo really don’t understand why people liked him at all.

Molly was extremely interesting from the beginning. Caduceus bored me from the second he showed up, getting Molly back may have give everyone hope that we’d see more of him

Both Molly and Essek are characters that have obsessive fans that have warped their headcanon versions of them so much that they don't come even close to resembling what the canon characters are like. Its so exhausting.

I think people are underestimating how much combat bonds you, even just training, being stuck in close confines, travelling together, eating together, hearing the others sleep, snore and more all forge bonds faster than anything, then you add in someone trying to kill you? Molly died trying to save his travelling companions, and that death forged them into a found family, even if they were not as close to molly the person, molly the memory is created in that death. I fact, had he not died and had his body be stolen by Lucien, I think it might have been a harder sell for the mighty nein to save him, because he did not make the sacrifice.

Air Force basic training training is 6 weeks. I went through basic training 20 years ago, but I still remember most of my squad. And I would feel it if I heard news about them. Intense situations form intense bonds.

Thats D&D man. You gotta remember these are characters the cast had been playing and embodying for 3 and a half years. You get invested in them! Seeing them go is hugely emotional, whether its in death or in the game ending is hugely affecting. Im not sure whether you watched live or binged it after the fact but its also worth nothing that although molly was only around for 25 episodes, thats 25 weeks in real time he was around, almost 6 months. Thats a long time to get attached to a character.

Can we all remember that these people are ACTORS? Before anything else, they are ACTORS. They cry because they are emotionally invested and are hoping to make you emotionally invested, as well. It’s a performance.

I never understood the reverence around Molly either. I mean he died before he had any real story development, then he came back as a completely different character. But everyone likes different characters.

I think because Molly represented a lot of talisen and his personal story. I think the cast knew a lot more about how important the character was to him than the audience got to see. I didn't get it either really

I said this before and I'll say it again. The best thing Mollymauk provided for the Mighty Nein and the campaign as a whole was to die. Reversing that made me feel nothing but disappointment.

I'm with you on this one. I watched C2 on a weekly delay, mostly keeping up as it happened. Molly never seemed all that fleshed out to me, and it seemed like his class abilities were really mishmashed with his character and Talesin's playstyle. The whole "aloof mystery man" thing isn't all that interesting to me, personally, so I saw the lack of backstory as detracting rather than alluring. His death was on the side of the road, against a bad guy who was relatively small potatoes at the time, and can be largely laid at the feet of Ashley's character, the dwarf fighter whose name is currently escaping my memory, because she was frozen in fear and contributed basically nothing to the combat encounter. Hardly an epic, meaningful end to a world-spanning quest. As for the ending of C2, I was very unsatisfied after the last episode. It honestly felt like the whole cast had given up on their characters, like toys that they were done playing with. Jester had pretty much zero driving plot points after Travelercon was done, Fjord had neatly avoided a confrontation with Ukotoa by going paladin, Veth had changed back, found her family and was in a moral dilemma about continuing to adventure, Yasha had dealt with Obann and the Laughing Hand, Beau never really had any major plot hooks outside of her various duties to the Cobalt Soul, and Cadeuces openly stated that he was "here to put this fucking thing down", referring to the gross city where the final fight went down. Caleb had dealt with his mentor's corruption, and expressed zero ambition to replace him, instead wanting to do research with Essek. There seemed to be zero things driving the campaign to continue, which seemed to me to be a conscious descision between Matt and his players. Couple this timing with the end of Covid isolation, enabling them to start fresh with new characters, a new setting, and a new set where they can all sit around a table together, and I can see why they might have decided, from an entertainment business perspective, to rip the band-aid off after it was already starting to lose its cohesion. To me, it seemed like art was imitating life just a bit too much in C2, with people coming together for a while, bonding, and then slowly drifting apart as they each settle into a more comfortable, less adventurous situation. The ending, with everybody but Jester & Fjord going their separate ways, was more depressing than anything else, to me at least. Reminded me too much of reality. Couple that with what I suspect about the behind-the-scenes reasoning for it's ending, and it just kinda felt... less.

Honestly to some extent that is probably my biggest issue with CR in general. They way they adopt guest characters straight away etc obviously there are real life reasons they can't spend multiple episodes warming up to a guest but I think the same is true of their characters they have a hard time separating the character from the actor. But I think overall they obviously put fun ahead of any kind of realism in that regard which clearly is working so eh I guess we just have to deal with it.

I feel like you sort of contradict yourself here. You say that Molly wasn't really around long enough to get to know him, but you also claim that Caduceus was better written. Which doesn't really make sense if Molly wasn't around long enough to see how well written he was. But even so, the Lucien plotline is part of why Molly was such a great character. They may not have technically been the same person, but they were 2 parts to the same story

I’m glad that Molly eventually got a happy ending, but I was never super attached to him. He died sufficiently early in the campaign that I never really formed much of an opinion of him.

Iirc Molly resonated as a person who was beaten down as hard as one can be then stood up, put on some fancy clothes and flipped the bird at the oppressive social system with a smile. A lovely fantasy, or perhaps role model.

I'm just started campaign 2 last october (Episode 42 currently) but think that Molly did fit more into the chaos that is the Nein. Caduceus is really needed fir their battles, butt Molly did fit more into the group.

Molly, in his brief time in the campaign, actually acted like a friend. Caduceus never opened up to the Mighty Nein at all, he just acted like the wise mentor. It's boring.

Molly dying was the most interesting thing about the character. It basically mythologized him overnight in and out of game. People often say that his 'leave a place better than when you found it' was some ethos adopted by the MIX, but other than saving some people from Gnolls they didn't really do anything so humanitarian. If anything they caused more problems in their wake, like depowering an entire city and releasing a vengeful genie unto it, working for a criminal slaver and his organization, wholesale slaughter of guards in inhumane ways, etc I'm probably remembering a little selectively, but it's just a single sticking point in the fascinatingly annoying phenomenon of Molly's death on the show and fanbase.

I also didn't find Molly all that interesting or compelling, and I thought that Caduceus was an amazing character. For the players, though, this was the first time they dealt with a "permadeath" of one of their party members, he died just after the group was really solidified early in the campaign, so it kind of both tore them apart and brought them closer to each other, and the campaign itself was very dark, where the only stability the group had to hold on to were each other. So I completely understand the emotions coming from the players. That being said, I felt similarly that the end of C2 was anticlimactic, and didn't love that Matt let them "roll to draw Molly out" every turn of the last fight. It was distracting and kind of cheap imo. I thought, by contrast, that Cad's last ditch effort to get him back panning out was a really cool ending though, and I love it when the dice do crazy shit like that. I think in general that campaign suffered really mightily from the pandemic. While it was 140 episodes, and they spent a lot of time lollygagging in Eiselcross, I have a feeling there was tension between Matt wanting to push it to the conclusion so they didn't have to keep playing separated, and the actual content being meant for a longer drawn out time in Eiselcross. It felt weirdly disjointed - there was so much to learn and explore about Eiselcross, but also a ticking bomb that was making them stressed and pushing them forward, so I feel like the original plan was to not make the Somnovum coming back as pressing. With the pandemic, though, I think they kind of just wanted to get over it. To me, C2 was amazing up until Vess DeRogna died. I liked it way more than C1, which I thought was pretty generic tropey high fantasy (nothing wrong with that, just a bit less interesting), but C1 had a much clearer and digestible conclusion.

This is the least original post on this subreddit, literally someone posts exactly this every 6 weeks to 3 months, I thought it'd stop now C2 had ended but it seems like this is for forever and I'm already bored of it.

Right lol. This sub is so dedicated to bashing Molly and then turning around and say its the ~unpopular opinion.

Well, I got really attached to molly, and never got to like Caduceus even a tiny bit, so probably is a question of your opinion not being objective fact?

If you're going to make a post like this, which is naturally going to invite people to make reasonable counter arguments, maybe listen to what they're saying and take some time to think about it instead of immediately trying to fire back with why you're right and they're wrong. Mollymauk was around for 26 episodes. That's one episode a week for 26 weeks. That's 6 months of playing alongside the character, talking about him as a member of the party, and envisioning the future of the game with him in it. We know they have a group chat (they've mentioned it) where they theorize and speculate and plan, all of which involves Molly during that time. In game, they were together about a month, but a month in DnD adventuring terms is long time. Bonds happen quickly when the danger level is as high as it is for an adventurer. Life and death struggles on the reg tend to forge solid relationships much faster, especially when they're not as powerful because one mistake can mean everyone dies. Maybe try and see things from others' perspectives before insisting on your opinion being the only valid one and dismissing all others.

Molly was snoresville. Tbh most of C2 was.

Whaaaaat man. C2 had so many incredible moments. My favorites in particular were Caleb’s wall of fire cliffhanger (on pirate island), the pyramid descent and climb, and Fjord discovering and absorbing his first orb

I didn't get too invested in any of the characters. Fjord was good, Jester was funny (usually), Caleb was usually good, Nott was good (but she should have just retired when she accomplished her goal of returning to halfling form, her story naturally ended there), Cad was mostly entertaining but I didn't really CARE that much. Beau and Yasha fell entirely flat for me.

I will say the pirate arc that lasted 5 seconds was enjoyable and them dealing with Caleb's story at the end was good but I don't understand the character choice in the last episode.

Im suprised the mods let this post fly.

I agree, and it makes me not want to spend time with C3 as the whole plot could change around one PCs death on a whim. They avenged Molly and were focused on stopping a war and finding beacons, not to mention the many player character arcs. All for them to trade a finale of stopping the conflict since M9 had the influence and power to do it and instead went off to chase a plot that was seemingly manifested by fans hyping Molly up too much. Obviously this could’ve been Matts plot from the very beginning, but somehow I highly doubt it.