Critical Role Animatic - Good Mood Caleb (C2E105) 

This was literally me when I was 16

Do you mean slouching?

Yeah depression is a heavy load to carry

At least he seems to be getting a little bit better each session. Killing Trent will probably help too.

Oscar Brazil Yes.. that’s what bad posture is

i've had similar interactions with people i play with. being in a group that is able to bounce off each other well makes little moments like this far more pointed since it's more likely they'll catch on to the more subtle inferences

That's a shame, honestly, he has a nice smile

If someone with depression is suddenly happy that’s a sign that they might kill them self soon

@@sleepytimetaquito Your not wrong but Jesus that really hit hard in this context

In the latest episode, he got so excited he forgot to show Jester her room... Even with the Keen Mind feat!

Right... Yes! Definitely! ... Right?

"Better this way... (./?)"

Goes to show how well Liam stays in Caleb's mindset of *never going a moment without thinking about what he was manipulated into doing*

@@Verbose_Mode ..........yes

@@slipperyfish I mean he has Keen Mind... I don't know that he could stop thinking about it if he wanted to...

I knoooowwwwwww, it was soooooooooooo cute!

hey that reminds me of the deino family from pokemon

Honestly Caleb's adorable for the whole scene.

@@iananderson4754 That’s where the names came from. dEINo, ZWEILous, hyDREIgon

You know what got me was Fjord's "...Yes. Period. Right?"

at first i thought he meant that as, “it’s better that i remember what i have to do even if i have to remember my past” but now i see it as “it’s better that i’m racked with this guilt as a punishment for the terrible things I’ve done”

​@aduckinlingerie I think Caduceus thought the first way and Caleb the second way

But its not the caleb we came to love

@@isekaistation3682 Eventually the Caleb we came to love will be smiling. And I look forward to it 😊

Or possessed again and should be run away from!

Not gonna lie, I was ... somewhat ticked-off when Caleb was "restored" immediately. Maybe it was for the best, to rip that band-aid off asap but at the same time. He's the only one who I can imagine could REALLY use some good ol' amnesia. Why couldn't they leave him like that ? (This is in no way meant as a jab towards the others characters, and even less so their players. They are more than amazing at what they do, I just want our sad wizard boi to catch an ACTUAL break)

++

@@kimberleylannou3424 well the man was suffering fron amnesia/insanity for like 8 years. Proably doesnt wanne go round 2

@@timvanrijn8239 well the spell reinforced brainwashing for only Ickithon knows how long, 10 years in a sanitarium and then 2 years on the run before meeting the Nein. Caleb really doesn't like things messing with his head.

@@timvanrijn8239 you misspelled Ickythong. Might wanna double check your spellcheck, friend

He was one of the best students at the academy though. Astrid says that in one of their interactions.

@@PalleRasmussen Yes, but not THE best. According to Liam, that's Astrid. There's also much significance to be placed on being tutored by an archmage and implanted with magic crystals, in terms of his abilities relative to regular students.

@@danniemiesse4643 I just checked, episode 110 at the dinner Trent says Bren was the best. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5T0Lp7JE7do.html 01:34 ”as the prodigy, I always knew he was” 01:58 “Historically the most talented mages, has always walked this path” (Brenn’s path) “For the greatest ambitions come from them, who has endured the dark and crawled their way back” 02:35 “I have always had a fondness for you three. Eadwulf and Astrith are skilled at so much, and everything one could seemingly want in disciples and… associates. But, and I mean this with all due respect to both of them, their potential is… limited. Unlike you Brenn (or I like you Brenn - PR), you have the eventual makings, of an assembly member yourself.”

@@PalleRasmussen A few things: One: none of this specifies that Caleb is the best right now. The first quote does not specify superiority; only general quality. The second quote has no bearing at all on how powerful Caleb is; it's an observation about powerful mages from the past, and notably does not account for the many, many mages who also dealt with trouble in their times yet did NOT become legendary archmages. The last quote speaks only of potential (aka "talent"); which is some real elitist nonsense that has little to no accuracy and has much less to do with how someone turns out than the hard work and circumstances in which they can improve. Two: these are all said by Trent; an abusive manipulative fuck who wants to get in Caleb's head and make him predictable by appealing to his ego, just as he did when Caleb was a child. Three; those are all said by a character played by Matt- by an *antagonist* played by Matt (meaning; their purposes and intents are opposite to the protagonists'). Liam, as I said, always emphasizes that Caleb does not think or act as if he's the best.

@@danniemiesse4643 Matt also does not think or act like he is the best GM, and deserves accolades. He still is though, self-loathing does that to you. Something from which Caleb suffers massively. I shall be happy to come back and say "I told you so", in a few years when the campaign is done and we know the stats.

i did cry bro. catch me crying because of liam again

@@alycias7345 every damn week

WolfgirlAidan every damn week.

@@alycias7345 we can cry together over this awkward, dirty wizard.

WolfgirlAidan i live for his character development

It was so good I wondered for a moment if Caleb lost his accent but I realized I've never heard his voice that light

Did you just...

Idk Razgriz227 looking kinda sus

@@resdamalos im voting rag

Impostor Caleb pointing at real Caleb: Shoot him! He's the impostor! The Might Nein pointing all their attacks at the impostor: The real Caleb would *_never_* pass up a chance to die!

@@Me-ss2gq bruh

I would love it if campaign 2 could end on a scene of Caleb just looking out towards the sunset and smiling.

​@@spectralumbra1568 I can definitely see that. Caleb and Veth holding hands and smiling, an homage to Caleb and Nott at the beginning of campaign - gazing towards the sunset. The campaign ends with the two characters that started it, only this time both are changed for the better.

My boy better get Jester before that mama's boy half orc takes the whole plate.

@@spectralumbra1568 All I can imagine is Caleb as Thanos, sitting in a cabin, smiling into the sunset after having destroyed the empire and brutally murdered Trent, maybe gone a bit evil along the way, but smiling.

@@lowkeylonely4265 That was legitimately the vibe I had when I wrote my reply and I couldn't place what I was thinking about. Definitely Thanos. That has some pretty bad implications about what might happen to Veth though.

In those ten years he remembered what he had done. It was severe enough that the contrast between the parents he loved and the parents that were spies caused cracks in his mind, and the act of killing them shattered it. He was fully aware of what he had done to his parents, but catatonic because he was disgusted with himself. He was simultaneously despondent that he murdered his parents and ashamed of himself for not being able to be the loyal empire boy who didn't feel anything for killing traitors, regardless of relations. The woman who cleared his mind didn't restore his memories or sanity, she removed the false memories. Once he realised that the empire (Trent) had betrayed him and lied to him, it gave him purpose. The transformation of broken Bren to vengeance fueled Caleb was not a restoral, it was simply giving his mind a goal to work towards. It was no longer entirely his fault, there was someone to blame, and he could further incentivize himself by insisting he needed to save others from his own fate. So in this case, removing those bad memories wouldn't return him to who he was in the asylum, he had to have those memories to be catatonic. Removing those memories would however remove his drive to get stronger to defeat Trent.

@@Lreclusa Trent Ikithon canonically Feebleminded him, Charles. The woman cast Greater Restoration on him, which removed the Modify Memory *and* the Feebleminded. Trent says as much (albeit not in the same words) in the episode where they have dinner w/ him.

@@silas8772 That doesn't make sense. First, I don't remember him saying that. He says he put him in the asylum and sent the woman to restore him and the guard to die so he could escape, but I would need to listen again to see if there's anything about a feeblemind. Second, Caleb's own words state that when he killed his parents, something broke in him. At that point, before he showed any remorse, there would have been no reason for Trent to feeblemind him. If you said he used feeblemind to keep him docile after his mind broke, at least until he wanted to restore him, that would make sense. But Bren/Caleb would have had to give him a reason for the feeblemind. Third, several of the cast/characters made comments that they suspected Trent was full of it and was trying to take credit to make himself out to be the architect of everything Caleb is. Matt neither confirmed nor denied it. My view is that if the restoration also cleared a feeblemind, then Caleb would have known there was more than memory manipulation at play. He instead pointed to his own psyche breaking. As far as I'm concerned, even if Trent did admit to a feeblemind, it was either a containment measure after the fact, or a lie.

Boy, do I have news for you…

@@svndve Yo dude... it's actually happening!

[screaming screaming screaming crying]

Im glad you like em!!

the waves and the birds, so peaceful, I loved it

the interaction with matt's description...! oh my!

My only wish is for the volume on the sound effects to be like halved so I can actually hear what people are saying :)

I read a meta about how Caleb could have gotten into alcohol like Nott did, but instead chose to continue to punish himself with his guilt by staying, for the most part, sober.

a year late, but yeah, that guilt drives him. imo his guilt defines him as a character. without it there wouldn't be caleb. we'd just have a lanky ginger wizard dude.

Would he tho? His mind would forget but his heart would still ache

but then it won't be him

But that's not what he forgot. Quite literally the only thing Matt said he forgot was the reason the group was there on the island. Yasha, by contrast, rolled a 7 and forgot Molly, her wife, and some other things. Caleb only missed the dc by 1.

​@@DrM1nd3nd3r Matt also only explicitly said he remembered his friends' names, so if we're drawing inferences from that description he doesn't remember Astrid or Trent or his parents' names. I don't think we should take the quick explanation of a phenomenon we already understand as literal. I think Matt just didn't want to have to spend 5 minutes detailing what exactly Caleb remembers and what he forgot so he left it open-ended.

@@kinosaga21 modify memory it away and replace it with an emotionally sanitized sort of version that he could process better.

It isn't? Why not ask him beforehand which he would prefer? I mean, he is stuck in the past completely self guilty and depressed about it, how is that not considered a curse in its own right? As someone with plenty of issues, being able to effectively move on and not being stuck in eternal rut would in fact be preferred. Then later, when he has had time to grow a bit more, then maybe, just maybe, remove this status effect from him if he so asks for it.

@@Elmithian The problem there is that he isn't in the right mind to make that decision, because he doesn't know he did anything, or that there was anything to forget in the first place. If he had expressed earlier when he is in a complete state that he wished he couldn't remember it, than that's different. But as far as I can tell, he may be stuck in the past but he doesn't want to forget. He wants a way to make it right. Stopping him from having his memories both good and bad would be the worst curse, especially for an individual like Caleb.

@@FreePheoniix Ah, would you say that people with depression and survivor's guilt should suffer forever because their low self esteem prevents them from seeking out help? The world isn't perfect. People are far from perfect. Sometimes an intervention is needed. This might honestly be one of those cases. But we will never know since they didn't allow him to grow a bit stronger mentally while in that state before removing the effects. Of course I would prefer persuasion rather than force 10 out of 10 times, but as I said previously, the world is rarely that black and white. I am also not fond of taking away people's agency, in fact, i detest it, but what action can be done when people are being prisoners of their own minds? Is that lack of agency any better? It is certainly not self willing agency as depression is abnormality in a person's brain to send and form right signals. And survivor's guilt is often abnormal levels of guilt that cannot readily be dealt with due to the person suffering from it _wanting_ to be miserable.

@@Elmithian I think he should be allowed to make that decision himself. Otherwise, even though we have good intentions, our actions would still be no different from Ikathorn Trent.

@@JohnYoo39 But he isn't allowed to make the decision when he is in happier and more stable state of mind? You should be able to see the contradiction here no? Instead they, just like with actual intervention, took his autonomy and acted in what they believed to be his best interest. How is what they did in *any* way better?

Underappreciated

Cad is huge

Total grad student room. No furniture, a single candle (in place of a naked lightbulb), a pile of books in a corner...he sleeps on the couch and covers himself in throw pillows for warmth.

Har you seen the latest? Because the 8th and 9th floor is described somewhere in there.

Ooo that’s sounds interesting. Do you remember what the fic was called??

I was going to comment "OP where is the fic?" This sounds good!

@@annsmalley9039 this is going to be the first CR fic I’ve read, dunno how I never thought of it, but MAN that made me so excited for it. Just wanted to say thank you 🥰

*Happy

I hate sound design but comments like this makes it worth the extra work!

I think Caleb would prefer for them to restore his memories, but partially for bad reasons. Like obviously he has a thing about memory alteration because of what happened and wouldn't want it to happen again, but he's also been purposely making himself miserable for years to punish himself for what he did. That "it's better this way" line I think was in reference to that. Even if it might have been nicer just to let him be happy for a while, I think in a terrible way he really did prefer that they restore his memory.

That fan theory can’t be true because she used greater restoration to give him those bad memories back

@@BrianHall33 that's why i said that's what my theory 'was'

zeriul09 you’re right, missed that, sorry

@@BrianHall33 np

fitting

I mean, technically that's exactly what it is in a round-about way.

@@spectralumbra1568 exactly my point. liam's characters all need love

Didn't Liam voice Gaara in the dub?

@@The_Great_Wrennicles_the_IV Exactly. He is the master of depressed characters.

ONE OF US, ONE OF US, ONE OF US!

ExACTly. Also brought up during the Necrolord covenant campaign - memories as Mograine's strength as opposed to memories as Uther's burden.

Thanks you for the love~