The Character That Almost BROKE Critical Role 

Why do you think so many people disliked Keyleth?

I do think Marisha would have gotten a lot of hate for Beau too. Because there's a group that mistake Keyleth's personality for Marisha's. And they would have had the same issue with her and Beau - so instead of coming off as naïve and insecure, she would have come off as kind of a bitch. I think the only character that she could have played first without any backlash would have been Laudna, because Laudna is so quirky there's really no way to mistake the her for being Marisha.

If Marisha played Kiki as an actual powerhouse like Druids can be, she would have just been another Tiberius.

There's only one incident where Keyleth came across as the moralizing buzzkill. That was when they met Kima. And that was rough, but I don't remember any other incident where she was holier than thou. And the Raishan thing - you have to remember that Raishan committed genocide against her people. So yeah, she's a bit salty about it.

They actually did an interview with her a long time ago when they talked about Keyleth. In the interview she said most people don't like her because they can see parts of themselves in the character that they didn't like which they didn't like in themselves.

It was Marisha's first character. Marisha played Keyleth in such a way that it didn't always translate to normal TTRPG roleplaying. Fast forward to LOVM series, Keyleth translates perfectly to animation, and is many peoples favorite character. It's hard to do subtle emote and body language at the TTRPG table, but when you can see it, it makes so much more sense.

Character growth is why I enjoy stories. When I am first introduced to a character, I expect massive flaws, barriers to their goals, internal struggle, social awkwardness, and being ineffective at it cheating there, eventual goals. This leaves room for storytelling, character development, and narrative complexity. She was a fantastic character.

It's crazy to me that so many people hated Keyleth. My first real time getting to know her was on Legend of Vox and I immediately fell in love with her and she immediately became my fave member. I love that she doubts herself and her abilities. She lacks confidence and that's a very common thing that I can relate to. I love Keyleth so much. I feel horrible that Marisha had to go through a ton of hate over Keyleth as well.

100% expected this video to about Tiberious. I actually had zero problem with Keyleth, I feel like she was the only one making sense most of the time. Sure she can be clumsy and maybe come off as holier than thou, but I feel like those speeches she did early on were just her way of practicing becoming a leader for her tribe. Later on she even takes the Inspiring Leader feat. I think the people who had a problem with Keyleth were just murder hobos who dont really think of the world as "alive"

I started my CR journey with Campaign 2... when I had caught up to current (episode 80 or so) at the time, then going back and binge watching C1 on the off days. I had a significant amount of Beau before being exposed to Keyleth. That allowed me the space to learn that Marissa approaches characters with a deep method. By the time I had met Keyleth, I had already learned the other colors that Marisha paints with... that made it much easier for me to separate Marisha and Keyleth. The funny part, I really disliked Yasha and felt it bleeding over into a dislike of Ashley. The character felt lazy and one note. Combined with her in and out scheduling (due to Blindspot) I just wasn't feeling it... then, I started consuming C1 and absolutely adored Pike, possibly my favorite C1 character. Being able to contrast Yasha/Pike and Beau/Keyleth let me see the talent that both were working with.... and knowing that those were characters choices, I could appreciate what they were doing with them.

Lots of the dislikeable traits Keyleth has are entirely due to bad combinations of her traits being displayed at the wrong times. Since she's a moral center character, so it's easy for her to come accross as an ethical know-it-all. Mix in her inexperience and how much of a liability she could be in combat (due to misreading spells and Matt's harsher ruling with her) and she can be downright unlikeable. It comes accross that she thinks she knows better than everyone else, while constantly showing off how little she actually knows. And when her inexperiece puts the lives of other treasured characters in danger it's easy for fans to dislike her. I adore Keyleth, but the combination of major traits she has doesn't work so well in an improv format, and works much better in a pre-written narrative. Her mistakes can be reigned in and her dialogue can be chosen more carefully. The D&D medium wasn't the best format to convey the character, but she really gets to put her best foot forward in animation.

What is funny is that Keyleth has always been my favourite character. Maybe it is because I was at a similar stage in my life when I first discovered CR back in 2015. 2015 was the year I graduated high school and at the time was a rule following catholic school girl with high expectations and pressure from my family. As Keyleth came into her own so did I. I'm just glad I stayed away from a lot of the discourse that was going on back then as people hating on Keyleth would have probably been really bad for my mental health.

I'm soooooooooooooo weirded out to know (as a mostly recent fan) that people didn't like her, I loved her in Campaign 1 and had other issues with other people that almost made me want to stop watching but she was NEVER a problem to me...

Keyleth was my favorite too. I loved her character growth and how she grew into her power as opposed to stomping around like a pompous asshole like a certain other magic user >_>

I see people coming in from other seasons, or from the cleaned up story of the animation. But a lot of these arguments seem to ignore the most salient part of the criticism towards her, and it has very little to do with Keyleth as a character. It has to do with Marisha's tableplay, which is an entirely different world from how it is being potrayed in these videos. Things such as neglecting to read her abilities, flip flopping on her turn, and even being argumentative with Matt. I could also bring up her being inconsistent with her roleplay, or awkwardness with her improv.(her improv really was not as good as everyone else's) But those weren't as egregious to me as much as her grinding the session down to a hault as Matt or someone else is forced to read her spell, or she's arguing with Matt on a ruling.

The problem with Keyleth is that we didn't see the start of her journey - the stream started mid-campaign 1, with personality intact. If we'd seen the start of the journey, when she's joined the party as a complete nervous wreck and seen her development, I think that there would have been less hate.

I dislike Beau more than Keyleth, but I get why KiKi was so controversial to a lot of the people who watched C1. I have to admit, Keyleth's storyline is one of the more epic in terms of PCs, so it helps redeem her a bit. Legend of Vox Machina definitely benefits from not having to watch Marisha (and other CR cast members really) metagame and negotiate their attempts to bend the rules with Mercer.

So I started watching CR in C2, so Beau would be my first introduction and I really like her as a charater and Marisha as a player. And watching C1 I still feel the same way as many viewer, Keyleth is hateable. Keyleth as a moral compass of the group is a joke, since everyone is awful, and thats the point. Keyleth also gets treated as a good person above the other members but thats also not true. A good example is the Casino episodes, when Keyleth gets thrown out not because of the Casinos problem, but because of cheating( very moral). The will make the character better than the stream because it will filter out most of the hateable instances of Keyleth. Focus more on the character and idea of the character than what actually happened. You won't really see instances with Keyleth being awful in the show . Another problem is that Keyleth didn't really grow up and progress that much. At the end of the campaign, she is still the same. Not as an unconfident person, but someone who understand the laws, rules and consequences of your actions. She still don't follow the rules which isn't a good characteristics of a leader. The problem with situation is that Marisha, or a new player played with a character that's supposed to be pure good, and surrounded by a chaotic group and gets affected and influenced. Playing as a Lawful good character is always hated by other characters because those character aren't being realistic with how actions and consequences work. Keyleth acts as an partially immoral character but still treated by other players as a Lawful good. I think the summary of why the Character is hated is that because the other players and maybe the NPCs treated Keyleth( and the party) as a good and moral person and not really pointing out there problems. Like Vex being greedy gets pointed out, Scanlans Scanlaness, Grog's headfirst actions and even Vax attacking raishan in the tunnel by scanlan as having a death wish. Keyleth bad decision and actions never really gets pointed out, like cheating, Killing (not a big deal as a murder hobo or any DnD party) or not backing down to Raishan's treat even though it could be similar to nuking the City. Never really gets affected by the consequences of your actions and cannot and will not always get your way by just being good. Thats why Percy is liked a lot since he is the opposite of Keyleth. Sees and understand himself as a bad person but not really not that awful, understand the consequences of his actions( with Ripley and the deal with the Devil) grow up and develop to be a good leader of a city. Keyleth is hated not because people see themselves on that character, but seeing her as someone they want to be but not complying with reality. A person who do break the rules, be awful from time to time or straight up kill and cheat but still gets the praises. But the character not complying with the real world and consequences and still being treated and receive praises that they don't really deserve fully.

Kyleth is sanctimonious

I fucking loved Keyleth- even though all of the people played them as vulnerable and real people, no one felt more real and natural than Keyleth, and Marisha played her so well Not to mention how OP she was hahaha

Yeah this doesn't really touch on what I think was the main reason people hated her, and the reason I still don't like her as a character or the way Marisha played her. I think the idea of her is great, being awkward and often just bumbling through stuff as that "small town girl," as you put it, is a lot of fun to watch, and her being a moral compass also was never a bad thing, imho, the party as a whole needed that reminder sometimes. What really ground my gears though was the CONSTANT attempts at "being wise," missing the mark, being difficult about "missing the mark," then turning that switch off to "being naive and cute" a moment later. I'd be willing to chalk it up to "her trying to be wise but failing at it cause of her naivety," but I NEVER got the impression that's what Marisha was trying to do. It was more like she was using her low charisma to explain the naivety but then legitimately trying to be "all wise and understanding," when she very clearly wasn't and didn't. I'm sorry but that just isn't how it works, naivety isn't "social awkwardness," it is quite specifically being "unwise," so to represent that you'd need a low wisdom. I understand you can't do that as a Druid and still function, and I'm fine with her using the low charisma to explain it, but then don't turn around and try to be the wisest motherfucker around when you were JUST roleplaying her as super naive! Just stick to one, cause they don't work together. Not to mention I don't think Marisha does "wise" very well either, she seems to get hung up on what she believes to be right OOC too easily, and it doesn't come across as very wise to me when you argue with someone who's making good points simply cause they're disagreeing with you. Not to say a wise person never argues their view, but being able to accept when you're wrong is important, and Keyleth was wrong A LOT, cause she was NAIVE! Also the amount of power she was given irked me as well, but I think that was largely cause I already didn't like her. I mean, Druids are arguably the strongest class in 5e already, and Matt gave her a lot more power then they even normally get, if Marisha wasn't always trying to "solve every problem" herself but making mistakes OOC, she could have probably legitimately solved every problem herself. The goldfish moment is actually the perfect example. In character, it makes sense, she was an awkward goof and very naive, so turning into a fish to try and "land in the water" was a reasonable "oops" moment and it was fucking hilarious. But if you watch it back, you'll see Marisha arguing practically tooth and nail for why it should work, cause SHE was being naive but wanted Keyleth to be wise as fuck and simply couldn't, resulting in her killing herself in a fantastic way. Granted to Marisha she played it off well after the fact, she's not a salty player (like some others at the table) so she rolls with the punches well, but in the moment of those scenarios where SHE'S being naive but trying to make Keyleth wise it really shows why I at least disliked the character and how Marisha frequently played her. Nothing to do with her being the moral compass.

I watched campaign 2 first so that might color my experience, but I like the fact that Marisha is playing a freaking Moon Druid, one of the most powerful classes you can play in 5e, especially at the beginning, and she plays her character in the exact opposite way. She constantly thinks she's not good enough when we all know she's more than capable if she'd just believe in herself. I really like how the show is also depicting that aspect. Every time Kiki cuts loose it's always a sight to behold but then afterwards she goes back to her same meek and humble self.

Kiki threatening riashaun was a badass moment

the last minute failed deal with the clasp. Boi I rage internally every time .

From what I gathered there was a lot of hate for Marisha personally. They didn't like her character, but also disliked her as a player. During battles she was constantly looking through spells to see what she was about to do next, misunderstood how they worked, and had to have the last round recapped a lot of times because she was unaware of what was going on. Playing as a druid is a lot, they have access to all their spells, and a lot of animals they can turn into. I liked her, and felt bad for her.

Ultimately, the marisha/keyleth hate was stemmed from marisha not undertsanding the effects of her magic largely. Speaking as someone who watch all her misseps unfold live, it was always because of her misinderstanding of the limitations of a sell because she only read the name of the spell and concluded its effect instead of reasing the details about said spell; in turn leadin mercer, her dm boufriend, to actually have to slap her down a couple times and remind her to read her spells, even having to alter and retcon because what she did had such a negative effect in game that the encounter wasnt fun anymore. See "keyleth turned us all into farts"

It doesn’t matter as Marisha can play exactly how she wants however, Another very common complaint I have seen over the years is Marisha not reading her spells during combats and casting them anyway. It wasn’t even a sub optimal choice thing it was a “I didn’t even read this spell all the way and it’s not doing what I thought it would do thing” and again I don’t care it’s a problem a lot of players do. But it seemed to drive people nuts,

Let's get that Opal video

My issue with the Character is she never seemed to grow, this is a character that did not believe in Gods, even with a cleric in the party and after visiting the GODS. My issue with Marisha in Vox Machina and the Mighty Nine is she seemed to want to be in every scene. If it was not for Sam telling her to butt out, we would not have gotten the Cupcake scene.

I didn't check out critical role during campaign 1 because at the time Merisha was also the host of Gamestop TV that plays in all the stores.... I had to listen to the same segments by her all day on loop lol

Keylith is like a new D&D player. Someone who is learning the game as well as playing a character.

I started with Campaign 2 and it took a little while to warm to Beau, but once Fjord started giving Beau "nice" lessons I was hooked. I knew from chat that Marisha got crap about Keyleth, so I'm glad I got Beau first.

I started with C3 so my first experience with Marisha was with Laudna who I think is one of my favorite fantasy characters ever created. So when I read about the hate she got in C1 I was kind of surprised. Once I caught up with C3 I went back to C2 and early in the campaign (I am only on episode 25 or so) Marisha also got some hate based on how abrasive Beau was, especially toward Caleb. I'll repeat here what I said after the aftermath of "bowl gate": Beau is definitely somewhat of an obnoxious character but I feel like Marisha is playing off of Caleb and Nott's behaviors in game. But because Liam and Sam are all schmoopy and adorable people can't see past that, and that their characters, while enjoyable, are also kind of shady. Beau's abrasive actions have gotten some awesome roleplaying and storytelling out of Caleb and Nott. It is weird that people can't see that. I'm not saying they have to like Beau. She definitely is abrasive at times. But enjoy the journey and where they take us. The outcomes are always interesting.

3:15 that "voice of reason" part was what I liked.

What is the Opal hate?

There are some moments after the showdown with Umbrasyl when she roleplays so well and her character’s insecurity and anxiety really gets space to be worked with - that guest Paladin guides Keyleth through a panic attack in a really beautiful way. I think it’s awesome that she plays a neurodivergent character and she does it really well.

i remember for me one of the first episodes they went bar hopping and Keyleth got sloppy college girl drunk, and it just reminded me of people who i knew personally that just turned me off for a quite a few episodes and i never really got into the character

Great video, but you also missed one point: some haters would complain about Marissa’s decisions in relation to her stats. Ie “with so much wisdom, why is she acting so stupid?” The easiest target of scorn was Keyleths infamous cliff dive

The weird part is I was never bothered by Marisha playing Keyleth...but MAN! Early Beau was really annoying to me, but I'll chuck that up to Marisha figuring out Beau's personality cuz I definitely liked her a bit more later on. Laudna is one of my favorites from campaign three and I honestly think it's her best character.

to be fair, Keyleth had a pretty fucking valid reason to not want to work with Raishan. And that "Call me "child" ONE MORE TIME!" line was fucking epic.

Ok so I’m only in episode 48 in campaign 1, but so far I honestly enjoy Marisha’s portrayal of Keyleth, yes she’s awkward, yes she’s hard headed and stubborn but that truly makes her feel like an actual person instead of just “Oh this is what the party wants to do so moral code be damned”. She has her faults and so do all the other members of Vox Machina

I watched Vox Machina a month ago and I felt a connection with Kaylith. Like she is ME. And now I find out that almost everyone doesn’t like her? I'm shocked because I liked her right away. And as the adventure progressed I liked her more and more.

I think some people were frustrated with Marisha, maybe due to her lack of experience. I will admit that at times, Keyleth (or maybe even Marisha) annoyed me at times. Not a lot, but just little things, like her awkward judging of Kima during the Underdark segment coming off as a bit forced. I recall seeing her play Beau and thinking, "Wow, now THIS is a great way to play a character." And it was then that I realized that she had really learned a lot while playing and allowed me to appreciate some Keyleth moments in hindsight.

I actually never got why Keyleth so much. Sure, she could come off as annoying sometimes, but you know...characrer development is a thing. Plus in a party like Vox Machina, where you got Percy who, at the start, was a huge ball of anger and issues due to his past and the demon he made a nonverbal contract with, Grog who can sometimes come off as a murderhobo sometimes (not always, but he was prone to "swing axe first, talk later"), the twins who are somewhat morally grey at times, and Scandalan who wants to "bed everyone in the realm", you kinda do need someone to be the voice of reason. Especially since Matt isn't the type of DM to not let consequences go unpunished. You do something evil, it will come back to haunt you eventually, so having a character to try and balance out the chaos with order is something you would need

I started watching during campaign 3 and am watching campaign 1 now. I also watched the animated series first and I never understood why people hated Keyleth. But now I'm at Episode 73 and they're dealing with Raishan and as much as I love Marisha and animated Keyleth, I understand why people hated her so much. Marisha is a wonderful person and i love animated Keyleth but man campaign Keyleth is more and more grading the more I watch.

I love beauregard, my second favorite character from campaign 2, and i mention it because i had no idea marisha ray wasn't an actress like the others like i didn't know she didn't have the credentials because as beauregard she showed so much talent as an actress like she constantly adapted and improvised as the other were acting. Love her or hate her, she got it.

'Keyleth is the character that reviewed the most hate. Orion/Tiberius: "Am I a joke to you?"

I didn't hate Keyleth, but seeing Marisha as Beau definitely improved my opinion of Kiki.

I liked K but I remember a time when the group had collectively decided they needed to find out more information before they could make a plan And K kept holding the group up by stopping the game and saying we need to make a rigid plan on what to do for the fight they didn't have enough information on.

I've watched more then half of campaign 2 before starting campaign 1. I never even knew people didn't like Keyleth until much later. And now that i know, i still don't understand it even with explanations like this video... I always just accepted the character at face value, but a lot of people seem to assume why she is the way she is and dislike their own assumption.

As someone who didn’t like Keyleth/Marisha in C1, I feel like most people just sort of throw off the reasoning purely to uplift the old ideal of Keyleth. Like people saying “oh people bully you cause they want to be like you” it’s sort of optimistically dumb. In the end, Marisha was cringe and awkward herself. She clearly wasn’t comfortable in the role and pushed herself to play a character that honestly? Did not fit her personality. She *felt* like a brash woman trying to roleplay a sheepish young lady who had big shoes to fill, but roleplayed her as trying to be “cool” but “not cool” at the same time. It was incredibly overbearing and eventually just obnoxious. You could feel it too when the group pushed her into things to make her more “important” probably to counter balance all the negativity. But it honestly got worse. I do think people were rude to go so out on poor Marisha. As she was just trying to have fun. But I don’t think it’s wrong for people to feel like she was annoying as a character. Nor does that make these people not understanding of good character writing. I usually don’t mind a shy girl trying to do more than she is able to. But Marisha did not do that well. Not with how it felt during that journey (she feels 10x better in the animation). In the end, Marisha played an incredibly unfitting role for her personality that is usually more forward and loud. It felt clunky and cringy to watch her as Keyleth. I was so glad when I saw Beu in C2, she felt far more comfortable to watch there.

I agree with everything you said, but you said it about half a dozen times in slightly different words lol. That was some extreme stretching for that 10 minute mark, my guy.

I didn't even know people hated keyleth until behind the sheets. I'm not much for random chats or boards or the RU-vid comments. I loved keyleth the druid. I was more annoyed with Vex and Vax for the beginning but then everyone crew on me.

I never really had a problem with Keyleth and most of the time I don't have a problem with Marisha. When I did see a problem or at least when I did find myself getting somewhat annoyed was because of Marisha. The vast majority of which was when she obsessed about something looking or being "cool". It didn't keep me from enjoying the campaign but it was just like I said a bit annoying. It did end up leading to one of the funniest moments in the entire campaign however involving a certain gold fish.

I really like the point you made about how the reaction to Keyleth could have changed if she wasn't the first character Marisha played. I REALLY didn't like Keyleth when I watched critical role campaign 1. I started watching very early on, and she always was a bit annoying to me. But I loved the story of campaign 1, so I stuck with it (never sent Marisha hate tho lol, loved her as a person). But then campaign 2 rolled around and I LOVED Beau. Then, when COVID happened, I decided to rewatch campaign 1. Keyleth was sooooo much better that second time around, because I could understand WHILE Keyleth was acting like that, and I had trust in Marisha as a player because of how much I loved Beau. I don't know if this is more of a hindsight thing, but I think its a mix of hindsight and trust Marisha more as a player.

I have the same issue as Keyleth when I play DnD. I have issues putting aside morals and letting my character make bad decisions for the sake of good RP and I feel bad that I do it because I know that the consequences of bad decisions can be the most entertaining thing to play around with.

The only annoying thing about Keyleth was sudden screeching. Once Marisha turned it down, Keyleth stopped being annoying.

Keylith played by Marisha is what I imagine me playing my first character - I have problems focusing, often speak out of turn, I zone out, and I have close to zero roleplaying experience. For me Marisha was similar, she was misinterpreting, misunderstanding or simply not registering what was said creating inconsistent character of Keylith, after 2 campaigns she is much better with roleplaying, now I finally see a character, not the person behind her, because Marisha is balancing when and how to join the conversation and actively listens to the table. She is not injecting her forcefully into the conversation, she is not over the top.

There's a spectrum of how people play TTRPGs that goes from ROLE play to ROLL play. One end focuses on the acting and the other more on the mechanics. Marisha falls on the farthest end of the Role play side. People at the farthest end of the mechanical roll play side got frustrated that she overlooked their favorite elements in favour of her own playstyle. Mercer and the other players fall a little closer to the middle so there were moments where she ran into minor issues with focusing on role over mechanics. Some of the criticism with these issues was valid but overblown because of the bigger issue she faced: Online criticism comes in floods. If you look at most (not all) of the comments individually they are usually minor criticisms but add them all together and you run into "No single raindrop is responsible for a flood." There's a point where all of these little comments become something bigger than the component parts. A critical mass of negativity. You don't see it when you comment, and you have no control over how your comment is presented. Will it be sandwiched between two horrendously vile hate comments? That can cause your comment to be viewed as being in the same tone, even if you meant it as neutral or constructive. Ultimately though a minor criticism repeated thousands of times feels way worse than if it was just said once, even if every commenter was well meaning.

Honestly the biggest issues I had with Keyleth were of the game mechanics nature, i.e. Marisha being a new player misunderstanding her spells or abilities and/or getting into 'theory conflicts' with Matt or the other players. The only comparable player at the table in this manner was Vax with his misunderstanding of Surprise and Assassinate over and over, but hers felt (through admittedly not singly a fault of her own) more impactful. A good example a lot of people remember the Purple worm incident with Wind Walk which made the fight that more awkward. Keyfish is arguably another, although admittedly very funny in the meta sense. It's not that they were great impediments in the big picture of the campaign, but they immediately caused a breaking of immersion for me and I think that's why they felt so egregious. Tiberius also suffered of this with Orions rule-lawyering tendencies and stubbornness (not to bash on him but idk how to say it more politely) Overall there weren't *too* many of these moments to make me not like Keyleth, since I do like her story, but when they hit they stung for a while and I can't put a finger on it why. My best guess would be the feeling of an uncomfortable atmosphere at the table they created which made things awkward and negative feelings tend to stick with us. But all is forgiven, especially after seeing Beau and it goes to show how much ability Marisha has to make an impression on people

Personally keylith was just incredibly annoying. She was constantly trying to be in the spotlight. In my opinion she was a watered down version of the problems with tiberius. As we progressed through the story marisha would turn into the annoying factor and instead of steering clear. This also transitioned into the start of the character bo. But I think she finnally caught on and hammered it out to forge bo into one of the best characters.

My issues with Keyleth remain purely with Keyleth. I like Marisha as an actress. But you nailed it. keyleth’s lack of confidence and experience confined with her extreme naïveté and personal views makes her extremely judgmental if others. What really dug into my nerves with Keyleth was how she took everything so personal when she did something wrong but “DON’T YOU DARE BRING IT UP TO ME OR I’LL BE SET OFF ON A NERVOUS WECK” but she’ll constantly bring up the negatives the others have done to show a lesson. It comes off as Holier than thou, preachy, and honestly it never really left Keyleth until after the time skip. Or thinking how every dam thing is the party’s fault and blaming them and by extension herself for everything wrong that happens even when there was no way they could have prevented it. Case in point, constantly blaming the party for the dragons. I really wanted to yell in Keyleth’s face about what she did to aid the dragons since she wants so bad to be responsible. Yes she grew as a character and thank god for that but i still do not enjoy Keyleth as a character. She still has the holier than thou attitude because she knows she’s a powerhouse which allowed Ludinous to take advantage of her now overconfidence, but dropped the judgey as she matured and is more realistic, thank god. I never had an issue with Marisha. At all. Just the character if Keyleth

My problem was never with the character, it was with the player. I always found Marisha to be lost doing something else than paying attention. And this would lead to her saying things that either didn't matter (already been covered, solved, or random) or making plays that hindered/damaged the group. On to many occasions plays were made that if she was paying attention it would have been obvious not to do it. I'm not talking about casting a spell and it having a different effect on the field that she didn't expect but was on the same page as the rest of the party. I'm talking about that if I was playing with someone like that at my table, I might talk with the DM about how she wonders off and then comes back lost to what has happened. The rest of the table shouldn't need to recap what happened while you were not paying attention so you can make a properly informed decision of your turn over and over again.

I started in campaign 2. I tried watch campaign 1 .... just couldn't get into it. Most of the characters were annoying

I never watched the first campaign on twitch, RU-vid, so I didn't see everyone else's opinions on it, I was just happy to see dnd wasn't enjoyed by only me. Small town in Wales, no one really knows what it is here. I never had a gripe wit Keyleth, she spoke the most sense even when it turned heads against her. Her growth mirrors that of Ahsoka in the clone wars in many ways, hated at first for similar reasons and that allowed growth and maturity to be explored. Maybe it's because I was exposed to Ahsoka's growth first, which I did not like at the beginning as I'm sure a lot of people didn't, which allowed me to see Keyleth's growth with more patience.

Not Tiberious? LoL

Orion was the character that nearly broke critical role, not his PC.

I don't understand how you could hate someone who has to grow to become better. She had to develop from her in comparison to the rest of the party that had to resolve from theirs.

Honestly, I started with C2, and Beau (and Marisha) annoyed the heck out of me-it wasn’t until I saw her play Keyleth that I realized just how wide her range is

So...what I didn't love about Keyleth was the bouncing back and forth between extremes. For example, she immediately didn't trust Kima in the Underdark and even treated her with scorn even though (a) their friend Allura trusted her and (2) Kima had just been tortured for quite some time and watched her friends be murdered. That, for me, was my first - "Wait. What? Why?" There were many more. While there's always going to be some extraness at a gaming table and some character inconsistency - I feel like she chose extremes quite a bit and l couldn't always follow the character reasons for it. I have always loved Marisha and I love Beau and Laudna but yeah, I found Kethleth as a character kind of annoying in spots. I also think that toward the latter half of the campaign, her portrayal began to even out. She never came close to "breaking" Critical Role for me though. Actually, the reason I stopped watching Campaign 1 for a bit was Tiberus

Keyleth was dope, and sweet, and a very nuanced character, and Marisha knocked it out the park. Opal, on the other hand, lost me when she yelled for the staff in the first episode, like they were her personal servants. Hated it, stopped watching it after.

The only time I ever disliked Keylieth was whenever she had a conversation with Raishan. She would take over the scene and Marisha was clearly going for a "look how far Keylieth has come, she boldly stands her ground and taunts this powerful being who's done her people harm". But it always ended up with Matt as Raishan speaking in circles cuz Keylieth would keep demanding info Matt had already divulged and insisting that Raishan held no sway over them. Sure, it could be intentional to have Keylieth underestimate Raishan due to her anger at her but then it doesn't feel intentional when Matt has to repeat himself over and over as Marisha thinks she's seeing past Raishan's ploy. Also, doesn't help that before one of those instances, she just had a heart to heart with Grog that was really nice about when and how to focus rage only to then want to lash out and try to convice everyone they can take kill her no problem. Or during the final confrontation with Raishan, I genuinely could not tell if Marisha thought she was making real bargain with Raishan to "not kill her here and let them take her back to Emon to face judgement" and not realizing she wasn't actually presenting merciful ultimatum or if she was aware she was basically just sayjng "you could either die here fighting us or surrender and let us publicly execute you in Emon". But that's really it. Keep Keylieth far away from Raishan and all is hunky dory and Keylieth is awesome!

I loved her from the beginning. Her awkwardness and self doubt is very much me and I got it. And so far my favorite character from each campaign has been Marsha’s.

Keyleth mostly bothered me because of how she was played in combat, but as Keyleth grew marisha did as a player! It was a beautiful evolution

I love all the characters, they are well portrayed. No hate to have. Vax is my favourite tho. As a Paladin dnd player, Keyleth reminded me of how I started out before being comfortable with myself. I have all but love for the cast of Vox Machina.

Ive watched a pretty decent chunk of campaign 1 and i just dont understand the hatred for Keyleth. Anything i could say is just mild complaints but nothing to the level of hatred her and Marisa get. "She doesnt know the spells" uhhhh, have you ever played d&d with other people? Most people dont fully understand their spells. "Her character is a buzzkill" yeah she's a good aligned character with party members who regularly do questionable shit, of course she's gonna call them out. "She should have understood her druid abilities better"....again, have you EVER played d&d with other people before?!?!? I've had players who are literally dungeon masters themselves still not fully understand what Action Surge does. Yeah, I think I'll give newbie Marisha some slack with a more complicated class like druid.

One other major reason for Marisha and Keyleth's hatred relates to the time. CR started streaming at the cusp of the big D&D boom or just when it was taking off. At the time, D&D was a boys' club. She was a perfect target for all the hatred, not believing Marisha had earned her place at the table. Why wouldn't Ashley and Laura face this same hatred if it was a boys' club? Easy. They were more famous/well known. Its a shitty explanation, but the guys who knew Ashley and Laura weren't going to rag on them. Not to mention, Vax and Pike both sort of fell into a safe space. Vax was the bad ass woman who could be fantasized about. Pike was the healer, another trope about female players at the table. But Keyleth didn't fit those boxes. She was a support who played a DPS, an awkward girl who was destined to be leader, and wasn't a sex bomb. When she couldn't be pushed into a box, they didn't like her. Personally, I never hated Keyleth. I started listening to CR at the end of the first campaign and blasted through it thanks to a boring day job. She never was a hated character for me and if anything, some of the other characters and their moments of wreckers got my feathers ruffled more than Keyleth. Additionally, Keyleth has some of the most memorable moments from the first campaign. Goldfish flight, we're practically gods, interpretive dancing, planetar at the end against Vecna. She's a powerhouse and deserves the respect she has now.

I love Keyleth as a character as i always thought she seemed the most human out of all of them. I think why she got a bad rep is because of the expectations from fans of them starting a stream about D&D. Back then, D&D was far less popular than it is now and the medium of streaming D&D for entertainment was still very much in it's infancy. Many people going into the show had expectations that there would be wacky antics and/or over the top drama/action because that's how D&D was played. Keyleth stood out because she was neither bombastic enough nor Goofy enough so she didn't really stand out and was overshadowed by the other cast, particularly Grog and Vax. It's for these reasons which may or may not be one of the inspirations behind Beau who is both bombastic and goofy at times.

I never understood why people didn't like Keyleth. I liked her, though I wasn't a huge fan of Beau during the next campaign. Overall, each cast member has at least on character that I'm a big fan of, with Sam being the only person to have only top tier characters.

Keylith is a small-town girl who's caught up in the craziness of the big wide world. Marisha is a Kentucky girl who's caught in the craziness of LA and Hollywood... totally different.

Well said. Gotta admit Keyleth drove me absolutely crazy! Every time she opened her mouth I just cringed. But I always felt that just proved how good Marisha was. She played her perfectly. I have been playing D&D since I was in Jr. High (1981) and low charisma should do that. She stayed true to her character and her character's back story. Not saying Keyleth is a bad character either. Some of the best characters I have ever encountered (or played) have had the worst flaws to overcome. It's what makes D&D the fabulous game that it is and a joy to play.

Personally I only noticed a dislike of the character during her main arc conclusion. The Kraken fight was not very well calibrated by Mercer, which made the fight hard to watch play out. But Marisha (pretty sauced) wasn’t really playing to the painful and profound experience of what it must’ve been like for a character like Keyleth to have been put through a harrowing coming-of-age ritual. She was essentially the same character after that, which made the experience feel pointless.

I was always so annoyed with Tiberious that Keyloth never bothered me.

I never did understand the backlash against Marisha for Keyleth. Although I did at times find Keyleth a little unlikable I always thought that was just Marisha playing towards Keyleth's character sheet. Understand Keyleth only has a charisma of 10 that's not supposed to be a super charming person. What I found is many players use charisma as a dump stat, roleplay their character as someone super likable and the stat only comes into play when making checks. I thought (and still do think) Marisha is a brilliant role player for playing with her character sheet in mind. If we look at the charisma stats for Vox Keyleth has the lowest. She's the least likeable character of the group because her stats says she is. Marisha did a great job playing her.

huh really I didn't watch much in s1 but you do need a voice of reason in a party

Tbh to me keyleth got a bit awkward at raishan speeches. Its not about the leaderrole shes into, its more about talking without awareness whats really happening around her at the same time what most of the time result in neglectable speeches.

I have never watched the streams (been planning to for a while now), but I absolutely adore Keyleth's portrayal in the animated series. She's a sweet girl with just the right amount of adorable awkwardness, plus some awesome powers. Really don't get the hate.

I'll be frank here - Keyleth is my favorite character of the core group. I root harder for her than any of the others.

I both do and don't understand people's complaints about Marisha not playing the game well, not fully understanding spells, or taking long turns and whatnot. I play with people who, no matter the effort they put in, can not remember exactly ehat their spells do, or ghave their plans changed at the last second by others and have to scramble because they're not good at improvising. It can be a little annoying at times yes, but that's what you get when you play with people and not robots.

I actually had more of an issue with Taryon rather than Kiki Kiki was awkward yes but it was kinda cute in a way

Well I guess I'll toss my hat in the ring. My problem with Keyleth and, to a lesser extent, Beau was that they continuously set firm boundaries that were often against the desires of the party and, sometimes, what is clearly the best objective choice. Now obviously these are good qualities for a person to have, but PCs aren't people and despite what we may wish they shouldn't really be represented as real people to the truest extent. Part of playing a role playing game is willing to go along with the group. You can put up an argument and make your displeasure clear, but you shouldn't force you're morality on anyone in or out of game and we even saw this play out with Caduceus. With Caduceus Taliesin often let things his character would see as morally objectionable go with the desire to follow the groups need. Instead of playing a character and making concessions with the understanding that this is a game Marisha instead tried to bring real life to her characters which can cause friction within the game. While I cannot remember specific incidents with Keyleth, bowl gate comes to mind as a chief example of this. We also saw something similar to this play out with Ashley Burch when Mollymauk died. Instead of playing with the understanding of it being a game she was focused on her character and basically flubbed her first couple turns. You can argue that it was good roleplaying, commitment, or whatever you want, but that focus on playing a real person instead of a character caused friction (at least online).

Cool reflection about the character, but I would argue that there is a difference between a character in a conventional story and a character being played in a RPG game. Most of the things that make Kiki a great character to watch also made her a terrible character to play with (sometimes). That being said, I love her and Marisha. They mature a lot during the game.

I think Keyleth showed the problem with having an audience. If the party is ok with it and the DM is ok with it then a character is not bad. My friends and I tend to have group dynamics that many other people would dislike (only in that specific group) but we are all fine with it. I once told a different group about some of our sessions and got all kinds of responses like some people legitly fearing it would affect their games by people hearing about it. Having an audience can be great but every viewer is also a person that will critic based upon their own preferences and values. There were times I disliked Keyleth as well, there were times I disliked the whole group (paranoia is a big thing with Vox Machina) but that is only a difference in play-preference. I can see the people at the table are having genuine fun and for that I can love them all. Keyleth is a person not an ideal and that to me makes her great as a character.

I always loved Keyleth. She was an adorable sweetheart trying her best. The backlash just felt like dumb sexism and still does.

She bothered me because she never seemed to be able to grasp the rules of the game. And it was hard to separate her from the character. I changed my mind once I saw her start playing Bo.

In my mind, this take completely misses the point and the reality of what was happening at the time of CR1. Firstly, CR1 was a new genre, in so much that TTRPGs being streamed wasn’t a popular thing back then. Because of this a lot of the players that came to watch it (like myself) were hardcore DnD players. That’s not the case today. These days, many people come to the hobby by watching CR2 and CR3 first, falling in love with the characters and the narrative aspect of the game. But back when CR1 was live, the first several thousand people to start watching it were DnD players; we were nerds. And what have nerds been famous for doing? Gate-keeping and being judgmental about mistakes in their hobby. We can talk about Keyliths character as a separate entity from Marisha if you want, but it completely ignores how ‘suboptimally’ Marisha played Keylith. Marisha chose a Druid; a class that can swap its spells out on a long rest. The stream started at higher levels, meaning Marisha had a ton of spells to know. And… well…. She didn’t know them. She also didn’t really seem like she was even trying to learn them between streams (not to blame her, I don’t know how busy her life was). Marisha made a lot of blunders with her spells in CR1, and she often took excessive amounts of time stuttering through them on her turn. This is the reason the original fan-base turned on Marisha. I’m sure some were annoyed by the character, but her lack of ‘optimal’ play ground the gears of the nerds more than anything else; the ‘fans’ would be yelling at the screen when she used gaseous form in a purple worm fight, or the times she would accidentally break concentration on a spell by casting another one, etc. And I understand that we don’t talk about this anymore. We’d rather rewrite history so that Keylith was the real target, because accusing Marisha of being a bad player is now a faux pas. But the reality is, if Marisha played Keylith like she did at many a table, the other players and DM would be insisting that she hurry up, and that she learn her spells. I’ve had players like this at my table and they slow the game down, let alone a 4-hour stream that you’re not even playing in. I’m not condoning any of this behaviour. I know I left a few comments on the RU-vid videos back in the day and I’m certainly not proud of it. But the reason I know about this is because I could see the other comments when I was writing them. They weren’t targeting Keylith, they were nerds doing an ‘um actually’ at Marisha.

I didn't dislike the character, I dislike the way she was played. Episode 74 is a good example. The entire episode dragged on because she kept jumping in.... in such a way that all the plot discussion in that episode was repeated ad nauseum multiple times - even stuff that already been hashed out from previous episodes. It was very clear that she wasn't actively listening to anybody's conversation, even when they were directly responding to her, and this strongly derailed the direction of the game for that whole episode. Marisha was definitely laser-focused on demonstrating Keyleth's well-deserved rage against Raishan, but she went about it in a way that, to me, was detrimental to the quality of the roleplay scenes. Numerous times over the course of the entire campaign, when other characters were speaking (even Matt's characters), she very clearly was constantly distracted and not paying any attention to what was actually being said or done. This is often why, when it came to her turn in combat encounters, she had these cockamamie plans that wouldn't work - because the battle situation had changed dramatically by the time her turn came up (let alone constantly NOT reading her spells). Another time I really didn't like how the character was played was when she went on this anti-theistic path, pushing back against Kima and her faith in Bahamut, with such deeply in-built rage against theism itself, but then within a dozen episodes, she is casually accepting Sarenrae and Pelor and Melora without any thought given. I felt like, in that moment with Kima, Marisha was putting too much of herself into Keyleth. I'm agnostic, I love a good anti-theism rant, but the way she went about it was just genuinely obnoxious.

I didn't mind Keyleth. She wasn't my favorite, but I didn't hate her or even dislike her. HOWEVER to answer the question what if Marisha had played Bo first.... That would have ended my CR adventure. Bo is by far the worst character in CR to date, in my opinion, and almost caused me to stop watching the show. If I had not built a love for CR through C1 already, Bo would have killed it for me. But really here is the thing.... They are both Marisha's characters, and she played them how she wanted, and how she felt they should be played, the way she built and imagined them. So good for her!

As a Keyleth hater myself, I never got why people unironically went after Marisha. She was the player, not the character herself. Is the DnD community just mega dense?

I feel like the title is misleading. Yea no one liked her much at first but I don't see how that threatened to break critical role. Seems like toberius got closer to doing that then keyleth did🤷‍♂️