The Problem With "No Mercy Percy" (VIDEO SCRIPT)

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I’d say that revenge stories are a guilty pleasure of mine, but that would mean I feel that they’re not really held in high regard, and I’m pretty sure they are

It’s safe to say that it started with the concept of Batman 1989 and has just GROWN from there, but nowadays there has just been so many deep and interesting stories centered around revenge and one character's quest to obtain it that I just find fascinating.

/So when I watched season one of Critical Role’s “The Legend of Vox Machina,” as someone who first started watching the games with Campaign 2’s “The Mighty Nein,” I had NO idea that the Briarwood saga was going to be a revenge story for Percy DeRollo, played by tabletop RPG elder goth queer Taliesin Jaffe. But I definitely wasn’t complaining, either./

My apologies to any campaign 1 critters currently watching this video, but I always found Percy’s character concept interesting, admittedly...

/Due to my own ignorance because I thought his relationship with the demon Orthax was along the lines of a mutual pact, like that of how warlocks form pacts with their patrons in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons./

Wait, none of you believe in playing your warlocks with healthy mutually benefited relationships with your patrons? And that’s FUN for you?

I mean, to each their own, I guess. But damn, y’all never even THOUGHT about that being a possibility? I definitely recommend giving it a try next time.

But yeah; all that to say I had NO IDEA about the angle played up between Percy and Orthax or what everything was leading up to regarding his want for revenge against the Briarwoods.

/And while I definitely enjoyed the journey and the message behind this one aspect of revenge and how it translates to the last of the DeRollos, I couldn’t help but find myself subconsciously comparing it to OTHER revenge stories I’ve exposed myself to in the past and noticing some very interesting differences that Percy’s Vox Machina arc kinda accidentally falls into when you do so./

So for today’s lesson, I want to take a closer look at the parallels and differences in how Percy’s revenge story presented in The Legend of Vox Machina season 1 compares to other revenge stories like it...

And how the differences in their intended interpretation -- specifically when it comes to modern revenge stories -- seem to always come down to a battle of the sexes. Let’s begin.

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Here’s The Thing About Percy...

Like I said before, I always found him to be the most interesting of the Vox Machina characters when I would see clips of campaign 1, including cosplay and especially fanart of the character. Y’know, before this show properly informed me of certain things.

He reflected the attitude and personality I usually gravitated toward when I made my first tabletop RPG character that I still play to this day in certain campaigns, albeit a bit altered from how he first was.

/A bit of an arrogant edgelord with a tragic past, and a smug and posh-sounding British accent. Y’know, the type who actually hates themselves, but it doesn’t stop them from thinking they’re the smartest person in the room. THAT’S Percy to me at first glance./

Then thanks to The Legend of Vox Machina season 1, I saw what Percy ACTUALLY is. And while I wasn’t disappointed in seeing the reality of his character, I was definitely intrigued by the elements of revenge that played into it and made me all the more interested.

/Yes, seeing how Orthax fed into his vengeance for the first time at the ending of episode 3 initially caught my interest. But then I saw the end of episode 6, and for the first time I saw “The List” become an ACTUAL LIST/

And I was like...HOLY SHIT

Like, the end of episode 3 already had me curious. But after watching Kerrion Stonefell’s name appear on The List when he was about to off him in one of the most beautifully executed edgelord scenes I’ve seen in animation so far, I literally had a Calvin Candie moment from Django Unchained.

(You had my curiosity. But now you have my attention)

Because -- speaking of Quentin Tarantino -- seeing this new development in Percy’s abilities and how he was gonna operate in this arc from someone who has NEVER watched campaign 1 before, immediately saw the parallels that THIS revenge story was going to have to ANOTHER one of my all-time favorite modern-day revenge stories recorded on film, Kill Bill.

Seeing the names appear on the outer chambers of The List immediately got me thinking of Beatrix Kiddo making her own list consisting of every member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad; Oren Ishii, Vernita Green, Budd, Elle Driver, and the snakecharmer himself, Bill. It even got me thinking how similar their paths were in regards to how they sought their revenge.

/In one way or another, both of their abusers allowed them to either escape or survive.

They either created or commissioned the creation of a weapon intended to bring about the death of their abusers by their hand

There’s the aforementioned hit list the two make, which in Percy’s case is constantly shifting and altering thanks to the subconscious pact he made with Orthax to create his weapon in the first place

And then there’s the fact that both of them discovered that an individual they cherished they thought was lost to them, was actually alive and...well?

I feel like it’s fair to put that question mark at the end of Cassandra’s reveal considering what all happened to her, but the statement still stands/

So yeah. At first glance, having never experienced the first campaign as a whole, the comparisons I saw between Percy and Beatrix got me VERY intrigued in where Percy’s revenge story was gonna head over the course of Vox Machina’s Briarwood arc. Y’know, being a fan of revenge narratives in general. And I even started to see a few more comparisons as the story continued to play out.

But soon, those parallels between the two began to stop. And in seeing where the two started to branch off into their own avenues...

I Noticed Something Different...

If you’ve seen both Legend of Vox Machina and Kill Bill, Percy and Beatrix...(high pitched) th-they-they stop having things in common after a while...

And that’s more or less because of the type of revenge narrative that Critical Role DM and Larvell Jones’ living soundboard apprentice Matt Mercer wanted to entertain Taliesin with during the original campaign...

How Taliesin played Percy during that portion of the campaign

How the rest of the party REACTED to how Taliesin was playing Percy during that portion of the campaign

And how they chose to translate it to animation.

According to various talks and behind-the-scenes videos for both campaign 1 of Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina alike...

/Matt took a concept that Taliesin initially wanted to play around with, thanks to wanting to form some art around -- to be fair -- a pretty bummer-ridden portion of his life that properly reflected the edgelordiness that early game/season one Percival reflected, and went pretty ham with it, using the elements that were presented to him in order to mold an interesting -- yet familiar -- take on one of the darker aspects of revenge narratives. Aspects that after a certain amount of time, are pretty unique to the narrative of the Briarwood saga that can’t really be compared to the development of Q and U’s Bride./

These aspects of the narrative are more specifically aimed at Orthax’s influence on Percy as we started to delve deeper into the story.

/Like the fact that ANYONE who betrayed him -- willingly or otherwise -- ended up on The List. People who stood in his way ended up on The List. Orthax became so hungry that it drove Percy to look beyond the ones initially responsible for his pain unlike other revenge narratives I’ve read and watched before, in order for Matt to collectively tell a story with the rest of the CR players that showed revenge -- at least in this instance -- being a never ending loop that you’ll just lose yourself in if you get too carried away. And this was solidified with the fact that if Percy gave in to Orthax’s demand for the souls of the individuals who wronged him -- specifically Sylas and Delilah -- then his would be lost to Orthax as well./

Basically, imagine Christopher Nolan’s Memento...but if it wasn’t as pretentious as it currently is, it’s actually enjoyable to watch (pause). I said what I said.

This level of manipulation from Orthax -- at least in the scope of Legend of Vox Machina -- is kinda thanks to how Percy handled the initial trauma and how that carried over to the Briarwood saga itself.

/Because his personality, mindset and initial attitude caused him to project the idea of the rest of Vox Machina as children with the exception of Vex, he never opened up to them about Sylas and Delilah until they appeared at Emon. And even with Vex, he kinda kept things on a need to know basis. The same can be said about how he was inspired to make The List, and what envelops him when he becomes overtaken by Orthax’s presence crossing off the original names on The List. Percy’s lack of trust and willingness to open up to the rest of Vox Machina -- the closest and ONLY support network he has -- leaves him easy prey for Orthax to motivate and manipulate his trauma to the point it gets to at the end of the season./

Beatrix Kiddo, on the other hand, doesn’t really have to deal with that. Because over the course of Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2, we see her able to deal with her trauma that doesn’t make the “revenge will swallow you whole” narrative a legitimate danger for her by the end of the story.

When we’re introduced to her, she has a strict personal code heavily based on Bushido that she does everything in her power to try and uphold over the course of the movies, despite generally being Chaotic Neutral.

/Having said personal rules and code gives her a sense of agency and control over her journey that keeps her from losing herself to the darkness of revenge, already giving her a bit of advantage over Percy in that regard./

What also sets her apart from Percy is that she actively seeks help and guidance, and isn’t afraid to do it.

/All she had to do to convince Hattori Hanzo to come out of retirement and make his deadliest sword to date was inform him that she was going after Bill, in which she was present with someone -- and I quote -- sympathetic to her aim for an entire week to keep her eyes on the prize and to help with her trauma. While Percy might have made The List by himself, he only had the voice of Orthax in his ear while doing so, and look how that turned out./

And then there’s the teachings of Pai Mei, which -- while physically grueling...

/Gave her the mental strength and resolve necessary via her training to push through the trauma she would later suffer through; it literally gave her the mental fortitude to overcome her obstacles over the course of Volume 2/ (I would like a glass of water, please).

Even if BeeBee wasn’t in the picture, the end result regarding how she was when Bill took those 5 steps would’ve been the same; accomplished, vindicated, ready to finally begin the process of healing and moving on.

/When you actively compare Percy’s struggle with trauma and how it factors into how he sought his revenge to hers, Beatrix is -- LITERALLY -- built different./

After a while of seeing these differences, Percy then only becomes comparable to Beatrix by flavor text. In actuality, if you’ve seen it, Percy’s journey over the course of Legend of Vox Machina season 1 is more along the line of the protagonist of the South Korean revenge thriller I Saw The Devil

In it, protagonist Kim Soo-hyun is after Jang Kyung-chul; the serial killer who murdered his pregnant wife.

/But while personally justified in making his life a living hell once Jang’s identity is discovered to him, Kim’s quest for revenge gets obsessive. It drives him to make mistakes, get sloppy, and causes him to lose himself over the course of his journey because of it./

While it’s an EXCELLENT movie that I highly suggest you watch if you don’t mind blood and gore, Kim’s journey for revenge better reflects that of Percy’s beyond the surface level than it does with Beatrix, because it’s more along the lines of what Percy’s revenge story is supposed to represent, save the supernatural and fantasy elements.

/Like Percy, Kim refuses to let anyone else in about his grief until the last minute. Like Percy, Kim refuses to confide in anyone or seek help. And also like Percy, Kim doesn’t have the mental fortitude to prepare for the aftermath of him feeling himself in the midst of living out his revenge fantasy when shit goes sour. The only thing different is that Percy doesn’t lose himself by giving in to revenge thanks to Vox Machina able to get through to him. Kim, however, unfortunately does. But it’s BECAUSE he does that we see a more realistic version of what could’ve happened to Percy if he did./

However, it’s in seeing that realistic version that reminded me of something VERY important regarding not only the comparison I saw in Percy and Kim’s revenge narrative, but also the things I noticed about Percy’s that originally attracted me to compare it to the Bride’s. Especially when we get to the end of the season...

/When it’s Cassandra that claims Delilah’s life instead. Delilah’s one of apparently MANY lives, according to the Critical Role Wiki./

/Y’know, big “Death is But a Door, Time is But a Window. I’ll be back” energy that radiates from the Briarwoods/

Because while she doesn’t have an Orthax whispering in her ear and isn’t threatened with losing her soul by giving in to revenge, she’s more aligned with the traits of resistance that Beatrix Kiddo has that allowed her to positively survive her revenge journey, despite ALSO not having the majority of what Kiddo had over the course of her whole bloody affair

So while it’s obvious that Orthax is a factor regarding Percy’s development and isolation regarding the revenge and is clearly a metaphor for these types of stories, I began to notice this trend in a lot of modern day revenge media thanks to comparing Percy’s to I Saw The Devil. And I am compelled to ask the question: When it comes to modern day revenge stories...

Do Women Have It Better?

To say that seeing how well adjusted Cassandra was after killing Delilah versus what I knew would happen to Percy if HE killed Delilah was a bit surprising, would be an understatement.

/Yes, I knew what would happen if he killed her. Yes, I knew that he probably shouldn’t have been the one to do it after seeing him try and get her riled up after being unsatisfied with her lack of care after Sylas’s sunburn./

But considering the aftermath of what I assumed was years of abuse, gaslighting, physical and mental torture from what I saw of Cassandra in the series, I expected a breakdown similar to Kim’s own from I Saw The Devil the moment Delilah took her last breath considering everything she and Sylas put her through.

/Instead, she was just like how I saw Beatrix walking out of Bill’s home with BeeBee; accomplished, vindicated, ready to begin the process of healing. Ready to help PERCY begin the process of healing./

It was in seeing this difference between Percy and Cassandra -- regardless of Orthax’s influence -- that caused me to first notice that for the last few years, there have been a lot of movies and television shows that have favored women receiving this cathartic variant of revenge as opposed to men.

Movies like Kill Bill, Enough, Columbiana, Kidnap and the like tend to promote the idea of satisfactory vengeance without the need of losing yourself or feeling unfulfilled in the decision to seek it out like the narratives starring men do.

And for a while, I wondered why that was the case.

/Then I watched Critical Role’s last Legend of Vox Machina Watchparty Q&A for episodes 10 through 12 and Matt Mercer clearly put his differences between Cass and Percy into words for me/ (Cassandra Info starts 49 minutes in commentary track)

And hearing that was when it hit me, especially revisiting all of those male-lead narratives in question. Men aren’t written to acknowledge and overcome their trauma in revenge stories anymore in order for them to experience the same amount of catharsis.

Sure, they get their revenge. But once they do, they don’t know what to do with themselves.

They don’t know if it’s possible for them to move on and work on overcoming the trauma that’s still there; that they thought it would disappear if they successfully paid an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But a lot of men who are engaging in revenge narratives in modern-day media think that the only work they need to put in is the revenge itself. That once the act is done, they’ll be just as accomplished, vindicated, fulfilled and ready to live the rest of their lives as Beatrix Kiddo.

/But they don’t see the work that Beatrix had to put in over the course of the Kill Bill saga that required her to reevaluate the things surrounding her trauma. They don’t see her having to come to terms with the decisions she made, or relearning Pai Mei’s martial arts lessons and learning to apply them to daily life, or being forced to be honest about herself because of Bill’s truth serum. They just see the end result; getting her revenge, getting her daughter back and living happily ever after until Nikia Bell grows up and decides if she wants to start the cycle all over again./

And it's because they don’t see the hard work that needs to happen in the process of enacting vengeance in these narratives, that modern day male characters feel so empty and are prone to lose themselves when they finally receive it.

/They become Frank Castle in the GOOD Punisher movie, who after enacting his revenge in a brilliant mix of Kill Bill’s carnage and strategic mind games of the Count of Monte Cristo, was STILL willing to off himself after everything until he realized “wait a minute, I can do this full time” and used THAT as his way of working on overcoming his trauma./

/They become Kim Soo-hyun in “I Saw The Devil,” who pursues and torments his wife’s killer in order to gain that satisfaction of making him suffer (I need you to react! Give me something!) only for him to break down in tears after finally killing him because he realized that he got so lost in the sauce that it actually did nothing to help him move on./

/Beatrix Kiddo acknowledges her trauma over the course of seeking her revenge and is able to be in a healthier resolve than the one she started in by the end of it. Cassandra acknowledges her trauma and is able to claim her revenge in a way that Percy would NEVER have been satisfied with if HE claimed it, and -- despite still being damaged -- proved to be all the healthier for it because of it. Women as a whole in revenge narratives for the past 30+ years have realized that in order for you to have your cake and be SATISFIED in eating it too, you have to be 100% honest with yourself regarding WHY you want the cake and if you use that information to determine if it’s still worth eating./

And I’m absolutely sure you’re gonna correct me in the comment section, but I honestly think the last male character that has been successfully able to come to that conclusion and apply it while still seeking out his revenge...

/Is The Count of Monte Cristo himself, Edmond Dantes/ (Greetings)

Conclusion

Now I want it on record that this is not me saying that all women-lead revenge narratives should be cathartic in this way and that all the ones led by men should be punished to this degree. That’s very much a double-standard and anti-feminist.

Plus, I’m sure the “I support women’s rights, but also women’s wrongs” crowd would kinda feel robbed if they didn’t see that displayed in some form or fashion.

/Princess Weekes actually did a very thorough exploration on the history of female-led revenge narratives after the release of Promising Young Women and other modern narratives that are spawned from interpersonal trauma and the like. I highly suggest you check it out after this video./

And while my observation of Percy’s journey is in no way a wrong one, it is an interesting one that I believe should be noted and examined when we’re considering the state of narratives like this.

Because yes, the proverb tells us that “A man that desires revenge should dig two graves.”

/That doesn’t mean, in the realm of fictional narratives, we should always take that LITERALLY/

But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what you thought of the animated telling of the Briarwood arc in The Legend of Vox Machina, if you’ve seen it.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, a male-led revenge narrative you’ve either read or seen that follows through with the protagonist dealing with their trauma so that they’re allowed to be cathartically fulfilled in seeking their vengeance.

Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.

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Make sure you check out the card at the end of the video to see if you want to join, or click the link to it or any of my affiliates in the description box below.

But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed./