I ama late critter, I only start watching in compaign 3 alongside watching the animated series to the first compaign and I am just confused and kind of shocked at how harsh some fans are to Marisha especially when I started to watch compaign 1 now. I do believe Utkarsh has an advantage being naturally funny and having played a confused character thar pretended to not know anything at all but I agree the things people said about Marisha was heinous

@@Cincelia Marisha got a lot of hate in the early days because 1) she was the DMs girlfriend and a lot of fans were still in the teenage mentality of "she's going to ruin everything!" and 2) she was playing a socially awkward character who tries too hard due to insecurity A lot fans didn't like that because it hit too close to home and reminded them of things they didn't like about themselves. That's not my analysis either, Marisha has said that viewers who were in the Keyleth/Marisha hate squad have actually sent her messages expaining that when they matured a little and re-thought their actions. My analysis also is that the latter days of Gamergate played a role. Critical Role started in 2015 so it was still very much going on, and, even though, like you, I didn't start watching until 2022 with C3, I knew right away that Marisha would be the target of GamerBros. She's a woman with a dominant personality and isn't apologetic about it...they were always going to despise her! As I've watched more Critical Role, I've noticed as well that the fandom is problematically harsh to women of color. I admit, Aabria is not my favorite DM. I absolutely love her as a player, but, while she's creative, her DM style is more antagonistic with the players and I don't dig that so much. However, that's just my taste. The criticisms of her though are that she talks too much, or tries to insert herself too much, and, especially as Deanna, I was floored by how absurd that was. And with Aimee Carrero people would flat out call her "Selena Gomez", having already been told her actual name/that she isn't Selena Gomez, and then play dumb when you pointed out that doing something like that is rather racist. Then, of course, "Marisha/Keyleth needs to learn her damn spells!" thing that was so common they made in a trope in LOVM. Ashely Johnson, now that she's playing a druid in C3, has started to get comments about how "after 9 years it's inexcusable that she doesn't know the rules!" However, in C3, episode 103, Sam Riegel, who, second only to Travis Willingham, gets treated as if he can do no wrong and is God's gift to DnD...didn't remember that paladins can choose new spells after a long rest and admitted that he didn't think his backstory through that much! And, just for the record. I'm not hating on Sam! He's awesome and talented and it's completely understandable that maybe he was winging it a little more than usual! He just got through a brutal cancer treatment. I'm sure that in his time outside of work he might want to spend quality time with his loved ones or just relax and recover mentally rather than pouring through DnD rule books! I 100% get that and don't hold it against him! However, if one of the female players had made such a basic mistake and an admission like that, they'd have been absolutely savaged! It's the double standard that gets to me.

If I remember correctly that’s actually him adding temporary hit points to enemies in the next encounter lmao