I started playing the game 3 weeks ago and Gale becoming my favorite was not on my bingo board, but here we are. I was so annoyed with him at first. He is condescending, haughty, and he's eating your magical items, and he won't tell you exactly why. But then, he starts to trust you and let you in and my god, he is the sweetest! He just wants you to like him and choose him! He's awkward and nerdy, but also sensual and playful. The weave scene truly started it. I went into BG3 fully intending to romance Astarion, but Gale stole my heart.

I think the way the emperor described his dog kind of reminds me how he might view other people. His fondness for Stelmane is real because he had complete control over her. Same with you, the player. He is kind, but only if you do what he wants. If you don't, then the facade of kindness slips. He likes you so long as you only do whatever he wants. That's abusive. Killing Anser, eating people's brains, that all can be under the self-preservation umbrella. Taking over a woman's mind to puppet as you wish seems unneeded. Omelleum lives in the under dark. Why couldn't the emperor? Why did he have to take over a person's mind? It's a power trip, so he can run the knights of the sheild. As a dream gaurdian, he even acknowledged that I went to Omelleum for help. So he knows you don't inherently react with hostility to mind flayers. The emperor is wrong because of all the ways he acts human. He acts like that manipulative ex who constantly makes you question yourself.

I'm here late, BUT, I have a very dumb add-on. So Orin a product of....what you said in the video. And when you are a...product, you have a higher chance of developing all sorts of health issues. I think the reason her eyes are so cloudy is because her vison isn't actually great due to a birth defect. In terms of genetics, we see this a lot in cats who have poor genes. They develop hearing and seeing issues when their gene pool is poor, and in terms of cats, this happens most often in cats with white fur. Orin is both pale and blonde (not quite albino) but she's close to it. I'm sure this might have not been intentional, but I'd like to think so.

i thought this video was awesome sauce

Laios speculative evolution king

Mithrun would go to the furry con because his handlers told him to, does not care

it took me so long to come around to gale due to the early versions romantically aggressive gale bug it made me feel like he was someone who went through abuse but became somewhat broken by it in a very unhealthy way pushing any type of closeness into something romantic or physical very quickly because its something he feels more in control of it honestly painted my first impression of gale as a few shades closer to the emperor using manipulation as both his sword and shield (granted thats one of the key repeating aspects throughout the game)

Amazing recap as always! This is the last story arc I read in full. Like you, I was in college when this arc was coming out and I got busy with finishing my degree. Sadly, this caused me to fall off the fandom until you started this video series! Can't wait for the Blue Memory Arc recap.

I thought the strange ox was also a Dark Urge, and shapeshifted into an ox semi-permanently to flee the malevolent influence.

The Emperor always reminds me of a meta gamer in DnD trying to control a game and making an op build. Its not about being evil its about being in control.

You could even say we are... Falin in Love? with her...?

Great video, you should work on your eye contact with the camera tho, we can tell youre reading a script

Wulbren was fine, marina was more bitch

I had no idea he was universally hated - for me I think it’s partly because the game glitched all his quests for me (I never met Barcus which apparently did something, idk) and partly because once he did show up, he was such an asshole about it. Like I just wiped out the steel foundry (like you wanted!) with the help of the Gondians you hate so much, while you, what, sat around your cave doing fuck all, and now you’re giving me attitude about it? I ranted about it to a friend for AGES lmao but I still didn’t realize other people would find him equally unpalatable. I am DELIGHTED I am not alone in my ire.

My blood thirsty satanic barbarian white dragon is not GAY. Just ask the octopus trying to put the moves on my character. He got all mad and said you know what my friend I was telling you about. I was controlling her mind without her CONSENT!

Wait so Agni doesn't die in which arc but In blue after which arc?? I'm so confused why dose google say he dies in the next season?

Everybody talks about the double Charles... why does no one think of the one who has already demonstrated he can move as fast as Sebastian? why does no one suspect John Brown and his dodgy horse?!

It's interesting though because in the Underdark you can find an old journal of Wulbren voicing his concern for Barcus. Makes me wonder what happened between them.

Im doing a full run of every main character with Durge being my last. Thankfully this will take me a long time so I can safely watch this video and forget about it in a few months *inner success*

4:26 Well we know he can't raise the dead 5:59 In Australia, we don't celebrate Halloween, we do however eat some Halloween themed candy that the Americans send us. 8:30 Mr Kemble is probably Welsh so any Wales Harvest Festivals he attended probably just involved getting drunk and playing random sports like 'cockfighting', 'blind wheelbarrow races' and 'woman's grinning' (I have no idea what that last one is) 10:24 In Yana's old blog she said Sebastain is viewed as a 'pervert gourmet' by other demons that is to say he is the only demon that goes to the lengths to flavor and refine the taste of the souls he eats. Claude likes to spice his food but is overall considered a proper demon (Yana doesn't seemed to fussed that Alois and Claude aren't canon, she loves the two too much for that). I just think he is an attention whore 16:25 I always saw this scene as Ciel threatening Sebastian, Ciel clearly has more to live for than when he first made the contract and this version probably would get out of the contract if could find a way too 19:40 In one of her interviews Yana said that the comic will have a 'grey middle ground' ending, not a 'black ending' I can send you a link if you want

Hihi, first time commenting one of your videos. Love your BB deep dives. One of the main things I like is comparing translations (mine are in Spanish) for example at 2:04:44 Ciel says something akin to “Don’t bring up matters of the past in here!” In the Spanish version, so it’s interesting to see how (at least imo) it gives an extra layer to the statement. Great video btw, can’t wait for blue memory arc! 💙

also, fans here what do we think will happen when we get the twin in the show? he'll have the same voice acting going on as our ciel? or they'll change it slightly to feel like a creepier version of ciel? I wanna know what people here think about that

I liked season 2 for the moments animation quality would jump for fight scenes and the dramatic music going along with everything, I literally dont enjoy its story, the way it breaks cannon in how the contract is supposed to work it literally bugs me watching. but. I do enjoy like Claude scenes where hes doing fancy demon feets. but its literally just a love for him and sebby to make it tolerable for me

My very first playthrough, I went completely parasite/Illithid free. I consumed no parasites, used on Illithid powers, rejected becoming a half- or even full-Mind Flayer. I felt repelled by the Emperor just enough to never buy into the idea of becoming even an inch closer to what he was, and what became the cherry on top was how he swore up and down that "There is no dragon. Do not waste time chasing imaginary dragons." Only to find out that he was fully lying to us and, worse than that, knew the dragon personally and was responsible for killing him to begin with, yet we're expected to take him at his word and just blindly trust him. Nuh-uh.

I think what sets Wulbren apart from other awful characters in bg3 is the simple fact that unlike the others he's not just some ultra powerful villain who has a preset malicious or betrayal-laden history with any of the characters. Barcus will praise the man up and down during Act 1 and be super worried for him until you get to Act 2, propping him up as someone very dear to our little Gnome friend. Then when Wulbren so rudely brushes him off and pushes him away, it sets us off in a way unlike encountering someone like, say, Gortash or Vlakiith. It's like meeting a friend of a friend irl and seeing what your friend hasn't yet, that being that their friend is a trash human being that doesn't care about your friend one bit.

I think Yana fully intended you/us to think of that cult when the boys came on stage. Makes for a great clffhager and effectively yanks us off-base, preventing us from working out where she's headed--something she's very good at doing.

I'm playing second time and forgot to free Barcus from the windmill :D so there is only Wulbren for me. How does it change the story?

10:22 I agree. Sebastian is clearly looking for human validation and feels awful when he doesn't receive it. It would be the human equivalent of comparing yourself with a bug and then feel better because you can do things the bug can't. (As he sees humans as bugs.) Honestly, I feel bad for Sebastian sometimes.

Thank you for the Halloween video! I have recently finished the previous one, and this one popped up just a couple of hours after! Best timing ever! I hope that Black Butler ends with a bang that will take away a lot of the beloved characters in the most tearjerking way possible, just like Pandora Hearts did, where the fans still can't get over it. Or in a really creepy way, like it may or may not have been foreshadowed in the upcoming chapters. I know that no matter how the manga ends, I will miss it like a dear friend. Regarding your question, the nearest approximation to Halloween in Slavic countries, such as Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Belarus would be Ivana Kupala night, a midsummer celebration taking place either in June or July depending on the country. "Kupala" is derived from "to bathe" and roughly translates to "that of bathing," as the initial festivities take place near water, preferably a river. There, people would light big bonfires in the evening, dance around them, sing ritual songs, and jump over the fire to cleanse themselves of evil. Devinations would be performed, women would weave flowercrowns and let them float down the river, that is supposed to predict your future husband. People would eat and drink, and generally have a good time. In the night, people would continue celebrating till the early morning. This is when the similarity with Halloween arises as the veil between the human world and the other world is supposed to be thin then, and it is accepted that ghosts and spirits roam the fields and forests on that night. One halloweeny things that people could do would be to go into the dark forest and search for a supposedly magic flower or herb and to get out of the forest the next morning without getting lost or getting out too soon. A lot of young people would use this opportunity to get busy. XD I am sad that I have never experienced the celebration myself, but I hope to participate in it at least once in the future!

I made a connection with the Polaris character after watching your last video and re reading some panels. People reading this look over agni's condition when he passes. And then go to chapter 169 and look at Polaris crying to other ciel saying even in death. He's a butler. My mind is like racing

Happy Halloween! My favourite season :D I love dressing up and having small parties with my friends and eating Halloween themed foods. It’s so nice Ciel treating the people to great Halloween experience

i feel it's possible o!ciel may live, like, bcz what happens to the contract if sebastian dies? i assume it'd be erased right? the Undertaker seems to not want ciel to die as he seems to feel affection or attachment to all the phantomhives, and i feel like r!ciel feels affection for his brother and wants to be united with him, just.. in a sort of twisted way. I think the Undertaker is easily powerful enough to kill sebastian, as we see in the campania arc, sebastian, even with the help of two other shinigami, was no match for him. i really wonder what undertaker is planning with this wild goose chase, like, clearly he's setting something up with r!ciel, o!ciel, and sebastian. we dont know what the hotel revealed in the latest chapter is yet, but i think it's clear that the undertaker is related to it. is this his way of trapping/killing sebastian and "saving" o!ciel? who knows, just some silly incoherent thoughts of mine, we'll see how it really pans out soon enough lel x3

happy halloween!

Would you ever do deep dives of the Twisted Wonderland manga?

Happy Halloween also was not a fan of the previously arc...I'm hemophobic

Whenever I think we are close to being recent, I remember “oh. This person is still alive so can’t be” 💀 (Edit: Nevermind lmao)

I am finally not half a year late to the new Black Butler video! XD Thank you so much for releasing them! They made my work week livable! I don't have that many comments this time. First of all, I wanted to say that I am one of the people for whom the reveal came out of the blue (lol), so, you dissecting small revealing details makes me appreciate Yana's attention to details even more! Second of all, I think this arc is where character design peaked. Everything was so impacable, yet retained its original character. Sebastian was the hottest he has ever been (with the exception of some select later chapters), Ciel has been the most expressive, and I could feel Agni's love and Soma's dispair through the pages. Overall, absolutely stellar presentation! Third of all, and I may be really wrong here, but I think portraying that disadvantaged people could not read may or may not have been entirely accurete on Yana's part. Before widespread literacy of today, people in England considered reading and writing different skills and would teach them separately for different purposes. Protestants were high on education, so, they tought women and men to read so that they could read the Bible (which was not crucial before as they would be read the Bible in church by a priest in Latin before the reformation), but they would often not teach women to write, because writing was considered a male domain. This trend continued into the Victorian era when a lot of folks could read. That is why Penny Dreadfuls were so popular, because more and more people could read them. So, I think the first lady Sebastian picked up in the bar would probably be able to read in real life (but maybe not write). Then again, my only source for this is a single video by J. Draper, so, I could be wrong!

I’m an avid supporter of women’s wrongs. Do ya shit queens!!!

There are indeed subtitles available for That Butler, Friendship. They are on Reddit.

The only reason i don't turn the old squid face into sashimi is because, if you spare him it advances certain quests, as well as Lae'Zels romance. I really wish it was not reliant on his survival or i would actively try to murder him despite not being the dark urge in every playthrough. In act 1 you exhaust every possibility in trying to find a cure and the removal of the parasite, while he has the gall to encourage the opposite despite looking like a god damn Celestial. Even a blind man would see the contradiction & deception at play, from your very first encounter, those only get move obvious the longer you let him live! Balduran was not only an elf who was also benevolent as well as generous, everything the emperor is not, i find it difficult to believe that he would let him self become an illithid without even contemplating taking his own life. Dead elves are simply reborn after death making them effectively immoral, but if an elf goes through ceremorphosis they are cut off from that immortality forever, any other elf would just die by their own hands if their only options were, death and rebirth or true death via ceremorphosis.

so, 2:28:58 you talk about how ciels survival guilt prevents him from being affectionate. I see it as, he does care for these people dearly but loving them more, it'll hurt more when hes forced to part ways with his soul and die after his wish. and to try and lessen that, hes withdrawn. its very sad way to be stuck living

Are all deep gnomes gay? In all of BG3 I've not seen a normal heterosexual relationship between deep gnomes. They are all gay even Barcus Wroot.

I didn't really care about the other two, but Orin just seems so damaged and hurt. You don't get that crazy from just being born. It's her whole upbringing. Most of the other evil characters became corrupted or made a choice to be evil. Orin was born into a "family" that didn't care for her and originally planned to just use her as a sacrifice. She's loyal to Bhaal the entire time, doing everything expected of her, but the whole time she was never going to be good enough. I really wish Larian made some way of reaching her, or at least making her see the reality of her situation.

Let's compare The Emperor to our other companions with secrets Gale: Doesn't tell us he has a nuke in his chest until absorbing magic items has no effect and he then com fully clean telling you everything. Wyll: Literally can't say anything until his patron says he can and he comes clean and tells you. Shadowheart: Had most her memories blocked and unable to tell much but as she regains them she'll tell the truths she can remember. Astarion: Hides the fact he's a monster but tells the truth when he either tries to feed on you or he tells you himself but tries to not speak of it due to 100+ years of torment. As we see, each companion has a secret but when they reveal the truth, they give everything. The Emperor: Lies about being the one Vlaakith wants dead, lies about being a mindflayer, hide the truth about being Baldur, lies about mind controlling Duke Stelmane saying they were friends and worked together The emperor lies, manipulates, deceives, and hides the truth because he only see us as a means to live. If you free Orpheus, he swaps to the Elder Brain thinking he'll live Don't free Orpheus, he will kill him along with the Elder Brain If he controls the Elder Brain, he won't release us and he'll keep us as thralls and continues the Grand Design No matter what, he values his own life above anything else. He cares only about himself.

rEADUING IS haRD

This opened my mind a bit about Wyll . I always just considered him the white bread of the campions and never gave him much thought.

“I have a hard time doing mean things to pixels-“ ^Words of an Astarian romancer

i want you to know that a while back i wanted to reread this arc, but held off knowing your video on it was coming eventually. but the over that time i forgot 😶 so then 2 nights ago i reread the arc. then the next day this video went up. 😂 i was so mad since it reminded me why i waited and the fact that i forget and then a single day before the video i binged the arc.... hilarious. also i just want to say that in regards to grandpa undertaker... you are not crazy. there is just too much evidence. we are not crazy, we are just right!!! if Yana were to reveal it not to be the case then honestly it would feel more like an active subversion rather than the intended narrative. and Yana really isn't that kind of writer by my understanding. she sets things up, then she pays them off. y'know, like a normal person. (grumbles about the popularity of shock value plot twists) anyway good video. looking forward to your coverage of the halloween chapter and blue memories!

He was becoming an illithid and ansur was going to kill him before he fully transformed

i have OCD, which manifests is a hell of a lotta different ways, but the main thing about it that i want to mention is that for me, living with OCD means that i also live with incredibly scary, incredibly violent intrusive thoughts. actual intrusive thoughts are honestly pretty similar to hallucinations or delusions, or for an even better example they're like the worst night terror you've ever had while being awake and trying to go about your day. they're subconcious, compulsive thoughts that are scary *because* they go against who you are, what you believe in, what you actually want to put out into the world, or what you want to do with yourself. my first ever bg3 run was a resist dark urge campaign, and oh my god i have never felt more seen in my LIFE. full stop. there is so much stigma against even *mentioning* having intrusive thoughts (even sometimes in therapy!!) that i've lived my entire life just not bringing up the fear or anxiety, even while theyre actively sending me into panic attacks in conversation. this comment isnt meant to be my sob story though- this comment is me trying to reinforce that the durge plotline is THE BEST ive EVER come across that deals with anything close to 'resisting' intrusive thoughts. bc what durge goes through is incredibly similar to living with intrusive thoughts! not the indulging in them, holy shit no, but being scared of them, and being horrified at your own mind for conjuring up such graphically violent images, and being horrified about what that potentinally ''means'' about your ''true self''. quite literally feeling like you're resisting a dark urge, feeling like you're containing something rotten, or hiding something disgusting from your loved ones. feeling like youre tricking them somehow, and even like youve tricked yourself. but if you play your durge in a specific way, your loved ones still love you! there is still good in you simply because its in your nature to be good! the dark urge is FOREIGN to the durge themselves, just like how intrusive thoughts are foreign to people living with OCD. im tryin my best but words really cant describe how important this game is to me. i love my durge, hes become one of my favourite D&D characters ive ever made insanely quickly