The Character That Almost BROKE Critical Role

[@Finn_Films]

Why do you think so many people disliked Keyleth?

[@TomiOAT]

Misogyny and D&D gatekeeping by neckbeards comes to mind.

[@raymondharnack4160]

I’ll point you to the gold fish incident and when she kept trying to cast the wind walk spell without knowing what it does. I don’t care personally as she was super new and Matt built her a pretty complicated Druid build that isn’t easy for new players. She’s improved a lot with her laudna character and I think that intentional on her part. Some people get really bothered when the know you have been sitting there for 20 minutes waiting for your turn and when it comes you haven’t put any thought into it and take too long to make a choice. She has improved over the years tho so it’s really academic at this point but some people aren’t quick to change their opinions on a person once it’s been made. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@Jaxom35x]

@@TomiOAT Yep, the vast majority of the vitriol is because of this.

[@jonathan4158]

@@raymondharnack4160 Her turning into a gold fish and died will always be the most funniest death in Critical Role history. She could've turned into a bird but chose a gold fish.

[@evanlakey6904]

For me, I thought Keyleth came across as judgemental at strange moments. And ultimately she wound up feeling hypocritical towards the end of the chroma conclave arc. Keyleth admonished Percy dealing with his demon and prevented him from that revenge, but when it came to her own adversary the rules didnt apply to her. Early Keyleth, before the briarwoods, was haughty and above the commonfolk and not in a noble way, this could have been Orion Ocabas character influence, but whatever. She held the artifact of a god, even asked for help from the entity in slaying a shared enemy, and yet she blasphemes the gods pretty regularly, all but Pyke's god, and it was just weird. I like Marisha and I appreciate the way her characters grew better, but I think its fine to have a character that just plays a foil, i just dont have to like the foil.

[@cryofpaine]

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.

[@momqabt]

I agree up to the point of first playing Laudna. If she'd done it we would dislike Laudna, not Keyleth for one simple reason: game mechanics illiteracy (aka bogging down the game). I don't dislike Marisha, I don't dislike Keyleth or Laudna (Bou was kinda meh), I disliked how Marisha played (or rather didn't) Keyleth

[@deltablaze77]

@@momqabt Just being 100% honest with you dude, that just means you are an asshole. She was a new D&D player, you dislike the character because the player didn't know all the rules, that just does mean you are an asshole, playing D&D with you would suck. You could change, be better, or stay the same, that is up to you.

[@huntertuggle2667]

Percy and Beau were hard for me to root for because I thought they had the worst personalities.

[@awkwardpotato7900]

You say that and I feel like laudna might be like the closest to Marisha's silly days

[@MythrilShotgun]

I didn't like Keyleth's moralizing, but that's easily explained away. It was more the hypocrisy that would shine through. I also really *really* didn't care for the Vax/Keyleth romance. Still don't. So I didn't find much positive about her during the experience, but in hindsight, Marisha *played* Keyleth well. Also, I hated Beau for the first couple of arcs. Basically until Bowlgate where the hardest moralizing and distrust of Caleb really hit its peak. When Beau (and Keyleth) cooperated WITH the party was when they were at their strongest. And yeah, actually. I'm realizing this in real time, but it really felt like Keyleth would just actively tank diplomatic moments the VM crew would have, working against them pretty often.

[@cryofpaine]

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.

[@0saintclark0]

Do you know what episode and timestamp roughly the moralising buzzkill incident with kima that you reference is in?

[@cryofpaine]

@@0saintclark0 episode 8 about 50 minutes in is where the conversation starts.

[@huntertuggle2667]

The Kima thing bothered me as well, but she did get called out by Vex when they were talking about Raishan with Kima and Keyleth said she always trusted Kima.

[@MorphineSarusama]

I know that Keyleth didnt put to much stick I to the gods, but for the Raishan interactions I've always chalked it up to two things. First was the hand in the Genocide of her people (as mentioned), but also the fact that Raishan was cursed by Melora, the Wild Mother, the very goddess that if Keyleth was religious in anyway would probably be her matron.

[@thedomoking]

Yeah, that got people off to a bad start with her, but it really was the only thing I ever had a problem with

[@redmaxxs]

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.

[@cryofpaine]

I think there are 3 camps. That's one group. Group two are the ones that thought Marisha was like Keyleth, and didn't like Keyleth's qualities in a player. Group three are the misogynists.

[@TiVeigaKung]

I think that "you don't like it because you're just like it" way out kinda meh. And people use it for eveything.

[@dognbundad]

@@TiVeigaKung It tends to be true tho soooo lol Not saying it's everyone obviously, but it's easy enough to come to first thought.

[@TiVeigaKung]

@@dognbundad I think it's not, more often than not. If you think about it there's a lot of things you despise, and you can't really be all those things. To me is usually a red flag to hear that.

[@dognbundad]

@@TiVeigaKung I don't disagree with you that it can definitely be a red flag.

[@justinc5967]

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

[@evaxiaolong]

@@Dave004 I believe a lot of this comes from newbies

[@momqabt]

I have a build; a few players have played it in different groups of mine. 7/8 were completely ok but unique in their own ways. 1/8 was also unique but he played chaotic stupid disruptive so I let him go. A character does not the roleplay make.

[@scatz4994]

they were quite new to 5e at the time too. so i kind of understand the reading spells problems. i'm still a newbie to dnd and my first character that my dm had me play was a druid, and i've made a character as a beginner a druid too. there are some spells and even wild shape choices that i forget, i still can't even time my wild shape and dropping it well resulting in my party almost TPKing, so on that part, i can understand her on that. personally, i didn't like keyleth at the start as she was too naive to the world, but now almost finishing C1, i just feel like she has great character development and marisha herself has improved on her acting along the way (coming from a normal dude that doesn't know how to act lol).

[@chrisperez6800]

@@Dave004 first the player of Tiberius was a cheater and a piece of shit thats why they kicked him out of the group.

[@archam777]

No, the problem with Tiberius wasn't the min-maxing. The problem was he constantly wanted to do his own thing and put his own interests over the party EVERY SINGLE SESSION!!!

[@longforgotten4823]

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.

[@jaredeschweiler3505]

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.

[@momqabt]

Because she didn't take 20 minutes to decide what to do in the animated, compared to doing it at the table, so she waited 20 minutes for her turn, the others had to wait 40.

[@piranhaplantX]

​​@@momqabt yeah, I see a lot of people snapping back on others that had any criticism of Marisha's play. All while they didn't actually sit through the streams/VOD's and spend 20+ minutes watching Marisha take time to decide, pick a spell she didn't fully read, and sometimes argue/pout when Matt told her that's not how it worked. There is also a lot of inconsistency in her roleplay that got ironed out by excluding or changing a lot.

[@MrJechgo]

Beau and Laudna are also improvements character-wise.

[@Soulessdeeds]

Yeah but animation has the luxury of cutting out hours and days of Marisha making Keyleth an absolute nightmare. The animation team can just smooth over the very rough edges of the character and just give you the clean outcome.

[@SmolAnarchy]

It wasn't Marisha's first character. Everyone at campaign 1 were veterans, the only one who never played D&D was Sam.

[@melancholysky13]

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.

[@chinoborrego4828]

yeah, this video leaves out that a lot of people didn't like Keyleth not becuase of her self doubt, but because Marisha never read her spells and just cast them going off of what the name of the spell was. And she fucked the party over a LOT of times in that manner. The Legend of Vox Machina fixes A LOT of issues with Keyleth, plus it's a different medium of story telling.

[@momqabt]

@@Dave004 that's a bad way to put it; we didn't hate Keyleth, we didn't hate Mairsha. We hated how Marisha played in dnd (or rather didn't) as Keyleth.

[@kronos1794]

That's the power of revisionist history, you can pick and choose how a character is portrayed. They were able to erase an entire character because the player became progressively more problematic, they also kinda smoothed out the edges of Keyleth as a character. How Marisha was treated was unfair but she definitely made the game drag at times and lagged on the learning curve of her character. I somewhat distribute the blame since druid can be a complicated class and they kinda let a newbie struggle with a challenging class when things could have been changed when they transitioned to D&D from Pathfinder.

[@0saintclark0]

​@@chinoborrego4828yeah I can think of at least one occasion (first use of wind walking) that could have easily resulted in a TPK because she didn't understand what the spell did.

[@stevenmike1878]

from what i remember, way back when i was there watching and the chat was commenting on live stream, i remember the party had to spend 30+ minuets to persuade/convince kiki to allow them to go on the adventure. I understand it was her character arc to become brave. but for the chat it wasn't a simple a scooby doo scared gulp in battle to convey scariness. but more of a trying to convince your mom to let you go roller skating with your friends in the 80's,because your mom thinks satan might be at the roller rink giving out drugs, i liked all the characters for the most part. but i do remember everyone in chat at certain points being like "come the freak on, and just progress the dang story" maybe i dont remember it perfectly but it did feel like she was hard roadblocking the party in the early episodes of season 1. so certain scenes would drag on for way longer then what the audience could bare.

[@Gada101]

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"

[@Rated314]

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.

[@momqabt]

Or: Ashley was busy in C2 and couldn't evolve Yasha that much; Marisha was not that busy, Bou was an interesting but somewhat meh character, Keyleth was an interesting and fun character just Marisha disrupted combat flow so much it was revolting.

[@Pilzmann]

@@momqabt late yasha was just great. And Fern is just soooo fckn amazing

[@teacupkoala175]

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.

[@caoilfhionn946]

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.

[@melidor2198]

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 >_>

[@T.H_E.O]

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...

[@vicariousxiv2436]

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.

[@kingnekogon]

Agreed, and it's a point I had forgotten about when I wrote up my comment to the video just now. I think this video misses the mark for a lot of us, particularly Tabletop veterans, in that it tries to make Keyleth the Character as the sole reason that she received such backlash, when much of the time, particularly to those of us with years or decades in the hobby up to that point, it was the traits and flags of Problem Players, That Guy/Gal kind of players. The ones you'd see on a D&D Horror Stories reddit-reading video. Nothing to do with her being a moral compass character, or the awkward naive "small town girl" character.

[@alisonroux1556]

Agreed with all of those points. I actually caught myself rolling eyes when she start to make a "wiser than thou" speech. Her asking "Are you sure about that?" to the other characters for the 100s times really get me. I would also add "Read your spells!"; she never reads her spells and then argues when they don't work out the way she expected.

[@piranhaplantX]

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.

[@AxelHenx]

yeah, it was gruling at times, never agreed with the hate though. but on vod i would skipp until i saw M was not arguing mat annymore. she would have parts of her turn during other people's turn or interrupt people. noboddy is perfect, vax had long monologue's and laura would always lawyer and al of them meta gamed tbh. but a lot of the critique is waranted, although hate is never an exxcuse. rly get annoyed with al the white knights sugesting her gender had something to do with this.

[@piranhaplantX]

@@AxelHenx yeah, some people definitely go way too far into the hate territory. But the white knighting and apologetics does nothing but make things worse, since it ignores or maligns any valid criticisms. Especially when her sex is brought up, despite most of us also criticising Orion rather harshly for his tableplay.

[@AxelHenx]

@@piranhaplantX i think he just projected his internalized sexism onto others and tried to gaslight himselfe as a fighter for good or something. wich is quite sad. always nice to encounter reasonable and critical people like yourselfe, have a great day :)

[@bmc87]

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.

[@leonielson7138]

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.

[@CDRX118]

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.

[@SapphWolf]

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.

[@75kurai]

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.

[@Flip4Crypt]

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

[@raymondharnack4160]

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,

[@Rated314]

Ironically. That fits with the character choices made for Keyleth. She was someone coming into her powers... learning her limits and how her abilities functioned. New spells were always accompanied with "I've been wanting to try this"... which sounds like a Marisha thing, but you quickly learn that it was a Keyleth thing.

[@raymondharnack4160]

@@Rated314 I disagree as knowing a spell means you chose to remember it for the day, you deliberately sought it out from the Druidic powers therefore you would have a deep understanding of how it works. That being said. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen wizard players fuck around for 30 minutes when it’s not their turn, then when their turn rolls around they look like a deer in headlights. If she was playing like she was ignorant and “lol so random” it wouldn’t track with how learning spells for the day works. I honestly don’t care either way was just pointing out a common complaint viewers had.

[@Rated314]

@@raymondharnack4160 I'm talking about the in world process of "learning your powers". When anyone learns a new skill or art, they don't immediately know the intricacies of it. The strength, the limitations... you could make an argument that wizards might, since they have to scribe their spellbooks, but the natural casters... you can very easily see a need for a learning curve, just RP wise. With Keyleth, it felt a little like she wasn't a DnD expert as well as a conscious RP choice.

[@raymondharnack4160]

@@Rated314 that’s not how Druidic powers and spell learning for them works though. Otherwise your point would be valid .

[@Rated314]

@@raymondharnack4160 your speaking of game mechanics, which I'm aware that isn't how the game mechanics work... I'm speaking of role playing choices to rp how a character would go about "learning their magic" in world. How Keyleth learns to use magic vs How Marisha learns to use her spell slots.

[@SMAAMB]

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"

[@Xhilong]

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.

[@MrMcBaine1]

I agree about the lack of growth. I disliked that Keyleth was supposed to be this leader figure later on, but the character reverted to a giggly and/or shy 10 year old girl on a whim at times it seemed to me, making this leader role utterly disbelievable and cringey. Nothing against Marisha, but I never warmed up to Keyleth.

[@Zexinninjamode]

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.

[@kmaguire7161]

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.

[@huntertuggle2667]

Abrasive is a very nice word to describe Beau. She was a huge dick, the only person worse was Percy. There was a point I thought Marisha was planning to have her father actually be a good person and Beau was just too self absorbed to realize she was the issue. I will say Laudna is my favorite character in campaign 3.

[@MCbeccy89]

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.

[@archam777]

The reason Keyleth was "so stupid" was she almost got the party killed on multiple occasions. Like doing things like "give a paladin s*** all day long", but then advocate for a f#cking mind flayer (which tried to kill them as soon as it got the opportunity) for "sessions" at a time. My personal favorite was when they went back to Whitestone, everybody was putting all of their efforts into masking / hiding the city, and when the dragons are about to fly over, SHE LITERALLY WAS GOING TO SKY WRITE IN FRONT OF THEM!!!!! ........ putting a giant bullseye on the entire effort. Would've 100% ended up being a TPK. Bo was annoying too, but in a different way, not quite as bad as Keyleth. When it comes down to it, all of her f#ck ups (regardless of the character)....... come back to marisha trying to look/or do something "cool". Her constant "Avatar The last Airbender" sh!t was super annoying. The thing that demonstrated her mental capabilities over everything else..... is when she went "goldfish" after idiotically diving off that cliff. God I hope they keep that in the animated series. She came in clutch a handful of times, but almost equally put the party in danger just as many. If Matt wasn't trying to get with her, her character probably would have died(if not got everybody killed) quite early on in the campaign.

[@TroySpartan247]

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

[@tylerwascom364]

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

[@Joe-gb3lu]

more of the frustration comes later in the campaign

[@todd-bomb9853]

Kyleth is sanctimonious

[@awkwardinpublic-7911]

Kiki threatening riashaun was a badass moment

[@TamTroll]

Agreed.

[@dougmiller7652]

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

[@tanuvazi]

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.

[@coldellis4491]

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.

[@Bladedwind]

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.

[@JustNo420]

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

[@IAMMEEP]

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.

[@chriscoghe4618]

What is the Opal hate?

[@CarloGoiff666]

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.

[@monodescarado]

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 KZbin 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.

[@AndreyKrichevsky]

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.

[@mcleary9615]

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

[@matthewenokson4251]

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.

[@jocelynthompson2736]

Well put. Totally agree

[@Anduril74871]

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

[@huntertuggle2667]

Beau makes a lot of people more likable.

[@misabelrodriguez1163]

I don't know a lot about Beau, can you tell me why she's so great? I wanna know before starting with C2 please

[@Kakirot83]

Keyleth wasn't unlikeable, she was boring. Just boring. Compared to all the other characters, she's boring. Meanwhile, Marisha is fine, I feel like each of her characters actually get better. As much as I've disliked C3, Laudna is actually one of the few good parts of it.

[@DSTkunn]

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.

[@upsidedownpyramid7617]

I agree with that, love Laudna sm, that being said its very common for people to take time really figuring out their character's personalities and how to roleplay them. Just because Critical Role is a big D&D podcast full of voice actors doesn't mean they are all going to be the greatest improvised roleplayers ever at all times. Marisha was fairly new when she jumped into all this in C1 as well. Did I find her boring compared to the other characters, sort of, but I never hated her. Same kind of thing with Beau, she's not bad, everyone else is just better. C3 some of the unsung heroes are really becoming stars though, between Fearn, Laudna, and Imogen the gals are just crushing it as a trio.

[@BigKlingy]

I think what probably helped with Beau was she wasn't (inititally) SUPPOSED to be likable. She was an asshole, she knew she was an asshole, everyone else knew she was an asshole. She developed later and that was nice to see, but I never minded early Beau because not liking her then was, to me, the whole point of her character.

[@uHasioorr]

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

[@samardevneo]

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.

[@scotthustus8337]

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.

[@MJ-kj9vg]

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.

[@duskgaming18]

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

[@kurtacus3581]

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.

[@patrickshade3844]

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

[@AxelHenx]

tiberius was liked more then keyleth especially in the beginning before orion went wacky. after his unapropriate remarks and actions outside of the table that shifted, but not as quickly as one would presume. seeing keyleth as a role helps tbh, but early on i cringed so manny times at her stuff. orion his gaffs where laughed away by the group wich made it slightly more tolerable but in retrospect definitly not bether.

[@Milesknight319]

As a player she doesn't seem to be ok with failure to the point of messing with the pace of the game. If she forgets how something works and fucks up she constantly challenges Matt's rulings while other players just accept that they fucked up and move on. As a character I personally dislike how inconsistent Keyleth is. It really feels like Marisha doesn't know if Keyleth is awkward and afraid of social situations to the point of anxiety or if she's a wise leader. Also nothing she says is wise. It's just typical ''just listen to your heart'' disney movie stuff but in longer form. I know that people will argue that ''yeah it makes her more rounded and real as a character'' no,it just breaks character. She can't make character rounded and believable like how for example Travis can. Travis can do all sorts of stupid stuff,almost wise stuff and then just honorable stuff and he knows his character so well that whenever he does something Grog normally wouldn't do it never breaks the character. Also most of the time when Marisha Roleplays as Keyleth it's extremely melodramatic bullshit. Liam is kinda the same way there and he also gets hate for it but he's ''easy'' as a player so he doesn't get as much overall hate. Let’s not forget the Kima moment where she literally made that shit weird about killing people then Scanlan reminds here they literally killed an entire village prior to going to the city. Again I don’t want you groupies to think it’s an attack on Marisha the person because it’s not she’s a sweetheart and I’ve met her Travis Matt anr tailsin several times and she remembered me and my shirts so she’s cool as shit. But when she was playing that character where she admitted it was her first time she did struggle to find her niche

[@mactireliath2356]

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.

[@paxtharsis]

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.

[@TamTroll]

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.

[@arcanos9706]

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

[@Canadian_Ry]

Do people forget that these are just some friends sharing their D&D game? CR isn't beholden to anyone other than themselves. It's fine to not like stuff, but it feels like folks lose sight of the reality of the situation. Don't lose perspective, folks!

[@Soulessdeeds]

I didn't like Keyleth because of early Marisha. She would rapid fire off a spell and go immediately into describing what the spell did and how it looked. But what she didn't do was READ the spell. All Marisha saw was the spells name and then just assumed it did crazy fantastical shit. And repeatedly Matt had to put the breaks on and correct her. It was just one of the many painful issues I had with Marisha's game play and Keyleth as a character. Campaign 2 was a little better but you still saw Marisha making the same C1 issues as a player. By the mid campaign point Marisha finally settled down. But damn was it a long hard road to get her there. Then Bo finally started to appeal to me. C3 Marisha is a seasoned veteran and has at last come into her own with the group.

[@TheRedVelvetScare]

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.

[@DevinSpeaks]

Loser

[@ariannaravenmcclare]

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

[@cindershearth1159]

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).

[@sachalessdarktide9813]

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.

[@i5m1thy]

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.

[@KrayzieStiles]

I've changed my mind since then, and am ashamed I felt this way but I'll give you my take. Marisha made some absolutely moronic decisions in combat to the point I was convinced she actively avoided learning any of the rules or spells for her class. I remember being actually pissed off during the Kraken fight because of how I thought about her and also with everyone being drunk. That fight leading to a very serious moment that I won't spoil. I've come to really like Marisha and think she's great, and I believe what I thought about Marisha was her just playing an uncertain and nervous Keyleth.

[@Iamashman]

I didn't have a problem with Keyleth (aside from the random rambling belligerent attack she did on meeting Kima that was never explained by Matt or Marisha as being caused by a whisper or outside force). During C1, esp the early episodes, Marisha was painfully argumentative with Matt. It was not done in character. She acted like a petulant child often and on more than one occasion brought the flow of the episode to a screeching halt just as bad, if not worse, than things Orion still catches flack for. I love Marisha and her characters now but it triggers me when people imply that everything people were "thanking Keyleth" for were all part of her plan. Call it immaturity. Call it nerves at being suddenly on an internet show. Call it trying to be the peacemaker with Orion. Call it whatever you want but when i re-watch 1-50, I'm cringing at Keyleth just as much as anything else.

[@CeaselessWatcher01]

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.

[@DrakeWurrum]

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.

[@azmendozafamily]

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

[@Simone-bc2fo]

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.

[@bearhall4919]

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.

[@bearhall4919]

And honestly, Marisha is a little annoying. She was the most immature member of the group. I don't think I could hang out with her very long without her getting on my nerves. She has matured some over the years, but still... I think that is also part of the reason her characters are not so likeable.

[@brixen0623]

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🤷‍♂️

[@steveslothstorm1155]

It's not that I DISLIKE Keyleth, it's more so that I DON'T LIKE Keyleth. Nothing about her makes her endearing in the way that the other characters are. I hope that clarifies one reason why people aren't into her character.

[@czokalapik-logic]

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.

[@kingwildcat6192000]

I thing there is a thing you fail to understand about Keyleth. Keyleth was a self insert for Marisha as if I recall correctly this was her first dnd/pf character so to excuse her blunders in rp she created a character that was meant to not know the outside world so that she wouldnt have burn herself out for not knowing things. The reason this annoyed/pissed people off/upset people (however you want to phrase it,) is due to the fact she never actually tried, be it with spells or her own abilities (granted they were new at the time to 5e in general and all the homebrew that was created for the transition between systems,) but she never seemingly cared to remember things. This aspect of Marisha irl personality has always been brought up in forums as Marisha doesnt ever seem to know what she can and cannot do forcing Mercer to have to know and call her out at times.

[@kingwildcat6192000]

Also Id like to point out that a lot of Keyleth being a self interest was the main issue for many people. She would also use an irl reason to not like someone. For example the halfling/dwarf they saved from the underdark in the first 20ish episodes that Grog wanted to bang. Keyleth didnt like her due to her being religious and that was why she sided with the mindflayer instead cause he wanted to return to his people and free them. Said paladin npc was doing a duty for her god to stop the horn of orcus from falling into evil hands (yes I know its not the true name of the horn but it was from orcus.) And why yes the party also nearly caused tpks and dangerous situations it was from being in character while Marisha mostly thought irl something didnt sound right therefore she had to call it out regardless of it being true to character.

[@kingwildcat6192000]

As for Bou I think the problem there is more another self insert problem but this time in the reverse, she wanted to stick it to the fans that kept calling her out on things and due to that mentality she did the class "not all girls" character. Hence why per some in the comment section see her as well a bitch. Bou was trying to be Vex but with a more Grog mentality of using fist to solve all her problems. In most campaigns imo Marisha would likely been seen as a "that guy" due to making larger than life characters/ self insert characters to excuse poor rping and refusing to remember abilities/spells that she uses all the time. Im not even gonna touch the twitter drama surrounding CR as twitter makes everyone look bad.

[@rickybartlett7210]

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!

[@MeerkatADV]

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

[@Zombiebambi99]

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.

[@kingnekogon]

My wife and I's problem wasn't Keyleth in particular. It was with Marisha's apparent and mild case of Main Character Syndrome (certainly much less than Orion). From our perspective (perhaps influenced by having just exited a group *chock full* of these types of players), she seemed to have this sense of being able to get away with things, or get her own way about it, and the resulting attitude when told "no" by Matt just rubbed us the wrong way. There were several points in time (no we do not remember specifics, it was like 8 years ago) when Matt was running the game's narrative as a whole for the group and Marisha seemed to take it as All About Keyleth. Such as when she finished part of her story arc (Again, forgot which part specifically due to time), and Matt was going to move on to work on another character's arc during downtime. Marisha fought it a bit to try and keep it about Keyleth, to do *her thing*, keep her sub arc going, and Matt's voice changed to something akin to telling a child no for the 8th time, and though she stopped her attitude afterwards was obvious. A little more hazy on the memory but I think it was after that point that she was inserting herself into other character's story arcs unnecessarily and trying to rush them through it in the guise of "helping them", Grog's bits especially... But don't quote me on that one. Now, to be entirely fair, we were only able to really stomach lasting through to the latter parts of the second arc, some time after Orion left. We assume that it 'got better', but we haven't been able to bring ourselves to finish campaign 1 ever since. From what we've been able to see so far from the cartoon, we actually don't mind Keyleth as a character. It works well in such a format. It's just during the gameplay, and campaign, the similarity to the group composed entirely of That Guy/Gal we had been forced to play with since every other table was full at the LGS, whether she was actually a That Gal or not, was too much for us to actually watch. It wasn't Marisha as the character, wasn't Marisha as the Actress, it was Marisha as the Player. It makes me wonder how much of the hatred directed at Keyleth spawns from people getting the same feeling, as I'm sure there are hundreds of players with similar experiences of MC Problem Players, but hadn't thought about it as much and projected it onto Keyleth the Character, or Marisha the Actress.

[@T100-d5v]

Amazing comment thank you I couldn’t agree more you made so many great points!!!!

[@lanefunai4714]

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

[@michaelh9649]

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.

[@SkoomaGodDovahkiin666]

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?

[@huntertuggle2667]

I didn't mind Keyleth, Beau was a fucking c*nt, and Laudna might be my favorite character in campaign 3. Marisha's characters are definitely on a spectrum for me. I never saw a negative comment about Keyleth/Marisha that I though was fueled by misogynism, not saying there weren't, but this is a community who likes to use that as cop out instead of providing a counter argument.

[@iodred]

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

[@olgerkhan9331]

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.

[@dahlmordythinfernus9706]

Are we still on about this? It’s 2023, if you don’t like Keyleth, stop watching Critical Role. Plus with the live stream numbers in real time constantly growing, there was no point in which Critical Role “almost broke”.

[@lordgiblets7585]

I didn't see anything worth the fuss surrounding Keyleth. If Orion hadn't been a problem player, Tiberius might have been less grating on everyone's nerves, and probably would have at least made it a few more episodes.

[@neodontknow1353]

Couldn’t stand Keylith or Beau but adore Laudna. The writers of TLOVM did amazing job with Keylith she’s super likeable now! I don’t like how they’ve handle Vex who was my fav character in the campaign. I feel like they’ve dulled her sparkle and made her less charismatic and more bitchy

[@s.d.703]

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

[@cediddi]

I absolutely love how marisha plays her characters. She has a very sincere and well thought acting and character building. About playing the game, I cannot comment, as I'm there to watch the "mind theater" aspect, not judge her skills at playing 5e.

[@Commodore468]

I came in at campaign 2 and hate beau so i think people still would have not liked beau

[@RushAss]

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

[@kirxuvalentine4795]

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

[@timbaker9261]

I can agree that Kelith probably got more negative comments then she deserved, but that being said it was never Kelith that was the problem in my opinion(which means nothing) the problem was Marisha’s roleplay almost always went knowwhere and she argued points that no one was trying to make. Good example she almost gets the party killed right after the fall of Emon when she refuses to work with the hand in the underground passages. Or how the only reason that she accepted clarota was because the party said it wasn’t a good idea. And then decides to argue with a paladin about who can be trusted. But Liam was just as bad almost every episode after vex’s death/resurrection was a painful slog of woe is me and self loathing. (Yes I know his mother died during this time frame) but I am not the only one who just skipped past most of his 45 minute roleplays and such.

[@hasayoshiroga7732]

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!

[@Hari-Harmonies]

I never watched the first campaign on twitch, KZbin, 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.

[@KingOfAquilonia]

Didn't dislike the character of Keyleth. Disliked how Marisha the player overstepped and cut into other players times to be in the spotlight. She did it quite a few times in the first campaign.

[@KingOfAquilonia]

she got better about this in later seasons