Praise and Criticism for The Legend of Vox Machina (with Spoilers)
As you’ve likely noticed, in all five of the posts I’ve done so far for The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season, I’ve avoided talking about spoilers but have instead alluded to things that people who’ve seen the show should know. Now that the whole first season has been released for over a week, I’m going to be pulling out the stops for this post. That means that there are going to be spoilers ahead. If you do not want any spoilers for The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season, then you should definitely avoid this post for now. Come back after you’ve watched the show! Even if you’ve already watched the first campaign, trust me: you want a spoiler-free experience when you watch the animated series.
Okay, now that all of the weirdos who haven’t watched the first season are gone, let’s talk about my praise and criticism for The Legend of Vox Machina: Season One. This might seem a little all over the place, but I’m going to try to condense it in a way that’s cohesive and understandable, rather than random and scattered. This isn’t a review, necessarily, they’re just the spoiler-y thoughts I wanted to present but could not in my spoiler-free reviews. If you want my star ratings, I’d suggest going back and reviewing my previous five posts for The Legend of Vox Machina’s first season.
Let’s get into it.
Coolest Moments
I have been pretty critical of the show in all of my reviews and I think that’s given the impression that I don’t like it (which is dumb, given that I typically rated episodes either four or five stars, even when I was critical). To make up for that and hopefully showcase that I do really like the series, I want to start this post off by listing some of my favorite moments. Repeat: some of my favorite moments. I can’t list all the cool moments, here. If I could, you can bet that Percy’s use of Bad News, Scanlan silencing Delilah, and Keyleth calling on the Sun Tree would absolutely be included here, among others.
The Professor’s Death
While I have my gripes with the fight scene against Professor Anders (more on that later), I did really like the final moments of the combat. Percy going against everyone else and pulling off an impossible ricochet shot that takes the dude’s jaw off, removing his magical tongue powers? That was absolutely awesome. Then, having it followed up with Percy donning his mask in the background, searing the professor’s wound with the hot barrel of his gun, and blowing the man’s head off? That was absolutely awesome.
Grog and the Giant
This one goes by quickly, but it is fantastic—it’s both hysterical and brutal. Both Grog and Vax are taking on their own giants. Vax takes his giant down in iconic rogue-style while Grog just goes full barbarian. He hops on top of the giant and then splits him from skull to groin. It’s not one single strike in typical anime-style, though. It’s a violent, prolonged hack and slash as we slowly see Grog descend through the giant’s body while carving him up. It’s utterly violent, gross, awesome, and most importantly: true to Grog’s character.
Percy’s Visions
Seriously, if you don’t want spoilers and haven’t finished the series, click away, because I’m talking about the finale here. Pretty much the entirety of the twelfth episode was awesome, but the visions that Percy had in this episode as he struggled with Orthax were brilliantly done. The art, the drama, the performances… everything was just wonderful in these moments. These may be the best-looking scenes in the entire show. They’re mesmerizing and a huge part of why I think that this is the strongest episode in the season in many respects.
The Look of the Show
The quality of the show’s appearance fluctuated considerably, I found. The greatest moments visually were saved for the last three episodes, I felt, but there are some really cool scenes in the earlier episodes, too. I especially enjoyed the fight in the fourth episode, as well as the eeriness of Whitestone. The combat scenes, in fact, were generally the best parts of the show’s looks. This high-quality appearance was not consistent, however.
I think that the worst parts, in terms of appearance, were the scenes with the Iron Storm. The Iron Storm looked great, the settings looked great, and Vox Machina looked great. However, the Iron Storm just did not fit in well with the rest of the art. The Iron Storm—like many parts of the show—was a 3D model. I have no problem with that! It’s a perfectly viable way to do animation. However, the filters that were given to the dragon, as well as its lighting and animations, didn’t lend to it blending in nicely with the rest of the scenes that featured it. This means that while everything looked good individually, the scenes containing Brimscythe looked uncanny altogether. The dragon stood out like a sore thumb and could have used another pass or two to blend everything together more cohesively.
So, to make sure I am entirely clear here: most of the show looks great. It’s just a few scenes here and there that really didn’t look good. Whether it was missing frames or a poorly-composited 3D model, some scenes didn’t work as well as most of the show did. Some extra work on these scenes would have helped them be as great as the rest of the show’s appearance was.
Healing and Resurrection
I have some personal beef when it comes to the concept of resurrection at all, even in Dungeons and Dragons. My players in my own campaign know that if they come back from the dead, there are consequences—both mechanically and in terms of the story. Matt Mercer has similar approaches to resurrection, though he’s more forgiving than I am in his campaigns So, I’m a bit wary of the accessibility for healing and resurrection in this show. There is an implication that Keyleth wasn’t actually dead when she was restored, though. This would also mean that Cassandra wasn’t actually dead when she was restored, but instead… mostly dead. If that’s the case and all they did was heal them rather than bring them back from the dead, then that’s fine, though I would have liked it if they’d made it a little more clear that they weren’t performing a resurrection.
If these were actual, full-blown resurrections and that can just be done with some mud and magic words at almost any time it’s needed, then I think that’s a story problem. Given that it seems we’re going to get the Chroma Conclave in the second season, that could mean we’re going to see ramifications for how the show is handling healing.
The Fight Against Professor Anders
This is one that I really want to talk about and even get thoughts from others regarding. That’s the fight against Professor Anders which, regardless of the number of rewatches I sit through, still doesn’t feel right to me. There’s some combat strategy there that doesn’t make a lot of sense and doesn’t seem consistent with what we’ve seen of Anders. What little we’ve seen of him has shown that he’s intelligent, cowardly, and arrogant. This means that while yes, he was probably confident that he would be able to take down Vox Machina with his silver tongue, he also should have continued to use smoke bombs and diversions to keep away from them. Instead, he vulnerably stood by the window throughout the fight. It then took way too long for Vox Machina to turn on him rather than continuing to fight the statues and Grog.
He’s arrogant, so he’d definitely want to see Percy die and would want to watch as Percy realized he was beaten, but he could have been a lot more strategic about this, which would have made the battle and its finale far more meaningful. I don’t know if I’m alone in thinking this. If you agree or disagree, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This is probably just wishful thinking, but if I could add one more episode, I would have liked to see Professor Anders take over Vox Machina, leading Percy to flee with his sister, regroup, and then take his friends and Anders on with the help of Cassandra and Archie. That would have been a more intense, strategic battle that could have given us some crucial character moments with Archie, Cassandra, and Percy. It also could have allowed the show to foreshadow Cassandra’s state of being charmed, perhaps through her refusing to deal a killing blow against Professor Anders, or not fighting as hard as she should have.
I know, I know, we didn’t have another episode; they had twelve episodes for this. But if I could add one more episode, this is what I would have liked to see. It would have also dealt with my next point…
Percy’s Leadership Role
Focus for the ninth episode of the show is largely on Percy and him sparking hope in the rebellion. The problem is, this hasn’t been built up very well. I’ve watched through the series repeatedly and this is something that just wasn’t built up as well as it could have been. In this episode, we start off establishing that Percy isn’t a leader and doesn’t want to be a leader, then at the end of the episode, he suddenly becomes a leader and sparks the rebellion and does all these leadership things. It looks and feels cool, but it doesn’t feel earned. This was further solidified as a poor character choice for me when the season ends by having Percy tell Cassandra to lead the people. He knows—and we, the viewers know—that Cassandra is a more gifted leader. She also is unsure of herself and, truthfully, probably wouldn’t want to give a speech against her masters other than to keep up her facade so that she could later kill Percy when it was more convenient and feasible, but having her give the speech (or at least try) would have been more interesting.
I do have a fix I would suggest for this moment that would lead to it feeling more impactful (and develop the character of Percy with more strength and consistency). First, we would need a moment early on in the series when everyone in Vox Machina looks to Percy for leadership because they need him and he refuses due to feelings of inadequacy. The best scene for this, I think, would have been the carriage chase to catch Scanlan. If everything in that moment had fallen to Percy, they’d all looked to him for help, and he had failed to step up and insisted he wasn’t capable of giving guidance or leadership, then Vex saved them at the last moment, that would have been great. It would have been especially impactful if Vex had then confronted and scolded Percy earlier for his uselessness.
Then, instead of Cassandra telling Percy to step up and bolster the rebellion, Vex steps up. And she doesn’t do it kindly or softly. She practically yells at Percy that it doesn’t matter that he isn’t fit to lead, the people need him to pretend that he is. They need him to pretend that he’s a capable, qualified leader who can give them hope. Whether he believes it himself or not, he needs to step up at that moment, or everyone will lose faith and die. This gives us a great Percy speech without suddenly feeling like an odd character shift that isn’t consistent with what we know about Percy both now and later.
It could also be used as a segue into Percy being more of a leader later, finding he has a knack for it through the act of pretending.
Also, Vex telling Percy to lead the rebellion makes more sense than Cassandra doing it, since she’s under Silas’s charm at the time of this scene (if I’m understanding correctly).
I don’t know if this really is better, it’s just me thinking off the top of my head. I’m sure there are other ways that this scene could have been improved, or maybe I’m just nitpicking. I’d love to hear the thoughts of others on this one!
Humor
All right, I have ragged on the humor of the show perhaps with more frequency and intensity than I have any other aspect of the show. The Legend of Vox Machina’s jokes just didn’t always land. It felt like, at least for the first six or nine episodes, they were just grabbing at every low-hanging fruit they could find for the humor. I’m all for raunchy, irreverent humor—one of my favorite shows is It’s Always Sunny and I even enjoy Workaholics when I’m in the right headspace. But the difference between the humor of those shows and much of The Legend of Vox Machina is that It’s Always Sunny and Workaholics are generally clever with their jokes, while Vox Machina just went for the easy gag, at least early on. This subsided considerably by the final three episodes, where it seemed as though every joke was smart and genuinely funny. They got several laughs out of me in those episodes.
While I could stomach some of the more eye roll-worthy jokes in the early episodes, it seems that they turned many people away from the show, which is a shame. The humor does improve over time and they stop going for the easy gags, focusing instead on clever jokes and character humor. It’s hard to pick a favorite funny moment in the show. I think my favorites were the literal jaw-drop from the zombie at the sight of Pike, Grog’s absolute joy as he tore skeletons to pieces, and then Grog’s eagerness to strip down and leap into a pool of acid. There are tons of other great comedic moments, too, though! I can’t sit here and list them all, but believe me, this show is funny when it really puts the effort in.
Oh, gosh, yes, and the last laugh-out-loud moment was the priest getting absorbed into the Ziggurat Sphere. That was hilariously done. I mean, I know that him being brutally murdered wasn’t funny, but the way it was done was funny, given the context in which the scene was shown to us.
Looking Forward
One last thing I want to talk about is the hints of what we’re going to get in the second and (hopefully) the third season of The Legend of Vox Machina. It seems pretty clear that they’re setting up the Chroma Conclave arc for season two, which seems fitting, but they’ve also taken time to set up the Whispered One throughout this first season. That implies that the Whispered One may be our big bad for the third season—he’s the big bad of the overall campaign, so he’ll surely be present for the final season of the show, whenever that may be (and if we get it). I’m glad they’re setting this up because it means we’re likely to get some other really important moments from the first campaign. I’d love to see this show continue for a few more seasons!
Also, I’ve got to say, I was elated when Grog picked up the sword. If you’ve seen the campaign, you know how much fun that sword is. One of my favorite moments in Campaign One takes place with Scanlan, Grog, and the sword. I would love to see that put to screen in this show, maybe next season. I’m excited about that possibility, but we’ll see if we get it! Consider the outhouse scene as my most anticipated moment for season two.
Conclusion
Phew, this was a long one—longer than I expected, but I had a lot of spoiler-y things I wanted to discuss that I couldn’t talk about in my earlier videos. The fact is there’s still more to talk about, and I have other moments in the show that I loved! However, I can’t list them all or this would be a mile-long post and the video would be impossible to record. Who knows, maybe I’ll do another post like this in the future if I feel like it. I’m truthfully more curious about what moments other people enjoyed and how others are feeling about the show, now that I’ve put my own thoughts out there regarding this first season of The Legend of Vox Machina. For a twelve-episode season, it is jam-packed with content to discuss.