Why Season 3 of ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ is an adaptation worth celebrating

The legend of Vox MachinaThe show’s third season has officially come to an end, and while its twelve episodes have quite faithfully adapted the remaining story of the original campaign’s Chroma Conclave arc, it wasn’t without some major changes – both diverging from the original story and those that were simply extended moments worthy of world-building that will come in handy later (looking at you, Mighty Nein!).

Whatever the material, adjustments are always difficult. You’re tasked with introducing a new story that feels fresh and exciting, but you also have to retain enough old elements for fans to care about the source material at all. In other words: you have to reinvent something you love and keep it recognizable at the same time. Luckily, with the cast of Critical Role at the helm of their show, that’s not a problem – they know it what fans want to see and which moments are important to preserve. But that still doesn’t mean they can record it everything.

To be successful, just like in a Dungeons & Dragons game, you have to roll the dice and make some big swings. Sometimes those swings will land. Sometimes they won’t. That’s the nature of storytelling. For The legend of Vox Machinathe challenge from the start was adapting 115 episodes of the story (plus additional hours from the home gaming sessions that took place before the show started streaming on Twitch and Geek and Sundry in 2015), with the episodes lasting as much as four to five hours. That is a lot of of story and as Liam O’Brienwho plays Vax, told us before the season premiered“There are moments that we love, and I love, for all the characters in our story, that in the time we had to breathe and find it, we had to work very hard to make their journeys feel lived and believed became. And sometimes that meant splitting the party in a way that didn’t exist before, removing things altogether, or giving one thing a dual purpose.”

Take Percy’s (Taliesin Jaffe) death, for example. In the actual playthrough, Percy’s downfall is at the hands of his arch-enemy Anna Ripley (Kelly Hu) is as real as it gets (everyone dies a few times in Dungeons & Dragons!) but he’s rushed to a temple and comes back to life relatively quickly. The show tweaked this moment twofold: first, it opted to make Percy’s death feel more permanent by killing him off at the end of episode 7 and only bringing him back to life in the final episode. It also chose to keep Ripley alive rather than have her executed at that point, a shift that earned longtime fans who thought Percy would stay dead for good and in some cases frustrated those who wondered if Ripley even killed her would get. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t and she does!)

But one of the reasons for that Legend of Vox Machina has become so beloved is because of the characters themselves and the relationships they have built with each other. Making Percy’s death feel truly permanent gave us a gateway into the individuals we invested our emotions in. It was a chance for us to see them grieve, to see them break, and most of all, to see how important they have become to each other. The longevity of Percy’s death enhanced the intimate and personal moments – with Vex (Laura Bailey) and Vax pursuing Ripley in a quest for revenge and ultimately delivering the killing blow to Vex, Ripley’s death became not just an angry retaliation, but instead a deserved culmination of Vex’s emotional journey and of her deep love for someone whose heart she deserved and for moisture. Likewise, when Vax kills the dragon Thordak, it’s not just a thrilling kill. It’s a triumph (visual and metaphorical) that comes at the cost of many things, including multiple losses of life and betrayal. When, at the end of the battle, Vax and Keyleth (Marisha Ray) fall into each other’s arms and let the weight of their emotions overwhelm them, we not only feel their pain, but we understand it. And we connect with them in this intimate moment, which further connects us to the story.

Percy’s permanent death and Ripley’s survival were far from the only significant changes this season, but even the changes that seemed out of the ordinary served a purpose. pike’s (Ashley Johnson) The crisis of faith may have surprised fans, but it fits within the Calamity lore that the show is woven into, which emerged after the campaign ended And it gives extra meaning to her story, as well as Vox Machina’s: you have to believe in yourself, not just someone else. When fan-favorite character Kash (Will Friedle) met an unexpected end while aiding Vox Machina during the Thordak battle, his death added shock to an already emotional scene and added weight to the group’s victory.

And while many believed the season would end with Scanlan (Sam Riegel) who left the group after some tensions, things turned out a little differently. Scanlan left the group mid-season to resolve issues with his daughter Kaylie (Aisling Franciosi), but he returned after Percy’s death. He too fell in the Thordak battle, but in the show he remained in a coma instead of dying like he did in the campaign, and Pike enlisted Kaylie to bring him back to life. The emotional beats of the campaign episode best known as “A Bard’s Lament” were there all season long: Scanlan felt like an outsider and someone who was unimportant and invisible among the people he considered his friends. But with Pike by his side, in a way where she wasn’t involved in the actual campaign to calm and guide him, his spiral wasn’t as severe. At the end of the season, when Scanlan announces that he and Kaylie are leaving together, he discovers that other members have also decided to go their separate ways: Keyleth announces that she is finally pursuing the rest of her Aramante with Vax by her side. Percy and Vex announce that they are staying in Whitestone to help rebuild the town and heal their bodies and relationship. Pike and Grog (Travis Willingham) decide to hold the fort and protect each other and the world. (Buddies!) The story was still able to show Scanlan’s growth: how he matured from someone who seemed to only think about himself, to someone who realized the importance of loyalty. But the story change allowed us as viewers to see how other characters have also evolved and grown through their personal journeys.

Any additions or shifts in the story served their purpose: they allowed the series to retain its original heart and soul while becoming something new and exciting that evoked the same emotions. When Percy is eventually rescued and his soul restored, it’s not just a D&D move. His death and revival are about many interlocking things, all important: Vex’s confession of love, Ripley’s revenge, Pike’s struggle of faith, and the defeat of the Chroma Conclave. Season 4 is just around the corner, and for the first time, it’s a season where we may not be able to predict where we’ll end up. But it’s exciting to know what comes next and not know at the same time.

What The Legend of Vox Machina has done is masterful: it’s taken a story that once existed in a bubble of a world and expanded it to include an entire universe of storytelling. It takes characters that once existed in a real gaming game and gives them new life (and new fans) through new costumes, new emotions, and new interpretations. The changes keep fans guessing. They start a conversation. They make new theories, thoughts and perspectives possible. They allowed their creators to explore ways of storytelling and ideas that they may have wanted to explore years ago but couldn’t at the moment due to timing or not having the right lived experiences. But the changes don’t change the fabric of what we know and love – as Pike reminds Grog in the final moments of Season 3, when the group is about to break up (even if only for a brief moment). time): “We are still a Vox machine. We still screw up.”

And ultimately, the story speaks for itself: a beautiful and emotional story brought to life by some of the most passionate storytellers in the industry.

How lucky we were indeed.

The legend of Vox MachinaSeason 3, Prime Video