Containing my Hal haterism for this mask throwing sequence to one post as a courtesy.
"I have thoughts. And honestly, I could-- There's a realm where this is good. There's a realm where this is not." / "Hal picks up a porcelain mask off of a box and hucks it as hard as he fucking can against a wooden wall, and it shatters and sprays little bits of jagged porcelain, cutting his cheek, and he strides out of the room, out into the dark in the middle of the Round." / "I'm going to run. Look at a book. I'll be back. I'll see you in the morning, unless you want to come rifle through the museum and not sleep."
FUCK YOU HAL. FUCK YOU WHY ARE YOU LITERALLY DESTROYING MASKS IN ANGER RIGHT NOW FUCK YOU LITERALLY THREE DAYS AGO HE SAW HIS DEAD SISTER AS A SHATTERED MASK HAL YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE. Actually the way my fight or flight activated on Bolaire's behalf, this was awful. Like, thank fuck Bolaire's away from this shit, what do you mean Hal is destroying masks when Bolaire speaks and walking out, like, fuck off Hal, seriously. Bolaire must be TERRIFIED right now, literally Hal is openly demonstrating he knows how to and can kill Bolaire for literally just saying the wrong thing.
"'Why didn't he tell me anything? Why did he wait until the city was... falling? I don't understand. I'm unprepared. I work in the fucking theater.' And you hear that echo through the arena. 'Maybe I could have done something if he had let me in, if he had pulled me in and explained things. He didn't have to protect me. I am his family.'"
BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO HANG UP YOUR SWORD HAL. YOU WOULDN'T STEP UP DURING THE REBELLION. This is fully on you, you were perfectly happy to be uninvolved in the world falling apart. Also shouting that last bit to Azune "You did so much more, you let me eat at your table" Nayar of all people is DIABOLICAL work from Liam.
And you can basically see the progression of Azune trying to mediate this fight and getting smaller until it snaps and he falls into his soldier's posture. Hal doesn't need Thjazi's son here to tell Hal his brother didn't mess up, he needs Thjazi's soldier to figure everything out and protect him from Thjazi's mess, ironically.
"All his life, all his life alone. He did everything alone. And now all of us are left to pick up the pieces because not any one of us had the full picture. And now we're all fucked!" / "That's the trouble with living as deceitful persons, you assume your lies die with you, but they don't, they just, they move themselves in on everyone around you." / "Oh, I give you a withering gaze." / "I have done my best to hold my tongue about my feelings about your brother. But this, the part of him that he hid from you, this is almost kind for him." / "You don't have a tongue and you have hid everything from me." / "Only under threat of him."
The way Bolaire talks about Thjazi fucks me up so much because he really doesn't think anyone will care about him enough to pick him over Thjazi. Even if he told them everything he felt, he's certain it would just alienate him from them because they wouldn't give a shit that Thjazi made Bolaire feel that way, they would care about Bolaire talking about Thjazi that way. Hal keeps forgetting Bolaire's perspective is "Thjazi hid from you the parts of him that relied on abusing people"
"What a thoughtful gift from your brother, to have taken this one thing off your plate, and to have hidden from you where it came from, how significant it might be. Your life's work tampered with by a brother who always had a great idea for what other people should be doing. He didn't give you the full picture. And last night you all decided it was safer for nobody to know too much. So maybe you're like him after all. Was he bad? Was he good? Did he realize that some things were worth the cost? And were you all part of that cost? What if you were and that makes him an asshole, but doesn't make him wrong? This is a big fucking mess. And on that roll, I can't clean it up for you."
Absolutely need more people to hear this last bit. Thjazi was an asshole that thought he knew what everyone should be doing and did shit behind people's backs to get it to happen, and what if his hunch sent the players down the right path because he was partly right, but too much of a cocky and at times abusive asshole to do it right? What if Thjazi did a couple things that had a big good impact, but he as an individual is largely irredeemable? Also the fucking question of how much is Hal like Thjazi minutes after shattering that mask is very important like thank you Brennan. How quickly he started doing this shit too, it's been barely a week that Hal's known about Bolaire being a mask and Hal's already destroying them? Jesus.
A really good perspective on this moment. I think a lot of people misinterpret Hal’s anger as being about Bolaire’s more distasteful aspects, like the way he (like Thjazi) uses and abuses people (his hosts), largely because that is what the fandom’s distaste centers on. But that’s not true. What triggered Hal’s explosive anger at Bolaire was Bolaire saying that Hal may not be able to trust his brother to have always had the best aims in mind. That is a pretty modest claim that nearly all our PCs agree on in the Convergence, but when Bolaire says it, it makes Hal completely lose his temper.
Hal is not angry with Bolaire for killing his host bodies. He willingly chose to help Bolaire do that! He is angry with Bolaire because Bolaire is making it impossible for him to think the best of Thjazi, which he wants to do when his brother just died in such a horrific manner.
