Since there’s an 85% chance I’m thinking about Willow at any given time, I have some more Willow thoughts.
Mainly, why does no one check in with Kit about her brother?
I know that the purpose of The Quest shifts with the discovery of Elora, but it’s still ostensibly about saving Airk, and his twin is right there, consumed with worry and guilt about the whole thing, and every time she expresses it she’s treated like she’s throwing a tantrum.
There’s tremendous guilt here, where Kit has said something rash and now regrets it, a common theme for her. The apology here is fascinating, because what exactly is she apologizing for? Not protecting her brother? Not being the one taken? Not cherishing her family enough? For behaving badly? Whatever it is, it hurts the heart.
As soon as Kit sees the clusterfuck that is the finger test and watches Elora “fail” it, she’s out the door, insistent on continuing The Quest because now that Willow has given them a direction she won’t let anything stop her. She’ll go alone if she has to.
The rest of the party catches up (Kit didn’t really want to go alone, or at least not without Jade) and suddenly they have an extremely slow wagon and they’ve added several members to the party and are taking breaks in the middle of the day for magic lessons– all things that will slow them down considerably.
As an aside, because this could really be its own whole post, I feel like one of the roots of disconnect between Kit and Jade is that Jade has never taken Kit seriously. Not as a swordsman or adventurer, not as a princess or leader, not even as a real potential love interest. It’s not until the edge of the Shattered Sea where Jade finally tells Kit that she’ll trust Kit’s judgment and doesn’t drag her away from the waterfall jump that she learns to have faith. If part of Kit’s journey is about learning to believe in Elora, part of Jade’s journey is learning to believe in Kit.
With the knowledge they have at the time, Kit makes the realistic call about Graydon, one that Jade and Boorman agree with (of course not in the moment, don’t get me started on that…) and her reasoning remains her brother– they don’t have time to wait for Graydon to turn, to keep him chained up and drag him with, and to inevitably get shanked by him. They’ve just watched several allies be killed by possessed people, and so far Willow hasn’t given them any reason to hope that it can be reversed.
Even with Willow’s dodgy faith in the purgation ritual, Kit does throw herself into the process. Then they get partway through and start to hear Airk’s voice and Kit loses it.
She fully books it out of the throne room, because this is legit awful.
When Elora goes out to the hallway after her own emotional moment, the two share an aggressive greeting that Kit immediately backs off from.
It should be mentioned that the conversation shifts to Elora’s fears about things, and Kit is about to tell her about the eckleberry bush before Elora bounces.
There’s a lot going on in this episode, internally with Kit and externally in her relationship with Elora. They hear the old paladin of Cashmere’s story about wandering the Shattered Sea for years and eventually murdering all his companions and Elora says that it doesn’t matter, they’ll find the city. To Kit this must look like more baseless faith– faith she hasn’t yet learned to have in Elora.
She’s just lost her dad again, lost a substitute father figure, the other father figure she has on The Quest has betrayed her trust, and she’s desperate to not lose Airk too. She is still deeply conscious of how little time they have, how little time her twin has.
It should be mentioned that they are too late when they reach the Immemorial City! Airk has been corrupted, Kit might have needed to kill him in order to save Elora, they did fail in a meaningful way!
I know we’re limited by episode length, and how everyone in the party is perpetually semi-annoyed by Kit, but Kit actually checks in with the party quite a bit! She has a moment with Graydon where she apologizes and gets to know him, she checks in with Jade after Ballantine’s death, asks Jade how she’s feeling about the whole Bone Reaver family thing, she has three conversations with Elora where the focus is on giving her confidence in herself, she checks in on Willow’s emotional health for god’s sake.
I just desperately wanted someone to pull this kid aside and say “hey, you good?”
Because she’s definitely not.
