At first, Taliesin Jaffe’s Critical Role Campaign 4 character, Bolaire Lathalia, seemed like your everyday Dungeons & Dragons character. That is to say, a bit of a weird fellow with a weird appearance. For all intents and purposes, Bolaire seemed like something of a socialite with slightly slippery ways. We learned that Bolaire worked as the curator of magical artifacts at the Lloy Wing at the Archanade, a museum in Dol-Makjar. And that he liked a good party and a good outfit. Yes, it was strange that Bolaire had a life-like mask on his face, but we just assumed he’d messed with the wrong artifact and something had gotten stuck on him. But as of Critical Role Campaign 4, episode four, we now know WAY more about who Bolaire is and where exactly his mask came from. In fact, we now know that the better question about Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire is not WHO he is in Critical Role Campaign 4 but WHAT he is.
Join us as we dive deep and answer all your questions about Bolaire Lathalia, his mask, who/what he is and what it all means.
Table of Contents
Jump To:
- Who or What Is Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire Lathalia in Critical Role Campaign 4 ?
- What Does It Mean that Bolaire IS His Mask on Critical Role Campaign 4 ?
- Why Was Bolaire the Mask Created?
- How Did Bolaire Arrive in Dol-Makjar?
- What Does Bolaire the Mask Look Like?
- Bolaire Has Brother and Sister Masks on Critical Role Campaign 4
- What Happens to the People Bolaire Inhabits on Critical Role Campaign 4 ?
- Bolaire’s Relationship with Thjazi Fang
- Bolaire’s Relationship with Halandil Fang
- Is Bolaire Alive?
- Can We Trust Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4 ?
- Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4 Is One Cool Mask Character
Who or What Is Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire Lathalia in Critical Role Campaign 4?
Who is Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire Lathalia in Critical Role Campaign 4? What is Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire Lathalia in Critical Role Campaign 4? It’s all the same question. Because indeed, we learn in episode four of Critical Role Campaign 4 that Bolaire IS his mask. Yes, there is no person Bolaire Lathalia, all the Bolaire figures we’ve met so far have just been meat puppets. Bolaire Lathalia is actually an arcane artifact of the kind he studies at the Archanade. Critical Role Campaign 4‘s Bolaire IS the mask itself.
What Does It Mean that Bolaire IS His Mask on Critical Role Campaign 4?
Okay, okay, okay. So Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire IS his mask. What does that mean? Well Bolaire explains to Halandil, Murray, and Azune essentially that he mask is an enchanted object. Any person who looks at it is compelled to put it on, and then the mask inhabits their body, essentially killing both it and their consciousness. Bolaire notes, “This mask can wear anyone, I can wear anyone.” He is a mask that wears other people as old as the Shapers’ war itself. Bolaire can essentially take over any person whom he can convince to put on the mask because he is in the mask. Bolaire is not a body stuck to a mask but a mask stuck to a body.
Why Was Bolaire the Mask Created?
Every god of Aramán was killed in a different way. Bolaire the Mask was created to kill the god of the Halflings, the trickster god. Bolaire reveals in Critical Role Campaign 4, “I helped my family murder a god in the Shapers’ War. I woke up two days before the death of Rauwyn. I was created to destroy her.” How exactly Bolaire destroyed the god as a mask, we don’t yet know. But Bolaire insists that he is a thing and that his purpose as a thing is to kill gods.
For a long time, Bolaire reveals that he fought and slept. He shares that when he’s not worn, he sleeps. And for ages, he was worn, used, then slept, and forced to fight in battle after battle.
How Did Bolaire Arrive in Dol-Makjar?
One day, though, Bolaire realized that he was just being forced through the motions and began to strive for something more. He saw an opportunity and ran away to Dol-Makjar, where he ostensibly became the “person” we first believe him to be. It’s not clear how long Bolaire can inhabit one body for, but it is implied that he must jump from body to body after a while and set the mask upon a new form. And it seems like he’s been doing that in Dol-Makjar while settling into a life and career.
Bolaire also reveals that meeting Halandil Fang changed his entire life.
What Does Bolaire the Mask Look Like?
When we first met Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4 episode one, we recieved a description of him and his mask. It is as follows: “The mask Bolaire wears is made of grey clay, with dark grey, almost black lips, and vast, empty pools of blackness where each eye should be. There’s a cut on each side of the mask that indicates perhaps tears running down Bolaire’s face. And deep within the black pools, there’s just a tiny blue reflected light within, and that’s what blinks instead of the mask. Bolaire’s mask, however, does sigh and move by itself just like a real face.”
Bolaire Has Brother and Sister Masks on Critical Role Campaign 4
Despite being a mask, Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire speaks of a family. First, he mentions he helped his family kill a god. Then he mentions he has mask brothers and sisters that have not yet been found. Bolaire doesn’t know though that, in fact, other masks have been found in Critical Role Campaign 4. One of the last things Thjazi Fang did was ask Thaisha Lloy and Occtis Tachonis to fetch a halfling coffin with a shattered mask in it. Thaisha touched the pieces of the mask, and it nearly killed her, and then the mask vanished into a mysterious mist. There’s no telling if this mask is lost to the world and Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4.
What Happens to the People Bolaire Inhabits on Critical Role Campaign 4?
Nothing good happens to the people Bolaire the Mask inhabits in Critical Role Campaign 4. We see a person that Bolaire abandons in Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 4. His skin is powdering with exposure to air, his face full of dry, cracked chunks of missing flesh through which you can see teeth, his eye sockets are empty, and there are just flaccid balloons where eyes used to be, and no moisture remains anywhere on the body. Also, he’s very dead. YIKES!
Again, we don’t know how long Bolaire the Mask can remain on a person before he must find a new host, but it does seem like he needs to transition.
Bolaire’s Relationship with Thjazi Fang
The most interesting thing we learn about Bolaire has nothing to do with him being a mask. Instead, it’s that he really hates Thjazi Fang. Bolaire insists that Thjazi Fang treated him like an object, a thing, and, having found out his secret, blackmailed him to do terrible things. Bolarie insists that Thjazi Fang forced him to steal from his library for unsavory folks and ruined his career and life. He calls Thjazi cruel and hateful.
Aside from Julien Davinos, everyone else practically glows when talking about Thjazi Fang. So this rendition of him as a terrible man is fascinating to hear.
Bolaire’s Relationship with Halandil Fang
Meanwhile, Bolaire claims that meeting Halandil Fang and watching his plays and art changed his life as a mask forever. Bolaire shares that Hal is his first and only friend and he loves him, his children, and his work very much. Bolaire says that after a long existence as a killing mask, Halandil broadened his horizons and world-view with beauty and joy. He seems truly sincere in this.
Is Bolaire Alive?
IT’S COMPLICATED.
Can We Trust Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4?
IT’S COMPLICATED. Bolaire certainly seems ardent in his love for Hal, who is truly a good man. But he also had no compunctions about killing a person and butchering a human body. His human morals are lax, shall we say. If we do trust him, then we almost need to factor his account of Thjazi Fang into the narrative. We’ll ultimately have to wait and see.
Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire in Critical Role Campaign 4 Is One Cool Mask Character
Ultimately, we find it fascinating that Bolaire is his mask. We haven’t engaged with a sentient mask before in fiction. And we’re excited to see where this goes.
Critical Role Campaign 4 premieres Thursdays at 7 pm PT on Beacon.tv and is streamed to Critical Role’s YouTube and Twitch channels at that time, with the VOD available for everyone the following Monday at 12 pm PT and podcast episodes available in two parts: the first one week after the premiere, and the second on the following Tuesday.
The post Who Is Taliesin Jaffe’s Bolaire in CRITICAL ROLE CAMPAIGN 4? The Mask, Explained appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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