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what makes a monster?

aka, a meta exploring Fjord’s identity and development.

(Full disclosure: this got a lot longer and more in depth than I initially intended, and is really really long - the final word count is 6,955 words. The TL;DR is I think there’s a lot of trauma going on in Fjord’s decision making that gets overlooked or misinterpreted as him having ulterior motives, and that Travis has a created a deeply nuanced and layered character, and it doesn’t get enough appreciation. My thanks to the Fjorester Fam Discord for all the long discussions about Fjord that helped inspire this, and to @mamzellecombeferre in particular for reading through it and providing extra insights.) Spoiler warning for the whole of C2!

It just kind of baffles me that so many people still think Fjord is shady or evil, despite knowing his backstory and having watching his arc, when from my perspective he’s been, or has tried to be, one of the most upfront members of the Nein but is struggling to process a lot of trauma - some residual from childhood, but he’s also been bouncing from traumatic incident to traumatic incident over the last few months. That trauma has led him to make some poor and impulsive decisions, but never with any kind of malice or ill intent. 

Fjord’s whole arc and character is, I would argue, about identity and in particular feeling the lack of it. From childhood Fjord has struggled with having any kind of solid internal concept of himself and has looked outside himself to try and build an identity. He’s grown up not even sure what half his bloodline is as we know from Episode 21:

Nott: What is the other half?

Yasha: You’re half-orc, but what’s the other half?

Fjord: Half-human, I’d assume.

Yasha and Beau: You’d assume?  

Fjord grew up in an orphanage with no knowledge of either of his parents - he knows one of them was an orc, but has had to guess and make assumptions about the other because he doesn’t know for certain. Right away there’s a disconnect from any sort of heritage; he’s grown up surrounded by humans, but doesn’t know for certain he has human blood to connect him to that culture and, besides, has been marginalised and othered by humans since childhood because of his appearance and obvious orc blood. 

Travis confirmed on Talks Machina after Episode 19 that Fjord has never met a full-blood orc (and was disappointed to miss the chance with the hermit they met on the way to Labenda), and Fjord explicitly says of his childhood “there weren’t any others like me,” meaning neither were there other half-orcs to bond with or form some kind of communal identity. He only has external perspectives, stereotypes and prejudice against orcs to rely on to inform his perception of that side of his bloodline. He says in Episode 16 when he admits to filing his tusks:

Fjord: I feel like it’s a trait that exemplifies the rougher side of my race.

He is extremely aware of the conception of orcs as something monstrous and evil and how that manifests in his physical appearance. In Episode 11, he tries to connect with Nott by saying he understands feeling insecure and having self-image issues, and they have this exchange:

Nott: But you’re pretty handsome for a half-monster thing. I think Jester likes you.

Fjord: You think so?

Nott: Yeah.

Fjord: Well, I didn’t always look like this.

Nott: What?

Fjord: I wasn’t always a handsome half-monster thing.

Nott: What did you used to be?

Fjord: A kid, just like anyone else.

Nott: Still a monster thing, though.

Fjord: Yeah.

Nott: Oh. Just a less handsome one.

He tries to push back a bit against the label of ‘monster thing’ - which, while not said with any malice Nott’s part very aptly demonstrates the ingrained prejudice as it strips him of any kind of personhood and relegates him to a thing - by saying he was just a kid, but he immediately caves and accepts the label when Nott repeats it. 

He readily and easily sees himself as a monster, because that’s what he’s grown up believing. He was bullied and teased for his physical differences to the point of being driven to self-harm by filing down his tusks. He says “I decided to take away the target that was most readily available for them” - he was attempting to appear more human, more like his tormentors, and less like a ‘monster thing’. He identifies his bullies as other kids, but in Hupperdook in Episode 24 when he reveals he grew up in an orphanage he says very forcefully: “They’re fucking terrible places.” 

The implication from this is that not only did Fjord have a tough time with the other kids in the orphanage, but that the authorities in charge of it likely also marginalised and abused him - or at the very least turned a blind eye to Fjord being physically and emotionally tormented.

So from childhood his identity has been constructed in response to external pressure: a reaction to how other people viewed him and particularly how they viewed his orc heritage. It’s also why he says:

Fjord: I was a bit tougher than most of the other kids. I felt like I could take the physical poking, but the jeering I –

Jester: The emotional poking was too much.

Fjord can take being physically beaten or attacked, but words get to him - the jeering, name calling, teasing all cuts to heart of his identity issues and his lack of security in himself. He doesn’t have a strong enough sense of self to refute being a monster thing. As a child he’s had absolutely no contact with anyone remotely like himself, so how could he not start to believe that what people say is true? Instead he turns his anger and desperate uncertainty back on himself and removes what he sees as the physical manifestation of his monstrous nature.

After revealing he files his tusks, he says of his current appearance, “I think it’s how I’d like to see myself” - indicating he still doesn’t quite believe in the identity he has built for himself and his sense of self is still unstable. It’s also telling that when Yasha asks if he would ever want to let his tusks grow in his first response is:

Fjord: Yeah, there are times. I’ve seen them, other half orcs with the teeth.

Even as an adult he’s still looking outside himself to others. Now having seen other half-orcs, people who look like himself, it’s a war between an external conception of what he should look like as a half-orc and the internalised belief that his orc heritage, represented by his tusks, is something monstrous and “rough” that he should try to suppress or erase.

So as a young adult, having experienced a lifetime of cruelty and abuse that has caused him to try and physically alter himself to a more acceptable appearance, and with only prejudice and othering that left him with a very insecure sense of self, it’s no wonder he latches on to Vandran - the only person, in Travis’ words, to have shown him “attention and care.”

Admittedly there’s still a lot we don’t know about Vandran and Fjord’s time at sea, but there are a few clues we can string together from what Fjord’s said during his arc and from Travis’ descriptions in Fjord’s playlist:

Things seem the same - but where is Vandran? Who will guide Fjord now?

Fjord’s only known two lives — one he loved and valued, the other he detested and wishes he could forget.

Fjord considers his time on the sea to have been a new life for him, the first time he has been happy with where he is, and Vandran was a mentor and father-figure to him, and has impacted his life so deeply that Fjord is still deeply grieving his absence and trying to keep some connection to him by assuming his accent. 

So it seems clear Vandran gives him a purpose and way to root his identity not in his race, but his profession - he’s not a half-orc monster any more, he’s a sailor. And he’s good at it. Even with the presence of Sabien, someone Fjord grew up with and who was one of his bullies, he’s happy and feels like he’s found a place where he’s valued and belongs. 

But he’s still rooting his identity in something outside himself, and he’s looking to someone else to guide him and provide direction. His concept of self is still based on what he is, rather any kind of internal confidence in who he is. As a result his sense of self is still very unstable, as is demonstrated when the ship is blown up.

Fjord finds himself apparently the only survivor and without Vandran - without his mentor, the foundation for his identity, and Fjord’s response is to take on his accent. To change the way he presents himself and adapt that as part of his identity - both as an act of mourning a man he cared for, but likely also as a way to cling to the sense of purpose and identity he found with Vandran and on the ship that’s been ripped away from him. An identity that’s still in flux, as shown in the way he still moves between accents. And as per Travis’ words in the playlist: “Only by moving north and away from this city will Fjord be able to start fresh.”

In the wake of the shipwreck Fjord decides not to try and rebuild his life, but to completely start over and create something new. Because at this point, Fjord is going through an identity crisis like never before. He’s still reeling from the emotional and physical trauma of Sabien’s betrayal, of the shipwreck and most crucially of his literally drowning but, somehow, surviving, as Travis says in his playlist:

Panic. Confusion. The cold, dark and salty depths with no end in sight. And then light — but, how? Fjord shouldn’t be here. What is he forgetting? No time to ponder or fight something that seems to have a plan of its own.

He tells Jester during the Jellyfish Talk in Episode 36 that he gets sad sometimes, wishing things were different. He’s suffering from Survivor’s Guilt and possibly Impostor Syndrome, of feeling that he shouldn’t have survived when no one else did and that it’s somehow wrong that he’s here. Nor is it made any easier by the fact that he discovered Sabien is alive when he visited Vandran’s storehouses in Port Damali immediately following the wreck, but has no way of tracking him down or finding him in order to get closure for himself or justice for the rest of the crew.

And, of course, Fjord now has powers that he doesn’t understand and that have completely changed him and the way he views himself.

Travis has made clear on Talks that he didn’t know anything about Fjord’s Patron and until recently neither did Fjord. As far as he was concerned, he woke up on a beach, with a sword he was able to summon out of nowhere and suddenly magical abilities he’s slowly learning to control by trial and error as he goes. In his first dream of Uk’otoa in Episode 5 he asks outright:

Fjord:  What—what are you?

Uk'otoa:  "Watching.“

Fjord:  Watching… me?

Uk'otoa:  Potential.

Fjord:  My–my potential? What–what–what are you asking of me?

Fjord doesn’t know what Uk’otoa is or, more importantly, what it wants. From this conversation, his confusion over his powers, and from Travis’ comment about ‘forgetting’ something, it’s clear that he does not remember making the pact and does not know what its terms are. (Which the Player’s Handbook makes clear is entirely possible in the section on Warlocks, where it mentions some warlocks “stumbl[ing] into a pact without being fully aware of it”.)

So, did Fjord enter the pact voluntarily? Did someone (likely Vandran) give Fjord over to Uk’otoa without his consent? Did Uk’otoa simply claim him when he drowned?

Possibly Uk’otoa offered to save his life when he was drowning and Fjord, desperate and already half-dead, agreed without understanding what was happening - “no time to ponder or fight” - but has since subconsciously repressed the memory as a way of coping with the trauma of drowning. Possibly Uk’otoa saw a chance to bind someone else to him in the wake of Vandran’s apparent betrayal and took it. 

Either way, it’s left a huge question mark over Fjord’s life -  he had the identity he managed to build for himself shattered and taken away in one fell swoop and everything he thought he knew about himself changed. 

Of course, as he learns to control his powers and grows stronger, he finds them exciting and starts to like them. Why wouldn’t he? He’s been powerless his whole life - powerless as a child to stop his tormentors, powerless to change what he is and the way he grew up, powerless to stop Sabien, powerless to stop himself from drowning. It’s only natural that he would find his new abilities thrilling. 

Especially since now he’s met and, more importantly, bonded with the Mighty Nein. These are people who need him, who have shown they value his abilities and his opinions, who have accepted him and helped to give him a new purpose. And going back again to the playlist descriptions:

The last time he felt this comfortable, everything was ripped away from him — violently.

As I’ve said, Fjord is still suffering massively from survivor’s guilt and is grieving the life in which he was happy. Now he’s found somewhere else he feels like he belongs, with people he cares about. He’s afraid of losing them the same way he lost Vandran and his crew, of not being able to protect them. The only way he can protect them is with his newfound power, so it’s inevitable that he will cling to that and it will become a cornerstone of his sense of self - but what he doesn’t realise at this point is that he’s in danger of any sense of identity become subsumed by Uk’otoa’s will and agenda.

Now, he initially hides his visions of Uk’otoa from the M9, which was taken as evidence of his untrustworthiness and shadiness, but I’ll reiterate what I said at the start: I think Fjord is one of most upfront members of the group, or at the very least he consistently tries to be as honest as possible. He voluntarily reveals the information about his tusks and his childhood fairly early on in the campaign, and there’s no real reason to believe he’s lying about them. In comparison:

  • Caleb reveals his backstory only to Beau and Nott when Beau insists on an exchange for getting him into the Cobalt Soul’s library. He has deliberately kept it from the rest of the group until recently, and then has not revealed some of the most important details, and deflects whenever questions about his past are brought up. 
  • Beau deflects most queries about her backstory and we only have minimal details about her childhood. She admitted to being part of the Cobalt Soul when it became useful and is reluctant to discuss her family at all, only giving very vague answers when pressed.
  • Nott gave an entirely fake story about her past and who she was and appears to have never intended to tell anyone the truth until her concern for her son and family overrode her other concerns. 
  • Molly only revealed his past because his hand was forced when they met Cree. 
  • Yasha has only revealed part of her story to Jester and Caduceus, and that was partly forced by Jester witnessing the fight between her and Kord’s lightning emissary. 

I’m not criticising any of these choices - I’m not saying any of them should have been more upfront or that they don’t have a right to keep things to themselves, but comparatively speaking Fjord has shown more of a willingness to be open about himself. 

Although I also think it’s worth pointing out that his honesty has usually come in the wake of teasing or a comment made without ill-will but that’s likely to poke at Fjord’s deep-seated insecurities: being called a half-monster, the digging about his tusks, being asked if he has ‘a thing’ for orphans or has ever eaten an orphan. There appears to be a pattern, where Fjord is hyper-aware of anything that might have implications or associations with the image of orcs as monstrous, aggressive, tough and feels he has to constantly push back against that image for himself, even with his friends. That would also go a long way to explaining why he’s so careful to try and present himself as polite, courteous, wanting to solve things with words over violence; he still harbours fears about being seen as a monster and is constantly trying to distance himself from that as much as possible. 

It also ties into why keeping quiet about his visions of Uk’otoa is the exception, and not the rule.

As has been established, Fjord doesn’t remember making a pact with Uk’otoa. He doesn’t know what his visions are, what the being talking to him is or what it wants. And he’s afraid. With the Mighty Nein, Fjord has begun to establish a new identity for himself as someone powerful, someone in control - although they knew he’s not sure how he got his abilities and is looking for answers, there’s still a respect for what he can do and they need him. Admitting to his visions puts that identity at risk, and allowing the others to see his confusion and uncertainty, which he doesn’t want to do. 

He’s willing to be vulnerable to an extent when it comes to pushing back against the monster image, but for the most part he operates behind a front. It’s not about being dishonest or hiding his true motives - at this point, I don’t think he’s even sure what his motives are - but as Travis says in his playlist: “Bury the pain and live on.”

Fjord is very good at burying his pain, fear and insecurities deep down and pretending that they don’t exist. Partly it’s because he’s never been afforded the opportunity to be vulnerable: he had to be tough, to put up a front to survive as a child, and he’s carried that habit into adulthood. He’s never had companionship and affection that’s allowed him to truly open up, so he doesn’t know how to deal with his trauma, his grief and his pain. Instead he just shoves it down and bottles it up, managing to appear as if he’s functional and coping, but it’s still there below the surface and affecting his decisions. 

For example, his internalised belief that if he’s not careful people will only look at him and see a monster. And the Mighty Nein are no exception. Fjord is noticeably hiding more behind the politeness and courtesy at the beginning of the campaign with the M9 (and there is a still a pattern of him doing this with strangers and authority figures in particular), and only as he gets to know them and bonds with them does he start to relax and start to let that go - to be playful and teasing at times, but also a bit more abrasive and not as afraid to push back against them.

When he starts having the visions, however, that bond isn’t there. For someone so hyper-aware of giving the wrong impression, Fjord is going to weigh the risks of admitting that he’s having dreams of some powerful creature or entity that tells him ominously that it’s watching him, and wants him to consume and provoke. It’s an admission that plays directly into the perception of him as monstrous and possibly evil. And Fjord is terrified of rejection - it’s what he experienced for most of his life, and now after having everything he cared about ripped away from him he’s attached himself to a group of people who are the first to show him kindness - in Jester’s case, the first to bring light and laughter back into his life after a terribly traumatic experience. If he tells him, he risks losing them and finding himself alone again.

So, he keeps quiet.

I think it becomes even more important to him to hold on to them after the vision of Vandran in Episode 22. Everything he thought he knew shifts with the realisation that Vandran might not have been who he thought he was, and is connected in some way to the orb, the sword and the creature visiting him in his dreams. Part of the identity he’s founded for himself by taking on Vandran’s accent is based on a lie, or at least a partial truth. He’s suddenly faced with the possibility of losing Vandran a second time in a much different way, and Nott’s throwaway comment, “He might turn evil and kill us all” is unfortunately placed as a) echoes his childhood bullies and ‘evil’ perception of orcs and b) implies he could lose his new friends exactly when, emotionally, he probably needs them the most.

That fear of losing them is what makes the Iron Shepherds possibly the worst sort of trauma that Fjord could have experienced while he hasn’t recovered from the shipwreck and losing Vandran. For the first time in his life, he had the power to fight back against people who would hurt him and those he cares about - but the Shepherds take all the power away with ease and return him to a state of feeling helpless.

While shackled and bound, unable to do anything to help Yasha or Jester, he has to listen to Lorenzo calling him a ‘half-beast’, which would inevitably raise spectres of his youth and his internalised racism. For several days he has to endure his own torture and his friends’, while his insecurities make him uncertain whether the rest of the group will come for them - or at least for him. When he’s finally freed, he discovers that Molly, his roommate, was killed trying to rescue them. He’s able to admit to Beau and Caleb in Episode 30:

Fjord: I expect better of myself. Let you guys down, I let Jester down, I let Yasha down. I’ll never be able to shake this. 

They assure him he’s not to blame, but I don’t think they realise how deeply it runs and is tangled up with his existing survivor’s guilt. Fjord failed to stop Sabien from blowing up the ship, and feels the responsibility of Vandran and his crewmates’ deaths and of being the only one to have survived. And until the Iron Shepherds, he wasn’t just surviving but thriving. He’d made new friends he cares deeply for and who care for him, he’s more powerful than he’s ever been in his life and the world suddenly holds a lot more opportunities for him. In some ways the shipwreck was a good thing for him, so imagine how much that thought exacerbates his guilt and feelings of responsibility.

But now he’s failed, and even with magic he wasn’t able to protect Jester and Yasha and he wasn’t there to protect Mollymauk - in fact he’s the reason Mollymauk was put in danger in the first place. Everything he goes through with the Iron Shepherds only compounds Fjord’s existing trauma and guilt complex. And it shatters the foundations of the identity he’s begun to build for himself as someone with power.

But in the midst of all this, they found the letter about the cloven crystal and “the Captain” in Lorenzo’s things. Suddenly Fjord has a concrete lead, rather than the vague hope he had with the Soltryce Academy, and a possibility of finding answers about what’s happened to him. Answers that might help resolve his identity issues, answers about Vandran, that might lead him to gaining more control over his magic and even make him more powerful and thus better able to protect his friends. Naturally, he latches on to it. 

At first he does try to pursue things himself. Obviously from a Doylist perspective, Travis sent Fjord on the walkabout because he hates shopping and filler episodes and wanted to do something he finds more engaging, but from a Watsonian point of view going off by himself immediately following his rescue to ask questions is an attempt to resolve matters without putting the rest of the M9 at any more risk. It also shows the change in his mindset, how it’s become a more urgent matter for him that he wants to get started on right away.

In the wake of the Iron Shepherds, Fjord seems to lose some perspective regarding how far to go - what he is capable of doing, vs what he should do. His judgement is clouded by fear that if he doesn’t hold back then once again someone he cares for will be hurt and it will be his fault for not preventing it. It’s noticeable that following his captivity Fjord becomes a lot more ruthless in his approach to what he sees as potential threats - take Algar for example. He’s a lot more brutal that he really needs to be in pursuit of him, going straight to cutting off his hand and wanting to take him out however necessary. Because Algar is a threat to Marion, who Jester deeply cares about, and Fjord’s already let Jester down once and it determined not to go so again, so he does whatever he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

And all of this is further compounded by the pirate arc and delving into his backstory.

In some ways the disaster that was them trying to talk to Marius in Nicodranas and ending up killing a crew, stealing their ship and making themselves possible fugitives is very ironic and unintentional for the whole of Fjord’s arc: he has the best of intentions, he wants answers about himself and his powers and suddenly has a real chance to get them, but things rapidly spiral out of control and the M9 end up in a dangerous situation that reinforces his guilt complex and feelings of responsibility. He recognises the tenuous line he’s walking, asking Beau to keep him in check, but it also makes him more determined to get answers because he believes that will give him the power he needs to protect his friends.

While they’re at sea, Fjord becomes the literal captain. Although he’s previously been willing to step up and be the face of the group - from childhood, after all, he has worked to make himself acceptable and palatable and he knows how to weaponise his charm to avoid angering people, although he’s never been close enough to anyone to get to learn how people work on an individual level and thus tailor his charm - all their decisions up until this point have been communal ones, rather than one person definitively taking the lead. Furthermore, Travis said on the Talks for Episode 36 that Fjord had been first mate under Vandran, so he has experience giving order, but in the Talks for Episodes 37 and 43 that he’s not comfortable doing so; to survive he has always tried to blend in and being pushed to the front and making decisions is not something Fjord likes to do or feels easy doing.

Now, however, Fjord is specifically thrust into a leadership position. He attempts to retain that communal decision making and consult the others, but they defer to him - likely in an attempt to be respectful, as they’re delving into Fjord’s story, but still inadvertently feeding directly into his issues. They are here because of him, any danger they end up in or harm that comes to them is because of him, if he makes a poor decision here and what happened to Mollymauk happens again it is directly Fjord’s fault.

All this is on his shoulders when he enters into what is essentially a power game with Avantika, who is clear that she can, and will, have them killed at any minute if she wants to and who is Fjord’s only chance to get the answers he’s looking for. It’s made more complicated by the fact that he feels connected to Avantika in a way he never has with anyone else - he’s never met anyone with shared experience to him before: he knew no other half-orcs growing up, Jester and Caleb both have a much more secure and solid understanding of their powers than he does, although he somewhat relates to Nott’s self-image issues they’re coming from very different perspectives. Now he meets Avantika, who also has the dreams of Uk’otoa, who has felt the power he’s being offered, who understands exactly what he’s going through. He tells her in Episode 37 “I don’t feel quite as alone in this”, and he’s partly trying to get her on-side but it’s also true.

But at the same time he’s finally starting to learn about his patron and what he’s learning … isn’t good. Which starts throwing his identity and sense of self into flux again.

Since discovering his magic, Fjord has felt - for possibly the first time in his life - strong. Capable. Able to protect people. And now he discovers that those powers have been given to him by a serpent created by one of the betrayer gods of the Calamity, a serpent that was sealed away and wants to be freed to claim the land it used to rule over. All his fears about the being in his dreams being evil appear to be very much true - so what does that make Fjord, who has spent his life trying to distance himself from a evil image?

Without his magic, he goes back to being helpless and unable to protect the people he cares about - possibly once more having to endure watching them get hurt and being unable to do anything about it. But if he embraces it, embraces Uk’otoa, he becomes the very thing he has never wanted to be. That if it’s even possible to extricate himself at this point. And if he does manage to, that still leaves the question of Avantika - can he turn his back, knowing she’ll still be trying to free Uk’otoa? And how does Vandran fit into all of this?

They can’t simply walk away from Avantika, so as long as they’re in her power Fjord has to play along with what she expects of him. That is, play into an image that is the exact opposite of how he had wanted to present himself. He does it, because it’s his best chance to ensure his friends get out of this unscathed and his best chance to get further answers about what being a Chosen of Uku’toa means for him and about Vandran. But it’s got to mess with his head, trying to project an air of leadership and confidence, of certainty about Uk’otoa, things he very much doesn’t feel. And then even the Mighty Nein, his friends, who he trusts and who he thought trusted him, start questioning him and wondering what his intentions are with Uk’otoa, making him doubt himself further. Maybe he finds the part too easy to play. He’s had a vision of power to control the sea itself and he still likes feeling strong and powerful - maybe liking it means he really is a monster and evil at heart. Even before the vision, in Episode 37, he says of the power Avantika’s after:

Fjord: But doesn’t it seem like too much?

and also

Caleb: It sounded like she wants power.

Fjord: She does. Unleashing things that are too terrible to talk about, but you can use your imagination.

Fjord has had difficulties drawing boundaries with his power because he’s never had it before and because of the trauma he’s experienced, but he is still afraid of going too far. Of crossing the line from being strong to be a monster. He says to Caleb in Episode 41:

Fjord: I think you know what I mean. But in case this thing gets out of hand, can I count on you to right the ship if need be?

He’s talking about Avantika in the most immediate sense, but the fact that he’s asking Caleb to keep an eye out and right the ship implies that Fjord thinks he might not be able to do himself. Either because Avantika will already have killed/incapacitated him … or perhaps because there’s a chance that he might also be getting out of hand. “Right the ship” such a curious expression to use here, since they’ve never trusted Avantika. They’re not trying to “right” her, to pull her back or save her. So I think Fjord is considering himself in that request as well.

He tries to drown Avantika in the temple in Episode 40 as a way to try and cut through the tangle of everything - it would remove a thread to his friends without suspicion falling on them, would stop her mission to free Uk’otoa and give Fjord more time to figure out how to handle it, and let him stop pretending to be what he doesn’t want to be until he risks losing himself in the deception. But it doesn’t work and Fjord panics and tries to mitigate the damage he may have done by entering into a sexual relationship with her to try and bring her closer and convince her to trust him. 

As I mentioned before, I think Fjord tries to be upfront as much as possible. He’ll lie and deceived in one-off situations where it’s immediately necessary to achieve their goals or keep them safe, but in extended acquaintance, with the M9 and such, he prefers to be honest. He keeps some things to himself - things directly related to his traumas, such as his accent - but generally doesn’t directly lie. His sense of self is so insecure and unstable, I think he avoids extended deception because he finds it too easy to get lost in it and find himself unintentionally adapting into his identity.

That’s part of why his characterisation skews during this arc. He’s trying to be too many things and is losing sight of who and what he really is. He tries to remind himself - by trying to take out Avantika, in Episode 41 when they attack the merchant ship and he insists on doing it with as little violence as possible - but the identity he had started to build for himself the M9 has been proven to be founded on very shaky foundations and he doesn’t have a secure enough sense of self to hold on to.

The confrontation with Avantika and her death, coming much sooner than anticipated, is both good and bad for Fjord. He’s able to stop pretending to be as enthralled by Uk’otoa as she is - although some damage has already been done, with Caleb questioning him and Nott making remarks about him turning evil, which feed into his doubts and his fear of rejection. I don’t think it’s until his conversation with Jester in Episode 47: “Some people are evil, it’s okay! Just don’t be evil to me,” which reassures him that she won’t leave him and implicty reveals that she’s afraid of him rejecting them that he’s able to put some of those fears to rest.

On the other hand, losing Avantika and getting banished from Darktow in one fell swoop robs Fjord of the chance of getting answers about Vandran and his place in everything. Was he a fanatic like Avantika? Was he trying to escape Uk’otoa? A huge part of Fjord’s sense of self is founded in his relationship with Vandran, to point of making Vandran’s accent part of his identity, so he needs answers both to help decide how to move forward and to pull together an identity that’s beginning to fall apart. All the magic and power he’s gained can’t help with that, and he only has one more route available to do that - finding the second temple - so his focus and determination become almost manic. 

Searching out answers means revisiting the site of his most significant trauma: the shipwreck where he lost Vandran, where he failed to stop Sabien, and where he drowned. Fjord’s typical response to pain and trauma is to bury it and ignore it, but in Episode 44 he’s deliberately dragging it up again - retelling the whole story of what happened, seeing for himself the result of the shipwreck and then following the only lead he has while finding some hope that Vandran might be alive (and having to start questioning what it will mean if he is). Fjord’s gotten a lot of criticism for being more abrasive and antagonistic than usual this episode - but is it any wonder? He’s been repressing everything for so long and now the grief, survivor’s guilt and stress come right to the fore, honed to a much sharper edge by desperation. Fjord is on edge the entire episode while trying to maintain his facade and pretend that he’s coping. 

I think some of that starts to bleed through (no pun intended) when it comes to the altar in Dashilla’s Lair. Obviously there’s a meta element of Travis being an impulsive and curious player to likes to mess things that Matt presents them with, but in terms of justification from a character POV - Fjord’s spent the day reliving the memories of a day he felt utterly powerless, his inability to stop what happened and save the rest of the crew, and his friends have once again been put in danger because of him, having to fight Dashilla (who at once point tried to take control of Fjord and almost made him hurt them himself). So the sight of an object of power, that might give him some extra power? Goaded on by Caleb, who gives into a moment of weakness when he sees an opportunity to gain leverage for achieving his own goals, Fjord’s trauma temporarily wins out and he makes a poor decision to slice open his palm and pour his blood into it. But after a moment he calms down, sees his friends are no longer in immediate danger, and is able to regain control and pull back from that trauma-driven impulse.

Coming to the close of his arc, he has begun to calm down generally and his characterisation has steadied again for three reasons:

First, he’s still a dead end when it comes to Vandran. Having been to the second temple he’s no further forward and has no more leads to pursue, which forces him to take a step back and alleviate some of that desperate single-mindedness. He has no reason to think the third temple will make things any clear and, besides he’s also hyper aware that pushing forward to the third temple brings with it all the risks and uncertainties regarding freeing Uk’otoa, which is a significant enough deterrent to offset his curious and impulsive nature - as Travis has said on Talks, he doesn’t want “the endgame that’s been shown to him” or to complete that third part of the puzzle.

There’s also the fact that thanks to Caduceus, Fjord now has confirmation that Vandran is indeed alive. He doesn’t know how to find him as yet, but just the knowledge is enough to help ease his grief and guilt. It will also force him to confront the ways in which he’s adapted Vandran’s traits for himself and hopefully allow him to separate his own identity from Vandran’s more. 

Second, he’s no longer being pushed into the de-facto leadership position. He was clear that once he was on land he was no longer the captain, and already after the second temple it shows in decisions becoming more communal about exactly which direction they’ll head. That pressure being taken off Fjord’s shoulders is important in helping him work through his survivor’s guilt and feelings of responsibility towards the M9. He’s able to shed the persona of a confident he’s been trying to project and settle more into himself.

Third, he has something to focus on besides his own trauma. While we may yet see it backfire as Fjord once again tries to bury it, equally it is helpful that he is no longer having to dig actively into his pain every day. It gives him room to breathe and, hopefully, begin to heal rather than keeping cutting open the wound afresh. 

What I expect, and hope, we’ll see over the coming arc, is Fjord being able to settle and feel more comfortable in himself and begin to form a more solid internal identity for himself. Having removed some of the barriers between himself and his friends can only help as his bonds with them are strengthened and friendships deepened. I think the affection and trust growing between them will help him become more sure of himself and start to overcome those fears of rejection and of becoming a monster. 

And the stronger Fjord’s sense of self becomes the better, because I think the danger at this point is that the fact that his identity is still so unstable is what makes him so vulnerable to Uku’otoa. Although he might have good intentions at the moment, the power and strength Uk’otoa is offering are going to be hugely tempting to someone with such deep rooted insecurities and might lead Fjord down a darker path. 

So might Fjord yet be drawn to evil? Yes, it’s possible. Uk’otoa clearly is evil and he is very deliberately constructed to play into Fjord’s trauma and biggest weakness.

Is Fjord already evil? No, I would say absolutely not. He’s made mistakes, but I think the idea that he’s evil relies on him having a much surer concept of himself than he actually does. 

Fjord’s made mistakes, sure. But he’s still trying his hardest to be good, and not to be the monster he was told from earliest childhood that he is. 

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