Ker’s words about our negative responses to things outside
of our control, and picking our hills, have been one of the most important things
I’ve ever heard. They helped get me through one of my worst spots in what’s
been an incredibly terrible couple of years, and I’ll be forever grateful to
Patrick Rothfuss for them.
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Transcript method notes: http://otdderamin.tumblr.com/post/153539301510/a-note-on-my-transcription-method
Scene runs 1:57:02 to 2:06:55 https://youtu.be/8xpnCiF4im0?t=7020
Taliesin: “I’m going to join-”
Marisha, quickly and a bit desperately: “About that time
I reach in and grab Percy’s hand. Before he re- he leaves the door.”
Percy: He makes flustered sounds of protest as he points
off.
Keyleth, grabbing his arm, pleading anxiously: “Percy,
Percy.”
Percy: “What?”
Keyleth, stumbling through her words, talking faster, and
looking around nervously: “This is giving me, like, a lot- a lot of
anxiety. There’s a lot of people here.”
Percy, taking a light tone: “Is this about your feels
about Vax, is that the whole problem right now?”
Keyleth, franticly: “No!”
Percy: “Because I really don’t-
1:57:16 Keyleth: “There’s so many people calling us
heroes.”
Percy, emphatically: “Yes.”
Keyleth: “We’re not heroes.”
Percy: “We’re- We pretty much are, actually,”
Keyleth, dismayed: “No.”
Percy: “I hate to tell you this.”
Keyleth: “No, we’re not, we’re terrible people.”
Percy: Closes his eyes, deflates his posture in recognition and
resignation, sighs, gives a brief sad smile, and clasps his free hand on
Keyleth’s wrist.
Keyleth, alarmed: “Why are they telling us this?”
Percy facepalms.
Keyleth, slightly disgusted, and then increasingly freaked
out: “Oh god, oh if I have to shake one more townsperson’s hand. Oh god, I
feel like I was cursed. I was cursed! I don’t want any of this. I don’t want
any of this.”
Percy puts his hand over Keyleth’s mouth, wincing. “Shhhh.”
Keyleth starts to hyperventilate.
1:57:42 Matt: “As you guys are having this
conversation, Ker walks over with a rosy grin on his face.”
Ker: “Is this your first time?”
Keyleth hyperventilates as an answer. Ker points back over
his shoulder. Percy pushes Keyleth towards him.
Ker, pointing back over his shoulder: “I- I- We can-”
Keyleth, waving and offering her hand, sullenly, “Hi, I’m
Keyleth. Do you want to step outside?”
Laura: “I come back inside.”
Ker, shaking Keyleth’s hand: “Let’s- Let’s step
outside.”
Keyleth: “Okay.”
Matt: “You guys pass Vex as she steps back into the
tavern, passing-
Laura: “I pat her on the back.”
Vex, happily nodding: “Drunk? Already?”
Keyleth, very anxiously: “No!”
Percy, quickly: “Panic attack. You don’t even – It’s…”
He makes a dismissing looped gesture with his hand.
Vex laughs
Keyleth tries to take deep, calming breaths.
1:58:22 Matt: “As you step outside with Ker, the cold
night air kinda comforting to you, hitting your face, hitting your lungs. It
helps the breathings slow, and you have a moment of control over your emotions.”
[Keyleth has had her had to her temple, resting against the
table/wall.]
Keyleth: “Uuuh.” She fans herself. “Ds’ So
the nausea, does that like always happen, is that always a thing?”
1:58:41 Ker, calmly: “Is it- Is it the people? Or is it,”
short pause, “the fact that you– have– finally realized how pointless it
all is?”
Keyleth, looks baffled, then grins, looks away, runs her
hand over her mouth a couple times trying to find a response.
Ker gives a soft, curt laugh.
Keyleth, still smiling but emphatic, shaking her fist: : “Maybe
it’s the fact that I feel that I’ve been lied to my entire goddamn life and it’s
all crashing down upon me right now.”
1:59:14 Sam, quietly: “She’s Druish.”
Marisha: “So Druish.”
Keyleth: “So yeah, you could say, um, how about a
little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.”
Ker, nodding: “Yeah.”
Keyleth, looking down: “Yeah–.”
Ker: “Yeah.”
Keyleth, running her finger across her chin nervously: “Yeah.”
Ker, nodding: “Umm.”
1:59:31 Keyleth: “How did you deal with it?”
Ker: “Uh, I found other places where I could do good
things.”
Keyleth: “Really.”
Ker: “Yeah.”
Keyleth, dubiously: “Like what?”
Ker, looks off quickly and back: “Like– I– make wagon
couples. The thing that-”
Keyleth: “Oh. I don’t even know exactly what you said.”
Ker: “You have a wagon,”
Keyleth: “Sure.”
Ker: “and then you have a horse,”
Keyleth: “Right, yeah.”
Ker: “and then something needs to hook the horse to the
wagon,”
Keyleth: “Gotcha.”
Ker: “and if you have a bad one of those it breaks,”
Keyleth: “MmmHmm.”
Ker: “and so people need good- ones of those.”
Keyleth, contemplating with her hand over her mouth and then
throwing her hand to the side: “I- I n- I don’t- know at all what you just
told me, I’m not gonna lie, but I think I- I get the message.”
2:00:19 Ker: “Well, I’m guessing that you are bothered
by the fact that no matter what you do, you seem to end up destroying more
things than you fix.”
Keyleth her face lighting up, throwing her arms open in a
gesture of epiphany, and pointing happily towards Ker with comradery: “Yes!
Geeze! You’re like the first person- no one else gets it!”
Ker, slightly shaking his head: “They don’t get it do
they?”
Keyleth: “No, they don’t.”
Ker: “No.”
2:00:36 Keyleth, thinking a moment with her hand on her chin:
“Is that it? That’s it? We just- We will destroy everything we touch?”
Ker sighs.
Keyleth, making sarcastic gestures: “We will cause more
harm than good? We will carve a path of destruction, and make it seem like we’re
doing good, and people will worship us because they think we’re heroes when in
the back of my head I’m thinking about all the death that has come by our
hands?”
Ker, nodding: “That can be a lot of it. I’m not going
to lie to you about that.”
Keyleth: “Yeah, you know Ker, you’re not really helping
making me feel better about this, I’m not gonna lie.”
2:01:13 Ker: “Well, um, I imagine that your friends
will tell you a lot of things that would make you feel real good. Um, but,”
pause, “I’m not one for short term solutions. I think that you’re right.
And I think that you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this. And-”
Keyleth, dark whisper, nodding with painful recognition: “So
much thought.”
Ker: “And–”
Keyleth: “I swear; got nosebleeds. Keep going, that’s
beside the point.”
Ker: “Um, and I’ve known- known people like you before.
People who are very sensitive to this sort of thing. And I have been- the sort
of person you are. And, uh, and and it’s not simple. You know, yer yer friend, you
know, who lived here for a while. The big one. What’s his name?”
Keyleth, nervously rubbing her arm: “Are you- oh, Grog,
yeah.”
Ker: “Yeah, right, he doesn’t have this. He has the
opposite of this. It’s all good for him, right? And you’re kinda jealous, aren’t
ya?”
Keyleth: “I so badly wish I could have what he has.”
2:02:32 Ker: “Yeah, but somebody has to look at the big
picture. And sometimes that’s us. And usually it’s unpleasant. But somebody
needs to do it.”
Keyleth: “So you’re saying this is my curse, my duty?”
Ker shakes his head as she says this.
2:02:48 Ker: “Uh, I’m saying that,” long pause and
sighs twice looking for the words, “I’m saying that if you aren’t careful
it will rip you apart from the inside. But that’s not a long-term solution. That’s
just another piece of destruction. You need to find a way to live with the fact
that you do what you can, because that’s what you can control, and sometimes
bad things happen anyway. And so you just have to decide where you’re going to
pick your hill. You find your hill. Everybody gets one hill. And then you plant your
flag and you can die on that one. But you have to be careful, ‘cause you only
get one.” Long pause and Ker’s expression turns very serious. “If you’re
really unlucky you get more than one.”
Keyleth quietly and darkly laughs: “And what if
the ultimate problem is that I feel like I have had zero control from the
start, since birth?
Ker, nodding: “Mmm. Uh..”
2:04:11 Keyleth, ruefully: “I didn’t want any of this.
I didn’t want my abilities. I didn’t know I was special, until now. And I so
desperately just want to be normal. I want to go back to being ignorant, and
bliss, an’.”
Ker: “Then I do have a momentary, short term solution
for you.”
Keyleth, raising her mug: “Shoot.”
Ker, pointing at the mug: “It’s actually there, and I
will get you another one. And it will help a little bit for now. It will smooth
out some of the rough edges long enough for us to talk for a while. Because I’ve
been down this road. Okay? And the thing is you’re not wrong, and you’re not
crazy, but it’s not hopeless, either.”
Keyleth, softly laughing: “Okay. Thank you.”
Patrick, making a hug gesture: I’ll- I’ll- I’ll do maybe one
of these. It feels like she wants one of these.“
Marisha: “Yeah, yeah, no.” She makes a hugging
gesture back.
Patrick: “I can read that.”
Marisha: Sighs, “I give in. I- yeah, yeah.”
Patrick: “M’kay”
Keyleth: “You know, Ker,”
Ker: “Yes?”
2:05:23 Patrick makes a score gesture with his arms, laughs,
and then waves it off. Then looks mortified at what he unleashed.
Keyleth: “We’ve been surrounded-”
Sam: “He stabbed you in the back.”
Taliesin, pointing to his head: “I was actually just
thinking- I was just thinking he should roll 1d4 to take damage from the
antlers.”
Sam: “He cut out your
kidney. You’re dead.”
Mat, waving his arms and trying
to get them back on the rails: “So anyway-”
Marisha, putting her hands up
like antlers: “Antlers!”
Liam, making a stabbing gesture:
“The Chroma Conclave sends it’s regards!”
Taliesin makes a repeated
stabbing gesture.
2:05:44 Matt: “It’s not Game
of Thrones! Um, no. As- he he he brings you into a warm hug and and and at
first there’s there’s the resistance because this is a person you don’t know.”
Marisha, miming holding up and adjusting
her headdress: “Yeah, and my headdress is a little wonky.”
Matt: “Little wonky due to the
drink, due to not concentrating, however, as much- as much as you travel with
your friends, this stranger has seemingly come to you with more wisdom and
understanding of your continuous predicaments than anybody has in a long time,
if at all. And you just kinda give into the hug and realize- just how nice it
is to have somebody understand.
Marisha: “I was pretty much going to say that in character,
but yeah, that’s pretty much what I feel.”
Matt: “Sorry.”
Marisha: “No, no, no, that’s- I was- like- yeah, yeah,
pretty much, I just tell Kern-”
Sam: “Kur.”
Marisha: “Kar- Kar- Ker-”
Matt: “Somewhere in that neighborhood.”
Liam: “Care Bear.”
Marisha: “Care Bears. I tell Ker,”
2:06:32 Keyleth: “Even surrounded by friends, I often
feel so alone. Thank you for- being a friend. Even though we just met.”
Ker: “I get that.”
Keyleth: “Yeah.”
Matt: “He brings you in, gets you another drink,”
Patrick: “Actually, I’ll bring another drink out to
her.”
Matt: “Oh, even perfect. So-”
2:06:55
Critical Analysis 