Amazon Prime Video’s original series The Legend of Vox Machina kicks off with the team traveling to seek help from a group of holy warriors in the city of Vesselheim due to them not being strong enough to fight the conclave. The interesting part about this is how the viewer sees that the city is made up of multiple religions. This demonstrates how more open the city is as it allows others to worship their gods without pushing the native beliefs on to non-natives of the city. This could be a result of the city being made up of countless people from distant lands with their beliefs. Unfortunately, the warrior priest refuse to help them as they see that the conclave is not their problem. In their minds, they see being in a massive city with multiple craftsmen from across the land gives them a huge edge over any enemy. And the reason why they managed to keep it that way is due to their isolation from the outside world. Luckily, not all of them believe that it is not their responsibility as the team now has a lead for some assistance in a group called The Slayer’s Take.
Additionally, the viewer sees that the group the team visits are a bunch of monster slayers. However, the atmosphere suggests that they are also mercenaries who have been hired for both good and evil work. Such as possibly killing a monster or being hired to kill someone innocent for a high amount of money. In an ironic turn of events, the leader of the group is revealed to be a sphinx which is also a monster. Ultimately, this leads to the team being tortured by the sphinx to see if they have what it takes to fight the conclave. During this the viewer gets a glimpse into what scares each individual member of the team. For example, Ashley Johnson’s Pike Trickfoot is afraid of losing faith in her strength to protect her friends. In her mind, she always fought with the strength of her faith as she is also a holy warrior of her land. Unfortunately, due to the team’s loss at the hands of the conclave she now has doubts. Another example is Taliesin Jaffe’s Percy who has guilt over failing someone who needed him. In his mind, he tries to run away from his past as he travels with the team. However, he knows that eventually his past will catch up to him.
At the end of the episode, the viewer sees Travis Willingham’s Grog as he fights with an old man who is a master of combat. The interesting part about this is how the old man seems to want to help Grog become a better fighter. In Grog’s mind, he has always relied on brute strength to beat his opponents. Now that he is going up against someone who is stronger than him, he is lost about what to do to beat him and that frustrates him. Eventually, the fight leads to Grog realizing that he does not know where his strength to fight comes from. Meanwhile, as the team are broken by the sphinx Pike decides to keep fighting no matter what. In her mind, she does not care if she is not strong enough, she will gladly die so others can live as that is it means to be a holy warrior. As a result of Pike’s bravery, the rest of the team rallies behind her to fight earning the sphinx’s favor as well as a clue on where to go to find weapons to kill the conclave.
Rating: 8.5/10