From start to finish, episode 5 of The Legend of Vox Machina‘s second season belongs to Keyleth (voiced by Marisha Ray).
Titled “Pass Through Fire,” the episode sees Keyleth and the rest of Vox Machina journey to Pyrah, home of the Fire Ashari tribe. There, they help its citizens close a widening rift between the Material Plane and the Plane of Fire. It marks a major victory for Vox Machina, and an especially big achievement for Keyleth.
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As a member of the Air Ashari, Keyleth is on an Aramenté, or Noble Odyssey. She must travel to the other Ashari tribes and enter the planes of their respective elements. Once she finishes, she’ll have greater powers and become leader of her people.
But while Keyleth has been on her Aramenté for quite some time, she has yet to complete any of her trials. This stems from a number of reasons, like doubt in her own powers or the worry that if she fails, she won’t see her family ever again. Then, there’s the fact that her mother Vilya (voiced by Janet Varney) disappeared on her own Aramenté. As we see in a flashback at the start of “Pass Through Fire,” Keyleth absolutely adores her mother and views her as incredibly powerful; if Vilya wasn’t able to complete her Aramenté, does Keyleth even have a chance?
All these questions come to the forefront in “Pass Through Fire,” which raises the stakes until Keyleth has no choice but to journey into the Plane of Fire. Her father is gravely injured, her allies are under attack from fiery monsters, and she is the only person who can save them. It’s up to Keyleth to banish her self-doubts and listen to the words her mother told her so many years ago: She was made to pass through fire.
What follows is among The Legend of Vox Machina‘s best sequences yet, with Keyleth becoming a Fire Elemental and closing the rift all by herself. The sheer scale of the Fire Plane and Keyleth’s powers lend an epic feel to the episode’s climax, but its impact is all the stronger thanks to how the show grounds this moment in Keyleth’s personal growth.
“It was such a great realization and representation of that very long, overarching journey that she went through in the campaign,” Ray said of the episode in a Zoom call with Mashable. Critical Role’s first live-streamed Dungeons and Dragons campaign, on which The Legend of Vox Machine is based, saw Keyleth enter the Plane of Fire multiple times. Her Aramenté and the sealing of the rift took place on separate occasions. The show’s combination of these visits creates an explosive set piece perfect to showcase Keyleth’s journey — and to justify her power-up beyond Dungeons and Dragons‘s standard system of leveling up.
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“When you’re sitting around and you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons, you have all these spells and abilities just kind of at your disposal,” explained Ray. “We really wanted to make sure that that wasn’t as readily available to the characters and wanted to give reasons behind having these more powerful moments of growth.”
For Ray, the overall experience of seeing a character she’s played for years get such a wonderfully realized moment onscreen was “absolutely incredible.” Even the process of recording Keyleth’s transformation, which saw her screaming over and over again for around 15 seconds, helped her lock into Keyleth’s true power.
“Her having passed through fire — it gives me chills every time I think about when I had to say that line,” said Ray. “It was very beautiful.”
New episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina are streaming every Friday on Prime Video.
