Talk:Campaign Three adventuring party

Bertrand inclusion
It seems weird that Bertrand is not included as a member of the party on the basis of meta reasons, when this is an article about the narrative, not about the number of episodes. Narratively speaking, the group and the story treats him as a member of the group—he is hired with them, paid as a member among them, and offered the contract as a member of the group. He is around for a very short part of the narrative, but for the while he is there, he's treated as a member of the adventuring party and not as a temporary ally outside of them. So, since the article is about the story concept of the group, he should be included. (Also, "he can be considered a guest player character even if Travis played him" is objectively wrong, he's a main cast player character, and the page doesn't differentiate on the basis of "guest character" or not anyway.) Additionally, the actual plot summary on the article already treats Bertrand as a member of the group, so the page itself is inconsistent in the way it treats him. That table is the only place on the article that separates him out from the others. ~FreckledMcCree (Send me a message!) 18:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm with you! Even if he was with the group for the short amount of time, Bertrand introduced them to Ariks Eshteross and united with the same goal (to find out the location of the brumstone). Without him they've possibly just scattered around after the "animated objects fight".


 * However if we go into this rabbithole — Kashaw and Zahra are part of Vox Machina because they helped them multiple times? I think they would have easily agreed to be part of the group. The last one, Nott accepted Twiggy into the Mighty Nein as honorary member. I think after the group will find their name, Bertrand Bell would be remembered as an honorary one? 19:14, 9 January 2022 (UTC) MoistGoth (talk)
 * I think it depends on the narrative concerns, it's not actually about episode count. Kashaw and Zahra are never treated as members of Vox Machina per the narrative and the characters, only as recurring allies: compare to Tary, who is treated as a member of the party full. You can do the same as Twiggy: compare to Essek, who is treated narratively as a full member rather than an honorary one. It's about how the story and the characters in the party approach these people. Kashaw and Zahra are always held at arm's length as outsiders to the group, and Twiggy is explicitly treated as temporary, but Tary and Essek are ultimately treated as if they're full-blooded members of this group. And it's true! In the future, Bertrand might be "demoted" to just an honorary member of the party, but we cannot speak to the future. We can only say that, standing here at the end of episode 9, the way that the narrative and characters treated him while he was with them: and they all approached him with the expectation that he was one of their number.


 * For what it's worth, we also consider Kingsley a member of the Mighty Nein, despite him never adventuring formally with the Nein, doing even less for them as a group than Bertrand does for this party. And we count Kingsley because the Nein count him as a member of the party narratively in a manner identical to how the party counts Bertrand as one of them for the first three, even five, episodes. ~FreckledMcCree (Send me a message!) 19:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

It is an actual endless rabbithole; the more I think about the words "allies" and "members" the more blurry they become. I vote either way and then retrospectivly look back 30 episodes in and change his role. Now also the chance to a quick poll. 19:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)