{"id":311307,"date":"2025-11-27T03:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311307\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T03:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:11:09","slug":"mighty-nein-creators-talk-new-tone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311307\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mighty Nein’ Creators Talk New Tone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mighty Nein<\/a> premiere showed the members of the adventuring party<\/a> beginning their personal journeys and meeting up in small groups, only for them to crash into each other by episode three. This week\u2019s episode gives them their first real taste of collective teamwork, and it doesn\u2019t exactly go well.<\/p>\n

Last we left off, the six of them were jailed after the catastrophe at the circus that saw Mollymauk\u2019s entire carnival troupe killed after they and some of the guests transformed into monsters. Enraged at each other for their predicament, the imprisoned group decide to bust out together and prove their innocence by rescuing Toya, the young elven singer in control of Kylre, the nergalid responsible for the previous night\u2019s carnage. Like in the early episodes of the actual play, the party finds Toya in his thrall and has to separate the two.<\/p>\n

\"Io9<\/p>\n

But unlike said actual play, they\u2019re only halfway successful here. While the fighters eliminate Kylre, Jester and Nott are unable to save Toya, and she dies. They give her a funeral that night, with the loss having clearly affected each of them. It\u2019s a notably grimmer conclusion to the opening arc of the campaign and speaks to how the creators want this animated adaptation to honor its live show counterpart and be different from its animated predecessor, Vox Machina.<\/p>\n

Changes like these, voice actor Matt Mercer told io9, are born from \u201crevisiting the logic and intent\u201d of the arcs and sequences the show is pulling from. Since the circus is where the Mighty Nein came together, it made sense to put them in a situation where \u201cdanger and loss are even more impactful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A darker tone was always \u201cthe intent out of the gate\u201d for Nein, and one he\u2019s glad they got to do, especially since longer episode lengths give them time to \u201clean into the tone shift of the series.\u201d Future episodes will further lean into that darkness, which was part of showrunner Tasha Huo\u2019s original pitch. As a self-professed fan of the campaign, she already knew the characters would go to \u201cdark places,\u201d and of the \u201crisks\u201d she took making the show, its tone wasn\u2019t one of them\u2014in fact, the creators felt the same way as her about making this tonally distinct, further underlining how much this is the show they wanted to make.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a9 Critical Role\/Prime Video <\/p>\n

To say Critical Role\u2019s many founders are hands-on with the two shows would be an understatement: along with voicing the main (and some minor) characters, they executive produce and write them. This episode, titled \u201cThe Mighty Nein,\u201d is co-written by Nott and Fjord\u2019s voice actors, Sam Riegel and Travis Willingham, who\u2019ve also written episodes for Vox Machina<\/a>, as have Marisha Ray (Beau) and Liam O\u2019Brien (Caleb). And if there\u2019s any episode this season where the cast members would take charge and pen the exploits of the titular adventuring party, it would sure be this one, where it starts with Jester collectively dubbing them \u201cThe Sensual Seven\u201d and ends with her giving them their official branding.<\/p>\n

During our interview, Willingham said any writer can take any episode they have \u201ca really strong viewpoint\u201d on and pursue that, after which the Critical Role team provides input on their characters upon seeing completed scripts. Ray loves all scripts and the assembled writers but said the cast-written ones often have a tell\u2014a character will have an \u201cextra bit of x-factor\u201d that lets you know who was behind them, from a character\u2019s dialogue choices to having a few more jokes than normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Riegel explained that it makes sense for them to take the reins for \u201cspecific plot points or storylines we were there for when they were invented and improvised.\u201d While not all of the founders have the \u201ctime and energy\u201d to handle an episode, he\u2019s hopeful that everyone will have \u201ca script or two\u201d to their names when all these shows are said and done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that\u2019ll be a while, as The Mighty Nein has its first season to finish on Prime Video, followed by season two in the near future.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mighty Nein premiere showed the members of the adventuring party beginning their personal journeys and meeting up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,174194,134,176382,15230,176383,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-311307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-critical-role","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-mighty-nein","13":"tag-prime-video","14":"tag-the-mighty-nein","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}