Fjord: How Travis Willingham Tackled the Lie of Masculinity

Travis Willingham used Fjord in a masterful way to display the pitfalls of Toxic Masculinity... And how one can overcome them.

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Hello! My name is Jay, and I am a long-time veteran of storytelling and a semi-seasoned DM! I began playing Dungeons and Dragons roughly 5 years ago and began my first ever game as the DM. I figured things out by watching online games and fumbling my way through the rules, and never looked back! I've fallen in love with TTRPG's in general and want to share my experience and thoughts with the world and community I love so much. I currently DM two separate games regularly, and continue to learn every day.

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• Dungeons and Dragons
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• Critical Role
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• DND
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[PlayYourRole]

This comment once addressed something else, but I wanted to comment on the constant claims that I 'hate masculinity'. I do not. In fact, I view myself as a masculine figure proudly. There is nothing wrong with being a man. Unfortunately, many people take being a man to mean 'never be disrespected, never feel emotions, project false confidence to mask insecurity'.... That is not masculinity. That is cowardice.

Fjord, at the beginning of his story, pretended to be Vandrin in order to project masculinity. Over the course of the story, however, he learned to find his own inner confidence and self, at which point his masculinity became not a mask but instead who he truly was. That was what this video was about. Fjord was masculine. Being a man is not wrong. Believing that one must project masculinity or else you are worthless is harmful, and yes... Toxic.

People are different, not everyone is the same. Please embrace and celebrate who you are. If that is being a man, I'm so proud of you, truly. But those who desire not to be masculine are not any less than you.

[evanherynk]

When Nott does the spoiler thing and tells Fjord "I'm sorry I always call you weak, but I only do that because I know you're strong enough to take it." Gets me every time.

[koseugle]

I love how through his friendship with Caleb and especially Caduceus, Fjord was exposed to such different versions of manhood than the one he grew up with.

[sandrinenoel]

Travis masterfully illustrated what Avatar Aang meant when he said: "When we reach our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change."

[malachairasmussen]

I adore Fjord. He was the first of the Nien I got attached to and well, being a male I struggled opening up, I related to his struggles. I still struggle to be open around my loved ones, I'm not as bad as I was though. Seeing the growth that Fjord did really touched my heart, seeing he accept the love and care from the other members. Needless to say but this video got me in tears at the end.

[patriciaf]

I honestly never thought of fjords story as being about toxic masculinity. I equated his journey as being more like being in, and then leaving a toxic relationship. Putting all you have into someone and then realizing it was bad for you and ending it, then dealing with the fall out of losing everything you had in that relationship. It could be because I'm one of your female viewers that I have a different take, or it could be because I've left a very toxic relationship before. Either way I think that's the best part of watching things like critical role, everyone can watch it and come away with different takes all based on their own life experience.

[rhylin]

I also loved how the Mighty Nien supported Fjord during his transition. It’s not easy going from wanting to be the guy who needs no one to accepting support. It was an amazing decision to leave him depowered for so long. If he immediately got his powers back the next episode, the arc would have been wasted. Him being supported and protected while vulnerable, showed him what it truly meant to support and protect others.

[troikas]

My favorite dynamic with Fjord was actually his mentor/found-sibbling relationship with Beau. Two well meaning but lost knuckle heads, both struggling with self acceptance, who found unwavering support in each other. His patience, compassion and empathy towards someone that desperately needed all three but didn't know how to express it, and who struggled as much as he did with the idea of accepting help, was a great example of how just a little effort can go a long way. It also showcased how he just naturally put into practice all the qualities he so revered in Vanderin even if he didn't see it himself. Tossing the sword into the lava was certainly badass, but despite.. or maybe because of.. its mundanity to me the strongest thing Fjord did over campaign 2 was help and support a friend burdened by anger and self-hate finally start to heal.

[sparklefulpaladin]

Out of all the characters in the M9, Fjord was the one it took the longest for me to really start to enjoy watching his story and really connecting with his character. On my rewatch, he’s become one of my favorites and I think you did an excellent job at pinpointing why. I especially enjoy the brotherly friendship between Caduceus and Fjord.

As always, excellent video and thanks for your content! =)

[jsmountain]

😭
I love Fjord so much. His lava pit chicken game with Ukatoa happened about a year after I got sober, and the whole "letting go of something that is making your life worse and then accepting help" thing really meant a lot to me.

[pedropages]

The moment he rejected Uko'toa his patron in the lava-pit scene played such a big impact for me personally. Even still thinking back from it, I cried when he became 'free' against his patron. A moment standing up against all the darkness that had him bound, that hurt him and no intention to see him be better. I felt my own journey reflected in that moment, feeding into something that is slowly killing me, to let that go and ask for help meant everything for me to be better for myself.

[ducksinthewild]

The men of the M9 were a breath of fresh air in a world where media has portrait a repeated image of manhood. We have one who had made horrible acts and chose to work towards a goal to maybe fix them, another one who never really had a clue of what it really meant to be a man yet still strive to be the best he could possibly be, and last one who embodied the protective and gentle warmth of what a protector could be.

All three of them speak volumes when taking their real life as backgrounds for their motivations. Liam with the loss of family, Taliesin with being surrounded by older people while still being a kid, and Travis with not growing with a father.

D&D is such a powerful game.

[yaboy]

One of my favorite moments from campaign 2 is fjord, recently depowered, using nothing but a magic whip and his own strength to stop a burrowing word from escaping with one of his unconscious friends.

[gummyghostrat]

Even as a woman this helped bring perspective of what men go through on daily bases and helped me connect with personal relationships. Travis is an amazing storyteller as per usual!

[artemiswallace]

gods, i hope we get a percy review from you soon. everyone loves percys dark brooding persona and completely forget that for nearly the whole campaign we were watching a man in the midst of a psychotic break and dealing with both his trauma, and the consequences of his actions he committed during his mental breakdown. (especially coming to terms with the fact he knowingly introduced a weapon of war to exandria that would cause millions of deaths even just in his lifetime)

[rhylin]

One of my favorite things about his arc is that he maintained his warlock levels when he started following the wild mother. Travis could have easily justified becoming the same level in a whole new class. However I think it’s more thematic having his past choices matter. It also made him taking paladin levels mean so much more in my opinion.

[andrewharding]

Seeing a DnD character sacrifice their power and abilities for their morals and their own health, mental or otherwise, is such an evocative and impactful story to tell. It’s not one you see often in fiction, especially rpgs, but boy howdy if it isn’t powerful.

Love the video, sorry a bunch of reactionaries say a single word in the thumbnail and ragequit like children. You’re videos are always so insightful and amazingly well spoken. I hope you keep up the amazing work and don’t forget to give yourself time to rest and recoup as well!

[coreyjameswood]

Another wonderfully crafted breakdown of an often overlooked but still well loved character! I am excited for more (especially if you decide to delve more into tv/movie characters! Maybe even some of the... Avenging quality?) Your videos are always dadgum inspiring!

[JohnnySpellsDoesntF]

“Things don’t magically improve because we’ve done that [pushed away something unhealthy to us]. The right decision is not easy to make because it doesn’t immediately lead to improvement. Oftentimes we need to backtrack, get back on our feet, and then begin to make that improvement”

Did not expect tears this morning, but my goodness this was powerful

[bamcki]

I love how almost every character is a story on it's own with their own hardship. Beau is about abuse, Fjord is about masculinity, Nott is about sacrifice, Caleb is about trauma and Yasha is about forgiveness. But also, Jester and Caduseus' stories is what combinds the mighty nein story in to a story of acceptence and progress.