It's Not About His Mom's Name [Spoiler LOVM S3]

The argument that Scanlan's outburst in the Bard's Lament would have been jarring because "out of nowhere he's talking about his mom" is pretty unfounded because Scanlan's mom is not the focus of that scene. Scanlan gives a bevy of questions which go:

"What's my mother's name?"
"My father: is he alive or dead?"
"How old am I?"
"Where's my fucking dog?"

The point is not whether or not VM can answer any of these questions. The point is that they have never taken the time to learn any details about Scanlan: from the most critical ones at the core of his life to the most mundane and every day. They disregard him and do not know what makes him do the things he does. And this is what he is mad about, not that they don't know his mother's name but that they do not ask any questions because they do not care about the existence of an answer.

At least that is how Scanlan is interpreting it in his hurt state. Of course, the reality is he deflected several attempts to get closer to him but a character choice does not have to be objectively correct, it simply has to be emotionally resonant and that's what the removal of this scene rips out of the show. There is no sense that the battle with the Chroma Conclave has scarred VM or changed them.

Yes the Bard's Lament would have been a bittersweet ending but so what?? We are talking about the campaign where the final battle's victory is undercut with the death of one of the hearts of the party. Bittersweet endings are baked into the fabric of this story and an insistence on downplaying all the emotions of the campaign to get to a cleaner and smoother story is going to kill LOVM and I'm pretty scared it'll do the same for LOM9.