The Legend of Vox Machina killed a beloved character in Season 3, but many are adamant he may have a chance at survival.
The series is a TV adaptation of Critical Role's first popular Dungeons & Dragons campaign, which sees an unlikely group of heroes band together to stop the evil Chroma Conclave. Vox Machina features a stellar cast of voice actors, and all the Critical Role team members reprise their roles in the campaign.
While Amazon Prime Video's Vox Machina closely follows the campaign's events, it has also been willing to make some changes for the TV audience.
Is Percy Really Dead in Legend of Vox Machina?
Warning - This article contains spoilers for The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3.
Season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina brought about the tragic demise of Percival de Rolo in Episode 7. The character, voiced by Taliesin Jaffe, is a human gunslinger who develops a romantic relationship with Vex (Laura Bailey) throughout the series.
In Season 3, Episode 7, Percy is killed by a gunshot wound at the hands of his enemy, Anna Ripley. When the rest of Vox Machina find Percy, he is already dead.
While Percy is missing in the subsequent Episodes 8 and 9 of Vox Machina Season 3, there are still three more episodes in the season to go. Many fans of the series are hopeful that Percy will return in these episodes, mainly as he is essential to how the Critical Role campaign unfolds.
However, in interviews for Vox Machina Season 3, the cast has been adamant that Percy's death is permanent.
Travis Willingham, producer and star in Vox Machina Season 3, told Polygon they wanted "death to feel consequential:"
“We wanted death to feel consequential. We wanted it to have weight, otherwise it would just feel flighty and not a big deal if a character goes down."
Percy's Death in Critical Role Explained
As The Legend of Vox Machina is an adaptation of Critical Role's Campaign 1, which ran from 2015 to 2017, it can be looked to for evidence of how things may play out in the animated series.
In the Critical Role campaign, Percy dies similarly in Episode 68 of the web series. The main difference is that the entire party is together when they fight Anna Ripley, and all bear witness to Percy's death.
Another major difference is that in Episode 69 of Campaign 1, Vox Machina successfully resurrects Percy. By taking his body to Pike's temple, Pike and Keyleth use their magic to sever Percy's connection to Orthax and free his soul, allowing him to return to his body and live again.
From here in the campaign, the group takes down the Cinder King. But in the animated series, after a short grieving period, the group faces Thordak's attacks without Percy.
Laura Bailey told Polygon that they felt Percy's death "needed to be extended" in The Legend of Vox Machina, as repeated revivals can "lose its gravity:"
“In the campaign, we were able to bring him back very quickly, but I think that can be something that loses its gravity if you’re constantly able to revive somebody who has died over and over again. So in order to make us sit with it and experience that grief, I think it needed to be extended.”
While Percy plays a large role in the rest of Critical Role's campaign, that doesn't necessitate his return in the animated series, as the Prime Video show has somewhat diverged from the campaign story to better serve the TV show story.
However, if the series decides to bring Percy back (maybe even in Vox Machina Season 4 if it happens), there is precedent in the source material that the story can utilize.
The final episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 will be released on Prime Video on Thursday, October 24.
