The Legend Of Vox Machina Season 3
Hey everyone, and welcome, today, we will be talking about season 3 of the show The Legend of Vox Machina. Fun Fact, The cast of Critical Role crowdfunded so they could get the show made the way they wanted it made. They had a goal of fundraising $750,000 and ended up fundraising $11,385,449. This season came out in 2024 and stars Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham, and was created by Critical Role Productions, which was founded by all the voice actors i just listed. So without further ado, let’s get right into it.
Season 3 of Vox Machina sees the group trying to get more Vestiges to stop the Chroma Conclave led by Thordak, whom they learn is trying to create baby dragons. A dragon by the name of Raishan is helping them, and they must decide if they can trust her because they don’t understand why she is willing to help.
The Legend of Vox Machina is an Adult Animated Fantasy Show that is adapted from a campaign from the Dungeons and Dragons web series Critical Role. It has similar vibes to Arcane, Castlevania, or Dragon Age: Absolution.
The Legend of Vox Machina is one of those rare shows that actually gives new seasons every year instead of making you wait multiple years before a new one is released. I love the structure of these 3 seasons, in season 1, we are introduced to the group and see how they fumble to work together and, by sheer luck, kill a dragon; in season 2, we see how killing a dragon has caused unwanted attention from other dragons and caused destruction to a city and sees the group going on an adventure to find something to kill these dragons with also known as Vestiges; and season 3 sees the team being forced to speed up their timeline to defeat the Chroma Conclave and in the process, we are introduced to a new villain. The way they completed the Chroma Conclave story across the three seasons was great, which let us get accustomed to the characters while also progressing the story forward. Season 3 was still able to keep me on the edge of my seat and threw in some surprises that I wasn’t expecting.
The voice cast for this show is great, and I love how they were able to keep the voice cast from the web series. Each of the characters is unique, and I feel like the voice actors do such a great job making sure their voice tones match the emotions of the characters based on what they are going through. The voice cast is tied to their characters based on their history voicing them, and you can tell.
The team as a whole struggled in the beginning of the series, and I love how close they have gotten this season and how they still have their own things they are dealing with individually and some they are dealing with as a team. As a team, they obviously need to defeat the Chroma Conclave by getting these vestiges, protecting cities, and helping rebuild destroyed cities. By this season, they have gotten the hang of each other’s strengths and weaknesses and seem to have a better understanding of who can handle what and if they need to split up, who would be the best for whatever mission. I love seeing them all working together towards a common goal, and even though the missions hardly go their way, they learn to adapt.
While they have the main mission, they have side stories that are equally as compelling. Vax is still in service to the Matron of Ravens, which makes him hesitant about starting a relationship with Keyleth, and by the end of the season, he takes a risk and starts that relationship, but he gets infected with something from his run-in with Orthax. Keyleith is trying to do her Arimente, which we see her complete her earth one, convince the team that Riashan is evil, which she was right about, and reel in her feelings for Vax after he originally denies her request to explore their feelings for each other which he later changes his mind about. Percy is still dealing with his past when the person who introduced him to machinery and encouraged his anger, Anna Ripley, pops up and steals a vestige, trying to juggle a relationship with Vex as things get very sexual between them, oh and in a heartbreaking scene he dies which doesn’t last for long because he’s resurrected which we do not know if it will have side effects. Vex is exploring the sexual side of her relationship with Percy, but because of past trauma she needs to face, she won’t start a relationship with him, when she decides to finally start a relationship with him, he gets kidnapped and killed. Scanlan is trying to figure out how to reconnect with his daughter, gets hurt really bad in the battle against Thordak, and deals with guilt from not being around to help after Percy dies. Pike is trying to figure out if she wants to hold onto her faith and how to use her vestige, and this demon is now after her. Last but certainly not least is Grog, who has a lot on his back, being the comedic relief of the group as well as the muscle.
The Chroma Conclave was such a formidable set of foes, and I love how they were slowly able to kill them one by one and the people who aligned with them. Vorugal is the ice dragon who is a menace, and after some traitor tells him where Vox Machina is, he comes trying to kill them, and he almost succeeds until he gets into a fight with a demon, and while he wins, he is wounded which Vox Machina uses to their advantage to kill him. Thordak is the leader of the group, and he has plans to hatch his children and take over the world. In the battle to take out Thordak, he knew they were coming and what their plan was, which made me so nervous because he was taking out so many of their allies, and they weren’t really a match to take him on but they pulled through and took him and his kids out. I love that Thordak had a plan, he was the most powerful dragon, so he was the leader, and then was by far the hardest to kill because the team needed an army and Raishan’s help to do so. Thordak was also voiced by Lance Reddick, who did so well voicing him, and it was sadly another reminder of a great talent we lost too soon.
Riashan was so great as an undercover villain who is voiced by Cree Summer, which shocked me because Cree is also on Abbott Elementary, which I was watching at the same time, and it’s very different characters, obviously, which further shows her talent as an actor. Raishan was written so well because she is a dragon whom we are told not to trust, but then she helps the team, and we are like, maybe she is good but then she betrays the team and you’re like, no she bad, and then she tells the team I did that so Thordak wouldn’t suspect me, and you’re like oh that makes sense only for her in the end to in fact be a villain. I love how throughout the season, while I was just trying to figure out if she could be trusted, I never really was able to grasp what she wanted to achieve in the defeating of Thordak because, yes, he betrayed her, but she’s not so simple where she just wants his death. We later find out she wants his body so she can transfer into it, which was so interesting to see as we learn that Keyleith was, in fact, right and because of this, we see Keyleith tap into the Earth to complete her Earth Trial and find Raishan which I think also hinted at her mom possibly being alive but I’m not sure. But going back to Raishan, she positioned herself perfectly to walk the very thin line between being trustworthy and untrustworthy and was able to fool most of the team. I love how, in the end, the person who takes her out is Keyleith, who never believed that she was there to help anyone but herself. Another thing of note that I’m not sure was mentioned before is that Keyleith talks to the other Ashari and we find out that the Ashari are the ones who poisoned Raishan, which makes Keyleith the one to see through her facade and take her down an even greater moment.
Anna Ripley’s storyline was unresolved in prior seasons, but she makes an appearance this season while gathering Vestiges, working with the Chroma Conclave, and killing Percy. She teams up with the demon Orthax, who uses that anger inside people to manipulate them, and he uses her just like he did with Percy. One thing I loved about seeing her was seeing her back story and how her village was under watch by a group called the Assembly, who attacked her village and killed her dad. The assembly is a group of mages and this clip of her backstory seems like it was used to explain why she becomes this villain, but it subtly sets up a future potential villain. In the final moments of the season, we see what I believe to be the assembly doing something, which teases that they will be the next big thing the group will have to face. I love how they teased them in a scene that you would remember and made sure to revisit that. There is also the demon from hell, but this one stood out more as a potential main villain, and I think they’ll slowly build the demon storyline alongside it.
The action scenes in this show deserve a shout-out because they are awesome. Everyone has a special skill and a weapon of choice, and it’s just so interesting and cool to see how they will utilize it to work together. Over the seasons, they have learned so much individually and as a group, so it’s cool to see this come into play when they team up together to take down their foe.
At the end of the season, the team goes their separate ways, and even though it is sad, it was nice to see because there are so many other things they need to complete that they have put on hold so they can defeat dragons. One thing about this pause in teamwork is that they are doing this because they are under the impression they completed their mission, which they did, but they fail to realize when one villain falls, another rises to take their place, so I’m interested to see what will bring them together and what will be needed to take out this new group.
My favorite part of this season was them taking out not one, not two, but 3.5 dragons. It was such a difference from them taking out one by luck in season one in season 2, they took out one more powerful but fared way worse than the last time, and even though they had some help, they were able to take out three this season, and it was so cool how they took out each one. With Vorugal, Vex shot an arrow that turned into a plant around his heart after he was wounded, After pike redirected Thordaks fire to destroy the crystal that amplified his power, we see Vax deliver the final blow, and last but certainly not least, Keyleith destroys Raishan in her body and Thordaks in an impressive fight that showed how powerful Keyleith really is which also was validation for me because she’s my favorite character. I was just in awe of all the battles and how it wasn’t easy to take down these dragons, but Vox Machina prevailed.
The Legend of Vox Machina not only pumps out seasons every year, but it also pumps out some really solid seasons. The cast, the story, and the animation are all great and have me wanting more. The one complaint is that Amazon’s releases are so different, and they’re not clear on if it’s once a week, 3 episode premiere then once a week, or three episodes a week, which makes it hard to keep up if you’re not actively searching for that info. I do hope it gets renewed because I need to see what else happens with this team and how they will overcome it.