⚠️Spoiler Alert: This article contains major spoilers regarding the fate of a main character in The Legend of Vox Machina. Reader discretion is advised.
Okay let’s just get this out of the way: Grog Strongjaw is dead.
Or at least, that’s what The Legend of Vox Machina wants us to think.
Season 4 episode 9 “The Temple of Truth” ended on a shocking cliffhanger where Grog is (seemingly) eviscerated in front of his friends. But is the lovable goliath barbarian really gone? Is this the show’s way of adapting the Search for Grog arc from the original Critical Role campaign? Or is The Legend of Vox Machina going in a completely different direction?
What happened to Grog in “The Temple of Truth?”
The episode revolves around stopping Vecna’s cult, the Children of Truth, from helping the Whispered One ascend to godhood. Since the orb nullifies magic, the group devises a plan. Pike, Vax, Vex and Grog will lure Delilah Briarwood and the other cult members into the orb’s range while Keyleth, Percy and Taryon plant bombs underneath the chamber it’s placed in. The goal is to permanently kill the Children of Truth once they lose their regenerative abilities.
Unfortunately things go south when Pike, still grieving the recent death of her great-grandfather Wilhand, charges at Delilah and the Death Knight. Her anger throws off the team’s timing and forces Grog to intervene. He reminds her that Wilhand wouldn’t want revenge, he just wants Pike to remember him. While he’s distracted, the Death Knight guard grabs him by the neck and throws him toward the orb! Grog isn’t wearing the amulet needed to pass through the orb safely, so his entire body disintegrates once it makes contact.
Pushed past her breaking point and blinded by grief, Pike walks through the orb by herself to enter Thar Amphala, the Whispered One’s base of operations. The rest of the team is forced to escape as the temple collapses, assuming Grog is dead and leaving Pike behind.
The Search for Grog arc from Critical Role
The Search for Grog is a special episode that was performed live by Critical Role in Los Angeles on January 19, 2019. The VOD was made available on Critical Role’s official Twitch and YouTube channels a month later on February 22, 2019.
Set after Vox Machina defeats Vecna in Campaign 1, Grog pulls a card from the Deck of Many Things back in Whitestone. His eyes go blank and he collapses, alive but unconscious.
Eventually, Vox Machina learns his soul has been separated from his body and trapped in a gem on a different plane: Pandemonium. The group travels to Vasselheim for help, recruits two new allies, and pushes through Pandemonium’s relentless storms and monsters to reach a tower where Grog’s soul gem is held. They fight their way past howlers, bugbears, and a balor before finally facing down a forgotten empyrean guarding the tower. The moment Grog’s soul gem is brought close to his unconscious body, he wakes up and joins the fight himself. He even lands the finishing blow.
Now it’s easy to assume that The Legend of Vox Machina is laying the foundation for an adaptation of The Search for Grog special episode from Critical Role. It might not be a scene-by-scene recreation, but the heart of it will be present, right?
But That’s Not What Happened
It turns out The Legend of Vox Machina wasn’t setting up an adaptation of The Search for Grog after all.
The show makes it clear that Grog really did die after his body was disintegrated by the null-magic orb. Vox Machina shifts their focus to rescuing Pike from Thar Amphala, with Percy deciding to reactivate the orb under Whitestone and mount a rescue mission despite the objections of the council in Whitestone.
Meanwhile, Grog is used as another tool the Whispered One uses to manipulate Pike. Deep inside Thar Amphala, he reveals that he reconstructed Grog’s body, but lacks the power to revive him. He offers Pike a bargain: help him ascend, and he’ll bring back not only Grog, but he could bring back Wilhand too. Once he ascends and becomes a god, he’ll put an end to the concept of death itself.
Pike willingly gives the Whispered One her blood, allowing the ritual to begin. By the time Vox Machina reaches her, it’s already too late to stop the ascension. Pike even turns against Vox Machina, convinced they’ll all be resurrected once the new world has been created.
Grog is resurrected as promised, only to be shocked and disappointed in what Pike did. He admonishes her by pointing out that this is not what Wilhand would have wanted. When Pike accidentally hurts Grog to stop him from attacking the Whispered One, it finally hits her on how far she’s fallen. She turns against the Whispered One and fights alongside Vox Machina once again.
Unfortunately, the group fails to prevent the Whispered One’s ascension and he succeeds in becoming a god. Not only that, but the archlich can easily undo Grog’s resurrection as he sees fit. In her desperation to save her best friend and adopted brother, Pike may have put Grog in serious danger. He can be used as a bargaining chip since the Whispered One knows Pike will do anything to protect him. Or he can use the goliath as an unwitting spy to keep track of Vox Machina and foil their plans to defeat him.
In the end, we didn’t get a proper adaptation of The Search for Grog story. His death and resurrection are instead used as the catalyst for Pike’s fall from grace. I’m not a big fan of this decision but what I do like is how the show uses this deviation to demonstrate Grog’s emotional intelligence. His ability to easily dismantle the Whispered One’s desire to eliminate death as the lie it is (and more importantly remembering that he’s the villain in this story, not some misunderstood anti-hero) is impressive for someone who tends to take the “dumb barbarian” to extremes at times. It’s one of the best things to come out of the show’s take on the Vecna arc.
Season 4 of The Legend of Vox Machina is available to stream on Prime Video.
