I'm randomly wondering something about Big Boggart.
Long story short, I went back to my very first character recently, who I hadn't gone NG+ on, in order to try to collect every weapon/piece of armor/talisman, then going into NG+ and getting whatever I'm locked out of getting. On this character, I had never encountered Big Boggart, and killed Dung Eater in the Gaol. Now... I committed a bit of an atrocity, since I already did his questline on another character, so I just killed him to save time, and yes I immediately felt terrible.
When he dies, his line goes "Why ain't it me... Why ain't it ever..."
Beyond making me feel bad, it also made me wonder what he's talking about.
He's a Tarnished like us, I remember from his questline that he seemed like someone who may have had big dreams once, and quickly realized he just wasn't cut out for it. He survives through petty theft, and by making himself seem more threatening than he really is (flavor text on his Iron Mask says: "To Boggart, the mask made him all the more threatening, and helped him get what he wanted. But it was also a mirror of his emptiness.").
He also says this : "You're Tarnished too, ain'tcha? Can you see it then? The guidance of grace, I mean. I can't see it at all no more. Makes no bloody sense anyway, why some no-name shithead like me should get called to the Lands Between. Cruel bloody joke, you ask me. Maybe something went tits up with it. Maybe... it's been broke for a good long time. The Erdtree, I'm sayin'."
The way I interpreted that line given all that, is that it's just his way of saying life has never been fair to him. Why isn't it him that can see the guidance of grace? Why isn't it him that wins the fight against you? It feels like he doesn't mean it when he says it makes no bloody sense, he's just coping with the fact that he thought he was special when he was called to the Lands Between, and realized he wasn't, and that's really the cruel joke because why bother calling him then?
It seems a bit obvious, but I'm wondering if maybe I missed something. I would've expected "Why is it always me?" but "Why ain't it ever me?" seems like it has a bit more to it.
Most of the characters in ER are tragic in different ways, but Big Boggart kind of stuck with me the most, since he's not a demigod cursed by a much stronger unseen outer god, or a noble who lost someone, he's just.. a guy that's lonely, abandoned, and scared.
Which brings me to the other thing I'm wondering about...
Why does he help you with Makar? When we become friendly, he can be summoned from it. He doesn't seem like the type of character who would do something that dangerous when he knows how limited his abilities are. Is it just.. that we're the only thing resembling a friend that he has met, so he wants to help?