That was not the first time she raised that concern, apparently, because even Regé-Jean Page, who has a relatively minor (yet fantastically memorable) role, joked about the lack of a cleric during a recent appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
When talking about the characters in the film, Page said that it is a relatively well-balanced party in the film, but jokingly told Colbert that “as a player yourself, you’ll know that no-one respects healers, so we have no healer in the party.” As soon as Colbert clarified and asked about the lack of a cleric, Page recalled, “Sophia was riding us all for this, in no uncertain terms. She’s brutal, when that woman criticizes you.”
Clerics have long been a staple of D&D, but it is true that the healer is often an underrated and unappreciated role, not just in that game but in every kind of multiplayer role-playing game. There’s a reason we have the term “murderhobo” to humorously refer to many a D&D party, because more often than not, players just want to live out their Middle-earth fantasies of killing orcs non-stop, rather than heal people and stay behind.
This is dumb and misguided because clerics rule. Look no further than “The Legend of Vox Machina,” where one of the main characters, Pike Trickfoot, is a cleric, and a badass one at that. She still fights monsters, but she also saves the party on a regular basis.