#I AM ON CH9 OF 13.5 DO NOT SPOIL

[felikatze]

right so. when replaying rejuv for v13.5. i'm literally only on ch9 rn and forgot most of endgame but i'm having thoughts that the interceptor has wayyy more characterization than before.

like i've pondered "is the interceptor a direct player stand-in or their own distinct entity?" before but replaying made me really im favor of the latter

and i think that. the kind of core defining moment of the interceptor as a Person. is always grief. The moment that made them a person is grief.

spoilers for like, mooost of the game, maybe? primarily up to blacksteeple and terajuma though

a lot of waffling without much point other than "i love silent protagonists and unconventional explorations of personhood a lot"

So. the first time control is REALLY taken from the player's hands in how the protag FEELS is. melia's "death". because no matter how you play, the interceptor was stuck in depression for a week and just staring at a wall until they had enough energy to finally set out again in melia's name.

and, really, the FIRST thing they are defined by as a character is the loss of their mother. when the oceana sinks, the protag is the only person left, and the motivation of the pokemon journey for them amounts to "do ANYTHING to fill the void, and maybe find out what happened to mom in the meantime." They miss their mom! A lot!

Blacksteeple is of course the point where this gets even worse. When Nancy dies for them, they're catatonic again. And after that, so much of them is defined by the grief of her sacrifice. Like the optional encounter with a Nancy ghost in Amethyst Cave, right at the top of it, when the interceptor's first brush with grief came in its depths. "Why do I feel this way?" they can't comprehend the emotion they're defined by.

Even before they got a journal to snark around in, sidequests that gave them the occasional line of actual dialogue, the interceptor has always grieved, and they do not want to grieve again.

Like. Okay. The A-Gang, right? Wasn't it that they allowed the interceptor to use their souls because they were tired? this terrible catastrophe happened to them. they're all dead and gone, their home is destroyed, they just... cant go on anymore. their grief destroyed them.

in a way, the interceptor is made to grieve. and they are made to move on, again and again and again.