#So did that guy radicalize Sabal or was Sabal radicalized before then and sought out this monk?

[stuffedeggplants]

While the Shangri-La missions are great at introducing us to an important figure in Kyrati culture and mythology, I think their purpose might also be to contrast Kalinag’s journey with Amita and Sabal’s in order to talk about their characters and say something about the larger story. I’m still trying to work this out and I haven’t done the last Shangri-La mission yet, so let me know what you all think!

In the third mission, Kalinag talks about how the longer he stays in Shangri-La, the more he loses his identity and forgets his original purpose, who he is and his people, etc. He begins to feel “more at home” there than in his actual home, Kyrat. He also talks about how your state of mind determines your reality, and that Shangri-La itself is a state of mind. He comes to the conclusion that he can’t abandon his people and identity in favor of just mentally existing in some manifestation of paradise, cut off from everything else but his own enjoyment. Then he would be like a Rakshasa, literally only there for himself, and the corrupting influence of that mindset is visible in physical changes and butchery all over Shangri-La, consequences of the demons that have invaded it. This is important because though Kalinag never came to Shagri-La with bad intentions, he recognizes that he could make a choice to stay there that would only have selfish outcomes that don’t actually help anyone. So Kalinag decides to free Shangri-La from the demons and return to Kyrat and his people.

What did Amita and Sabal originally want? What was their purpose? Amita would probably say that she wants to emancipate the women of Kyrat and modernize the country, transforming it in ways that will improve the lives of all its citizens with economic and educational opportunities they could never have had before, all while throwing away superstition and cultural institutions that only oppress others. Sabal might frame his goals as wanting to protect Kyrati heritage and traditional centers of community, honoring the goddess Kyra and restoring and strengthening a cultural identity that’s undergone twenty years of damage as Pagan Min destroys religious sites and seeks to replace ancient cultural symbols like Kalinag with himself.

At some point--maybe before the game even starts?--Sabal and Amita both lose sight of their original goals like Kalinag admits almost happened to him, but while Kalinag was self-aware and realized he had to stay grounded to his true purpose and walk away from an implied path that would only lead to suffering like the Rakshasas brought to Shangri-La--or at least a path that wouldn’t actually help anyone--Sabal and Amita never have this realization. If your state of mind determines your reality, then they’re both so stuck in their own worlds and in their own concept of the right path for Kyrat that they’re both completely blind to the terrible nature of the place that leads them. 

Like Kalinag, neither of them started their journey with explicitly “bad” intentions, but they fail to realize that having good intentions does not mean you always make good decisions or achieve good outcomes. They can’t see past their own egos (maybe?) and don’t even try, so while Kalinag realizes that the path he feels inertia is leading him down is actually negative and rejects it, Amita and Sabal are unable to conceive of their choices on the road to liberate Kyrat as being fundamentally mistaken or wrong. They’re unable to look back, reassess, and see that they’re running roughshod over human rights to achieve once positive goals. They replace one evil with another and in the end both turn out like the Rakshasas, corrupting something that was supposed to be good.