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ank-fan · 7 years

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The name Iason means Healer do you think there is a meaning behind it or was just a random pick from Rieko Yoshihara?

Thank you so much for the question Anon. I love ranting speculatively about this kind of questions!

I do think there are several reasons why Yoshihara-sensei chose the name “Iason”, still I’m pretty sure that they have little to do with literal, physical healing. Iason is definitely more apt at, and keen on, breaking people rather than healing them. It should also be noted that the name Ιάσων, if derived from the verb ἰάομαι, could also mean (figuratively): to remedy, repair, make whole (or redeem if we take into account Biblical usage). Which is, in my opinion, much more significant to the role Iason ends up playing in the novels.There also is another meaning of ἰάομαι that is: strong, powerful. Thus Iason could be named so because he is objectively very powerful, but this is a very immediate interpretation, that leaves very little room for speculation.

Truth to be told the mythical Ιάσων (whom I will refer to as Jason for clarity) has not much to do with the medical act of healing either, his main “healing power” is about bringing the golden fleece back to Greece and thus grant a proper “burial” to Phrixus and break the curse plaguing Pelias and the city of Iolcus rather than any medical healing. Of course: the golden fleece has incredible healing abilities, but in my opinion, that is not the crux of the myth. The myth is about a purification rite, thus Jason can be perceived as a shaman of sorts leading the rite and, in that optic, his figure was used as a symbol by alchemists, but I will say more about that later in this rant.

A good way to begin this analysis is by listing the more immediate parallels between the mythical Jason and Iason.

Both Iason and Jason are blond, beautiful and the leader of a group of exceptional individuals at the top of their society which they manage to control and lead up to a certain point

Both are exceptional individuals destined for greatness, and both want power for themselves.

Both can be incredibly charming (Iason is deviously so, and Jason, seduction of Medea aside, manages to talk Aeëtes down from his paroxysm of ire and convince the king to grant him the possibility to try and earn the golden fleece, albeit through impossible feats only thanks to his polite conersation)

Both spend some time in disguise (Jason is recognised by Pelias only because he is “the man with one sandal”, and in the novels we see that Iason, when outside of Eos or Riki’s apartment in Apatia, almost always changes the colour of his hair and wears a visor not to be recognised).

Depending on the version of the myth you take into consideration both can be seen as deeply emotionally immature and struggling to form and handle interpersonal relationship because they never were part of a familial unit (Jason is smuggled away as an infant by his mother to be saved from death and raised by Chiron, while Iason is an artificial being who was taught to look down on humanity).

Both manipulate people, and both can be ruthless (Jason, among other things, leaves Heracles behind despite his companions’ protests and abandons Medea, while Iason is pretty much the definition of ruthless).

The might and value of both characters is symbolised by a golden fleece (Iason’s hair and Chrysomallus’ skin).

Both die ignored by their society (Tanagura in the novels is very careful about not saying a single word about the destruction of Dana Bahn and Raoul makes sure to keep Iason’s name out of the whole mess) and in a way that is as pathetic as it is dramatic (Jason is crushed as an old man by the mast of his rotting ship Argo as he is trying to relieve old lost glories, and Iason looses his legs and dies in a rotting old ruin by the action of someone who he saw as infinitely below himself).

Both have the favour of a god-like being that they later loose through their actions (Jupiter for Iason and Hera for Jason, here we start to see an interesting pattern).

And, most importantly, the fate of both is defined by one act of kindness and several horrific ones (even though Jason is usually framed by the narrative as an accomplice in them rather than the main perpetrator).

In the last two similarities, in my opinion, we see a beautiful subversion of the myth and the reason why Jason’s and Iason’s two “acts of healing” are so dramatically different and similar at the same time.Because I do think that both characters are linked to one “healing”, still the object of each healing, its methods, and the reasons behind it are very different. In my opinion is pretty apparent that Yoshihara-sensei took at least some inspiration from the Greco-Roman world while writing Ai no Kusabi. From the title of one novel (Petere, a Latin verb that means “to ask”) to the name of Lambda 300 (Jupiter, like the latin name of Zeus),Apatia, Eos, Kirie, and Tanagura itself (that might be inspired by the old Tanagra), to the whole issue with slavery, oligarchy, and the treatment of strangers. So it makes sense that she would choose the name of the deuteragonist from Greco-Roman tradition too, and with good reasons.

Jason’s one act of kindness, that wins him the favours of Hera, is to help an old lady cross one stream by carrying her. That is how he looses one sandal before entering the usurper’s court and is recognised. Still, unbeknownst to Jason, the old lady is not an old lady at all, but the goddess Hera in disguise who, impressed by the youth’s act of piety that reflects the values she embodies (respect for the family and traditions), decides to favour him from that moment onward, granting him a place in society through her influence.On the other hand Iason’s one act of kindness proves to be his undoing. By choosing to save Guy and sacrifice himself to save Riki Iason is abandoning everything that grants him power and life. He is knowingly leaving behind all the values and precepts he followed for his whole existence. By that action Iason is loosing the last dreg of Jupiter’s favour he still held by rejecting its dictated laws to follow his (new and still very shaky) “ethics”. In that moment he explicitly acknowledges not only Riki’s importance to him, but Riki’s dignity and pride, going as far as endangering himself to protect them. That action, though, is depriving the system and Jupiter of an important instrument, thus it becomes a senseless waste of resources for it, and (if we leave behind all of our ethics and judge that act of kindness purely from Jupiter’s point of view) Iason’s actions in Dana Bahn are actually detrimental for the order and stability of his society. Which could lead to another interesting addendum about how Amoi’s code of morals is twisted to the point that good becomes evil and evil becomes good, but that is a whole other issue that here I do not have space to explore properly.

Here lies the first subversion. Jason’s act of kindness starts his story, it is the first clue we are given of his value, in a way that act saves his life and allows him to pursue his destiny as a hero since it is Hera herself that puts in his mind the idea to suggest Pelias to send him on the quest for the golden fleece.Meanwhile Iason’s act of kindness is the one that closes his story, that leads him to his death and that would, if known, irreparably damage his reputation in the eyes of his society. Iason’s act of kindness makes him loose the “golden fleece”.Thus, while Jason’s act of kindness is what makes him, Iason’s act of kindness is the one that breaks him. Not just that, but while Jason helps the old lady without thinking too much about it, because that course of action is the one that he was raised to perceive as “right, Iason is quite clearly torn about what to do, his act of kindness would have costed him much even if he had not died as a consequence of it. I think the old anime is much better than the books in showing that. Iason sees Riki’s plea to save Guy as the ultimate proof that he has failed in the one thing that (for worse or worse, there isn’t much better in Amoi if we do not consider Norris’ love for his geezer XD) he truly cared for. There is nothing spontaneous in Iason’s actions there.

This is no serene evil cyborg acting spontaneously. He is hurting.Not to mention: this is the most emotional vulnerability we see Iason show in front of anyone ever, let alone Riki whom he purposefully tries to keep guessing about the “true value” he sees in him for fear of loosing control. So, while Jason is torn about his evil deeds and acts kindly without thinking, for Iason the opposite is true.

Jason ends up redeeming a kingdom that he shall never rule because of his evil deeds, he gains the fleece but immediately looses his rights to glory because of the way he escapes Pelias’plan to kill him. In contrast Iason rules a kingdom from the beginning (albeit under Jupiter) precisely because of his evil deeds while his redemption, his act of healing, is private, personal. That has also to do with the fact Amoi is an unescapable dystopia though.Both Iason’s and Jason’s stories are a diminuendo, two downward spirals, but, while Jason is able to redeem his people but not himself, Iason is only able to redeem himself in the end, damaging his society, and his one good action is a suffered one, something he has to force himself to do.

Which leads us directly to what Iason hasn’t to force himself to do, namely: being a horrible person (GlaDOS wasn’t even testing for that! XD).Iason, from the beginning of the novels almost all through them, has no qualms about using and abusing people, which is why Katze is so surprised by the way Riki has managed to change him into someone able to see the reason why Judd Kuger might still love his son despite the fact that Manon is only a nuisance. Here lies the second subversion. In all the versions of Jason’s myth I know of Jason is always shown to have several qualms about Medea’s ruthless plans. Jason is not vicious by nature, Iason, even at his best, is a sadist.

Both Jason and Iason are controlled by forces higher than them that they cannot escape or defy (it is very telling how Iason has to make a whole convoluted plan just to be able to leave for Dana Bahn without alerting his peers and Jupiter), but while Iason is the one moving the pieces on the chessboard, Jason is much more dependant on others. To use a chess metaphor: Jason is the king, Iason is the queen. Jason might be the semi-shamanic guide that leads his peers toward the golden fleece, still most of the heroic acts and plans along the way are made by others. Jason depends on Medea for getting the fleece, escaping Colchis, and surviving Pelias. Jason depends on Orpheus (hi there Orphe Zavi), on Heracles, on all his companions to be frank, for most of his adventures. The one moment Jason is truly alone and desperate is when he dies, having lost all those that might have loved him.On the other hand Iason is incredibly self reliant, he has pawns and a grand total of one friend, but he plays his cards close to the chest; he is very good at working with and in a group, still his plans are his own, he relies on his own strength even when he should not do so. Even when his fellow Blondies have lost respect for him and would gladly trod on his carcass he can still force them to grant him permission to move Riki to Apatia. During his life Iason is almost a monad, despite the wealth of people that would gladly offer him company, still, in the moment when he dies, he is not alone. Iason dies during a deep bonding moment, I think as happy as he ever was, and with the one person he, in his scary twisted and dangerously obsessive way, loved, by his side. Not just that, but Riki comes back of his own accord when he could have walked away free, proving that there was something more than hate and fear that he felt towards Iason.Jason dies desperate trying to relive old glories and leave in search of something, what he doesn’t know himself, while Iason dies happy after having left all of his glory behind (along with a couple of legs), but having gained the one thing he truly wanted. Which could be interpreted as creepy total control, but I do not think it was for several reasons, authorial intent first and foremost.

Another element worth mentioning, in my opinion, is the rite of purification that allows the hero back into society. Jason and Medea go through one right after having escaped the Colchis. In most version of the myth the Argonauts leave in secret since Aeëtes, the king that held the golden fleece and father to Medea, went back on his word once Jason overcame the impossible proves he had set (thanks to Medea) and threatened to kill all the Argonauts. So Jason and Medea stole the fleece and, in the most common version of the myth, Medea also kidnapped her young half-brother. This way, when Aeëtes pursued them, she cut the boy to pieces and threw the pieces overboard, forcing her father to stop and recover the remains of his son in order to give him a proper burial. This act saved the mission, yet was so horribly inconceivable for the Greek sensibilities to force both Jason and Medea to seek purification in Circe’s domain. Circe, Medea’s aunt, purified them allowing the couple to travel back in Greece and re-join the “civilised society”. Still, ultimately, despite Jason’s and Medea’s efforts, they were unable to do so. Partially because of the fact that they committed another awful crime to enter the city of Iolcus, convincing the daughters of Pelias to cut their father to pieces in the hope of rejuvenating him. Thus, what should have been Jason’s triumph turns into him relinquishing all rights on the crown or the fleece and escaping like a disgraced exile with his wife.

This, in my opinion, can be compared with Iason’s attempt at re-normalising the situation after Riki’s year and a half of freedom. Iason tries quite desperately to make Riki fit in his old life, in the Amoian system, going as far as submitting to almost all of Orphe’s rules , but there he ultimately fails, because not only Riki is not a person, or a pet, that can live in Eos, but also because Riki’s presence and influence has changed him to the point of making him unfit for his society. He cannot accept to show Riki, he fights against the house arrest Orphe decrees, he actually cares about Riki’s mental wellbeing (up to a certain point and in his twisted way that doesn’t stop him from abusing Riki, but he does). Besides, soon enough, Riki becomes involved in another crime in Eos, like Jason and Medea did in Corinth. So Iason’s attempt at “cleaning his name” in the eyes of his society fails as much as Jason’s and Medea’s does.

This leads us to two interesting observations.

The first is wether we can read the Jason/Iason parallelism in the light of Seneca’s interpretation of the mythical Jason.Seneca wrote a tragedy about Jason and Medea called “Medea” in which he explored the classical theme of “civilised hero is dragged down by a barbarian woman” under the light of Stoicism. The tragedy is set, like all of the tragedies by the same name, after the exile of Medea and Jason from Iolcus, when they are living in Corinth. There the king offers his daughter in marriage to Jason and the hero, for reasons that vary from tragedy to tragedy, accepts the offer, abandoning his wife Medea to yet another exile and planning to separate her from their two children. As a result Medea, chooses to make him pay and sends his soon to be new wife a dress that burns her alive before killing the children she had with Jason and fleeing Corinth. In Seneca’s tragedy Jason becomes the mouthpiece of stoicism and is a positive character (which is why I much prefer Eurypides’ Medea, where he is a fool). He is forced into the new marriage by political reasons and acts as he does because the wise man endures stoically the hardships that life throws in his path, choosing based on intellect rather than passions, while his wife is the villain, choosing to destroy everything when life denies her what she wants rather than trying to make the best out of it. So there is this dichotomy of passions and rationality.This theme of passions versus reason is present in the Ai no Kusabi novels too, still there the role of Iason is similar yet completely different. Like Seneca’s Jason Iason is a creature of cold rationality at first, faced with a being of irrational passions. Both this Jason and Iason’s attempt at controlling that irrationality ultimately fails, yet they fail in completely different ways. Seneca’s Jason is not conflicted as Iason is. He knows his path, but doesn’t allow himself to suffer too much because of its cruelty, while Iason’s development is exactly about starting to feel something. His path is the exact opposite of the stoic hero’s one, he must learn how to feel, how to let go of the odd, twisted, form of stoicism that his nature and environment imposes upon him. Both Seneca’s Jason and Iason must overcome their nature, but in opposite directions. Jason’s act of healing is to overcome passions and his suffering, while Iason’s act of healing is about accepting, acknowledging that he has a human side able to suffer.

This ties back into the elephant in the room that constitutes the second interesting observation.

Jason’s myth is heavily dpendant on Medea. Is there a Medea in Ank? and, if there is one, who is our dystopian Medea? The most immediate answer would be to say that Medea is Riki. After all both are strangers in a strange place, both are despised for what they are, considered barbarian, savages, both are ruthless and cruel, both are determined, both follow their feelings far more than any logic, both bring forth the demise of Jason/Iason. Still I think that is a false parallelism. Riki is not Medea. Medea is powerful, divine, far more ruthless than Riki ever was, her power is even superior to Jason’s and while she and Riki might fill somehow similar narrative roles, their characters are completely different. Medea is far more divine than Jason, Riki is incredibly human in his virtues and flaws. Riki is not stupid, not by a long shot, still his impulsiveness and ignorance end up thwarting his plans, even the best laid ones, while Medea’s might and knowledge is so great that even her suicidal plan ends with her leaving in triumph on the sun’s chariot. Her very name derives from μῆδος, that means “cunning”. Riki is smart, but he has no chance of being cunning, not faced with a “monster of cunning” like Iason.My pet theory is that Iason is both Jason and Medea. Let’s analyse the possibility: Jason, in his interpretation as the “civilised hero”, the stoic, the “guide”, is Iason’s at the beginning, the dominant side of his personality, what he was moulded into being. All of his actions are carefully planned, he is more than able to use and then throw people away to fit a “greater good”, his master plan. Jason can be, in some interpretations of the myth, seen as some kind of fool manipulated by greater forces and, in some ways Iason is too and, at the beginning, is actually clueless about it, since he is so “indoctrinated” by the system as he can be. To the point that he cannot see how the system could harm him too, since he never felt any desire to go against it in a significant way. Even as he does, to keep Katze alive, he is still operating inside of a strict amoian logic. Keeping Katze alive is a means to an end. Curiosity indeed plays a part, but Iason’s ultimate goal is to benefit his own, and thus Jupiter’s power.

Now let’s analyse Jason’s evil act, the one that looses him Hera’s favour. That act is abandoning Medea, breaking his family to save himself and his legacy in the “civilised” world. This is the complete opposite of what Iason does in the end of AnK. Iason there chooses his obsession for Riki over his own good, over what is socially acceptable. This way Iason makes Medea’s choice rather than Iason’s. To save Jason, to have him succeed, Medea betrays her family and country, so does Iason.Not just that, but Iason’s obsessive, possessive, twisted, brand of love for Riki very closely resembles what Medea feels for Jason. To have him she is willing to use all of her powers, to defy the most sacred laws and, when he wants to abandon her she is willing to destroy him, even if it hurts her in the deepest most intimate way (the killing of her own children). Still there we see a fundamental difference. By the end of book 6, after the one and only time Iason is forced to show Riki at a Bacchanalia, Iason has a very similar, horribly immature, reaction. He takes his frustration with the situation out on Riki, hurting him in quite an awful way. The abusive mechanism is the same “since I have sacrificed so much for you, if I cannot have you as I want, I’d rather destroy you”. Still Iason, unlike Medea, does not go through with it. Which doesn’t make his actions any less horrible, mind you, but shows a fundamental difference and highlights what, in my opinion, is Iason’s private “act of healing” that only comes as he dies: managing to make his Medea and his Jason coexist. Iason’s redemption is to accept his nature as part-human and act accordingly, granting the object of his twisted brand of “love” a choice, to recognise that a feeling, when not mutual, cannot be enforced and, through this, reconcile his rational and his instinctive side. And, this way, reconciling his rational and his irrational sides.

Now, as promised at the beginning, I will explore a bit the “alchemical” symbolic interpretations of Jason.In Rome there is a famous landmark, the “Porta Alchemica”, (alchemical door), which references Jason in two of its incisions and in both cases the meaning given to him and his name was not the one of “healer”, but the one of “the discoverer”. This is aligned with the theories and interpretations of the myth that see the Argonauts voyage as a mythical recounting of the first commercial travels of Greek merchants towards unknown riches and knowledges. The golden fleece there is a symbol of redemption and knowledge rather than healing per se. Its gold is the alchemic gold, the philosopher’s stone able to turn “vile metals” into gold, heal every ailment, and grant eternal life. What I like about Ai no Kusabi is how that search is turned on its head. Iason starts the story by having a high-tech version of the philosopher’s stone/golden fleece. He is immortal, eternally young, has incredible power, he knows more than any other being, yet precisely because of that he is blind to everything he does not understand, he is prejudiced to think that everything “below” himself is unworthy. He frequently refers to Riki as a “gem in the rough”, but ultimately, his path leads him to the conclusion that the “rough” is exactly what makes Riki so appealing to him. He never ceases to want to dominate Riki, that is his nature, still he doesn’t want to “break him” anymore. Only by loosing his “golden fleece” Iason is able to recognise what he ultimately is and wants, and thanks to this realisation, redeem himself and gain one thing of true value.Iason, at the beginning, doesn’t truly care for anything because his own golden fleece blinds him. Both Riki and Iason loose the people they were before meeting each other and, through the books, search for a new identity, a rebirth (another theme that appears again and again in Jason’s and Medea’s tale). Pelias being tricked into thinking he can be rejuvenated, reborn, and then killed by Medea could be accosted to Kirie’s fate. A false rebirth that only means death. In fact Kirie’s name itself means “Lord”, like Pelias is the lord of Iolcus.

The most meaningful inscription, in the optic of the reconciliation of Jason’s and Medea’s figures, is the one where it was written “Passing by opening the door of the villa, Iason obtained the rich fleece of Medea”. In that context one could argue that Iason’s travel “through the door” symbolises a form of acceptance of Medea’s rules and values, and that true knowledge and redemption from human limitations can only be achieved when rationality and passion are both taken into account and given their own space in a human’s life. In that inscription the treasure, the fleece is Medea’s.

In conclusion: yes, I do think the meaning of Ιάσων is important to the plot of Ai no Kusabi, and I also think that there are several interesting parallelisms that could be made between the characters of the myth in some of its interpretations and Iason.Still I also think that the meaning of “healer”, should not be taken literally, but interpreted in the context to signify a sort of “spiritual healing”, a conciliation between opposite positions and pulls. As I said in previous posts I think that Elites, Blondies in particular, can be seen as “failed projects” since they are supposed to serve as a bridge between men and machine, yet they are taught to look down on mankind rather than try to understand the humanity in them and “embrace it”. This way they are made ultimately ineffective at presenting the human position before Jupiter and Iason’s only “healing” act comes at the end of the novels and is about accepting his “human” side and acting upon it not for evil but, once in his life, for good. Thus “healing” that flaw of his whole specie. Besides, in such an optic, death, rather than the eternal life granted by the fleece, becomes the one way to freedom from Amoi’s society, the great equaliser.

Are many of these speculations of mine pretty wild? Absolutely. After all the cultural context Yoshihara-sensei lives in is very different from the one I am speaking from, and there are issues of Japanese society explored in the books that I only tangentially know and which can be appreciated and spoken of far better by people who are part of, or know well, Japanese society.Still I think that Yoshihara-sensei did a kind of “syncretic effort”, to present a far-future culture that stemmed from many different roots (the Vila of slavic folklore are mentioned and subtly likened to the Elites, the reliefs on Midas’ gates are described as very similar to Indian reliefs, an angel is the symbol of the Guardians, one of Riki’s nicknames is Vajira and so on), thus I think that some of the observations I made might have indeed occurred to her while choosing the name for Iason.

Thank you so much for the question again, and sorry for this humongous rant. I hope it could interest you, Anon!

#ai no kusabi #Iason mink #riki the dark #meta #sorry for the rant #I LOVED this question so much!#Anonymous #sorry for the long and pointless game of parallelisms #I like it so much! XD #cw: mention of abuse

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fandomimaginethis · 7 years

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Hero

Title: Hero Words: 1,487 Pairing: PreCurse!AdamxReader Warnings: Swearing, Not Necessarily Bullying But Characters Being Rude/Mean To Each Other Request: Hello!! Can you make an imagine with pre-curse prince Adam where he’s a jerk to the reader but he’s also very possessive towards her.

“Princess (Y/N), I’m surprised you decided to show your mug here,” you heard the sharp voice of the prince behind you. You turned quickly to see the man himself. In your opinion, he was dressed ridiculously. His navy suit was embroidered with intricate golden designs. He was wearing a wig (which made you snigger) that was tied in the back with a navy bow and birdlike makeup that highlighted those icy blue eyes.

“Your wig makes you look like a woman, Adam,” you responded snappily as you placed your hands on your hips. You followed the glance of his eyes, which were locked on your dress. You were wearing a royal blue, puffy ball gown, which had a band wrapping around your shoulders to hold it up. White butterfly designs were sewn into the band while, in your hair, a white and blue butterfly-shaped hair clip held back your sides. You were wearing the necklace and ring that Adam’s family had given you because your designer insisted on it.

“Why are you even here? I thought you said you’d never set foot in this castle again as long as you could help it,” Prince Adam inquired while smirking at you. This earned an eye roll and huff from you. Adam’s parents and your parents were not only the rulers of neighboring kingdoms, but the closest of friends. While your parents were the best of friends, you and Adam could not say the same. Ever since you were children, you had loathed the mere presence of each other. You thought he was a spoiled, arrogant brat, and he viewed you as a bossy, mouthy witch. After your parents’ deaths, you two were both left with their kingdoms. To better them, you two put aside your differences and pretend to get along in the public eye since the two kingdoms were sister cities. Away from all the bustle, though, you two were still the hate-filled children you had always been. You both made snarky, rude comments to each other and insulted each other almost every time you saw each other. But, in your opinion, he was far worse. While you could act like a true princess and try to be nice for the better of your subjects, Adam was a bratty man-child. He would be nothing more than a jerk to you constantly, even when he knew it wasn’t appropriate. This is why you were confused why sometimes you found him to be the most attractive person in France.

“I’m doing it so people think that we get along because I am not a childish coxcomb, unlike some people,” you spat as you turned your back on him and began to make your way towards another room so you didn’t have to deal with his nonsense. You felt Adam’s eye glaring a hole through the back of your head as he followed you, hot on your trail. You stood at your seat at the table, which was conveniently located right next to Adam’s. You sighed deeply and shook your head before a hand reached for the wine glass next to you. You watched Adam grab the bottle as well, but you pulled it from his hands.

“Allow me, Madame,” you said snarkily before pouring him some of the wine. Now it was Adam’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Must you always make an ass of yourself everywhere you go?” he asked as he pulled his glass away, which caused you to pour wine on his clothes. You both gasped loudly and you immediately stopped pouring. He looked desperately at his clothes, as though the wine staining them was going to evaporate. You covered your mouth with your free hand to muffle your laughter. Adam’s icy eyes quickly pulled up to look at you with disgust. You let out an animal-like grunt as he let his wine glass fall to the floor and shatter. The room was now silent and all eyes were on the pair of you.

“Now you’ve done it! God, can’t you be an adult for five seconds! You’re nothing but a childish little witch! You’re out to get me, aren’t you? You ruin everything and embarrass me in front of everybody you possibly can! Why don’t you go to your dirty excuse for a palace where you belong?!” Adam shouted, making you flinch in response. The party-goers all gasped and looked at you for a response; you were usually one for a snappy response. But this time, he’d gone too far, you didn’t know how to react at all. You’d never felt this frustrated, angry, and offended in your entire life. Your eyes began to swell with tears as you bit your lip. You blinked back the tears and put your head down, not even able to look him in eye.

“Your makeup makes you look like a girl!” you yelled immaturely before storming out of the room. Adam stood there, awestruck at your reaction. He expected you to say something smart and funny so that the entire tension broke and the partiers got a good laugh despite it being at his expense. Gulping guiltily, he ran off towards another room in the opposite direction.

You giggled fakely as you listened to the story a flirty army captain was telling you. He was a charming, and you weren’t going to lie, you were liking the attention for once. His name was Gaston and he was going to fight in the war soon but decided to stop by the castle of Villeneuve for one last party. You watched as he placed his hand next to your waist against the wall behind you. You didn’t really like him in the same way he seemed to like you, but you were rolling with it because it seemed to be the only chance you had to be with a guy at the moment. As he leaned down towards you, you could smell the slight trace of alcohol on his breath. You glanced over your shoulder around the room, noticing that he was only flirting with you because he got confidence from the whiskey in his hand. You were starting to regret flirting with him and just wanted to be saved from this. All of a sudden, a hand appeared on Gaston’s shoulder and was turning the captain around.

“I think you should let her alone, captain,” the person said. Your eyes widened when you realized who it was. Adam was trying to pull Gaston away from you, but was failing. Gaston shrugged off Adam’s grip and turned his attention back to you. You were becoming a bit annoyed, but you couldn’t focus on Gaston at the moment. You were too involved in the emotions on Adam’s face.

He was mad; no, he was beyond mad. Adam was flat out pissed. You’d never seen him look this angry with anybody. His eyes were narrowed, and he was clenching his fists as he stared down Gaston. It was nothing like you’d ever seen before, and in a way, it was sort of attractive. You shook your head, trying to get that last thought out of your head. You couldn’t think he was attractive, no absolute way... And that’s when it happened.

Within seconds, Gaston was spun around, and you heard a loud crack. You stepped out of the way as Gaston stumbled backwards, which let you have a good look at his face. He had his hands over his face, most his nose, and there was a bit of blood on his hand. You turned your head to look at Adam, but he still looked enraged, and he had blood on his knuckle. You watched Gaston storm out the door with his head down, dragging out a little, chubby man behind him. The party-goers ceased to be silent and began to chat again, probably about everything that had just transpired. You walked up to Adam, who couldn’t even look you in the eyes.

“Well....that was...” you said, a small smirk dancing on your lips as you looked at him. Adam glanced at your face and shook his head, not wanting you to tease him about this. You were about to say something until you realized he didn’t want to be teased. He was acting different all of a sudden; he was shy and nervous, avoiding your gaze. He shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot and crossed his arms over his chest. It was kind of adorable in a way.... You felt bad for him. You had been a bit mean tonight, and he had just put his reputation on the line to help you. He went out of his way to make sure you were ok and not in trouble...

“Sorry about that, he just wouldn’t leave you alone...” Adam muttered softly.

“Come on, prince hero,” you said softly, a smile breaking on your face,”let’s get that blood cleaned off.”

#prince adam imagine #disney #beauty and the beast #dan stevens #prince adam #imagine dan stevens

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grosserfluss · 7 years

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30 days of suikoden challenge , day 6 ——

favorite star of destiny from suikoden v

talk about a tough decision........there are so many stars in s5 that i like, but also at the same time none that jump out at me immediately like sasarai or sierra, or even snowe ( shit, what’s with all these s names....... ). the closest in terms of just emotional attachment and intensity would be sialeeds — fuck, another s name — but she’s not a star. after a lot of deliberation, i think i have to pick my favorite based not only on emotional attachment and personal bias, but on how well the character’s own narrative presents as part of the game and how well-implemented they are, and for that, in the end i think points come down to roy.

someone masquerading as the protagonist isn’t totally new in suikoden — there was a similar sequence in s2 with that guy who pretended to be riou for the sake of capitalizing on his reputation. with how much s5 takes from 2, it’s no surprise that roy is an expansion of that one guy; they took what that guy did with riou and made it into an entire plot point in s5, which i thought was really creative. i definitely thought that making a plot arc out of the consequences of someone else taking on the protagonist’s role was both realistic and clever — there are definitely side effects like that when you become a heroic figure, and i like that s5 explored it more deeply.

i also enjoy that even after the arc was over and you get to recruit roy, that’s not the end of him. he doesn’t just become another one of your random 108 stars — he becomes central to the loyalist army’s strategic plans and features at many crucial plot points. in a game where you’re mostly recruiting people for arbitrary reasons because you need all 108 stars, there usually isn’t any significance to the people you’re bringing into your army. you’re asking these people to join you because.......idk, just because. sometimes because their skills are unique, but it still feels random most of the time. in light of that, it’s refreshing to be recruiting roy for a practical purpose; it’s not just because freyjadour doesn’t want to kill him or forgives him or something, it’s because there’s something that roy can do that would benefit them strategically. thus, his recruitment is well-implemented into the narrative.

roy gets a lot of bonus points in that regard too just because he’s just about the only one of his star whose actually in any way prominent to the story. the other chizoku stars ( or ‘bandit / thief star’ ) are either completely negligible or just unsavory, and it’s nice to see this star get the spotlight in one game and handled favorably. it’s also nicely symbolic because the chizoku is one of the earthly stars, which contrasts directly with freyjadour as one of the heavenly stars. they set up a nice parallel as foil characters in that way, since roy is very much the “earthly” side of the frey / roy coin, being more in-tune with the mundane necessities of life and survival while freyjadour focuses on far-sighted, loftier ideals. they contrast each other effectively and i’ll leave the rest of this train of thought for another day when i talk about my frey / roy ship feelings.

on a character level, roy is also appealing. i definitely liked him from the moment i first saw him, without even knowing his personality or how he would appear in the game. he does, unfortunately, wholly embody the ‘rogue with a heart of gold’ trope, but it’s somehow more endearing because he’s still so young and foolhardy. though he’s a good guy with a surprisingly strong sense of honor, he’s not savvy or worldly enough to discard his more immature side, and still huffs and puffs all the time — and that’s not just a show; he really does enjoy that kind of spotlight and does still carry a certain degree of hubris.

i would have liked the game to show more of this dichotomy — after his initial recruitment scene, he reverts right back to his playfully roguish ways for the rest of his appearances, and i would have liked to see more of the discussion on his feelings of envy towards freyjadour ( getting dealt such different hands in life despite looking so similar ) and i would have liked the game to pursue more of lyon’s line when she tells him that he’s acting childishly for ruining other people’s lives just because he thinks his own is unfair. it’s — presumably? — something that roy takes to heart despite acting sarcastic about it at first, and i want to know how it might have influenced his time with the loyalist army. he joins and agrees to help because he’s holding true to his promise that, if he lost the duel, they could do anything with him, but how does he feel about what he’s doing later on? does he see himself as wanting to do good / help the prince’s cause because he acknowledges lyon’s words ( and if so, how much of it is him really wanting to, and how much of it is to impress lyon )? is it out of fun so he can keep impersonating the prince? the game never tells us more about how he feels about the whole thing.

that being said, there’s a lot of great character base set up in just his meeting with freyjadour. again, he’s clearly noble in his own way, and — though crass — clearly well-intentioned. i enjoy that he’s young because it gives him room to grow, because he also so clearly continues to posture all the time. it does sadden me a little bit that most of his appearances in the rest of the game center around his crush on lyon ( which personally i don’t really like, but i very rarely enjoy these kinds of forced romantic interests, especially in a love triangle like this, especially since i also don’t really like frey / lyon haha ). but i understand that in a game like suikoden, it’s hard to give one character too much screen time. there’s so many other things to cover. still, even just one scene or a better conversation the night before the decisive battle where roy addresses his feelings of envy or maybe how his perspective has changed or not changed would’ve been nice.

one thing i do really like also is his role in the alternate endings / paths of the game. if you lose to him in the duel, roy really does take over the prince’s role as head of the army, and dies for it — since.......he has no experience leading an army or being in that kind of position at all, presumably. even though it’s a bad ending, i’m really interested in his attitude surrounding this, too. does he relish in the opportunity to live the high life? does he come to regret it down the road? does he realize he’s essentially abandoning his own identity? does he learn what it’s like to have the lives and faiths of so many people riding on you? it’s a really interesting alternate path for the sake of roy’s own character arc, and fun to think about, for sure. also, in the event you choose to defend your own castle, i do also like that he ends up dying for your cause. it’s both suiting and kind of sad that he dies not as himself, but as freyjadour. though of course it leads to the player not being able to get all 108 stars, it’s a good narrative move on the developers’ part, i think.

so i think basically my “i really like roy” is not so much “here’s all the reasons why he’s a great character” like i feel about my other favorites, but more along the lines of “here’s all the reasons the role he plays in the story are really thematically nice and why he’s really thematically nice as a foil to freyjadour and i wish the game had given us more insight”. but i’m starting to realize the latter remark is how i feel about s5 as a whole orz

( also not totally related but my vague headcanons about roy being haswar’s secretly abandoned child totally work since lunas is geographically closest to rainwall and that’s where he grew up / operated. yes.... )

honorable mentions: miakis ( probably real runner-up ), rahal, freyjadour, kyle, belcoot, cathari, shoon, ernst

#[ misc. ] talk

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