#i need to be dead. i gotta died. immediately. but then im like wait !!!! im so happy and gay ^^ yippee!!!!! and then im like oughh i gotta

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

currently straddling the line between 'everyone loves me and im going to live forever' and 'i need to become a missing persons case'

[sandycookie]

Re: Ravengard & Wyll's Contract 'Choice'

BG3 Spoilers for Act 3 & Wyll's Quest

Everyone's gotta lay off of Wyll!

Now, disclaimer, I did do things out of sequence. I never attended Gortash's coronation because 1. I was fully intent on killing him and 2. Wanted to level up and do a ton of stuff before facing him. I thought it was an obvious trap, so I decided to blow up the Steel Watch and stuff and save him for last. Apparently, Ravengard's supposed to be at the Iron Throne after the coronation, but because I never went to the coronation, my bro was still waiting beside Gortash to appoint him Archduke. This means that Ravengard's just...dead. Like, nothing you can do about it. I tried killing everyone but him and he was still hostile, and when I used Non Lethal on him he just died anyway

(Weirdly though, even though I used non-lethal on Ravengard AS WYLL who said, and I quote: "Father, no! That was no killing blow!" He talked like I just killed Ravengard? Like, no. Everyone else even says it must've been the Absolute or something, which is why he dies even with non lethal. AND YOU WERE THERE, WYLL---

I assume there's no dialog for this approach or that it just bugged out, for some reason. Either way, just really weird and also a bummer. Defo never skipping Gortash's coronation, now that I know he won't immediately kill me and that doing so doesn't mess up Wyll's quest in this way for me)

Case in point, Ravengard? More like DEADgard. Hahaha. Im sorry please don't leave

So Mizora, bonafide bitch, comes into my camp with a contract offer and whatnot. And Wyll's gotta choose between either bringing his Ravengard back to life at the cost of his soul, or letting him stay dead and breaking his contract.

As an aside, I really, REALLY hate that unlike with other companion's story quests, you HAVE to make this choice for him. There's no option where you let HIM make his own choice. Which just really rubs me the wrong way? A large theme of this game so far as been the autonomy over oneself; the freedom of choice, the freedom that one has to pursue the life one wishes to live. Most of the story's about regaining lost autonomy (since having a tadpole in your head really doesn't help with that), and so many antagonists want to strip people of their autonomy. Gortash outright says, in one of his journals, that free will is the enemy of progress, and that in order to progress to peace, that it has to be stripped in order to form a collective (and that's a fine philosophical discussion, but pursuing would make this post x25 longer).

And yes, there is the case of Astarion's personal quest, where there ISN'T an option to let him decide himself if he wants to ascend or not. There is story justification for it, since he does need your help in order to carve the runes, but speaking aside from that, I think in this instance, it's fine. At that moment, Astarion is literally being faced with two choices: 1. Live as a spawn for the rest of his life, susceptible to the sun and forced to live in the shadows, forced to constantly sate his hunger, live as he has for the past miserable 200 years, or 2. Obtain such power that he doesn't have to face the drawbacks of being a vampire, but more importantly, it's the choice that, to him, screams: You won't be hurt. That's a really tempting choice, coupled with 200 years of suffering and torture, and the fear and trauma that has instilled with Astarion. Astarion ascending is a result of his fear of being hurt, but in the process, he hurts thousands. Thus, being given the choice to let him ascend or not becomes either allowing the cycle of trauma to continue (as Cazador was abused by his master, Astarion abused by Cazador, Astarion is just the next vampire master whom will continue the cycle), killing thousands of people, or pushing Astarion to realize that he can be better than Cazador and break the cycle. He even admits that he needed that little push, because he was just too enraptured by power to think of anything but it.

TLDR; Astarion's quest does have legitimate justification as to why there isn't a 'Let him do as he wishes' option, as there is with Shadowheart's quest for example. There is absolutely no reason why you can't just let Wyll make the decision between...reviving his father at the cost of his soul, or letting him remain dead in exchange for his freedom. THIS IS THE ULTIMATE QUESTION OF AUTONOMY, one that the game has made clear, time and time again, that these choices are best made by the individual whom it affects. To be honest, this is a small thing in the larger scheme of things, but it still just really irks me.

Anyway, since I had Wyll's very fate and autonomy in my hands, I ultimately made the decision to have him break free of his contract. Bro deserves better than to be stuck in Avernus for eternity, after all, and if Ravengard is as good as everyone says, this is the choice he'd want Wyll to make as well. Ravengard's already dead, and there's no reason to disturb that for like, what? 10 more years of leadership? I was tempted to let Ravengard revive to help rebuild the city, since like, he's maybe the only noble who actually has the people's best interest at heart, but one man isn't enough to disrupt an entire system. We have revolutions for that. Jokes aside, that was the choice I came to, even if I have the nagging feeling it might not have been what Wyll would've then (but then again, I got approval from him, so maybe not). Also, I do not trust Mizora the Bitch to not do something like 'Okay Wyll, Absolute is gone, your next task is to kill your own father.' I get what they were aiming for with this choice, but for me, it was an easy one to make.

But now, oh boy boy, here we come to what REALLY irked me.

WHY IS EVERYONE SAYING WYLL SACRIFICED HIS OWN FATHER???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Firstly, there was no sacrifice at play. Like, AT ALL. Ravengard was already dead, at the gates of the City of Judgment! If anything, choosing to bring him back would be a sacrifice: you'd be sacrificing Ravengard's retirement (bc if he's as good as everyone says, he'd probably be chilling in heaven). Let the man sip pina coladas for eternity or something.

So, literally, the only sacrifice here, is Wyll sacrificing his soul to hell for an eternity to bring his father back. Wyll breaking his contract doesn't sacrifice shit. It's not going to leave him guiltless; I've no doubt that Wyll would feel guilt that he didn't save his father, but ultimately, it's like saying that letting people stay dead is a sacrifice and morally reprehensible, all because you didn't want to go to a devil and doom your soul for eternity. That doesn't logic, dude.

It's likely that this might be reaction dialog to a different choice you could've made with Wyll if you've seen Gortash's coronation, which, for the writer's sake, I hope is the case. But it's still really, really frustrating. Stop guilt-tripping Wyll like this!

Ultimately, it just felt really clunky. The Blade of Frontiers quest isn't marked completed yet, so there may yet be a chance for the writing to eek out and make me eat my words, or at least overlook it. But whatever that was, I really, really hope they can either rewrite it, or learn from it and not repeat the same mistake.

Anyways, there's an actual Essay that I have to turn in, so I'ma go do that. Thanks for reading, hope you've had a good day, and remember to stay hydrated.

[infizero]

pokespe reread: ruby & sapphire chapter - closing thoughts! 🔴🔵

i've finally reached the end of the ruby & sapphire.... im now gonna start from the beginning and work my way back up to FRLG like i said i would!

first though, some overall thoughts!!

(also im gonna say right off the bat that i am only talking strictly ruby & sapphire here, not anything that happens in ORAS - i'll get to THAT when i get there. eventually - or any other arcs)

ok first off i said i would talk about the way the narrative portrays norman once i had finished the whole arc. and now that i have.... yup its basically as i had already been feeling as i read. they dont know wtf they're doing with norman. sometimes it feels like they're so obviously portraying him as a threat and a bad person, but they just cannot accept that and keep trying to make him sympathetic.

and i dont think that giving norman more layers as a character is a bad thing! but you can just tell that when you learn that norman WAS going to give ruby permission to do contests before he ran away, or how norman gave up his shot at being a gym leader to pay for ruby's childish mistake, the intent is not to add layers to an otherwise unredeemable character. the intent is for the reader to go "oh, he's not so bad after all! he actually IS a good dad!"

and thats. i mean i dont think i need to describe why thats horrible. the way norman treated ruby is unforgivable and he is NOT a character that should be so easily redeemed. they cant even portray his abuse without downplaying it!! like how do you depict norman beating his 11 year old child up in such horrible upsetting detail and then immediately have the other characters in the story undermine it and go "aww hes not such a bad dad after all!" RIGHT AFTER SAID ABUSE! it doesnt matter that norman was going to give ruby permission, it doesnt matter that he sacrificed for ruby when he was younger, none of that matters when its put up against norman BEATING THE FUCK OUT OF RUBY! (and like i already said in my norman analysis post, even the contest permission thing isnt that good of a deed bcuz it doesnt come with any actual change in behavior from norman)

all that to say, a very clearly abusive father is depicted here and yet the narrative is dead set on trying to make you think that his abuse isnt that bad and that hes actually a good guy deep down. which is just frankly gross and i really wish it had been handled better.

secondly, i already said this but oh my god the thing with celebi is so fucking stupid. like this isnt even cause i want norman to have stayed dead, this is just objectively a stupid writing decision. you have these characters die and add so much drama and stakes to the story, and then at the last moment you reveal that ruby SOMEHOW had caught celebi back in johto and just???? had it with him THIS ENTIRE TIME and it never came up once?

and everything just magically gets fixed and the consequences of that are just not addressed. this is just bad writing im sorry. it happens so quickly and so nonsensically it instantly makes everything that happened feel so much less consequential.

and to be clear the problem isnt that it was solved with magic! this is pokemon after all lmao. the problem is that celebi was not set up AT ALL in the story. there was absolutely NO BASIS for this reveal so it feels completely random and like a terrible deus ex machina. needless to say in my personal canon this does not happen and everyone who died just stays dead lol. (maybe not steven. we'll see once i revisit ORAS, if he really needs to be alive then i can make an exception and just say he doesnt die in the first place here. but norman and courtney at the very least gotta stay dead like cmon man)

third, here are my thoughts on how the narrative portrays ruby and sapphire's gender nonconformity overall (again, STRICTLY IN R&S) which ive been waiting to talk about!

i'll first say that i was nervous the whole time since i couldnt really remember how things were by the end, but im actually pleasantly surprised! i do have some criticisms which i'll go ahead and get out of the way first.

first of all, there is some weirdness with how sapphire is portrayed. most of the time she is tough and masculine but they occasionally hamfist in these moments where she's like "hey but i am a GIRL yknow. i can like cute things and have crushes and stuff" and it just feels. off

like im not SAYING that sapphire cant also have SOME interest in traditionally feminine things. but the way it's presented can make it feel a little like sapphire is really a "normal" (feminine) girl underneath it all and that her toughness and masculinity are all just a front. i dont think thats true and from the way they portray her other times i dont think that is supposed to be the takeaway. but it can feel like that sometimes

like it definitely feels like in contrast to ruby, they were scared to make sapphire TOO masculine without giving her certain traditional markers of femininity. yes she's like this but also look she's squealing over her crush on ruby! she is still a GIRL after all!

this can be seen as well in her appearance - while i love her fangs and wild expressions, she is still depicted as this pretty feminine looking girl. she's skinny and fairly curvy, she's got long pretty eyelashes, she wears a short skirt, etc etc. (yes ik ruby made those clothes for her but on a meta level that IS what she has been chosen to wear. and i also know that they have to use the gameverse designs BELIEVE ME I KNOW. im just commenting on it)

and again irl none of this really matters ppl can do whatever they want gender-wise and presentation-wise. but this, being a story and all, is a conscious decision to create this character this way, which might i add was made by men. sapphire is remarkably brash and masculine and i dont want to undermine that, but it really feels like they were too scared to really go all the way and not add little "oh but shes still feminine in this way of course" disclaimers throughout the story

another negative is that, while i do love ruby and sapphire's backstory, it does come with the unfortunate side effect of once again calling their gender nonconformity's genuineness into question.

having ruby and sapphire be a traditionally masculine little boy and a traditionally feminine little girl when they were kids, with seemingly no qualms about this, can make it feel like those are their "true selves" and that their gender nonconformity was ENTIRELY just bcuz of their trauma. as in, sapphire is ONLY masculine bcuz she wanted to get strong enough to protect herself and others, and deep down she actually is a feminine girl; ruby is ONLY feminine bcuz he was scared of hurting others with his strength, and deep down he actually is a masculine boy.

now this isnt actually true, and the narrative shows us this since in the little epilogue they're still acting in their usual gnc ways. but it does sow an unfortunate seed of doubt in the mind of the reader that really doesnt need to be there.

but with that out of the way lemme show some love for the positives of ruby and sapphire's portrayal bcuz i just love these guys so much

first of all, it's never even so much as implied that ruby doesnt ACTUALLY like contests or sapphire doesnt ACTUALLY like battling. if the intended narrative really was that it was all a front post-trauma and they're actually gender-conforming deep inside, then this wouldn't be the case.

secondly, im really happy that the story ends with reaffirming these things about them!! by the end ruby is decorating sapphire's cave, fawning over cute plushies with his signature Gayass Face, and bragging about his skills brushing pokemon. and sapphire is still battling, running around with her dirty pokemon, and rolling her eyes at ruby's decor. this IS who they are. ruby IS feminine and sapphire IS masculine. the narrative does not let you think otherwise by the end

third of all, i just really appreciate them being portrayed like this at all. like i said sapphire's depiction could have been played a lot less safe, but she still is a pretty masculine character and she embodies a lot of qualities that werent rlly common for these characters at the time. she's freakishly strong, she's brash, and she's constantly running around being a hero to everyone she meets, in contrast to ruby not really fitting the label of hero at all (at least until the end)

and ruby is just so overtly feminine and well. queer. it's still astounding to me. ive said before, i obviously dont agree with everything kusaka's ever done, but i will always thank him for fighting against the editors to let pokemon have such a feminine male protagonist. that really means a lot, esp back in 2002!

ruby is a very flawed character (i mean that in a good way!) and it can sometimes feel like the narrative is laughing at him a bit, but at the same time he IS the protagonist and you are supposed to sympathize with him. and like i said before, there is never any reveal that actually ruby DOESNT like these feminine things and he was just forcing himself to after the salamence incident.

he just IS feminine, even by the end of the story after all his character development. that part of him is never depicted as something that he would be better off without, that's just who he is! even after beginning to battle again. and i appreciate that!

alright and finally. just some notes on how ruby and sapphire's romance is portrayed. i've already said a lot of this but i wanted to repeat it here

basically, OVERALL i like how their romance is written. i love franticshipping, i think they're so cute and i love how they've got the whole opposites attract, enemies to lovers thing going on

i think kusaka overall does a good job of showing them starting to care more about each other in a way that feels well written, but then sometimes he just throws in some stupid cliche fanfiction bullshit that completely disrupts the slow burn going on.

the perfect example of this is the scene where sapphire rushes into granite cave to save ruby:

the way that she just instantly bolts into danger without thinking the second she realizes hes in trouble already tells you SO MUCH about how far their relationship has come and how much she cares about him, just on its own.

but then kusaka apparently decides that this isnt enough and he needs to really make it obvious, so he slaps in this weird moment that feels really off tone-wise:

like this is a dangerous situation! its tense! being treated seriously! and then all of the sudden we're hit with this comedic cliche little "it's not like i like him or anything!!1!" moment that just feels really forced. esp since brawly literally just called ruby a friend of hers. i'd take sapphire getting embarrassed/defensive at ruby being called for her friend, but there is no reason she needs to just flat out go "it's not like i have a BIG FAT CRUSH ON HIM!!" like girl. no one was saying that. what are you exposing yourself for 😭

this happens a couple other times where these random moments of making it extremely obvious that ruby and sapphire like each other are unnecessarily inserted into their otherwise slowburn romance. and it just doesnt need to be there man. the story would be much better off without these moments, if we JUST got the subtle displays of care, some blushing, etc leading up to the eventual confession. like that just makes it so much more engaging!! rather than just straight up telling the audience "they like each other!" like ik this IS for kids but damn bro cmon let me figure that out myself with my brain 😭

i also think that ruby forcefully preventing sapphire from helping him save the world near the end should have had more attention drawn to it. like ik he was just trying to protect her but i think sapphire should've been allowed to get mad at him for that!! at the very least i think it should've been brought up in the aftermath and ruby should've apologized or something. it just feels like sapphire's agency was totally stripped from her in the climax of the story and because it's never addressed, the narrative basically says that there was nothing wrong with ruby doing this.

(hmm wow ruby ignoring sapphire's agency and doing things "for her own good" without actually consulting her? that feels..... familiar........

oh god. it's right behind me isn't it

ACK. BACK FOUL DEMON. it's not your time..... not yet....)

but yes, other than these moments, i think their romance is well-written. they are just sooooo freaking cute i love them so so much. this arc may not be flawless (none of them are lol) but it did give the world charmer ruby and conqueror sapphire so. let's end on that.

overall i really enjoyed rereading thru ruby & sapphire with a new perspective now that im older, and i cant wait to do so with the rest of pokespe!!!

see you all next time for whenever i finish rereading RGB!