#me complaining about fgo Heian-kyo chapter’s missed potential….2!!

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

In hindsight, Shimousa was so good to me, Danzou isn't even the main character of it or anything, but she plays a proper role in the story, she has her whole little arc about coming to care for the people she's supposed to spy on and kill, and oh man, the way Limbo is especially cruel to her and shows just how fixated he is on her.

Like I distinctly remember thinking "oh she works for him right but now she's betraying him? I hope this ends poorly and that he's really creepy about it" and then it somehow exceeded my expectations. Telling her how he broke her and messed with her mind? Threatening to take her back and crush 70% of her brain? Telling her how broken and defective she is? Controlling her body against her will to kill her companions she cares about including her son? Killing her by self-destruction when that doesn't work out? He's so wonderfully cruel to her there!!! This is why I expected Heian-kyo to also follow through with everything it set up, and was disappointed when we didn't even get a fraction of it...

A Heian-kyo that actually makes sense with Limbo's established obsession with her and her interlude would be so nice... The opening is fine as-is, in fact it was so good it got my hopes up, it was largely focused on Danzou (SHE'S EVEN THE ONLY SERVANT ALLOWED IN...) , it emphasizes the singularity is Limbo toying around with them, as well as their history together, he calls her "my beautiful marionette" and everything, ahh its great

Its just... they then needed to follow up on all that, the fact that they set it up so well just to do nothing with it made it more painful... we see that even as a Servant, she still has a tendency to brush stuff off and claim she’s just a puppet, despite being surprisingly sensitive, and clearly grateful to be treated like a real person (iirc at the end of Shimousa she even expresses thanks for that?) She also gets much more aggressive when talking about Limbo, showing how hurt she’s been by him. They could have easily expanded on these points we see little glimpses of, and made them central themes in a more Danzou-centric story.

Her talking more about how Limbo continues to haunt her even as a Servant, and the records she’s viewed of Shimousa of what he did to her before. Her growing to fully accept that although her body may be artificial, she’s still a real person with her own desires and feelings. In addition to her finally getting to kill Limbo, her own arc would also get some closure, starting as the obedient doll that unquestionably followed Limbo’s every order (yeah that was her real body but still. She knows about it too and Limbo pretty clearly still thinks of her as his doll.) and finally becoming fully her own person free of his or anyone else’s control.

And on Limbo’s side he’d continue to dehumanize her every step of the way… let him follow up on his threats in her interlude (even if Kotarou isn’t there unfortunately, we have the master of Chaldea as someone she cares about, and he could threaten Kotarou’s death as his future plans after creating his lostbelt). Mock her for being a broken, defective thing even as a Servant (something she’s shown to be self-conscious about). Tell her she’s just a doll meant for following other’s orders. Have him try to take her back under his control, and entertain him like she used to… let him use those machine-destroying Shikigami bugs of his to torment her in a creepy, blatantly sexual manner come on fgo you got away with that delicious Shuten cave scene and we all know Limbo would.

And in the epilogue we could have had her reflecting on finally being free from him, on finally making him pay for what he did to her…

It would not have been hard at all to make her more relevant throughout the chapter outside of the brief parts she is, and to have Limbo more directly involved for that matter. It would have made more sense with everything established about the two of them too, aghh we could have had it all