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tom-failure · 2 days ago

Note

"Rika and the guards can't stand me"

RE: that Yoosung post

Why would Unknown stay with Mint Eye without losing his shit with Rika for giving up on him? Why would he continue to dedicate himself to her and that place if his existence has proven meaningless? His beliefs have been shattered, he's been lied to and played for a fool and he KNOWS this

What's his motivation for staying? Why hasn't he lashed out at Rika? We've seen how he responds to being betrayed by her in the secret endings, this response doesn't make sense for him

I think you need to remember that Saeran Choi has been tortured, manipulated, drugged, and beaten out of his mind for almost two years by that point in the timeline. It's not about whether or not he believes in Rika, it's about the fact that he believes he's been stolen from. Speaking purely from Unknown's mentality here, you have to understand that he's been tortured into APATHY.

He cares about nothing except revenge.

Saeyoung ran away in his eyes, Saeyoung took his red hair because he can't look at himself without bleach now, Saeyoung took his one chance at freedom for HIMSELF, and Saeyoung laughs happily while he sits in Mint Eye, choking on elixir on a cold basement floor. This is about revenge, cold-blooded revenge, and while we see him speak to Rika as a Savior in numerous Bad Endings and allude to his belief that she will let him torture Saeyoung and Jihyun, he's not bowing like she is his God.

He doesn't see her as a God. He sees her as someone who made him a promise and he is only living to see that promise come to fruition. I think it's important to note that his feelings are not the same as what we see displayed in Another Story. Another Story takes place earlier in the timeline and because of that, we see Rika still clinging to some of her original guilt. She took Saeran in because of the guilt she felt in her heart for unleashing the ultimate devil.

Killing Mother Choi in self-defense was Rika's catalyst moment. She saw herself as the devil who could never be forgiven. She tried to be his mother, to step in and do for him what she felt she had to do after her sin, but these feelings swiftly became tangled with her other wish to make Jihyun suffer for betraying her heart and to force her other loved ones into a place where they could never leave her side even if they realized she was a devil and not the angel she struggled to be in front of them.

Do you know why she has a meltdown when Saeran leaves with MC? "If you leave, nobody will accept me." There is still a part of her trying to cling to the idea that she needs to be shiny to be loved, she needs to be a Savior to be loved, she needs to be an angel who saves others to be loved, and she needs to be what she thought Jihyun was to be a person who is never abandoned. The fear of being seen as the devil even after embracing the ideology of the devil eats Rika alive at every corner.

She doesn't want to be abandoned and she's trying to control others to ensure she's never abandoned. That's why she becomes a Savior! That's why she creates Mint Eye! She thinks she's a devil who cannot be saved but she can still have her loved ones, she just has to remove their ability to leave in the first place. That's why Mint Eye is sold like a haven until it's too late to get out.

You think you have a choice and then you don't.

That's what the Eternal Party is. The delusional fantasy she wants to create is where she lures her former friends under her control and then snaps chains around their ankles before they realize it's too late. She won't be abandoned. They won't leave her just because she's a devil.

They'll stay and she'll never be alone again even though the people in her life that she loved, the RFA, are going to hate her until she drugs them into submission... and even then, they might continue to fight her for the rest of their days.

In Casual and Deep Story, she's lost sight of a lot of her original plan and has turned to torture instead. She wants to make V fester in the basement and she's not above the most grotesque solution to make that happen. She'll kill, she'll maim, and she'll look the other way the second you plead for mercy because she's not patient. She won't sit there and wait for you to get it, she'll tell the guards to take care of the problem and she'll return later once she's certain you've learned the lesson.

Her mission is now about revenge. Yes, she still wants the RFA in her clutches but much like Unknown, she wants blood first and she'll get to figure out the rest later on since she doesn't intend to lose. I think it's telling how little she actually cares about the plan here because so much of the original five routes have Unknown doing NOTHING. He's not involved like Ray and Suit Saeran are. He leaves you to do almost all of that work on your own.

"You're my eyes," he says, and he means it. He's letting you do his work even though it would've been smarter to get in your ear and actively manipulate you while you speak to them. He's not putting everything into this operation! If this were about his devotion to the cult, he would be doing more to sustain the cult.

This is about his revenge, and that's why he shows up in routes where he has greater odds at getting his hands on his brother and/or Jihyun.

He knows better than to bother Jaehee because she would beat his ass into next year, he nabs Zen only because it's useful and using the stage will benefit his goals, and he straight-up takes Yoosung during the scuffle because Saeyoung was with him. He takes Elizabeth since he figures that'll break Jumin and it almost does! And when you get to encounter him in that route, he boasts that he has a toggle switch that will answer his revenge. "She said this switch would hurt Luciel, so let's find out what this button does together."

And you know the rest with Saeyoung's route.

Unknown will listen to Rika when it comes to their "shared" goal of revenge. He sees her as a woman who has no patience for him, but stayed with him after he was abandoned. She did the bare minimum, which is a lot for someone like him, and while she spent years on end tormenting him to turn him into a weapon that can be disposed with the flick of her wrist, he stays because he has no other option. This is not about loyalty, although he expects her to be loyal because he has obeyed.

He obeyed after being tortured, so he deserves the one thing she's used like a carrot on a string. His revenge! He doesn't know that she lied to him, and when characters like MC and Saeyoung try to tell him that he was tricked, he doesn't listen. Can you blame him? I think it's hard for some people to comprehend just how BADLY he suffered in that basement, and the long-term effects of being used as a pawn by someone who objectifies you!

Ray was given crumbs of "affection" at times because she treated him like a "son". That was the part of her that held onto the guilt of her past actions, of wanting to take him into her care because she can't forgive herself for unleashing her devil, even on a woman who intended to kill her with broken glass. Yet, the more she lost herself, the more we see her detach herself from this angle. She used love to "break" Ray, to mold Suit Saeran into being a strong tool who proves that anyone can become the devil, but that didn't work.

Ray and Suit Saeran loved strongly even if many of their actions were not okay. She couldn't beat the love out of them. She didn't have the means to stop them from caring about the MC... and this is where the thread comes in that I use to connect Another Story and the original game.

If there is no MC by the time of Another Story, Rika will simply torture Ray until he cracks, torture Suit Saeran until he cracks, and in their defeat, Unknown is born of apathy and rage at last because the two boys before him were sapped of every last ounce of hope in their hearts.

She TORTURED every emotion out of them until it was safer not to FEEL ANYTHING. Unknown is apathetic. He doesn't care unless he benefits from it. This is why Unknown doesn't have a route for you to make out with him even though many of us write about that possible outcome. You are his eyes, his tool, his means to an end, and while he does like you as a pretty toy, he's not in love with you. You could dote on and praise him, but he would use that to hurt the RFA.

Why do you think the Christmas Bad Ending is like that? "I'll take care of them from now on and enjoy every minute, haha! Watch as I mock you because I claimed what was mine from the beginning! I watched them from the start, and that means they belong to me, not you. So, if you want them back, you should try fighting me... and when you do come after me... the Savior will get what she wants and I'll get to live my revenge not long after that."

I can tell you with the utmost honesty and brutality that in every path where Unknown corners his brother and gets what he think he wants, he takes his life (either in that very moment or after he's been thrown into the cold basement and tortured for an uncertain amount of time) and then takes his own later afterward. Because, even though he has been beaten down, the second Saeyoung stops breathing, it hits him at full force. That's not what he wanted. Oh, my God. Revenge wasn't worth it. It feels wrong.

He laughs, he cries, and he ends his suffering because he knows the Savior is going to use him until he croaks now that he has no carrot to chase after. He could only justify it because of the carrot. The risk of being tortured, drugged, and beaten was always a part of it, but the carrot on a string made him feel like he could survive. With no carrot, there's no point. Saeyoung's Route is the only one where Unknown is able to see the truth for what it is.

And even though he sees it and has no choice but to accept it, he still doesn't want to stick around on Earth. Living after you've been forced to undergo the torment he did is not easy. The reason why he had no choice but to accept Saeyoung's truth was because he thought that Saeyoung died screaming for them to "take me instead, use me and don't hurt my brother!" If Saeyoung really did abandon him, he never would've done that.

He thought those guards were going to dispose of Saeyoung's body and lock him away where he would be forced to continue suffering in this hell because they would take his weapon from him. The weapon he only has because Rika gave it to him as a power symbol, to make him be quiet and feel like he has authority when he never had any in the first place. It's the same reason why Suit Saeran had the gun he did. She didn't care if he used it or not.

She just never thought that he would point it at her because he was tortured to know his place.

When he flings his gun around wildly, it's not because he's aiming at anyone in particular. He's using it to make them stay away because his brother is "dead" and he wants to stay with his body. The gun is fired on accident, but I see where people could argue he did that on purpose. In my opinion, it could've struck anyone in that room. The fact that someone died is pure luck, too.

The chance of you hitting a vital organ when you're not 1) trained to use that damn weapon and 2) practiced in hitting a moving target(s), which Unknown is NOT, is slim. The reason why Jihyun got struck was because the sight of him in that exact instant shut Unknown's mind off and he started firing his gun to protect himself. Anyone in that room could've been shot, but the odds of them being killed... I am not a numbers person, but the odds must have been lower than what the average person might guess.

I digress. What I'm trying to say is, although it may seem obvious for anyone to say, "He's been lied to, why is he still sticking around Mint Eye when it's been "proven" to him that Rika thinks he's disposable?" Sunk-cost fallacy, outstanding manipulation and drugging, the desire to get the one thing he was promised if he suffered and toiled for her like a dog, and a hell of a lot of bitter emotions that we couldn't begin to understand because we are not Saeran Choi are the answer.

You can know something is a lie, or you can even suspect it's a lie, but when you add on the other things Saeran has suffered there, you can see why he doesn't just LEAVE.

Oh, and this doesn't even touch on a topic we ALL KNOW as one of the main reasons why Ray, Suit Saeran, and even Unknown don't get out of dodge.

Saejoong Choi.

Would you choose the devil you know or the devil you don't? What happens if they flee Mint Eye, huh? They had no identity, no papers, no nothing to prove they exist. Where is he supposed to go? How can he live in a country he hardly knows? How can he get a job and exist when he spent his entire childhood trying to run away from men who worked for his father? Saejoong is the Prime Minister, and I think that he's moved on to the presidency by Casual and Deep Route.

Are you going to tell Saeran to fight his entire government knowing it's a death wish when he could take scraps and the bare minimum from Rika instead? It's no wonder why he stays with Rika when his other option is finding out how honest his mother was about every horrible thing Saejoong intended to do to them.

Mother Choi could've lied about a lot, but she wasn't lying about Saejoong wanting to kill those boys.

It might not make sense to anyone who hasn't lived through abuse before, but there are times when you will try to justify a "lesser" evil because you don't know how awful the other evil might be. Even if you know there are other options, better options, the fear of change and the unknown hold you back. Children are afraid, they may not always make "reasonable" or "logical" choices because they do not have the means to know better when they have no support net or a means to educate themselves about what's wrong in their life.

There are kids who fear reporting abuse to schools because they've been told how horrible foster care can be, for example, and that's a common tactic used by abusers here in the states. I don't know about other countries, but I can speak for the American experience, at least. Some people stay because the other choice sounds impossible, risky, and terrifying. Even if it could change their lives and save them from another day of pain.

Don't fault people for these choices, don't blame victims for being scared, give them your support and guidance when you can and do what you can in a way that won't get them hurt. Better not see any victim blaming around here from anyone. Even if it makes sense for Unknown to leave, to stop doing what Rika asks, remember who he is, what he's been through, and how he got to this point if you find yourself confused about his reasoning.

It's not supposed to be logical. Fear is not born of logic. I can know that a spider isn't going to bite me but still be terrified of it, that's the simplest example I've got, but it's that kind of reasoning that should be able to paint the picture for you.

Here, Anon, I will give you some snippets from the diary to look at. Most people don't have this information because you have to buy the Special Believer package to get it. But, honestly, I would advise any fan of the game to go replay Secret Ending 2 if they don't think they understand Unknown.

Gestures broadly at the torture scene in Ray Route. Imagine having this beaten into you to the point where you bleach your fucking hair because seeing red makes you envious, angry, and sick. Imagine your reflection being wicked, imagine losing your identity, imagine losing everything while someone is essentially waterboarding you with this drug that burns every time it touches your tongue. You'll start to bend to make that pain stop. You'll believe ANYTHING to make the pain go away.

Imagine that you discover hope for the first time as an abused child, and your brother promises you'll escape together... only to be left and "abandoned" for all you know because he left without a word, and now your mother blames YOU.

Rika and V didn't immediately grab Saeran, mind you. They didn't remove him from the house, either. He spent a lot of time going to and from the church because Rika convinced her to let him attend the church so she wouldn't be "burdened."

He didn't live at the church until Mother Choi was killed, and they had to make him "disappear" because the police were going to find him and bring him to Saejoong. There's a flashback that makes that very clear to the players because Jihyun has to hold him back and lie to a police officer to protect him. I get why they were afraid to take him in broad daylight because Saejoong has goons everywhere, but. Yeah. I think you have read SE Saeran's words in Secret Ending 2 to fully see this stuff for what it is.

To see what he's feeling and thinking. Don't get me started on what the hospital did. I start seething when I read the doctors and nurses belittling Saeran right in front of him as if he's a nuisance for being a traumatized patient. They drug him against his will, and I get it, you have to keep patients calm, but there's ZERO regard to the fact that he's been given drugs against his will. He fights them because as far as I can tell, nobody explained the drugs to him, nobody bothered to sit down and say why they wanted to give him those drugs.

He had ZERO autonomy in that hospital. Doctors have to make hard choices, but there's a line. There's a line for human decency and a lot of them were crossed. This doesn't excuse Saeran threatening any of his doctors or lashing out at them, but I felt ZERO empathy from the doctors who were supposed to help him. He felt like a caged animal. He might've refused their help, and I get the frustration, but if you're someone who works in health care, you need to get your empathy in order for people who are struggling and need your care.

I believe one of the nurses was like, "We would've gotten rid of him and made him a problem for another hospital if it wasn't for Mr. Han." It's one thing if you don't have the tools to treat a patient, but oh my God, I'm rambling here and this doesn't have to do with the question exactly but. You get what I'm saying, right? Where is the compassion? What are the other Mint Eye victims being treated like?

I'm haunted by that thought every day because Saeran might've been a "problem" patient but what kind of treatment are the others getting if he's being treated like that? Victims are not a nuance. If you can't do enough for them, confess that and advise better plans, and that might've been the thought process, who knows. But they wanted to trade him off like a problem to be gotten rid of because he didn't "get better" overnight.

Saeyoung stole him from the hospital for that reason because he knew that the hospital, while paid off by Jumin, would send him off to another location where he could get hurt, mistreated, or sent off to another location that could draw attention.

I don't agree with what he did by taking his brother from a hospital, but I understand why he did it. He knew Saeran would be found out by their father and killed. The only option he saw was taking care of Saeran himself.

A bad idea, but the only one he knew that would stop Saeran from being killed even if he needed more specialized care. Regardless, I hope this helps you understand. Even if Unknown sees lies for what they are, he's gonna keep chasing the carrot because that's all he can live for now.

He doesn't know that Rika lied about the stuff she beat into him in Yoosung's Route, mind you.

Just because he saw Saeyoung in person and Saeyoung spouted off some "lies" about what happened doesn't mean Saeyoung was being honest. He didn't believe Saeyoung when the floppy disc came out! It is only in the Secret Ending where Saeran fully has no choice left but to believe him. If Saeyoung is willing to die for him, to be punished in Hell for him, then those lies he heard could not be true.

If Saeyoung had been trying to manipulate him for his freedom, he wouldn't be willing to die to protect him; he would trick him and let him ROT. Saeran clings to the people around him in spite of the lies because he doesn't want to be abandoned. Mix that feeling with the torture and you've got his answer. His fear of abandonment has cues that match the same ones that Rika experiences, mind you! It's one of the things they have in common, and it's why Saeran calls her out on it before he leaves on Day 10.

If you take the information you learn about his torture to mind and read the Secret Ending, it should become clear. I don't know what else to say, haha.