HOPE USED REGEN AND VANILLE CAST DEATH

[lowkey]

Today was a good day. I proofed a story for danchekker, commented with mako_lies and nal_rene, and edited my EPIC TIME TRAVEL FIC.

And then a I broke a cutie and and wrote an epic boss battle between Hope and and an ax-crazy Vanille. THE END

Comments

[lowkey]

QFT, man.

As best I can figure it, she's violent and angry, and she feels that she'll never have peace; the most she can strive for is to stand guard on the wall, and make safe someone else's happy life. But there's also this self-destructive streak where she she really wants revenge, and damn everything else. But it isn't clear what follows after that revenge. Starting over? Death? Finding peace?

And these duel compulsions -- to protect and destroy -- make her a highly unpredictable character, and I totally think you're right when you point out that she's unstable (or at the least, always sitting at an unstable equilibrium), and the game does a poor job exploring that. Instead, we over-analyzing players are stuck with a really inconsistent character. But she's also quite captivating, and all this together makes her a really interesting character for us fanfic writers.

[mako_lies]

YES. You hit something there, about the duel compulsions. Interesting. God. Fang is such an interesting character, but she's so hard to understand. Especially because we don't see where she's coming from, or get bludgeoned by her feelings, or anything like we do with the other characters.

[mako_lies]

We do get bludgeoned by her actions, though. Which is interesting, because Fang is very much an action-driven character.

Maybe it's because Fang doesn't understand her own feelings or motivations? Or she doesn't want anyone else to understand them? Hence why we never get to understand?

[lowkey]

I'd like to think that she acts instead of thinking.

Segue into a completely different fandom that I think is relevant to this topic. One of the things that I really, really loved about Trigun was the juxtaposition of Vash and Wolfwood. Both men want a better world, but have very different outlooks on how to bring that world about. Vash has enough power and enough compassion that he wants everyone to live, and he thinks that the world can be made better. Wolfwood isn't as strong, and he feels his mortality very acutely, and he knows that he has very specific, defenseless people -- orphans -- to lookout for. And if one day he doesn't move fast enough, he will die, and then the orphans will die, too. So he can't think; he has to act on instinct all the time, and draw first, and shoot to kill. And he recognizes this makes him a bad man -- but, he hopes, for all the right reasons.

And I wonder if Fang is relevantly similar to Wolfwood. The obvious parallel with the orphanage aside, I think she's realistic in a way that no one else in the party is, except maybe Sazh. Even Lightning lets herself be convinced by Snow and Hope; or at least she loses herself in the action of the moment. I think your second excerpt posted below -- which I was just about to comment on, but will comment here, instead -- really gets at that. Fang admits Ragnorak is inevitable. No one else will, and she feels like she has to bear the weight of that alone. Because everything is not going to be okay, and someone will need to fall.

In Fang's mind, there's no happy ending. And so maybe... maybe she turns on Vanille as a mercy killing. She knows Vanille doesn't want to be Ragnorak again, and anyways, she's not going to let Vanille carry that burden.

[mako_lies]

You know? You make a compelling argument about Fang. Ragnorak is inevitable, one way or another. Even if they kill the Fal'Cie or let themselves die. Because another group of L'Cie will be made with their exact focus. The Fal'Cie don't need them, they need their power. They need someone will the anger and drive to become Ragnorak and Fang is a good candidate, simply because she has a lot to prove, a lot she feels she needs to answer for, and enough self-loathing that she'll do whatever it takes for the one(s) she holds on a pedestal.

The mercy kill thing does suddenly make sense of Fang's sudden MUST SMASH VANILLE moment at the end of game, because Fang seems to fear them becoming Cie'th with this sort of intensity I can't even begin to make sense of.

I mean, it's pretty terrible, but she's the only one who seems to think it's more terrible than killing millions of people? Maybe because it's a fate she wouldn't share? Maybe because of something that happened in the past?

You know, I think a lot of the reality of the situation and the characters were lost when Enix decided the game NEEDED a T rating. Because there were a lot of dark concepts, a lot of horror and if they really delved into it? Didn't let the characters wane and wax heroic and hopeful? It would've become to dark and terrible for that sort of rating, I think.