I’ve been waiting to get to this scene for a long, long time.
We’re launched straight into the interlude here; the chapter format is kind of in limbo because the guild doesn’t have a clear destination at the moment.

Metsueno’s dad explains they’re docking at the private Metsueno port, which is of course a ~secret~. I’ll admit this is fairly clever parallel; the present cast is departing from the same place these guys are arriving. While the present cast is sailing ahead to brighter futures after overcoming the tragedy they witnessed, this will be the group’s final destination. It’s symbolic, and stuff.

And to continue those parallels…

Dramatic Screen Darkening™! Stuff’s going down!

Metsueno’s dad seems to be markedly nicer than his son. He tells everyone to hide; he’s the one the attacker wants, and he’s prepared to sacrifice himself for the crew’s safety.

Padrinio: “I didn’t mean for this to happen! He was dead, I know it!”

Ah, I forgot this. I feel bad about condemning him for putting the crew in danger now. (As opposed to Metsueno, who didn’t care at all about the collateral damage from his duel.)

The screen gets even darker here for drama.

Rehm tells Sara to go below deck but they have a stupid heroics-off argument and Pazatto’s dad catches up. Padrinio begs him to leave the others alone.

Captain S: “Can ya take him? You ain’t even armed.”
Padrinio: “Then I shall fall. Tell your crew to go below.”

Why are all the decent people minor side characters?

Rehm decides to be Stupid Good and provoke their assailant. Sara tells him he’s an idiot. Pazatto’s dad uses the same telekinesis magic on him we saw earlier, so when Pazatto gloated about how he perfected this ultimate magic he was just cribbing off his dad’s work. What a hack.

However, unlike Metsueno, Rehm is only KO’d by this because the story says so. He hits the mast instead of being flung into the ocean (thus providing closure for the “lucky mast” foreshadowing without explaining why it was a lucky mast to begin with). I’ll be charitable and assume the direction of the blast is hard to control.

Sara tries to be reasonable and tells the guy he can take Padrinio. Unfortunately, Pazatto’s dad is a bloodthirsty psychopath and telekinesises her anyway. Unlike Rehm…

There’s a splash.

So.

When I first played this I was shocked, obviously. We’ve had two dramatic deaths prior to this, but they’ve both been comparatively minor characters. Desmon was only for that one quest and Metsueno was more of a plot device. But Sara’s been with us the entire game – longer than the main cast, even. Her death carries emotional weight that even Metsueno’s couldn’t. Even now, when I know it’s coming, my heart hammered during this scene. She did everything right, but in the end she was a victim of unfortunate circumstances. In a hero’s fantasy, everyone always bounces back, but in the real world, crap happens and sometimes there’s nothing you can do. It’s an effective wham that clearly demonstrates this interlude will be very different in tone.

…But. I am now a bit distracted by how this is a textbook fridging. The two male leads miraculously survive, the girl dies to give them tragic backstories. I don’t think there’s malice or intentional sexism here, and it wouldn’t even be a problem in isolation, but like so many things, the prevalence of this trope in other media makes it a little irritating. The Telepath RPG guy explains this well, I think (see reason 2) – there’s nothing inherently wrong about using the death of a loved one as a motivating force, and indeed, it’s a powerful and relateable one. The problem comes from oversaturation and inequality – there are just so few gender-flipped variants across media that it starts to look like women exist only as disposable props. So, this does feel uncomfortable to me in that it’s part of a bigger problem, but it doesn’t have to be, necessarily. And the game does have an interesting take on this, which I’ll get to at the end of the post.

(Though it is annoying that the only person who wasn’t an idiot is the one who gets killed. It makes it more unexpected, but it’s still a bit unfair.)

Taru finally does something, throwing the trident at Pazatto’s dad and killing him. It’s a fitting end to his character arc that the awkward new recruit is the only one who can save the day in the end. The screen returns to normal, so… was it an effect being exerted by the guy, or what?

Rehm regains consciousness and jumps off to search for Sara, but of course she’s gone.

It’s a pity I can’t link to the game’s music, the one that plays here is one of the best tracks. That starry background is nice too.

Padrinio says Rehm can kill him if it’d make him feel better; “I deserve no less.”

Rehm’s new portrait is a nice touch here. Unlike some RPGs, The Reconstruction uses alternative portraits sparingly but to great effect. After seeing the same standard portrait for so long, such a simple change becomes more powerful. A fundamental fixture of the game has changed, which goes a long way towards reflecting how Rehm has fundamentally changed as well. It goes to show that even simple, standardized graphics can be used to great effect if they are suddenly accompanied by a special, unique addition; the developer actually has a blog post discussing that concept, though strangely he didn’t cite his use of character portraits as an example.

The next morning, they’ve docked. Padrinio says he’s left Rehm payment, and awkwardly shuffles off. Taru arrives and tries to cheer Rehm up, which is obviously useless. Although…

“Oh, yeah. I slept late. Where’s everyone else gone?” […] “You weren’t thinkin’ of sneaking off without us, were you? Hahah. Hah…? Captain?”

…To be honest this reads as borderline sociopathic to me. Someone important to them both just died, and he’s acting like nothing happened. Even Qualstio at least reacted to seeing his friend die.

I wonder if that’s intentional, actually? Come to think of it, these upcoming events make a lot more sense if Taru’s a monstrous sociopath.

Rehm blames himself for what happened and says he’s failed as a captain.

Rehm: “Can’t do it, mate. Can’t do it no more. The one time I screwed up, and… and…”

I do like this. As I said in the first interlude, Rehm is a deconstruction of the swashbuckling action hero. He was living a fantasy where nobody got hurt and he could bounce back from anything. He acted cool and confident, but all it takes is one dose of reality to shatter him. Beneath it all, he’s still just a sheltered kid.

Taru tries to console him and sucks at it.

Taru: “You can’t just drop everything because of one mistake! That’s not how it works!”

“Geez, why are you so broken up about your girlfriend’s death? You’re not supposed to have emotions, suck it up and deal!”

“There’s always risks out there! Some stuff just can’t be avoided, ya know? So…”

This is good advice on an abstract level, and it’s similar to what I said earlier. But it’s really not what Rehm needs to hear right now.

Rehm: “You’re still a pup. You got a whole life left ahead t’make your own mistakes. You’ll see.”

This is kind of amusing for Rehm to say, though, because they’re about the same age in HN terms and I’m pretty sure that’s what counts for emotional maturity. He may be over 100 years old, but I think he’s still supposed to be 20ish mentally.

Then he starts angsting about how his life is over because he failed his dad and Sara. In response to this, Taru gets… weird.

Taru: “It’s, it’s not fair to us, you know? Your crew? We’re living to serve you!”

It’s so hard, guys. It’s hard when other people get depressed from minor things like their friends dying and rain on your parade. It’s hard and nobody understands! Guilt trip them, that’ll solve it.

When Rehm says no seriously dude, I’m gonna commit suicide, just go, Taru completely loses it, calling him racial slurs and a worthless captain before running off.

I find Taru flat-out unbelievable here. You could spin his apathy about Sara’s death as a coping mechanism or having good emotional control, but this? I can even understand him snapping from all the stress and momentarily losing himself at Rehm, but staying stuck in this mindset for decades, generalizing it to a hatred of all shra, even imparting his hate on his son? All because one guy had a perfectly understandable emotional reaction he didn’t like? What the heck?

I’m really, really stumped, guys. The only thing I can think of is that he was a racist sociopath the entire time, but if he was, he hid it really well. He didn’t seem racist toward Rehm at first, and seemed genuinely fond of his company as time went on, yet this single episode makes him a raging lizard-hater for the rest of his life? (Especially odd because he lives in Fortifel, which is one of the more progressive areas when it comes to shra.) That is just not how people act. This is simply bizarre, and I’m not entirely clear what the developer was trying to say or do with it. Did he have this wholly planned out from the moment he made Tehgonan’s character, or what?

And now it’s time for a depression montage, because Rehm’s mainpain is very important. More and more time passes, and Rehm just continues to waste away and drink himself to death.

“Just… DIE already. Cuh, damn body. Maybe drownin’ myself ain’t a bad idea after all… It ain’t fair. It ain’t fair! Why’s dyin’ gotta be so hard? Why can’t it just be all simple? I ain’t afraid! Is that not enough? I just wanna make it peaceful! Painless…”

I, uh, what? Is this intended to be read as hypocritical and self-contradictory? He’s not afraid of dying but he wants a quick death, therefore his decision is to… die of liver failure? Drowning isn’t a nice way to go but it’s nicer than that. And earlier, he mentioned sailing into the Drop, which he implied would be an even quicker death than drowning. Yet he hasn’t, because…? This could be a commentary on really depressed people not even having the strength to kill themselves, but… I dunno.

He mopes some more about how his shra body is too strong and refuses to die on him. I’m pretty sure you still need air, dude, just jump into the sea already. Can’t be worse than your body slowly eating itself and fermenting in its own toxins.

More time passes and he starts hallucinating his dad. It’s vague and confusing, but he implies he wasn’t a real Sikohlon, his father just let him listen in on the lessons. I don’t understand why that would be a big deal. The Sikohlon are bound by philosophy, not lineage. And actually, if there’s one species that can’t do stupid bloodline crap, it should be shra because none of them know their genetic parents. The best explanation I can come up with is some purity weirdness, where if you’re not raised Sikohlon from the start you’re hopelessly corrupted and can never join, but letting Rehm join in at all seems like it’d go against that. What prevented Rehm’s father from making him a full Sikohlon? Come to think of it, how did he find Rehm in the first place, when the Sikohlon are on isolated islands? Can’t exactly do the baby-on-the-doorstep trick. Rehm’s backstory is a garbled, confusing mess and I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.

Then, because the story loves Rehm too much to kill him off, his ship is seen by Nalian officers, who capture and enslave him.

Nalian Officer Captain: “And look at that fire in those eyes…”

Hahaha what? We just spent an entire montage establishing that he’s a depressed wreck with no energy or motivation left, but they insist he still has fire in his eyes? Stop gushing over Rehm’s ~fiery spirit~ for five seconds and let the plot make sense, game.

This is an interesting take on the fridging trope, though. Normally the loved one’s death is a motivating force, but here it’s a depression catalyst. It spurs Rehm into inaction, sending him on a downward spiral. It’s different, certainly, which is exactly what the game marketed itself as. It’s important to recognize that not everyone has the personality of an action hero; it’s just as likely for someone to fall into despair than anger at a personal injustice. When confronted with an event that shows the world has no sense and no justice, some people can’t fight that horrible truth.

And on a certain level, it is darkly humorous that Rehm forgets everything here. Most fridgings contain an element of “I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU” but here the guy just fried his memory so that doesn’t matter and he runs off with a catgirl without ever remembering Sara. Unfortunately, it does call into question the purpose of having this scene – indeed, this entire story. I’ve said before that the interludes don’t quite fit, and because the ending is just “rocks fall everybody dies and also mindwipe” it has no plot relevance either. It feels like another story that’s been awkwardly grafted on rather than a natural outgrowth. You wouldn’t even need to cut Rehm! He doesn’t remember anything so his present-day plot could work fine without this.

I feel like the interludes are something of a lost opportunity. They’re a perfect opportunity to explore the characters in a smaller, more isolated setting, perhaps at different time periods. Instead of following a parallel story that ultimately doesn’t go anywhere, it could serve as an “origins issue” of sorts for some of the main characters, like with interlude 4. Take Lani, for instance! Why is she in Nal in the first place? How did she feel about being sent there? What was it like growing up? She’s a minor character now, but she could easily be given the spotlight while also introducing us to a new location. Qualstio’s rebellion against the Council could also be told through an interlude, which would be far more effective than what we have now thanks to the magic of show-don’t-tell. Or they could be extended Watcher scenes, we don’t really get enough of those as-is! Basically, the story just doesn’t have the room for this, I think – it already has a huge main cast in desperate need of development. That should be the priority, not this dead end.

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