Last time on failheroes, our heroes gambled everything on a risky mission, then got cold feet and left before doing anything.
When they shuffle back, something seems different. Mahk confirms: Xopi has gone missing, and with the Night approaching, he fears for his safety.
We then see Do’Ssha’s leader accosted in the street conveniently right in front of the main characters. The messenger says the Silver Army will arrive after the Night, which is practical but also really boring. We now know that no external threats throw a wrench into things during the Night, which defuses tension for what has been built up as this super-scary dramatic sequence. It would be clever for them to launch a surprise suicide attack during the Night itself, when everyone is too scared and scattered to fight. That might actually make more sense – they’re starving, it’s entirely possible they don’t have the resources to last the night and an all-or-nothing attack is necessary.
Also, the resulting conversation is gloriously nonsensical.
Messenger: “All citizens and sentries are urged to flee the city and sands by ship beforehand.”
But I thought the whole point was to exterminate the infidels, not capture the city. We just went over this: when given the opportunity to solve the practical motive behind the war, the citizens were still baying for blood. The sticking point seems to be the existence of heretics, not expansionism. Once again, this feels like the developer is resorting to cliché – the overconfident villains delivering a smug warning – without realizing it doesn’t mesh with his plot.
Congregationman (yes that’s his actual title): “And when the First Defense refuses entry into Do’Ssha to Commandant Zaka?”
Messenger: […] “No force in existence can hold back the Commandant or the Silver Army.”
NORTH KOREA THE UNSTOPPABLE!!!
Congregationman: “Mmmph. Very well. Run home, messenger, lest you succumb to the Night as well.”
Messenger: “It will be an honor to be taken by the Eye of the Supreme One.”
This just makes no sense. We’ve been told that Kir’Ssha sees the Night as a time of judgment where God kills those deemed unfaithful. Why, then, would it be honorable to die by it? That’s how blasphemers die, not the devout! It’s certainly creepy of him to say this, but it’s just more thoughtless cliché.
Then, when discussing Xopi’s disappearance…
Congregationman: “‘Tis a shame slavery has stained our sands once more. Yet I cannot simply ask the humans to leave. They have brought much prosperity to us.”
So the highly religious and xenophobic traditionalists are willing to betray their principles for some cash, because today is opposite day. If any society would be willing to tell the slavers to stuff it, it would be this one. Perhaps this is a sign that they are not as progressive as they claim and are willing to buy into foreign racism, as I speculated at the beginning of the chapter – although the opposite could also be true. The outsiders be fleeing anyway what with the impending invasion, but perhaps the Congregation is purposefully locking them in so they die too.
Congregationman: “Do not be alarmed, friends. Do’Ssha shall not back down to their likes this time. The Supreme One shall grant Her favor to the Free Home. It is what She truly intends.”
Speaking of which, this brings up an interesting plot hole: Why don’t they just flee the city?
Think about it. Their entire history and philosophy revolves around the idea that clinging to holy sites is irrelevant and God understands if you need to relocate for practical reasons. So why are they clinging to this one? The messenger just gave them the opportunity to evacuate, even! Let the crazies take the empty city if they want, the people can build new a new one as they did before! It does suck to be forcibly relocated, but the general atmosphere has been that the takeover is inevitable and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. Unless this is all a very subtle satire and everybody knows there’s no reason to fear NORTH KOREA THE UNSTOPPABLE, this token resistance is pointlessly suicidal. If it was God’s will for her people to flee an unavoidable catastrophe rather than endure it before, surely it’s the same now. Just get on the darn boats.
Finally…
Messenger: “The only surviving member of the Flightblades was captured some hours ago.”
[…]
Ques: “They… they took Syri! I have to leave, now! I can still save her! They cannot keep her!”
Mahk: “You cannot possibly make it to Kir’Ssha in time. The Night shall come in mere hours.”
Ques: “I… I must try! T’is my fault she was caught at all! And, if she is not freed soon… […] She will be left at the pillars with the other ‘threats’ who have been captured.”
Syri gets fridged (almost literally), making it even worse that the heroes accomplish absolutely nothing in Kir’Ssha. Syri gave her life in the hopes that they would actually do something once they got there, and they didn’t. There is never any acknowledgement of their abominable behavior and betrayal. I will admit that this works well in theory – we’re constantly told that this arc is a big deal for serious this time, so it makes sense to raise the stakes and display some consequences for the heroes’ actions by killing off an important side character. But the execution just feels so token. I do like Ques’ reaction, as it shows development from the stoic wisecracker, and it’s nice to see characters caring about each other. But everyone else comes off as sociopathic, and it doesn’t really affect anything:
Congregationman: “You would not survive, friend. Everyone left outdoors in the Night will freeze to death.”
Mahk: “I am afraid this is true. In addition, the entire Silver Army will have retreated into the city. There is no need to lose hope. She may somehow survive and escape on her own.”
And after that creepy, halfhearted attempt at comfort, Mahk promptly forgets about the issue and delivers a speech on finding his precious baby, because only Sikohlon matter apparently. Dehl’s only contribution to this conversation?
Ques: “I’m going to Kir’Ssha. I can still make it. There is still time to get Syri to safety…”
Dehl: “Ques, please. Trust your sister. Your own pursuit would prove fruitless… or worse. Right now, there is a child held against his will who needs your help more than ever.”
Yes, now is suddenly the time to realize heroes can’t save everybody and we have to make sacrifices. Forget about the fact that it was Dehl’s plan that put Syri in this situation in the first place. Forget that if he actually cared about the plan and stayed a little while longer, he might have been able to save her. No, only Ques has to shoulder the blame. It’s Ques who has to let go, who has to let his only surviving family member go. But it would just be cruel to make Dehl lose one of his many family members. The boy lives and the girl dies, as is custom.
What’s interesting here is that Syri was originally planned to free herself and join the party at the eleventh hour, but the developer decided it was too late to add new characters and decided to cut her entire survival too, apparently. (He makes a token effort to claim her fate’s ambiguous but it really, really isn’t.) This actually does fit with the lukewarm response from the characters; that could be an example of the author knowing the outcome in advance and so failing to entertain the notion of things going differently. The problem here is that things did end up going differently, and he just never changed the lead-up or something?
But it’s not totally unfixable. Like I said, a sacrifice does work to give the narrative more teeth and emotional torque (as I discussed earlier with Metsueno and Sara), and it would be particularly relevant here with the theme of scope and unintended consequences. Her dying actually does work better for the story. However, I feel like pairing it with another, successful rescue mission undercuts the intended message, so the two events should be more spaced out – perhaps the guild stays in Kir’Ssha and witnesses Syri’s capture, and rescuing Xopi comes after as a post-climax thing. (It could even provide good contrast, maybe with Ques feeling bitter about Dehl saving him but not her.) Something else that would be more interesting than this is Ques successfully performing his rescue mission but dying in the process; Syri joins immediately after with identical stats and skills, Final Fantasy V style. That would be much more unexpected and dramatic since party members have plot armor, with the bonus of fixing the fridging issue.
But back to the plot…
…which continues to give me a headache. That sure looks like an eclipse to me, not a sunset. Does the sun just stay there year-round? I admit this actually does match what we see, which is the night periods being much shorter than the days, but everywhere else has normal day/night cycles so the planet has to have a rotation.
Anyway, everyone splits into groups like in “The Encounter” so we get to use all the party members, yay! Obviously only one group finds Xopi, but there are a few other interesting things.
This seems very sympathetic to me. It looks like these people have snapped from fire-and-brimstone preaching, and now live in constant terror of divine judgment. I think they just need therapy.
Instead our heroes murder them for being in the way. Well, I defeat them through mind damage so maybe not, but if they’re being left unconscious outside…
“I wanna check out here. Just over the next dune! Maybe they got tents out here.”
[obligatory battle]
Qualstio: “Get back here! It’s getting waaaay too close to time! We gotta meet with the others!”
Tehgonan: “Tsh…! I know, but…!”
Tehgonan says not terrible things, and hesitates before going back! Yay character development.
Then the finale.
Xopi: “B-brother Dehl…?”
Human Smuggler: “Wh-what in the hell?! Who are you?”
Rehm: “What’re you plannin’ on doin’ with the kid, huh? Gonna take ’em back to Nal, maybe?”
Dehl: “Kidnappers. Surrender now, or I cannot guarantee your lives shall be spared.”
Nalian Officer: “Surrender? To you? Are you kidding?”
Dehl: “So be it. You have brought harm to one of my own. This is an unforgivable trespass.”
And so he murders them, traumatizing Xopi.
I am ambivalent on this. Dehl slowly losing grasp of his high ideals and descending into violence makes sense as a character arc, especially given my theory that he’s naturally prone to this. Having it finally explode here makes it suddenly clear how far he’s fallen while hopefully making players reflect on previous warning signs they brushed off, making it work well as a climax to a long plotline. (Originally I thought this was also a commentary on violence in RPGs, but given my previous complaints on that front I think that’s giving the game too much credit.)
There are a few problems with this. One, it doesn’t really achieve that slow build effect. Dehl has been absurdly pacifistic and doormat-y for most of the game. Remember my fuming over how he canceled Skint’s boss battle – that was just one chapter ago! He has become more proactive since the start of this arc, but we’ve seen no indication his pacifism has slipped. He has resolutely maintained the same air of dispassion and empathy throughout; his first instinct is to help the Kir’Sshan people instead of cutting them down, and even when he resigns himself to confronting Zaka, he wants to negotiate with him first. The end result is that this comes out of left field. There was that outburst at Asarik and his twitchiness over the si’shra, but I wouldn’t count that as nearly enough to form a full arc. The idea seems to be that harming Sikohlon is a particular trigger, but we haven’t really seen that happen until now so it hasn’t been properly foreshadowed. It’s too sudden.
Two, it’s out of place. Let’s look at the surrounding events of the plotline: They have NORTH KOREA THE UNSTOPPABLE breathing down their necks, their ally has been captured, there is even an upcoming confrontation that will likely force Dehl to kill – all of which should be relevant to Dehl’s character arc and deserve narrative space, yet the only bit that’s instilled with dramatic weight is this one little moment that’s personally important to the hero. This kind of thing can work well by coldly analyzing the greater conflict then scaling back to show what the heroes are really fighting for…except here the two things are totally unrelated. The surrounding conflict is given this halfhearted, lukewarm reception, like the game doesn’t even want it there.
Three: Having company ruins the execution, especially since it makes Rehm look like a sociopath for going along with it. This is stronger if Dehl is alone.
(I also feel like this interacts weirdly with a later event, but more on that when we get there.)
Yeah, that sure is an eclipse. What happens during the actual night periods?
The next morning the guild reconvenes. They decide to meet the Silver Army head-on, because they are suicidal. So yes, their brilliant plan after spectacularly failing at everything is to take the default option they could have just done from the start. Strategy!
Dehl: “Perhaps [Zaka] will be open to reason if we can corner him before he reaches Do’Ssha. And, if not, he shall be open to our blades.”
See, if he had just said stuff like this earlier we would have a logical character progression. And, honestly, this is an understandable stance. They’ll play nice if they can but if they don’t have any other option, they understand that a murderer’s life is not worth more than the people they’ve sworn to protect.
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that this plan is stupid and will get them all killed.
Qualstio: “He’s just one guy. How tough could he be? It’ll be better than taking on the whole army.”
YOU’RE MEETING THEM HEAD-ON. YOU WILL BE TAKING ON THE WHOLE ARMY. THAT’S WHAT MEETING THEM HEAD-ON MEANS.
Then the Watcher plotline awkwardly crashes in. Fell arrives to say they’ve passed the final trial (which was…?) and she wants them immediately, no time for suicidally charging at armies. Though forced, this is a nice subversion of the chosen mission always being convenient for the heroes. They also completely ignore her, reasonably assuming that defending the city is way more important. This amuses me, though I will say that if your writing revolves around pointing out how disjointed your plot is, maybe you should rethink your plot.
…And that’s it. Honestly, after all the buildup to the Unstoppable Night, that was pretty underwhelming. Nothing really happened; it was all setup, with the payoff relegated to the next scene. We also revisit the issue from “The Encounter” where the plot splits the party but doesn’t know what to do with the non-plot-advancing groups so they just sort of wander around doing nothing. It really makes so much more sense for the Night to take place during the climax, not this awkward thing hanging around immediately before.