ARGH'S PROFILE

I think it did very well when it was just being silly and mocking the cliches, but it fell kind of flat when it tried to be profound. I think this is mainly because it's not very clear how the metaphysics work -- like, Volzo said he wanted to be a hero before becoming the demon lord, but how does that make any sense? Did he have a childhood like a normal person, or did he spring into existence fully formed? If the former, why didn't he reject his role? How was he "chosen"? What does that mean? The Yuusha's attitude seems to imply that these characters have no backgrounds and were conjured spontaneously just to fit the story. I think there was a good opportunity for some very disturbing existential horror there that was missed. (Have you heard of a webcomic called NanQuest? It does something... tangentially related to all of this in its climax, you might find it interesting.) So, I don't really understand the stakes, or how things are going to work out -- are they pure constructs who will cease to exist when the story is finished, or are they actual people in a full world that will change and persist beyond the scope of the story?

I found the Yuusha's portrayal particularly weird. Is he supposed to be me, or is he supposed to be his own character? If the latter, why the dialogue options? If the former, then why are the dialogue options so limiting? I think it's safe to assume that, if I'm playing a jRPG, I do want to be a hero -- they are hero fantasies, after all. His dramatic epiphany at the end fell totally flat because it was something I had already come to earlier and I assumed he had as well. Why should I care if I was never asked to be a hero? Being a hero is all about rising to unexpected challenges and doing the right thing even if it's inconvenient. If you hand someone power and the opportunity to do good and all they do is wring their hands over if they really want it, I feel that makes them a bad person. I think a more effective deconstruction of this would be to pursue some kind of "are you really doing the right thing" angle, since the generic jRPG hero has no opinions of their own and just obediently does as they're told. I think you sort of tried to break that by having him object to everything all the time, but it ends up feeling very token when the game is, in actuality, still completely linear. Having us play as Edward with his delusional hero fantasies might have also been more effective as a deconstruction of the "hero" role, since he's the true audience stand-in.

In the end, I felt the characters fell to cliche. From the start, I knew there was basically only one way their arcs could go: they realize their roles are unfairly limiting and they want to be free. And indeed, that's exactly what happens, plus some angst and hand-wringing. They are, ironically, still walking down a pretty simple, predictable narrative, even though it's a different one.

The whole thing with Edward also makes the plot read like it was rewritten halfway through. His actions and supposed motives at the start are completely incongruous with his true motives -- if his only desire was hatred and destruction, why did he ramble so much about fun, and why did he do frivolous things that didn't actually damage the story, like delegating to his lieutenants? It's possible to read his actions in the prologue as trying to short-circuit the story by making it end as soon as it begins, which would effectively destroy it, but after that I don't understand why he doesn't take a more active role in things. Oh, and how is it possible for Jasper to be both an established character in the story and a projection created by him?

Finally... this is probably just Undertale whiplash, but I did find it a little weird that the solution is just to beat Edward to a bloody pulp, because that is quite possibly the most cliche jRPG cliche there is, at least in modern consciousness. I know that wasn't the aspect of jRPGs you were examining so it doesn't betray the story too much, but I did find it a little jarring for such a self-aware story.

Firstly, Lorica made me cringe. She's basically a giant list of female stereotypes: she's the only member of her group, she's a squishy wizard, and she's arrogant, but that arrogance is totally unfounded because she's also the weakest. Then at the end we find out she is literally the anthropomorphic personification of Edward's pride? I know there is no way you intended it this way, but it is worryingly easy to read that as women being inherently stuck-up and arrogant. I will grant that she isn't vain or sexualized, which are the two worst traits that often befall female characters, but she still could have been handled better.

Glynn is a Strong Female Character. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it meas a female character who pays lip service to being tough and independent, but who still falls into damaging female stereotypes when it matters. Here, Glynn talks big, but she's the only character to have a hysterical meltdown over the existential themes -- Volzo just has some manly, restrained angst, and the Yuusha is just vaguely annoyed at everything all the time. There also seems to be a running gag about how hilarious it is that she bosses around all the men and that she's unreasonably whiny, which is just perpetuating the idea that women are inherently subservient to men and it's a bizarre and comically absurd occurrence when this is overturned. I appreciate that you point out the damsel in distress narrative is stupid and extremely restrictive for the princess, but I think you could have taken it a lot farther. In particular, I'm surprised that it was never pointed out how crown princesses actually have a lot of political power, which should make them figures of importance in their own right rather than just fancy trophies.

Ashlyn is another form of positive discrimination, that of the woman as moral center. She's the textbook fairytale figure: the pure maiden who is able to soothe the raging beast, or in this case, the man who has gone out of control. This is commonly seen as a, if you'll forgive the buzzword, problematic portrayal, since it places the moral burden of an intemperate man's actions on his significant other -- an "I don't need to moderate myself, my woman will keep me in check," or, "When a man marries a woman, she becomes his weakness," sort of thing. It places women on a pedestal and perpetuates a cultural narrative where women exist to help men with their problems. I think this might have worked better if Ashlyn wasn't quite so perfect -- if we saw her struggling with her own problems and personality flaws, yet she still resolved to help Edward in the end because she's a good person. That might have helped the placing-on-a-pedestal problem, at the least.

"Thanks in no small part to Ashlyn, who's unyielding devotion..."