SLBP Nobunaga sad end
Jan. 28th, 2020 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollThis was my first time reading through a SLBP epilogue without using chapter tickets and I don't like it, the cliffhangers towards the end were really a bit much. It was ok because I already knew everything that was going to happen from Scytale's summary, but I think I'll need to buy some discounted chapter tickets next time there's a good sale and keep them for late in a route.
Anyway, I thought it was very powerfully written and I liked it a lot. I'm not going to write a full summary because Scytale did (1, 2), but a few thoughts:
On her way into the castle, one of the retainers identifies her as 'one of Nobunaga's concubines.' I don't mind in principle being in a relationship with someone who has other relationships, and Nobunaga/Ranmaru was pretty clearly going on in the background, but if Nobunaga has other female concubines I'd have liked to at least meet them and compare notes. And also: find out about them at some point earlier than the epilogue.
Speaking of Ranmaru, in this ending while Nobunaga dies melodramatically Ranmaru's running around saving the pages and servants. Good for him. I like him a lot and am glad he's going to get an IkeSen route.
Nobunaga's death scene itself was very well written and very difficult to watch. If I didn't know I had picked the sad end, I'd have been convinced that Nobunaga was going to survive when he starts regretting his choice to commit seppuku. MC is convinced that she's going to save him, and in the end as she's dying she's convinced that she is in fact saving him by helping him become a God.
Before he dies, when Nobunaga tries to commit seppuku and it's hard for him to bring himself to do it, he wishes not to be a Samurai and to be 'free of being myself' and be able to be with MC like a normal person. He might not be happy in the reincarnation end, but he did get that, a chance to try again with MC as someone else and a chance to live in a world with no Samurai. In their last moments he makes a wish on the kompetio: "Even if I do not have the power of the Gods, or the Buddha, some day we'll..."
MC: I know. Someday, surely, we'll be able to see each other again.
Sen no Ryku, when he speaks with Mitsuhide at the end, tells him that "MC's sacrifice has prevented the destruction of this world." Nobunaga might have decided not to go through with the suicide if she weren't also dying. In the other ending Ryku is glad that MC arrived in time to stop Nobunaga's suicide. So whether Nobunaga lives or dies, in the end MC was responsible and saves him.
I was surprised to see that Mitsuhide lives in this ending. I thought when Ieyasu appeared that was the end of him for sure, but Ieyasu just took the scroll of divine rule and snarked a bit. In the end Mitsuhide is still in charge, just at a loss for what to do next, just like in the happy ending.
I liked the reincarnation ending a lot and I'm glad that I get to keep it and reread it. But I also think it worked better now that I've seen the happy ending and have a better sense of what a happy relationship between them could look like. She's good for him because she can stop his worst impulses, and he's good for her because he makes her feel like a goddess - and what she seems to mean by that is that she is able to act to change the world for the better. I think the 21st century will be good for them, they will be able to accomplish some things but it will always have to involve collaboration and negotiation. Which he was never good at because he always had to be control and she was never good at because she always liked to either submit or just 'be feisty' but with no real goals. But I think I believe that they'll figure it out together.
And oh how lovely, in the end he's able to simply and straightforwardly say that he will love her forever, without having to put it in terms of violence and domination. Yeah, I think they'll be ok, and I think ultimately they will do good for the world.
Next up: Shingen. I'm bracing myself, this is gonna be a ride.
Anyway, I thought it was very powerfully written and I liked it a lot. I'm not going to write a full summary because Scytale did (1, 2), but a few thoughts:
On her way into the castle, one of the retainers identifies her as 'one of Nobunaga's concubines.' I don't mind in principle being in a relationship with someone who has other relationships, and Nobunaga/Ranmaru was pretty clearly going on in the background, but if Nobunaga has other female concubines I'd have liked to at least meet them and compare notes. And also: find out about them at some point earlier than the epilogue.
Speaking of Ranmaru, in this ending while Nobunaga dies melodramatically Ranmaru's running around saving the pages and servants. Good for him. I like him a lot and am glad he's going to get an IkeSen route.
Nobunaga's death scene itself was very well written and very difficult to watch. If I didn't know I had picked the sad end, I'd have been convinced that Nobunaga was going to survive when he starts regretting his choice to commit seppuku. MC is convinced that she's going to save him, and in the end as she's dying she's convinced that she is in fact saving him by helping him become a God.
Before he dies, when Nobunaga tries to commit seppuku and it's hard for him to bring himself to do it, he wishes not to be a Samurai and to be 'free of being myself' and be able to be with MC like a normal person. He might not be happy in the reincarnation end, but he did get that, a chance to try again with MC as someone else and a chance to live in a world with no Samurai. In their last moments he makes a wish on the kompetio: "Even if I do not have the power of the Gods, or the Buddha, some day we'll..."
MC: I know. Someday, surely, we'll be able to see each other again.
Sen no Ryku, when he speaks with Mitsuhide at the end, tells him that "MC's sacrifice has prevented the destruction of this world." Nobunaga might have decided not to go through with the suicide if she weren't also dying. In the other ending Ryku is glad that MC arrived in time to stop Nobunaga's suicide. So whether Nobunaga lives or dies, in the end MC was responsible and saves him.
I was surprised to see that Mitsuhide lives in this ending. I thought when Ieyasu appeared that was the end of him for sure, but Ieyasu just took the scroll of divine rule and snarked a bit. In the end Mitsuhide is still in charge, just at a loss for what to do next, just like in the happy ending.
I liked the reincarnation ending a lot and I'm glad that I get to keep it and reread it. But I also think it worked better now that I've seen the happy ending and have a better sense of what a happy relationship between them could look like. She's good for him because she can stop his worst impulses, and he's good for her because he makes her feel like a goddess - and what she seems to mean by that is that she is able to act to change the world for the better. I think the 21st century will be good for them, they will be able to accomplish some things but it will always have to involve collaboration and negotiation. Which he was never good at because he always had to be control and she was never good at because she always liked to either submit or just 'be feisty' but with no real goals. But I think I believe that they'll figure it out together.
And oh how lovely, in the end he's able to simply and straightforwardly say that he will love her forever, without having to put it in terms of violence and domination. Yeah, I think they'll be ok, and I think ultimately they will do good for the world.
Next up: Shingen. I'm bracing myself, this is gonna be a ride.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 02:31 pm (UTC)Also I was just wondering if I was imagining the implied Nobunaga/Ranmaru on the Mitsuhide path.
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Date: 2020-01-28 02:45 pm (UTC)I think it's pretty clearly there, but it's never said explicitly even on the Nobunaga route. If you want to you can just imagine that Ranmaru is a very loyal and devoted page who happens to share Nobunaga's bedroom, as pages do.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 03:46 pm (UTC)I looked him up and it seems like Nobunaga/Ranmaru has been a huge canon RPF ship in Japan since they died.
Also, thinking about the choices this game makes: maybe they only mentioned the concubines now because you're in the ending aimed at people who like historically accurate angst. That way players who prefer to avoid the more uncomfortable parts of history can still think of him as not having any.
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Date: 2020-01-28 08:35 pm (UTC)If you come across any good Nobunaga/Ranmaru stories I'd be curious to hear about him.
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Date: 2020-01-29 11:48 am (UTC)I have completely failed to find any, even on Pixiv (a popular Japanese fanart site), though I think there I must have been searching wrong, since I got like 60 works for Nobunaga in general which can't be right. There's a tiny smattering on the ao3 based on various canons I'm not familiar with, including Pokemon haha.
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Date: 2020-01-29 04:11 am (UTC)Oooh, I totally forgot Rikyu's line in the middle of the route about MC being the only one who can save Nobunaga.
I think the 21st century will be good for them, they will be able to accomplish some things but it will always have to involve collaboration and negotiation. Which he was never good at because he always had to be control and she was never good at because she always liked to either submit or just 'be feisty' but with no real goals.
Aww, yes! I think prologue MC has goals, but in Nobunaga's route, she just drifts. :( Which is maybe understandable, because she's in a completely different set of surroundings, where she doesn't really have much to do.
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Date: 2020-01-29 04:16 am (UTC)ETA: Oooh, I totally forgot Rikyu's line in the middle of the route about MC being the only one who can save Nobunaga.
Yes! So interesting that saving him can mean either helping him die or helping him not die.