SLBP Shingen route (to chapter 10)
Feb. 12th, 2020 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollThe fun gender stuff in the prologue quickly turned into un-fun gender stuff, unfortunately, although there were still fun moments throughout. It's still an interesting route, though, and a fascinating study of a man living in changing times.
CN: illness
After Shingen rescues MC he takes her to a cave. (Because he is a caveman. And yes I know actual cave-dwellers weren't any more misogynist than contemporary apartment-dwellers, but this is the imagery the game is using so I'll go with it.) He builds her a fire and sits next to her for warmth but doesn't touch her in any sexual way. He apologizes extensively for pushing her down and biting her neck when she wasn't interested. It's a nice apology, but he uses her feminine name in it.
MC asks: Did you know I was a woman when you tried to have sex with me?
Shingen smiles vaguely and doesn't answer. He tells her that if she comes back with him she can live as a man or a woman, whatever she wants.
The way he found out is obvious in retrospect, though we don't find it out for a bit. When he sent people to help her family he found out that they had a daughter who had disappeared, and it was easy to make the connection. So, he thought she was a man when he fell in love with her and decided to help her, and knew about her background as a woman when he tried to seduce her.
Did he think she was a trans man? I think that's possible, since he was *so* into her masculinity, and he keeps telling her that it's fine with him if she chooses to live as a man. Also he seems to fall in love with men more than with women.
For example, when MC and Shingen get back to Kai, Shingen's retainer Kansuke, who saw her spend the night with Kenshin, tells her that she is under no circumstances to tell Shingen that she slept with Kenshin.
Me: Oh no, a jealousy plotline, please spare me.
Kansuke:...because Shingen has a massive crush on Kenshin and hearing about it would be a major turn-on.
Me: ....I stand corrected.
But in any case MC chooses to serve Shingen as a woman. And, well, Shingen has a hard time dealing with that. He likes to have sex with women but tends to see them as an amorphous mass of things to fuck. (I told you the gender stuff gets less fun.) In one unpleasant scene he asks a retainer to bring him a woman, doesn't matter who, because he sees them as interchangeable. In another unpleasant scene he tells Yukimura that he's not a man until he's had a woman. And then I uncomfortably realize - if to Shingen masculinity means strength of will, then that means that to him women have no will.
When apologizing to MC for forcing himself on her, he says that no woman has ever refused him before. When he said that I wanted to spin it positively, that he was generally pretty good at figuring out which women wanted to have sex with him. (And the way MC was super-enthusiastic about serving him could be read that way.) But unfortunately I don't think that's the case, I think he's just not good at hearing what women want, so if they refuse him he might not notice.
Shingen tries his best, in his caveman-like way. He buys MC beautiful dresses, because what else do women want but pretty clothes? He offers to marry her to Yukimura (and to adopt her so she'd be high status enough for him), because what else do women want but a high-ranking husband?
I wanted MC to be the badass self-willed person she was at the beginning, but I think she was genuinely conflicted. Eventually, not sure what else to ask for, she asks to go home. But she's sad about leaving, so Shingen asks her to stay as one of his retainers, and she does.
I guess that's progress, that at least he asks?
But in the end what subverts his caveman-like understanding of gender roles isn't her strength but his weakness. He's sick with tuberculosis and needs care but is refusing to accept it. Finally he collapses and MC is placed in the position of caring for him. He feels weak and unmanly and worthless, but that's when MC realizes that she loves him. And this is baffling to him, because how can he be lovable if he's not strong? If he's not manly? When she finally confesses her feelings to him, it's her strength of will that's driving everything.
Then he bites her, and shows off the bite to everyone the next day, and brags to everyone about how she's his woman. But it's fake, in a way. They're not having sex, because he can't, but he wants everyone to think they are. Also, he did not in fact claim her and make her his woman, she went after him. But he needs to put on this show of masculinity and virility.
So for a while they're sharing a bed and every night he bites her but they don't do anything else. But not for very long, because then we get Oda Nobunaga. Shingen is used to fighting an enemy like Kenshin, someone polite and kind (and cute) who will send him salt when he needs it. Nobunaga is not like that. Shingen charges into battle with his masculinity and virility and swordsmanship and chivalry, and Nobunaga cuts his people down with guns in an instant. It's a horrifying scene. Shingen limps back to Kai without his most trusted retainers, and barely with his life. He sends his people away so that Nobunaga won't kill them and tells MC that he plans to commit seppuku in the morning.
MC is having none of this. She grabs him and kisses him and initiates sex. He's never been kissed by a woman before and this is all surprising enough that he goes along with it. And unprotected sex means the possibility of babies, so now he has to live, or at least do his best.
The next day he gives a speech, naked, to his retainers, in which he says that even the gods and the Buddha are subject to the whims of fate. He had imagined that he could be strong enough to protect everyone, but he's not, and he can't be. Now, for those who choose to stay, he needs to ask for their help so they can protect each other. It's a lovely scene and it shows how much Shingen has changed.
So we'll see where it goes. Shingen is a mess, but all the SLBP dudes are, and he does try his best for people so I can see why MC likes him.
CN: illness
After Shingen rescues MC he takes her to a cave. (Because he is a caveman. And yes I know actual cave-dwellers weren't any more misogynist than contemporary apartment-dwellers, but this is the imagery the game is using so I'll go with it.) He builds her a fire and sits next to her for warmth but doesn't touch her in any sexual way. He apologizes extensively for pushing her down and biting her neck when she wasn't interested. It's a nice apology, but he uses her feminine name in it.
MC asks: Did you know I was a woman when you tried to have sex with me?
Shingen smiles vaguely and doesn't answer. He tells her that if she comes back with him she can live as a man or a woman, whatever she wants.
The way he found out is obvious in retrospect, though we don't find it out for a bit. When he sent people to help her family he found out that they had a daughter who had disappeared, and it was easy to make the connection. So, he thought she was a man when he fell in love with her and decided to help her, and knew about her background as a woman when he tried to seduce her.
Did he think she was a trans man? I think that's possible, since he was *so* into her masculinity, and he keeps telling her that it's fine with him if she chooses to live as a man. Also he seems to fall in love with men more than with women.
For example, when MC and Shingen get back to Kai, Shingen's retainer Kansuke, who saw her spend the night with Kenshin, tells her that she is under no circumstances to tell Shingen that she slept with Kenshin.
Me: Oh no, a jealousy plotline, please spare me.
Kansuke:...because Shingen has a massive crush on Kenshin and hearing about it would be a major turn-on.
Me: ....I stand corrected.
But in any case MC chooses to serve Shingen as a woman. And, well, Shingen has a hard time dealing with that. He likes to have sex with women but tends to see them as an amorphous mass of things to fuck. (I told you the gender stuff gets less fun.) In one unpleasant scene he asks a retainer to bring him a woman, doesn't matter who, because he sees them as interchangeable. In another unpleasant scene he tells Yukimura that he's not a man until he's had a woman. And then I uncomfortably realize - if to Shingen masculinity means strength of will, then that means that to him women have no will.
When apologizing to MC for forcing himself on her, he says that no woman has ever refused him before. When he said that I wanted to spin it positively, that he was generally pretty good at figuring out which women wanted to have sex with him. (And the way MC was super-enthusiastic about serving him could be read that way.) But unfortunately I don't think that's the case, I think he's just not good at hearing what women want, so if they refuse him he might not notice.
Shingen tries his best, in his caveman-like way. He buys MC beautiful dresses, because what else do women want but pretty clothes? He offers to marry her to Yukimura (and to adopt her so she'd be high status enough for him), because what else do women want but a high-ranking husband?
I wanted MC to be the badass self-willed person she was at the beginning, but I think she was genuinely conflicted. Eventually, not sure what else to ask for, she asks to go home. But she's sad about leaving, so Shingen asks her to stay as one of his retainers, and she does.
I guess that's progress, that at least he asks?
But in the end what subverts his caveman-like understanding of gender roles isn't her strength but his weakness. He's sick with tuberculosis and needs care but is refusing to accept it. Finally he collapses and MC is placed in the position of caring for him. He feels weak and unmanly and worthless, but that's when MC realizes that she loves him. And this is baffling to him, because how can he be lovable if he's not strong? If he's not manly? When she finally confesses her feelings to him, it's her strength of will that's driving everything.
Then he bites her, and shows off the bite to everyone the next day, and brags to everyone about how she's his woman. But it's fake, in a way. They're not having sex, because he can't, but he wants everyone to think they are. Also, he did not in fact claim her and make her his woman, she went after him. But he needs to put on this show of masculinity and virility.
So for a while they're sharing a bed and every night he bites her but they don't do anything else. But not for very long, because then we get Oda Nobunaga. Shingen is used to fighting an enemy like Kenshin, someone polite and kind (and cute) who will send him salt when he needs it. Nobunaga is not like that. Shingen charges into battle with his masculinity and virility and swordsmanship and chivalry, and Nobunaga cuts his people down with guns in an instant. It's a horrifying scene. Shingen limps back to Kai without his most trusted retainers, and barely with his life. He sends his people away so that Nobunaga won't kill them and tells MC that he plans to commit seppuku in the morning.
MC is having none of this. She grabs him and kisses him and initiates sex. He's never been kissed by a woman before and this is all surprising enough that he goes along with it. And unprotected sex means the possibility of babies, so now he has to live, or at least do his best.
The next day he gives a speech, naked, to his retainers, in which he says that even the gods and the Buddha are subject to the whims of fate. He had imagined that he could be strong enough to protect everyone, but he's not, and he can't be. Now, for those who choose to stay, he needs to ask for their help so they can protect each other. It's a lovely scene and it shows how much Shingen has changed.
So we'll see where it goes. Shingen is a mess, but all the SLBP dudes are, and he does try his best for people so I can see why MC likes him.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 03:14 am (UTC)Hmm, looking back at this -- my read is that he's offering her status and the security that comes with it. But because of his gendered baggage, he's offering it in terms of the approval and regard of men. It feels like a reflection of the gender baggage he has around what it means to retain status as a man; I feel like status is really important to Shingen.
I think what stands out to me about the clothes was not that they were pretty, but that they were expensive and rare -- and they would have been her own possessions to keep. (I don't know if this would have occurred to Shingen, but it did occur to me that she would have resold them for money and probably funded the restaurant forever. Shingen doesn't seem like the sort of asshole who wouldn't let his mistress/favorite take her gifts with her if their relationship ended, and I think she could have resold them for a lot of money.)
So I read both of those things as giving her status, and the public declaration too of how much he values to her -- whether she accepts or not, both of those things show the Takeda clan how much he values her.
And at least with the marriage scene, all the retainers are quick to follow up with, "OMG, MC IS SO GREAT, MC/YUKIMURA WOULD BE A GREAT SHIP". Which I think is what Shingen wants, everyone knowing that MC has his favor and that he views her as the equal of the Sanada prodigy.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 06:56 pm (UTC)There's a similar scene in Kenshin's route, with him giving her clothes, and it plays out completely differently, because what Kenshin cares about isn't that the clothes are expensive but that they are pretty.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 07:09 pm (UTC)Oh, that's an interesting parallel! :O Are there any others as well in the route? I'm curious because based on the common route, it already felt like they were very different riffs on the same theme -- between the different kinds of being bad at consent and their very strong philosophies that make them at once admirable and kind of awful.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 11:12 pm (UTC)I think Kenshin also has a big secret that he's keeping from MC, but I don't know what it is yet.