Samurai Love Ballad: Hideyoshi Route
Nov. 18th, 2019 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollAs I expected, it was a lot of fun at the beginning and horrifying at the end. I did *not* expect to have such a strong desire to yell at the MC to RUN RUN RUN. While I appreciate this canon's commitment to letting horrible people be horrible people and not Reformed By Love, I think there are certain kinds of horrible that I don't want to date and this was one of them.
Hideyoshi is an absolute ball of sweetness and joy. The route begins with him in a tree throwing stolen fruit at the MC. He very rapidly realizes that she's a girl and quickly maneuvers things so they have to share a room. He doesn't try anything though - noncon is not his game. Instead he goes to sleep in another room, thereby demonstrating his kindness. And he is extremely kind, he loves to do favors for people. It's only partway through the route that you realize that his constant favors are calculated to make people owe him, and also as part of a complicated maneuver for power.
He does manage to progress somewhat through his love for the MC (and others, including Mitsunari) and by the end of the route he has a shocking realization that by constantly maneuvering things for his own advantage and entertainment he's risked the lives of people he cares about. His response to this, though, includes what read to me as a villain monologue in which he resolves that he's going to unite the clans and make the country his own because that's the only way he can make sure he doesn't lose anyone close to him. He's learned to care about others, but that only makes his need to control everything more desperate.
The backstory that they give him here is that he is from a peasant village that was destroyed in war when he was a child and only he and his brother survived. It makes sense that this sort of instability and displacement would lead to a need for control. He starts by wanting to control by manipulating and seducing and ends with wanting to control by conquering. It's a psychologically convincing portrait of the development of a tyrant. But, I am a little disconcerted by placing myself in the position of someone in a relationship with him. I also don't think the MC is strong or mature enough to hold her own against someone *that* manipulative and controlling, although I have no doubt that she will have a good life as long as she does exactly what he wants. ::shiver::
To be fair, none of this is surprising, I knew he was a seductive and manipulative warmonger going in. I just thought the game would work a little harder to make me forget all that and love him anyway. Um. I guess props to the writers for being honest? And...he *is* lovable. But I still don't want the MC dating him. Maybe someone older and stronger, who can call him on things.
I suppose one good thing is that Mitsunari is *much* happier in this route than in his own and being in Hideyoshi's harem seems to be good for him. The routes aren't necessarily consistent with each other in characterization. But in this route he's happy and thriving in a way he only gets to be in the very end of his route, and even then only if you pick the good end. So maybe being manipulated by Hideyoshi isn't so bad? For some people?
I guess I also need to say: I am not enjoying dating men who sleep with other people and expect me to be faithful. Yes I know it is historically accurate, but the whole model of how marriage worked and its purpose was different then and if you're going to use 21st century companionate marriage based on love you can't just import 16th rules by which husbands sleep around and wives are faithful. Yes even if their other partners are men. There's a bit of this in Mitsunari's route, depending on how you read his relationship with Otani, but in Hideyoshi's route it's a little more annoying.
Having said that, Hideyoshi's Act 2 isn't out yet and Mitsunari didn't stop being a terrible boyfriend until the end of his Act 2, so maybe there's still hope.
Short version: IkeSen is giving me too much fanservice and too little plot. SLBP is giving me lots of plot and character development, but is it too much to ask for a *little* fanservice? Enough to make me happy that the MC is in a relationship with this dude at least?
Hideyoshi is an absolute ball of sweetness and joy. The route begins with him in a tree throwing stolen fruit at the MC. He very rapidly realizes that she's a girl and quickly maneuvers things so they have to share a room. He doesn't try anything though - noncon is not his game. Instead he goes to sleep in another room, thereby demonstrating his kindness. And he is extremely kind, he loves to do favors for people. It's only partway through the route that you realize that his constant favors are calculated to make people owe him, and also as part of a complicated maneuver for power.
He does manage to progress somewhat through his love for the MC (and others, including Mitsunari) and by the end of the route he has a shocking realization that by constantly maneuvering things for his own advantage and entertainment he's risked the lives of people he cares about. His response to this, though, includes what read to me as a villain monologue in which he resolves that he's going to unite the clans and make the country his own because that's the only way he can make sure he doesn't lose anyone close to him. He's learned to care about others, but that only makes his need to control everything more desperate.
The backstory that they give him here is that he is from a peasant village that was destroyed in war when he was a child and only he and his brother survived. It makes sense that this sort of instability and displacement would lead to a need for control. He starts by wanting to control by manipulating and seducing and ends with wanting to control by conquering. It's a psychologically convincing portrait of the development of a tyrant. But, I am a little disconcerted by placing myself in the position of someone in a relationship with him. I also don't think the MC is strong or mature enough to hold her own against someone *that* manipulative and controlling, although I have no doubt that she will have a good life as long as she does exactly what he wants. ::shiver::
To be fair, none of this is surprising, I knew he was a seductive and manipulative warmonger going in. I just thought the game would work a little harder to make me forget all that and love him anyway. Um. I guess props to the writers for being honest? And...he *is* lovable. But I still don't want the MC dating him. Maybe someone older and stronger, who can call him on things.
I suppose one good thing is that Mitsunari is *much* happier in this route than in his own and being in Hideyoshi's harem seems to be good for him. The routes aren't necessarily consistent with each other in characterization. But in this route he's happy and thriving in a way he only gets to be in the very end of his route, and even then only if you pick the good end. So maybe being manipulated by Hideyoshi isn't so bad? For some people?
I guess I also need to say: I am not enjoying dating men who sleep with other people and expect me to be faithful. Yes I know it is historically accurate, but the whole model of how marriage worked and its purpose was different then and if you're going to use 21st century companionate marriage based on love you can't just import 16th rules by which husbands sleep around and wives are faithful. Yes even if their other partners are men. There's a bit of this in Mitsunari's route, depending on how you read his relationship with Otani, but in Hideyoshi's route it's a little more annoying.
Having said that, Hideyoshi's Act 2 isn't out yet and Mitsunari didn't stop being a terrible boyfriend until the end of his Act 2, so maybe there's still hope.
Short version: IkeSen is giving me too much fanservice and too little plot. SLBP is giving me lots of plot and character development, but is it too much to ask for a *little* fanservice? Enough to make me happy that the MC is in a relationship with this dude at least?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-24 05:41 pm (UTC)I admit, I laughed at this.
Hideyoshi sounds like an interesting character, though poor MC. :(
Is there much interaction between Mitsunari and the MC in this route? I'm wondering if Mitsunari/Hideyoshi/MC is an option, if only in headcanon. I mean, if we're importing 21st century concepts of relationships...
no subject
Date: 2019-11-24 09:25 pm (UTC)It is completely plausible, the MC/Mitsunari relationship definitely develops in this route, in some ways faster than it does in Mitsunari's own route. The problem is I think Hideyoshi is too selfish to want it. For a lot of this route there's a love triangle between Hideyoshi and Inuchiyo and the MC. Inuchiyo is the MC's childhood friend and very close with Hideyoshi but rather than pursuing a threesome Hideyoshi decides to 'steal' the MC away from Inuchiyo and 'make her his.' So I don't see him easily going along with a threesome with Mitsunari, and Mitsunari loves Hideyoshi too much to do something that he even a little doesn't want.
But look, maybe Hideyoshi will get less selfish eventually, or understand two of his lovers loving each other helps him somehow.