SLBP Nobunaga route act 1
Dec. 22nd, 2019 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollThat was a disconcerting route and I am feeling disconcerted. Nobunaga is every Bad News Boyfriend and Bad Decisions Bear rolled into one, and yet I can't deny the appeal.
I'm thinking doing Nobunaga's route right after Mitsuhide's route was a poor life choice. I loved the Mitsuhide route, he was wonderful and loving and MC was kind and idealistic and clever. Meanwhile here in the Nobunaga route Mitsuhide is clearly and visibly and painfully pining over the MC while shoving her vaguely at Nobunaga. It was quite excruciating to watch.
I was worried that this route would make me hate Mitsuhide for killing Nobunaga, and while it hasn't done that yet it has, unfortunately, made me respect Mitsuhide a little less. If you are going to feed the woman you love to an actual demon in order to appease him, at least have the decency not to pine over her in ways that she can see. It's rude. And yeah, I get why he would. She's suffering and maybe he thinks that she needs to know that someone appreciates her. Maybe on some level he knows - correctly - that in another universe they could be extraordinarily happy together. Maybe he wants her to know she has a choice.
One thing that is *so* wrenching is that the stakes are higher than just who MC is sleeping with. In the Mitsuhide route, when MC goes to Mt. Hiei first and then Mitsuhide follows her, they manage to rescue some people, with significant impacts. Here, where MC patiently waits for Nobunaga to return from his war crimes, those people don't get saved.
But, towards the end of the route Mitsuhide was crossing a line. Especially when he asked her to come to his room, I was like, oh no. Even if you discount the ES in which he explicitly states that he'd never allow a woman into his room unless he intended to marry her, it's still a step too far. Not that I wasn't *begging* her to say yes. But, he shouldn't have asked. If he's going to pimp her to Nobunaga he should at least have the decency to stay the course. Instead he's being the kind of creepy guy who pines and drops hints but doesn't declare himself and ask directly, and that never goes anywhere good.
I am very afraid of where this is going to go. One thing I loved in Mitsuhide's route is that he is absolutely clear that the only reason he turned against Nobunaga was that Nobunaga was killing civilian monks. I respect that as a place to draw a line in the sand. If in the Nobunaga route it's about sexual and romantic jealously...well, it makes me respect him less, and I don't like that.
Oh right, this is the Nobunaga route, and I should probably say something about Nobunaga. You know the thing when someone acts like a moral horror but tells you that it's just that he needs love, the kind of love that only you can provide? Yeah, that. It's compelling, sure. Maybe even addictive. What if you could be the person that could turn this person around? And the thing is, sometimes it works. (I thought Okita's route in Hakuouki was a good example of a story in which it plausibly does.) But does it here? I am not sure.
In nearly the last scene he almost kills her with a sword. I did his POV first and yep, from his POV he genuinely thought about killing her. This is shortly before they fuck. Oh, *right* before they fuck he moves all her stuff into his room and tells her that she's going to be sleeping with him from now on. This is after it's established that she wants him, but still he needs there to be an aspect of coercion about it.
Have I mentioned that he's a horrible person? He's a horrible person.
What's worse, I can't figure out what would make the MC able to have any particularly special impact on him. Her combination of vague chastity, feistiness and intense loyalty is nice but not *that* unusual. For that matter, it doesn't set her apart from Ranmaru, who Nobunaga's been banging for apparently a long time. She's not particularly clever and doesn't show a ton of initiative in things not related to her relationship to Nobunaga. At the end when Oichi says she thinks Nobunaga and MC are going to get married I was like...why? Nobunaga has made clear that he thinks he's entitled to sleep with anyone, so I have no idea why anyone would think that the fact that he's got a new girlfriend means that it's going to go anywhere in particular. I guess it's just the genre.
I also can't figure out why he didn't rape her, since he doesn't care about consent and there wouldn't have been any consequences for him. She'd probably even have come around to accepting it eventually, in more or less the same way that she did. But again, I get it's the genre.
So yeah. Addictive, horrifying, terrible, and also got me mad at my favorite dude in the game. But I'm not going to stop now. On to act 2.
I'm thinking doing Nobunaga's route right after Mitsuhide's route was a poor life choice. I loved the Mitsuhide route, he was wonderful and loving and MC was kind and idealistic and clever. Meanwhile here in the Nobunaga route Mitsuhide is clearly and visibly and painfully pining over the MC while shoving her vaguely at Nobunaga. It was quite excruciating to watch.
I was worried that this route would make me hate Mitsuhide for killing Nobunaga, and while it hasn't done that yet it has, unfortunately, made me respect Mitsuhide a little less. If you are going to feed the woman you love to an actual demon in order to appease him, at least have the decency not to pine over her in ways that she can see. It's rude. And yeah, I get why he would. She's suffering and maybe he thinks that she needs to know that someone appreciates her. Maybe on some level he knows - correctly - that in another universe they could be extraordinarily happy together. Maybe he wants her to know she has a choice.
One thing that is *so* wrenching is that the stakes are higher than just who MC is sleeping with. In the Mitsuhide route, when MC goes to Mt. Hiei first and then Mitsuhide follows her, they manage to rescue some people, with significant impacts. Here, where MC patiently waits for Nobunaga to return from his war crimes, those people don't get saved.
But, towards the end of the route Mitsuhide was crossing a line. Especially when he asked her to come to his room, I was like, oh no. Even if you discount the ES in which he explicitly states that he'd never allow a woman into his room unless he intended to marry her, it's still a step too far. Not that I wasn't *begging* her to say yes. But, he shouldn't have asked. If he's going to pimp her to Nobunaga he should at least have the decency to stay the course. Instead he's being the kind of creepy guy who pines and drops hints but doesn't declare himself and ask directly, and that never goes anywhere good.
I am very afraid of where this is going to go. One thing I loved in Mitsuhide's route is that he is absolutely clear that the only reason he turned against Nobunaga was that Nobunaga was killing civilian monks. I respect that as a place to draw a line in the sand. If in the Nobunaga route it's about sexual and romantic jealously...well, it makes me respect him less, and I don't like that.
Oh right, this is the Nobunaga route, and I should probably say something about Nobunaga. You know the thing when someone acts like a moral horror but tells you that it's just that he needs love, the kind of love that only you can provide? Yeah, that. It's compelling, sure. Maybe even addictive. What if you could be the person that could turn this person around? And the thing is, sometimes it works. (I thought Okita's route in Hakuouki was a good example of a story in which it plausibly does.) But does it here? I am not sure.
In nearly the last scene he almost kills her with a sword. I did his POV first and yep, from his POV he genuinely thought about killing her. This is shortly before they fuck. Oh, *right* before they fuck he moves all her stuff into his room and tells her that she's going to be sleeping with him from now on. This is after it's established that she wants him, but still he needs there to be an aspect of coercion about it.
Have I mentioned that he's a horrible person? He's a horrible person.
What's worse, I can't figure out what would make the MC able to have any particularly special impact on him. Her combination of vague chastity, feistiness and intense loyalty is nice but not *that* unusual. For that matter, it doesn't set her apart from Ranmaru, who Nobunaga's been banging for apparently a long time. She's not particularly clever and doesn't show a ton of initiative in things not related to her relationship to Nobunaga. At the end when Oichi says she thinks Nobunaga and MC are going to get married I was like...why? Nobunaga has made clear that he thinks he's entitled to sleep with anyone, so I have no idea why anyone would think that the fact that he's got a new girlfriend means that it's going to go anywhere in particular. I guess it's just the genre.
I also can't figure out why he didn't rape her, since he doesn't care about consent and there wouldn't have been any consequences for him. She'd probably even have come around to accepting it eventually, in more or less the same way that she did. But again, I get it's the genre.
So yeah. Addictive, horrifying, terrible, and also got me mad at my favorite dude in the game. But I'm not going to stop now. On to act 2.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-23 05:09 am (UTC)The "unpaid therapist" vibe was especially strong with the Noble End.
...But really, MC should have just stayed home. She would have had a much better life. (I actually do appreciate it about the game; really, it seems like she would be a lot happier if she left all those people ASAP, and I like how they don't show that love fixes everything. But also, game, this is miserable sometimes!)
This is after it's established that she wants him, but still he needs there to be an aspect of coercion about it.
Yeaah. In general, he's very big on treating her as a toy and prodding her to see her reactions in the epilogue. I was much more fine reading it from her perspective; reading it from his felt all kinds of weird as he talked about how much he enjoyed it. Eep.
Oh right, this is the Nobunaga route, and I should probably say something about Nobunaga. You know the thing when someone acts like a moral horror but tells you that it's just that he needs love, the kind of love that only you can provide? Yeah, that. It's compelling, sure. Maybe even addictive. What if you could be the person that could turn this person around? And the thing is, sometimes it works. (I thought Okita's route in Hakuouki was a good example of a story in which it plausibly does.) But does it here? I am not sure.
Yeah. In Nobunaga's route, it's mostly not Nobunaga but everyone else around him who says it, which I think actually makes it worse. It adds so much pressure on the MC from her friends.
I actually think that the "only you can love this world-destroying woobie" trope works better for me in what I've seen of the Ieyasu ES; she's as obsessed with him as she is with her, and it's pretty clear that he's not going to change, they're just going to...be happy together. But then, maybe the lords are only likeable in their ES? I expect to NOTP Ieyasu/MC at least in their Act 1.
I think they do go more into whether Nobunaga can change in act 2.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-23 01:33 pm (UTC)::nods:: Either he'll feel himself inadequately saved and go after some other pure woman whose love can better save him, or he'll stab her with a sword for real, or he'll work so hard at pushing her away to test her loyalty that she'll actually get pushed away.
it's mostly not Nobunaga but everyone else around him who says it, which I think actually makes it worse.
I'd get mad at them for it but they have to believe it too. Mitsuhide is far deeper in the delusion that he can save Nobunaga and stop his war crimes with goodness than MC is. (At least until he comes to the realization that the only way he can stop Nobunaga is by murder, which is...not wrong.) Hideyoshi doesn't care about goodness but he's staked his survival on Nobunaga and his ability to manipulate him. Oichi has to make the best out of her life after Nobunaga's killed her other brothers and her husband, and hope that MC can turn him around and give her family again might be the only thing that keeps her going.
I actually think that the "only you can love this world-destroying woobie" trope works better for me in what I've seen of the Ieyasu ES; she's as obsessed with him as she is with her, and it's pretty clear that he's not going to change, they're just going to...be happy together.
Yes, she doesn't even seem to want him to change, she loves him the (horrible) way he is. I always find myself wondering in those ES if she sees something I don't, or if she's masochistic, or if she genuinely doesn't care. But she's happy. And in that relationship I *can* see her giving Ieyasu a kind of love he can't get from anywhere else, and that he values her for it.