TW: child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault.
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On the Eve of Destiny
-Lord Hien and I return to Doman Liberation Front HQ to share his new idea.
-Hi Soroban! He’s the Kojin emissary.
-Hien wants the Kojin to breach Doma Castle’s outer wall and flood the castle. It shocks Gosetsu, that Hien could willingly destroy a sacred symbol of the nation.
I see now how my last conversation with Lord Hien factors in. Doma is its people, not brick and mortar.
-It’s a smart tactical move. It causes chaos on the lower levels for the imperials and traps Yotsuyu.
-Yugiri’s “jonin” will attack the Moon Gate. [Non-rhetorical question: what does ‘jonin’ mean? Something like ‘ronin?’]
-The party talks together that night. Lyse is nervous but excited.
LYSE: “Something’s gonna change, you know? Really, really change. And when the dust has settled, we’ll see what we’ve won. And what we’ve lost.”
I’m really afraid someone key is gonna die here. My money’s on Gosetsu.
-lol Alisaie and Alphinaud fell asleep
Total tangent, but I just noticed my rapier has a unicorn hilt!
-Gosetsu and Hien are drinking together.
-Gosetsu spends his time remembering what he sees as his two great failures: losing Doma to the Empire 25 years ago, and more recently failing to protect Hien and Kaien in the rebellion.
-He even offered his life to Lord Kaien after the first “failure.” Kaien (of course) said no. Urged Gosetsu to live, at least for the sake of the young Hien.
-Gosetsu just feels grateful for this extra chance and purpose we’ve given him.
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The Die is Cast
-The next day. Time for the attack.
-The revitalized Namai villagers charge in!
-AND HERE COME THE XALAE! Flying in on their birds of ward.
SADU: “Bwahahaha! Come to me! Come to your death! With each that falls, my soul soars higher!”
-I LOVE SADU KHATUN SO MUCH OH MY GOD
-The magitek barrier guarding the castle falls. Confederate ships sail through.
-The Kojin successfully breach the outer wall, flooding Doma Castle. Everything going according to plan so far. (Too well.)
-Scene change to Yotsuyu. She seems calm and asks a nearby soldier about Grynewaht.
ILL-AT-EASE IMPERIAL (lol these names): “Th-The procedure was carried out as instructed by Lord Aulus.” Is he gonna be Mecha-Grynewaht?
-I was wrong. Yotsuyu’s not calm; she’s focused. She knows that if she loses, they’ll all be killed.
-The soldier leaves.
YOTSUYU (to herself): “Again they come to make you kneel. To make you grovel and suffer. But you have endured their worst and survived. You know their tricks. They will not find a flower simply waiting to be plucked.”
This is how so many view the Empire. What made Yotsuyu view Domans this way?
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Doma Castle
-Back to me. Doma Castle is a four-person dungeon.
-The dungeon does a great job of showing the chaos in the castle under attack. Streets are flooded, there’s random crossfire, etc.
The first boss, the Magitek Rearguard.
-The music feels odd, out of place. Almost more suited for a festival than an attack.
-I was right about Mecha-Grynewaht. He’s called Hypertuned Grynewaht.
It’s… sad? Yeah, I think so. Grynewaht was a brutish asshole, but a goofy one. Always complaining about his posting and looking forward to a better assignment. Treating me as some rival he got excited to take down.
Hypertuned Grynewaht is different. He’s a horror movie monster. He speaks in a robotic all-caps and screams in pain and murderous intent.
The Garlean Empire is based most heavily on the Gestahlian Empire of FFVI (with a fair bit of the XII Archadian Empire and just its own new XIV thing). The Gestahlian Empire altered its own soldiers with magitek “enhancements,” really fucking them up in the process.
Kefka. Terra. Celes.
My friend Carrie who did this dungeon with me described Grynewaht’s fate here as tragic, and I agree. He deserved awful things, but I didn’t want this for him.
-I walk into the upper room where Hien has his sword drawn on a kneeling Yotsuyu.
-She haaaates Hien right now. Thinks his whole “I’m here for my people!” thing rings false.
-Backstory time. Her parents worked her “like an ox or an ass or some other beast of burden.” I’m not surprised, given how shitty they treated her in the earlier cutscene.
-One day, her brother spied a chance to change the family fortunes.
“And so I was married to a vicious old drunk who beat me as he pleased, and when I pleaded for help, I was told to grin and bear it. For the family. For him. For everyone’s sake.”
FUCK. THEM.
“What did it matter? I was nothing to them. I wasn’t of their flesh, I wasn’t a fellow Doman, I wasn’t even a fellow person.”
-They viewed their stepdaughter as a lesser creature.
-One day, her husband passed away. She was sold again into sex work to pay off his debts. Jeeesus.
-She said “fuck that” and found a way to survive, to live for herself. As a spy for the Empire.
-Things start to click for me. In the context of Yotsuyu’s life, the Domans presented her only with suffering, poverty, and oppression. The Empire presented her with opportunity.
(As awesome as this backstory is, it feels really clunky to learn it in an exposition dump from Yotsuyu herself rather than learning it more gradually from others or even via Echoes.)
[Later edit: Which part of this story was the soldier’s memory about? The soldier was still alive so he wasn’t the husband, and she wasn’t yet married so he wasn’t involved in selling her to what she called “the house of pleasure.”
Maybe he was just her first Imperial contact, the person who eventually hired her as a spy.]
-Then, something changed. She went from a pure survivor to something more sinister.
YOTSUYU: “That would be enough, I thought… until I saw a Doman in the road, beaten and broken, and my heart… my heart skipped a beat.”
The look in her eyes as she remembers this is pure ecstasy.
“There was nothing I would not do to feel that joy again! To bend this cruel, twisted world to my whims!”
-Something rocks the building. Imperial air attack? No…
-Aha! She expositioned to stall us here while her plan to destroy the castle went off.
-She suddenly lunges for a gun on the ground and fires at Hien.
WHO PARRIES THE BULLET AND SLASHES HER LOLOLOL HOLY SHIT, MATRIX MODE ACTIVATED
HIEN: “I will remember your words.” I believe him. Anyone else and I’d have thought this a simple “gotcha” badass line. Hien will likely keep her story close to heart as ruler.
-The ceiling collapses. Shit shit shit.
-GOSETSU PULLS A SABIN, HOLDING THE CEILING UP SO WE CAN ESCAPE
-YOTSUYU COMES AWAKE, SLOWLY PULLS THE GUN, AND SHOOTS GOSETSU
-AND YET GOSETSU STILL HOLDS THE CEILING UP WITH TWO BULLETS IN HIS CHEST HOLY SHIIIIIT
I was sort of prepared for this but not really.
GOSETSU: “Do not despair, my friend. Never before have I felt so alive. My eyes unclouded, my purpose clear. This is right.”
HIEN: “You never failed us. Not once. You served my father faithfully, and I am a better man for your guidance.”
-We run. Gosetsu is left with Yotsuyu. She cries out, weeping (literal tears) for Hien’s help, but even if he could hear her he couldn’t do anything. She’s crushed beneath the ceiling.
-The camera pans out. The ceiling finishes its collapse.
-We escaped on the backs of yol. Thanks, Cirina!
-One yol rides empty. Cirina starts towards the castle to help Gosetsu, but hope is dashed.
Explosives rip the castle apart. Yotsuyu’s trap finishes.
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Next time: the aftermath of the attack. Hopefully taking a second to mourn Gosetsu.
