This game hurt me quite a bit, ive seen a lot of ntr and never felt much at all. This game? It really drove home the concept of real powerlessness.
My thoughts on each character:
Imos -
unlike many who seem to dog pile Imos for being weak, hes the reflection of the powerless majority. The key thing is...he showed almost inhuman levels of mental fortitude, something most of us cannot relate to.
The things he saw and lived with, the fact he had the brass balls to keep fighting and losing to someone much stronger than his is something that should be acknowledged.
He even had the self awareness to realize killing the bandits wouldve made his rescue Aina attempts easier but didnt betray himself to do it, something i feel many would have succumbed to as we got more and more desparate.
It took SO MUCH to finally break him and send him down the dark path and even then fought for the very people who gave up on him or betrayed him which in the end remained true to his character.
Tori -
The little sister, their dynamic at the beginning was reasonable. She cared for Imos but knew he was weak and got angry at him for taking stupid risks which is a basic form of a sibling relationship.
When she was raped and hid it from Imos it was on some level understandable, if she couldnt protect herself how could Imos, someone weaker than her, protect her.
All telling him would do is make him do something stupid.
Ace and his influence on her grew over time, the moment she chose to drink the aphrodisiacs herself was a resignation to her situation.
She couldnt protect herself from Ace
She knew Imos was too weak to protect her.
But she the stupid thing she did was not seek out help from the Prince, Aina or Lotia to at least TRY to change the situation.
That she became someone who easily harmed the weak, she was aware and chose to fall anyway, this is what damaged her character.
Her tossing money at her brother and basically telling him to worry about himself set in some key points: She realized no one could help her so she became one of them and over time worse for it.
She closed off any support that couldve kept her together mentally.
The only thing i can say that saved what little of her humanity was left was Ace not telling her the aphrodisiacs/ poisons she created was used to frame and destroy her brother.
Ace getting his hands cut off entirely was a wonderful outcome, hes almost useless now for the rest of his life.
Tori choosing to take care of him at this point is purely from both Stockholm, Cruel Irony and because she had no one else anymore, she threw away her brother and her friends, which means she will have to take care of Ace, her child and be the bread winner.
Lotia -
We all knew she would end up in bed with Thrash somehow, it was HOW it happened that helped make her irredeemable in the end.
Between Imos seeing in her eyes that she gave up in his growth and her allowing a prostitute from Thrashes town and an extremely suspect set up by Thrash cause her to no longer trust the mc solidified how stupid she was.
Its as if she completely forgot that if a magical dragon doesnt give her her super powers every month she also becomes nothing but a weak human, it lends itself that these blessed individuals hold some level of arrogance and forget that they are only special because something allowed them to be.
It also made me very doubtful her "love" was real, it seemed less like love and more like "safety".
But DURING their stay she was already becoming attracted to the man that was actively destroying the lives of her friends and people.
When she allowed Thrash to have sex with her under the guise that he had to treat Imos better I saw a few things about her character that finally came together:
*For someone who claimed to love Imos as much as she did, she gave up on him faster than his sister did and with less stress and suffering on her part, she was not beaten, she was not threatened, she wasnt raped.
*She was by comparison of almost everyone else in the cast practically royalty in treatment.
*The fact that she would believe a prostitue, over the person she knew since childhood, that lives in the town of the man who tried to drug and rape her AND listen to the man who tried to drug her by giving HIM, of all ppl, the benefit of the doubt was completely insane.
*The fact that the prostitute made her see the man she claimed she loved as less of a man because he wasnt given special powers.
*The fact that she never found it strange about the events that took place concerning the poison considering Imos did not have any pharmaceutical skills, hes been scrubbing toilets for months, where did he have time to do all of this?
*Challenging Thrash, a known coniving thug, piliger and rapist to a sex battle...really?
*Doping up on Aphrodisiacs every day made her horny, her subconscious attraction after she compares Thrashes strength vs Imos as a postive made her "request" to have Thrash treat Imos better was almost too easy to see as an excuse to have sex with the man she was subconsciously attracted to.
*The fact that she got angery at Imos for supposedly having sex with a prostitute ,after all the sexual favors she was giving thrash, and never once seeking the truth from him points to her "love" for him being very weak in practice.
*Her getting mad at Imos made her a massive hypocrite ESPECIALLY after it was brought to her attention Imos saw all the things she did for and with Thrash, she began looking for excuses but found none.
*Her reaction after finding out Thrash kept his promise by forcing the man she claims to love to listen and watch her have sex, watch her end up enjoying it, with the man who tortured Imos and destroyed her friends lives was pathetic, she didnt yell at Thrash for further torturing Imos, breaking his promise thus proving the prostitute a liar, she didnt run down to try and explain herself , because deep down she knew their relationship was over, all she did was cry about how SHE felt then...went back to having sex with Thrash.
*The fact that the man she claimed she loved was finally so physically and mentally tortured to the brink of suicide and showed 0 empathy. 0 communication on her part and lack of faith.
*She claims she never forgave Thrash for all the suffering he caused Imos but she comes running to defend Thrash tooth and nail and doesnt understand what pushed Imos to become a monster.
*She whole heatredly admits Thrash was a bad person but defends him anyway, she gave Thrash far more courtesy and leeway than she ever gave Imos.
*And she still after a year proved she didnt understand his pain or what pushed him into becoming a demon lord, the fact that her first response to seeing the death of her capturer, destroyer of her life and everyone elses was to try and kill Imos on sight.
*The fact that she only sought answers AFTER failing to kill him. Ending 3 shows after she beats you she immediately kills you without question. Which means the only thing that finally got her to respect him enough to look for answers was the fact he was STRONGER than her, their childhood friendship? Meant nothing. Her man torturing imos into suicide? Meant nothing. Her betrayal? Meant nothing. The beatings he took? Nada
Only -power- made her listen which speaks volumes about what really mattered to her in the end.
*The fact that she was looking for excuses for her messed up actions, that she didnt even mildly think anything was her fault showed how truly little self awareness she had.
*Imos calling her out on her affection for Thrash and what she did was an amazing display, most weak mcs would never have called her out.
*The fact that after she was called out by Imos for being in love with Thrash and making bad decisions like pumping out his kids she began saying insane things like "he finally started treating her better" "that he was BECOMING a good man" tells me she liked the IDEA of Imos but she wanted a strong man like Thrash.
*Basically if you take her thoughts when she laid down with thrash, her believing the prostitute about being the bread winner and Lotias own words in the end she wanted a man with Thrashs strength but Imos kindness, to her it would be easier to slowly get Thrash to become a good person than it would be to depend on Imos to support her.
*Her reasoning and view that her putting up with Thrashes abuse and being his wife was for Imos, the man she basically gave up on and on many levels betrayed and helped mentally destroy, and by turning Thrash into a good person her sacrifice wouldve meant something despite driving Imos to nearly commit suicide.
*Her reasoning that Imos was now as evil as Thrash and that his powers only existed to harm people never held up under scrutiny. Imos never killed an innocent person, he killed numerous rapists like shum and Thrashs gang members amd Thrash himself.
*Thrash and Co on the other hand used their powers to actively harm and exploit the world they lived in, raped women, killing men completely contradicting everything Lotia said.
*In the end her anger boils down to the fact she chose an evil man, who is now dead, while being stuck with 2 children, and all her "effort" of making that evil man less of a piece of shit is now "wasted", she lost a provider who steals what he provides because karma caught up to an evil man she chose to be with.
*Every excuse she came up with fell apart in practice.
*Only after she was dying did she apologize and even then i felt 0 pity for her, i couldn't fathom who or what she was apologizing for because i highly doubt the moment her clone stabbed her she suddenly gained the self awareness to realize all the crap she pulled in under 5 seconds.
She dug her heels too deep for me to believe it immediately but the fact it took DEATH to make her stop pitching bullshit even she didnt believe is staggering how far shed go to protect her ego
I may sound harsh but she was equally the animal Thrash was but on a different spectrum. I feel like both her and Thrash got off too easily by dying, not once did either of them have to really face what they did.
In the end Lotia was a woman that wanted to be taken care of by someone strong, she never really loved Imos, she easily gave up on him and let bad people get into her head to justify wanting to have sex with Thrash and why she chose Thrash over Imos, and when Imos finally snapped she demonstrated she never understood his pain or even really knew anything about him.
Their attempt at making me feel pity fell flat because they had to make her the dumbest character imaginable AND a hypocrite to try and absolve her of the situation she put herself into, instead they made me hate her as much as i hated Thrash. I think i hate her more because Thrash was at least honest about being a PoS whereas Lotia refused to ever be honest and used Imos as an excuse.
Aina-
in the end she was the true Heroine and friend, she never betrayed the MC, figures out Imos was set up so fast it was downright insulting how stupid she made Lotia look and had the heart to thank Imos for all of his sacrifices.
Out of all the things that happened to her, she got it the worst of all the girls and didnt break, betray or give up in the end. I honestly wish she ended up with Imos but thats not that kind of story.
Her ability to call out the bullshit of the Prince and his niavete was staggering, it was something i didnt expect considering.
She was a redeeming light to this story even in her pessimistic state.
Thrash-
This guy was a well thought out villian. Not because he had some grand reasoning behind being a massive piece of shit, he was not some mirror to the mcs psyche like the joker, he was just a thug a bandit who was given the strongest powers.
Hes the merge between the power of a chosen one and the bandit leader youre sent to defeat in a basic RPG, with the looks of the classic blonde, tan, ripped bad boy the corrupts young/married women found in your typical doujins.
What sets him apart from other villains isnt he himself, its the complete lack of effort on anyone elses part to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. He KNEW he was the strongest and actively exploited his powers.
The dragons warned the group about him and the things he does (something a certain moron conveniently forgets and then later lets slide) and that never once aims any suspect lights onto the dragons who GAVE AN EVIL MAN THE STRONGEST POWERS let alone multiple evil men.
His very existence was actively contradicting the goal of saving the world by him using his powers to spread pain and misery.
So not only did he rape and pillage villages, step on the weak and kill, he had absolutely no intention of actually putting in effort to "save" the world. He was going to do as little as he could possibly get away with to keep doing what he was doing.
And not a soul put in an honest try to actually try stop him, his town was right outside the capital.
Its really no wonder WHY he continued to do what he did, he committed numerous crimes completely unmitigated and unchallenged by his peers.
He was a piece of shit but after a certain point, especially after Lotia basically confirmed what i suspected, i cant even blame him when hes actively REWARDED for being a villian and a bully.
Imos finally beating him didnt teach him a lesson, there was nothing to learn. Infact Imos leading up to killing Thrash only confirmed Thrashs ideologies were correct, that only power meant anything and everything else came with it, and nearly everyone Imos knew practically confirmed it all except Aina, who was raped and tortured for an entire year.
The Dragons - holy shit that was a face turn on a level i didnt expect.
See im used to the whole Benevolent gods of the world turn out to be evil trope.
But how far down the rabbit hole this went was vile.
The Ice Dragon was a-ok with Shum raping Aina, stripping her of everything so she would be forced to give birth to a more powerful candidate.
The fact that the Earth (Thrash element) and Lightning (Lotias element) dragons were lovers and actively set in motion all the events that happened to everyone including the theory why Lotia eventually became attracted to Thrash was vile as hell while they noted in the end it was Lotias sole choice they figured the theory would work.
The fact that they somewhat hinted that they are why Thrash is as evil as he is and that they straight up sent him right to Lotia, to manipulate him into fighting the demon lord, was equally as messed up.
The Wind dragon wasnt much of a character tbh, same with the fire dragon.
The Dragon Goddess was equally as messed up by setting all this in motion purely to create more powerful/beautiful humans was also a weird plan because they inadvertently created their own destroyer in the process.
The part where she offhandedly mentioned that Imos couldve helped her build a new world but cant because he was a demon lord was insulting considering the world she made currently was practically designed to shit on and kill off people like Imos, he never had any possible way to make it to her realm in the first place had he not become a monster.
The fact that the Dark Dragon chose to allow the goddess to be reborn knowing all the suffering she would one day cause made me feel like Imos sacrifice was watered down a bit but maybe something might change this time
