Because, as I wrote above, it becomes every other female-protagonist story that has a 'faithful' route. There are dozens of them. It becomes Elena's Life, where Elena turns down all advances, and stays true to her fiance. That one comes immediately to mind without checking my notes. But I know that others abound, because I've played them.
I ask again: where is there the slightest suggestion in my swapped-MC proposal that Haley's going to have sex with anyone else? There isn't one. Anywhere. That's all in your head based on internalized assumptions derived from other female-protag games and, as I said, the very core of what makes me sad...because you seemingly can't comprehend that there can be a female-protag game in which she's not the hapless (or willing) victim of sexual predators. The story I'm talking about is still
Haley's Story. It isn't
Haley's Journey into Sexual Decadence. it's still about Haley wanting her brother and doing whatever it takes to have him. Including letting him fuck other women, first because she's hesitant to make her move, and then later because she needs the emotional cover, and then finally because it's the way they can actually be together. It's the
exact same story.
I honestly don't know what message or proposal you're responding to, but it certainly wasn't anything I wrote.
You have carefully, over the months, developed a (quite accurate it seems) comprehensive theory of Haley's persona. With her as the MC, it would be handed to you on a silver platter. Would it be as interesting for you to do that for her brother, with Haley as the MC?
But no. That would be terrible writing and that's not how it would go with similarly competent writers. The game wouldn't put Haley's entire internal narrative on the screen while they're unloading the van and moving into the apartment. It would still parcel it out in bits and pieces. The only information you'd get a little bit earlier and with more clarity is that she's in love with her brother, but even that could be partitioned and rationed (and in any case it was obvious from the beginning, even in this version of the game, that she and her brother had a sexual and romantic energy beyond mere sibling affection; that journey is incredibly easy to replicate if you switch POVs). The Klaus trauma is still Haley's. It gets "teased" earlier, in flashes during nightmares or scenes that remind her of the trauma, and finally comes out in a rush of confession. Hopefully, since this really
was an instance of terrible writing on the devs' part, not immediately after they've finally given in and had sex.
I disagree with almost literally every single thing you've written, but since it's not the game as it exists it's not worth arguing about. Except that you've sorta proven my point: there is a subset — a large subset, unfortunately — of players whose conception of of female characters as agency-free sexual conquests or victims is so concretized that they can't shake it and conceive of them as narratively and emotionally unfinished avatars for the player to, uh, "fill in." That's why we can't have
Haley's Story as a Haley-POV game, even though it is. Still, one of the clever and stealthy strengths of the game is that it's making people who think that way play a female-protag game anyway, because she's the driver of 90% of the plot and it's all right there on the screen. Anyone who thinks they won't play a female-protag game and plays
Haley's Story has been tricked. Deliciously so.
