True, but those also applied when the MC rescued Alice; and that didn't stop him then, did it? The guy attacking Alice could have been armed, that didn't stop the MC. Could have been other muggers hiding around a corner in another alley, that didn't stop the MC. Again, when it came to the boyfriend, the MC didn't even try. He didn't even push back against Alice, that's how little he tried. It's not like he found the boyfriend cornered by 4 muggers and thought better of getting involved, he simply did nothing at all. He didn't try and fail, he just gave up and walked away.
Also, once again, being a coward does not make you immune to needing or deserving help. Spider-Man doesn't just help people who are brave or stupid enough to not run from a scary situation, and if Spider-Man refused to help those who were scared, we'd all rightly call him out on his bullshit. The MC isn't any different here. The boyfriend doesn't get a pass on empathy because he's a Machiavellian sociopath, when at the time the MC didn't know that.
Cry me a fucking river. The MC has 'Fuck You' money, doesn't have a day job, he can afford to be
mildly inconvenienced (at the worst) to stop a rapist from victimizing someone else. That the MC does
nothing to apprehend and prevent the rapist from acting again later, makes both Alice and the MC culpable in any actions the rapist does while free of police custody, including more sexual assault. If that rapist that they let go free then rapes someone else,
Alice and the MC will be partially responsible for that; since their inaction directly enabled his behavior.
Forgive me if I kinda don't care when a playboy billionaire cries 'woe is me' cause dealing with the police is 'hard'. Generally speaking, dealing with the police is 'hard' when you're poor and they're cracking down on you; not when you're a rich, white, male vigilante who acted perfectly within establish norms of self defense.
Again, I didn't write the MC to be someone with the entire deck stacked in his favor, the author did. That even with every possible advantage on his side, he can't be bothered to simply call the police? Sorry, no, but fuck that. Letting the rapist go is a dick move. It means that Alice and the MC care more about their own inconvenience than for the safety and wellbeing of the rapists' next victim. That makes them colossal, selfish, assholes. Alice was worth the effort of saving, but not even she can be bothered to put in the bare minimum effort to stop her victimization from repeating with someone else. Yeah, I don't feel bad about calling her an asshole in this instance; she earned it.
Being a victims doesn't make you immune from critique when you allow others to be further victimized through your own inaction.
Do you want to know what perfectly reasonable, every day action, that the MC could do to have absolved himself of doing nothing more to help someone in need?
He could have called the fucking police.
Let them come down in their squad cars, armed with guns and flashlights. Let them being K9 units to search for him. Let them bring along the paramedics and EMS to check on everyone, make sure they're actually okay.
Ironically enough, beating someone into unconsciousness and THEN leaving them in the street without calling for paramedics (even in self defense), WOULD open the MC up to potential criminal or civil liability.
But no, he couldn't even be bothered to do that. Again, I'm not expecting him to be a super hero. Even intervening the way he did to save Alice was stupid, because of all the unknowns (more muggers, hidden weapons, etc.). But the MC did help, then turned a blind eye. So does the MC only save those who he thinks he can fuck? Does the MC think people who break under pressure in extreme circumstances deserve to be raped, beaten, or killed? Or is this an instance of bad writing, because the author had the MC treat the boyfriend with contempt bred of knowledge he didn't have?
Pick one.
The simple answer is the later one, it is just bad writing. The author didn't intend for the MC to be a colossal asshole, but by not being careful, they wrote him that way. That's not my fault, that's the author's; I'm just calling it like I see it.
I know. There is a difference between skepticism and belief or disbelief. You don't have to believe she is lying, to be skeptical of her claims; and being skeptical of her claims does not imply that you think she is lying. Lying is overt, done on purpose. Even if she were being as truthful as she could, there is always the possibility for misremembering things that were misperceived. People do it all the time. Our brains are quite terrible at retaining information accurately,
we fudge stuff in our memories all the time. It's why you can't remember the first sentence of this post from memory alone, and you weren't even in the middle of being assaulted when you were reading it.
Again, he's a rich, white, man. He has
every advantage on his side. The only reasons to not do anything are callous, selfish ones. That makes him an asshole.
Don't like it? Then have the MC suck it up, put in the work of being mildly inconvenienced for an hour or so, and have him do the right thing.
But getting the police involved would probably just make the conspiracy theory shenanigans even messier, so best to not involve them, yes? So again, it's a problem with bad writing. Police involvement doesn't fit into the plot, so lets handwave them away in the laziest way possible; even if it makes Alice and the MC huge assholes. No worries, turns out they'll be vindicated later when they learn the whole things was staged by that sociopath of a boyfriend!
View attachment 1484090
Except that doesn't work. Most players don't notice this failure because they not being especially critical reader. Even then,
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is a real thing, and it is something this game has indulged in.
Le sigh...
You are making the
very same mistake whoever wrote this part did. You are judging the MC's actions in the moment, with knowledge of what happens after.
That's the problem I've been trying to highlight. Hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't absolve you of being judged for your actions in the moment.
Again, you don't get good-boy points when you pulled the trigger with intent to kill, but the gun isn't loaded.
You are assigning motive to the boyfriend in a way that the MC could not possibly do so at the time. You claim he obviously didn't care, so why should the MC? There is no way in hell the MC could know that. Alice could claim so, but she too would be talking out of her ass. The only one who knew what was going on in the boyfriend's head, his actual motives, was the boyfriend (and the author). The MC shouldn't have access to that knowledge at that time.
You don't get to say the MC isn't an asshole, because the MC's acted in accordance with secret knowledge he shouldn't have access too.
We've already established that the MC is foolish. He got into a fight to save Alice. But then he can't be bothered to do anything for the boyfriend? Can't go looking for him, can't even call the cops; nothing. If he can do something, he aught to do something; that he doesn't at all is a testament to his moral failure. Unless you're cool with people who do foolish things only to save potential fuck-buddies?
So? There are better and worse ways to execute tropes. This is an example of how to do so poorly.
What the actual fuck?
Is Bat-Man a cuck every time he saves Lois Lane and doesn't do so for the express purpose of fucking her out from under Superman? What about Harley Quin and the Joker?
Jesus, if you think rescuing a stranger who needs your help makes you a 'cuck', you have some serious issues you need to sort out in your personal life.
At this point in the story, both Alice and Liam are strangers to the MC. I would hope that in this situation, any decent person wouldn't be thinking about how best to fuck Alice moments after rescuing her from sexual assault. A decent person wouldn't be planning on how to leave a stranger to their doom, just to make it easier to fuck their girlfriend. I mean, really now, I shouldn't even have to be writing this. I feel embarrassed for you, personally, that I have to explicitly spell this out.
Okay, so the MC knows they're the protagonist of an erotica game? They know that Alice is a piece of meat he needs to be fighting over?
That's the only way that sentence makes any goddamn sense.
Cause, you know, generally decent people who are in a position to help others and do so aren't just doing it for all the
free pussy.
PRECISELY MY POINT.
Too bad you don't seem to get it.
The MC doesn't know him, other than he was mugged, ran off, and is probably in danger right now.
That is all the information the MC has. This is why the MC is, in this moment, an asshole. The MC, not knowing Liam at all personally, passes moral judgement on him and condemns him to his fate; presumably one that involves Liam coming to very real harm.
That's why the MC is an asshole. The MC didn't know Liam at all, but turned his back on him when he could have helped. The MC judged Liam to not be worth helping. In that moment, the MC is in the wrong. In that moment, the MC is being a colossal asshole.
Again,
if this was not intended,
then this is a failure of the author.
Then call the cops.
Call the cops.
Suck it up, call the cops.
Oh boo-hoo, gotta sit down for an exit interview with the police for an hour. Don't care. Call the fucking cops.
If the MC was so averse to getting involved and being 'bothered', he should have just kept on walking by and left Alice to her fate.
At least that would have given him a consistent character trait...
Let the police know there is a unconscious rapist that needs arrested, with another mugger on the loose, and someone else potentially in danger. Nobody would hold it against the MC if he cut his loses after putting his life on the line to rescue Alice, so long as he did the bare minimum to help the missing boyfriend. Even if he didn't succeed in rescuing Liam (because the author wants him around to do his sociopath thing later), the MC needed to TRY. He needed to do something. He didn't. Not only that, but they let a rapist go free in the process.
That's bad. Alice and the MC fucked up, they're both on the hook for it, and should be judged accordingly.
This is, again, the fault of the author. I didn't write an MC with magical foreknowledge. If you don't like that Alice and the MC are huge, culpable assholes in this instance; stop defending their indefensible actions and start rewriting the scene to be less problematic. This entire mess is real easy to fix with a few key changes, you just gotta write them in. Alice and the MC don't have to remain morally compromised assholes, they can be saved, their story can be changed. Hell, I could do it. That's the entire point of all this! That in the moment, the characters were assholes; and I figured that wasn't part of the author's intent. If the author doesn't want them to stay assholes, the author can fix that. These games aren't written in stone after all.
That's why I enjoy critiquing this stuff. Part of it is getting to flex my creativity muscles, and part of it is hoping that I can help improve some of the games around here. Just about everyone making these is a complete amateur, and almost every one of them can be improved in some way or another. I can't afford to back project financially, so this is my way to try to give something back to the community; honest art college level critique. I'm not trying to shit on this game, but just like many others, it could be better.