I'm now playing Chaos route after completing the Law one and it makes way more sense. It's as if the game was originally written with the Chaos route in mind and the Law route was added as an afterthought without too much thinking. At least it's my impression from the heroine scenes. In the Law route, most of them basically fall for Leon for no real reason and completely out of character (except for maybe Silvia and Tsubaki). In the Chaos route it takes him some planning and effort to actually corrupt the heroines and the progression makes sense. In the Law route girls fall for him after being randomly "raped" without any brainwashing, lol. I wonder if it's a problem with all Venus Blood games or only with this one. From what I heard this one is on the better side in terms of characters and plot, though.
I haven't yet played all the way through Chaos, but I don't necessarily agree with the heroines on Law falling for Leon for basically no reason. I actually thought it was cleverly done for most of the characters, working very well into the hypnofetish theme but in a subtle way for some and being genuinely natural for others.
For Law, there are a few important things to remember:
- Law Leon is a guy who behaves brashly but, despite himself, cares about others more than he lets on and never really loses that about himself. He does terrible things, but it's often for the right (or at least not outright terrible) reasons, and each of the characters can and do pick up on that at some point or another.
- There are timeskips in the story. Most of the characters have known and worked with Leon for years by the end of the game. This is meant to give some wiggle room with your suspension of disbelief, seeing as they could have easily grown closer during the time skips.
- It's implied (for most; for some it is outright stated) that none of the characters remember that first rape that was conducted using hypnosis, so his actions then wouldn't do much to negatively influence their relationships with him.
- After the initial capture scenes, Leon is generally typically respectful of the wishes of the characters, so most of their interactions with him from then on are actually positive.
- Most of the Dark Lords do far worse things to Leon and co. if the player loses during their chapter than he ever does to them (on Law). They all probably feel that they ultimately got off really light with Leon.
- Most importantly, the suggestions he implanted in most characters' minds during the first scene after capturing them is key. It is these suggestions that subtly shape most of the characters' relationship with Law route Leon. The suggestions set the foundation for their relationships, and they build more naturally along those lines from there.
I'll touch briefly on most of the characters and why I think the narrative works with them considering the suggestions they're given.
Anora and Noel are already his companions and fuck buddies from the beginning, so they don't need additional narrative reason to continue that.
For most of the "retainers", it is enough that their lord has grown to trust Leon to allow them to warm up to him. For most of them, it has little to do with the first-hypnosis suggestion he gives them.
If I were to say that anything bothers me about the Law route relationships, it's that none of the characters aside from Sylvia, Anora, and Noel are given enough scenes with Leon to show the gradual romantic shift of their feelings toward him. Even just one more earlier consensual sex scene with each would have gone a long way. So I feel that it's not that it's like they fall in love out of the blue, but rather that it feels like they relied on the implication that the characters also interact constantly between scenes, when the player can't see them, too much. Such as during the brief timeskips.
