listen. Listen. ive been obsessing over this game for two decades now and theres so much like, missing scenes ive been trying to fill this whole time.
take brahne for example. she's a pretty simple disc1 villain but. But!! she's a beloved queen in her country, garnet (dagger, i mean) said she was a loving mother. Clearly Brahne was popular, and for a reason! We only see her after going down an emotional spiral, abetted by kuja, and im just, I wanna know what she was like, how she could have been vulnerable to kuja's manipulations. like the game primes us to hate her, sure, but if you look at the text, god, a real tragedy starts to take shape.
we know that the original garnet died, and that our garnet was used as a replacement goldfish for unspecified reasons. we know that the king ordered her horn cut off.
we have so little of the king to go off on, so i thought of him kinda making a power couple with brahne where he's the more cunning of the two, making the hard political decisions. i imagine og garnet got her looks from him, so im picturing a man smaller than his wife, and brahne clearly is a strong woman - look at those arms! i wanted to make the contrast between them, and also show the influence he has on his wife, why brahne could be persuaded at all. really emphasize the thesis of the tragedy of duty versus personal feelings. he really does love his wife, which is why hes going the gentler route of persuasion rather than just taking the corpse immediately. im glad you liked my take on him!
so yeah. brahne lost her daughter, wasn't allowed to mourn publicly, then lost her husband too. her whole family is dead. All she has left is the adoptive daughter she's come to love as her own. then in slinks kuja, who uses garnet's origins to drive a wedge between mother and daughter, and enables brahne's warmongering. i 100% think that brahne didnt care about garnet in favor of her eidolons because her daughter already died years ago; why should she care about the placeholder? kuja exploited brahne's grief and old resentment to further his own goals, and thats why garnet is in line to deck him in the teeth.
"I can hear my daughter's voice" I wonder who Brahne heard?
you activated my trap card (essay on a 20yo viddy game)
listen. Listen. ive been obsessing over this game for two decades now and theres so much like, missing scenes ive been trying to fill this whole time.
take brahne for example. she's a pretty simple disc1 villain but. But!! she's a beloved queen in her country, garnet (dagger, i mean) said she was a loving mother. Clearly Brahne was popular, and for a reason! We only see her after going down an emotional spiral, abetted by kuja, and im just, I wanna know what she was like, how she could have been vulnerable to kuja's manipulations. like the game primes us to hate her, sure, but if you look at the text, god, a real tragedy starts to take shape.
we know that the original garnet died, and that our garnet was used as a replacement goldfish for unspecified reasons. we know that the king ordered her horn cut off.
we have so little of the king to go off on, so i thought of him kinda making a power couple with brahne where he's the more cunning of the two, making the hard political decisions. i imagine og garnet got her looks from him, so im picturing a man smaller than his wife, and brahne clearly is a strong woman - look at those arms! i wanted to make the contrast between them, and also show the influence he has on his wife, why brahne could be persuaded at all. really emphasize the thesis of the tragedy of duty versus personal feelings. he really does love his wife, which is why hes going the gentler route of persuasion rather than just taking the corpse immediately. im glad you liked my take on him!
so yeah. brahne lost her daughter, wasn't allowed to mourn publicly, then lost her husband too. her whole family is dead. All she has left is the adoptive daughter she's come to love as her own. then in slinks kuja, who uses garnet's origins to drive a wedge between mother and daughter, and enables brahne's warmongering. i 100% think that brahne didnt care about garnet in favor of her eidolons because her daughter already died years ago; why should she care about the placeholder? kuja exploited brahne's grief and old resentment to further his own goals, and thats why garnet is in line to deck him in the teeth.
"I can hear my daughter's voice"
I wonder who Brahne heard?