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linkspooky · 4 months

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You need to make another one of those "metas written by comparing characters with another show you liked" post about Getou now that you experienced FGO Morgan/Aesc.

Time to compare two characters from two different shows I liked (in this case Jujutsu Kaisen and Fate Grand Order: Cosmos of the Lostbelt 6 Faerie Britian) to illustrate what makes a good corruption / fallen hero arc. Two of the best examples I can think of in recent memory are Geto Suguru, and Morgan le Fay of Faerie Britian. They both have tragic arcs which follow similar beats which I think will illustrate exactly why audiences find these characters so compelling.

Both of these characters have their stories told out of order, appearing as villains first before their backstory is revealed but for the sake of simplicity I'm going in chronological order, the heroes they started as all the way to the villains they ended up being.

Before beginning though, a brief lesson on tragedy. Aristotle's poetics argued tragedy runs on the principal of catharsis. The audience feels for the characters on stage, no matter how terrible their acts may be. He argued in favor of moral ambiguity in its heroes. The tragic hero must neither be a villan or virtuous man, but a "character between these two extremes, ... a man who is not eminently goo and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice of depravity, but by some error or frailty [Aristotle's Poetics.]

The protagonists of tragedies are still heroes, but their good qualities are twisted against them. A tumblr post I see going around from time to time makes the argument that if Othello (the protagonist of Othello) were in Hamlet the story would not be a tragedy because Otello would just stab his uncle and avenge his father. If Hamlet (the protagonist of Hamlet) were in Othello, the story would not be a tragedy because Hamlet who is a characteristic overthinker would probably not fall victim to Iago's manipulations and jump to conclusions the way Othello did. Both of these characters are heroic, Hamlet is a clever and scheming prince, Othello is a talented general a moor who's managed to rise up the ranks in a racist society. However, they are both put into stories where those heroic values are twisted against them by the narrative framework itself. So to make the protagonists of tragedies into villains who were evil all along, ruins the moral ambiguity and therefore the catharsis of a tragedy.

Geto Suguru and Morgan Le Fay are heroes, placed in a narrative framework that twists their own heroic traits against them in ways they can't endure. They fall because of frailty, not because they were inherently evil to begin with. They are antagonists who have the qualities of protagonists, and once were arguably protagonists of the story, which is probably why they have so many fans in the audience despite the fact that they are both of them mass murderers and tyrants.

Now with the long preamble let's look at the stories.

Both characters start as essentially protagonists, and they foil the protagonists they are fighting against during their villain phase. Geto Suguru is a heavy foil for Yuji (we'll talk about this later) and Morgan so heavily foils Castoria because they are both the chosen one.

I'm going to start with Morgan because Fate/Nasuverse lore is a pain to explain. To simplify her story, Morgan Le Fay is from an alternate universe version of Britian. In that Britian everything is ruled by faeries. These are trickster faeries who are total jerks and extremely murderous at times. They were supposed to forge excalibur, but they just didn't do it because they were lazy. This was very bad, so the universe sent a big huge guy to tell them to forge the sword. They were lazy though so instead of listening to him they murdered him in his sleep and he died a horrible death.

The faeries could no longer be forgiven for failing to craft excalibur which is a really important sword that needed to exist, so god or heaven or fate or whoever decided to punish them and sent Aesc who will later be known as Morgan le Fay.

There's some time travel shenanigans but I'm going to skip it because it's confusing. Basically Aesc's job is to wipe out all fairy life and bring an end to their alternate universe, but she decides to defy her destiny instead. The heavens or whoever keep conjuring calamities to wipe out the fairites to punish them for their sins, but instead Aesc fights against them and saves the fairies.

I had a duty to paradise, but I knew that duty would result in Britiain's destruction. This other me, though... She loved Britiain dearly, even the lostbelt version of it. I thought about it, and I realized I wanted the same thing she did. From then on I chose to live as her. (Witch! Witch! Witch! You were the only one to survive the calamity) Countless times, I stopped the calamities. Countless times, I mended clan disputes to end wars. I did not mind. It was not the fairies I loved. I only loved britain itself and the home I would make here. It would be my very own Britian - something that was forever beyond my reach in Proper Human History. I did everything I could to make it a reality. Eventually though, I realized the best way to do that was to keep the faeries safe.

However, because Aesc is not one of them the fairies are generally ungrateful for her saving them again and again. Aesc gathers comrades around her to help ward off these calamities and save people, but she's often attacked by the same fairies she's just saved.

She continues fighting the system of her world again and again, until she's betrayed for the last time in her attempt to save Britan. The final straw is when after years of hard work she's finally brokered a piece and made a king who rules over all the allied fairy tribes, only for his coronation to be ruined, the king to be assassinated along with the entire round table. The king was also her lover, Uther.

Aaah! Aaaah! Why? Why? Why? This was supposed to be the greatest day in fairy history... Everything was supposed to change for the better! BUt they killed Uther! They slaughtered my entire round table like they were trash! They asked the world of us! They thought the world of Uther! BUt now, they've poisoned him...THey were too afraid to even face him cowards. Uther talk to me, please say something! I never let failure stop me! I've kept trying all these thousands of years! Am I doomed to failure here, too! Is it still not enough? Am I not enough? Is it not... Can I not save Britain? Is there no Britain that can be mine! Peace, equality, I never should have tried for either! How dare they! I can never forgive them ever!

You see much like Geto Suguru which I'll later illustrate, Aesc is caught in a cycle where she must continually fight disasters for the faeries to save them only to be met with their continued disdain. Her own higher minded intentions to save the people are what damns her to this painful cycle. If she'd been less heroic, if she didn't care she wouldn't have suffered. She's sacrificing herself over and over again, but sacrificing yourself is in a way just suffering. No one actually wants to walk the thorny path of the martyr, you'll get your feet hurt from all the thorns.

The people who are now accustomed to being saved despite doing none of the work themselves, are by and by completely ungrateful for Aesc's sacrifice. Aesc is a hero, but she's not in a hero's story so she doesn't get any of the benefits of a hero really. She's working with higher minded and more idealistic goals in a deeply cynical world and punished for it. I remind you, she was just there to kill all the faeries and end the world but she tried to save them instead.

It's important to emphasize their good intentions, because a shallower character reading would suggest that they just came out of the womb wanting to murder people. However, they're driven to it because they tried to be good, because they tried to be a hero. They are like Hamlet, and like Othello in the wrong story. They're also sacrificing themselves going against the system of their world and trying to be better than it, only to get dragged down. Their resentment grows against the people they are trying to save, the selfish and weak people who don't seem all that grateful for their heroism. The ones who aren't making sacrifices, the ones who are just content being saved.

I finally understood. My enemy wasn't just the calamities, it was the faeries of Britain as well. They were pure and innocent in the truest sense, they enjoyed both good and evil things alike without losing either that purity or innocence. They are at their core, no different from the loathsome humans who drove me from britain. So I crushed every possible source of malice. Vested interests. Discrimmination. Oppression. Envy. Mockery. All of it. But it wasn't enough. A few fairies took a look at the foundation of peace so many had worked so hard to build ... and tore it apart, because they didn't like it, because they could.

This is what finally leads to Morgan's breaking point, to decide that actually... fairies don't deserve rights. Morgan decides that the fairies are unworthy of salvation and rather than being the hero the only way to accomplish her goals is to become the oppressor and tyrant.

I give up, if everything has failed if it has all come to nothing, then I can never believe in people's so called goodness or understand it. Even if I did, what would be the point? Everything I did, everything I worked for... was just a waste of time. After all the times they betrayed me I should ahve known better... but I still clung foolishly to a sliver of hope. ANd now, because I wasted my time caring about something so utterly absurd, I've failed yet again. If my intent was to keep britain alive, then I was a fool to think being its savior was the way to accomplish it. No more. I will find another way. A better way. ...That's it. I won't deliver the fairies to absolution; I won't deliver salvation. Enough of this faerie of paradise, enough of being Avalon le Fae, I should have ruled this land from the start.

However, as I said it's only Morgan's repeated attempts to be the hero and save the fairies that drove her to this conclusion. However, I'd be amiss to say that Morgan didn't have flaws or selfish qualities from the start. Morgan le Fay is created from the Morgan le Fay we created with from proper legend. I'm not going to explain the lore, but basically she's an alternate universe version, who received memories from the Morgan le Fay of our universe. She knows the story of Morgan le Fay who tried to steal King Arthur's kingdom out from under him.

Alternate Universe Morgan le Fay still had the same chip on her shoulder, and entitlement that our Morgan did. She wanted the kingdom, and wanted Britain for herself. Her desire to play savior might have come from that very same entitlement that she deserves britain. Similiarly, she was most likely hurt so badly from the lack of praise because she also deserves praise for her actions. She has a bit of a superiority complex that places her above the fairies and makes her believe she has the right to rule.

However, as I said Morgan didn't start out as a tyrant she did earnestly try to save the faeries despite harboring those more negative qualities and selfish intentions. She may have had a more self-serving variety of selflessness but it's more the fragility of her that causes her fall. She didn't fall because she was rotten to begin with, she was just not strong enough to withstand years and years of ungratefulness from the faeries and betrayal. She has all the makings of a proper hero, she decides to defy destiny to save the people of faerie britain when she was supposed to be their destroyer. However, because she's in a tragedy she falls due to her insecurities and flaws overwhelming her rather than rising to the occasion.

Her manga chapter and the FGO Lostbelt game prose itself uses the light in the distance as a metaphor for this. Morgan continues going forward on the faint light of hope that things will work out for her and that even as a tyrant she can save Britain. However, it's that same light that damns her. In tragedies heroic qualities become flipped into flaws. Morgan's most heroic quality is her determination, the willpower to endeavor for thousands of years to try to save Faerie Britain, but that determination makes her unchanging, causes her to make the same mistakes over and over again, and just makes her continually suffer like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill.

But that light is just an insect trap - or at least that's how it is for the protagonist of the tragedy. Road to hell, and all that.

After reaching her breaking point Morgan decides she'll no longer try to save the fairies but rather only care about saving the kingdom itself. She goes from the kingdom's hero to its oppressive tyrant after seizing the throne for herself.

That's where we meet the villain we know today.

Now shifting gears to Geto Suguru, he is someone who starts out his story trying to be a hero. A little bit of context on the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, it takes place in an urban fantasy version of Japan where the jungian collective unconscious and the negative emotions of humanity create curses that kill and eat people. These curses need to be exorcised by a few special humans who are given superpowers known as jujutsu sorcerers.

There is an institution of sorcerers known as Jujutsu High, which raises sorcerers from a young age gifted with these powers to exorcise sorcerers. THese teenagers are often sent out on msisions. This is different from most stories of teenage heroes with superpower, because fighting curses is brutal and dangerous and most of these kids are going to die young. There's also no end in sight to the fight against curses, because no matter how many curses are exorcised humans will just keep making more.

Not only do they live in a cynical, and brutal world but most sorcerers are insanely selfish. Just to give an example of how immoral sorcerers are, one of the allies of the main characters is implied to molest her brother, and if she's not she still uses her like 12 year old brother as a child soldier. Nobody ever bothers to question this because the institution of sorcerers are inherently corrupt, it's an instituion that continually sends children off to their deaths and uses people as nothing more than cogs.

Caught within this unfair system and trapped in a cycle of exorcising curses that are just going to come back anyway is Geto Suguru, who is not only a model sorcerer he's presented as much more selfless than your average sorcerer. He's directly contrasted against Gojo Satoru who is kind of just a petty kid with a god complex.

Gojo uses his powers selfishly, he only fights because he's really powerful and killing curses is a way to test and use his abilities. (This is literally stated as canon by Nanami don't fight me on this I'm simplifying his motivations because this is not a Gojo meta look at the entire fight with Sukuna saving Megumi was a secondary concern he wanted to fight a strong opponent). Whether people are saved by his actions are a secondary concern.

Geto on the other hand goes against the grain for most of Jujutsu Society, and believes that they as stronger people have a duty to use their strength to protect the weak. This idea of noblesse oblige is way way different from the attitudes of most sorcerers, who as I said usually turn into petty little people with god complexes.

Not to say Geto doesn't have a god complex, but we'll get to that later. Geto is explicitly contrasted against Gojo who's the only other powerful sorcerer and his best friend, but doesn't think they have an obligation to use their powers to help anyone.

Right away we have two things in common with Morgan le Fay, number one they hold themselves to a higher minded ideal that of using their powers to act as a hero and protect the people underneath them. Number two, this is a choice they make to be better than the people around them. Morgan's destiny is to destroy the faeries and she tries to save them. Sorcerers usually just keep their heads down and do their jobs, they're not heroes, they don't save people they kill curses. In fact, the sorcerers who are selfish assholes (Mei Mei) are wildly succesful, the ones who try to help other people like Nanami die young.

They sacrifice themselves for others. Geto pursuing his higher minded ideal is faced with the same kind of tragedy that Morgan is, where his attempts to save a teenage girl named Riko not only blatantly fail, they fail because of Toji a person who cannot use cursed energy. Everyone they tried to protect died, and they're shown first hand not only does the world not really care about their idealism, but they're not really powerful enough to change this world in any way.

Morgan's lover Uther and all of her allies is ruthlessly slaughtered, by the same faeries she was trying to save after she brokered peace. Geto tries to save a little girl, and he not only watches her die, but he sees an entire crowd of normal people, the people he is fighting to save applause for her death. They all applaud her death because they're a part of a cult that believes that the girl was an affront to their god, but she was mostly just a normal teenager. He witnesses first hand that normal people do not care for the fate of Jujutsu Sorcerers whatsoever.

If Geto were more selfish he would be rewarded. If he didn't attempt to save people, if he just only cared about exorcising curses like Gojo did he'd probably become more powerful and he wouldn't succumb to despair the way he had. Geto exists in a narrative where selfishness is rewarded, and his selfless, heroic traits are continually punished.

This traumatic event makes him aware similarly to the brutal cycle he is caught up in. Morgan le Fay can't save the faeries, because faeries are jerks who can't change. Geto will just continually exorcise curses over and over again. Not only is humanity just going to keep producing more curses, but humans are vastly indifferent to the sacrifices that sorcerers (who are mostly children) keep making to try and save them.

Geto's choice to protect people is the cause of his suffering, because sacrifice is inherently taking on suffering for the sake of someone else - therefore sacrifice is suffering.

This too, leads to Geto's eventual breaking point where he lets his resentment for the same people he's trying to save corrupt him. An incident where just after seeing his dear friend die because of a curse, he's brought to a village of people. The whole village put two little girls in a cage, who were capable of seeing curses and blamed them as the scapegoat for a curse reflecting his village. Geto sees a flash of what happened to Riko again, a crowd full of normal people who don't have to fight curses applauding for the sacrifice of a little girl who was innocent. It's the macrocosm, all of society forcing a few sorcerers to die exorcising curses for them, shown on the microcosm, one village scapegoating two little girls who did nothing wrong.

That's what leads Geto to snap and massacre the whole village. He's now turned against the masses he wants to protect. He then decides that instead of protecting the masses, he's going to kill them and build a world of only sorcerers. He's no longer trying to save them, like Morgan le Fay he's turned to the hero and the Tyrant.

They both even utter similiar words.

I will never save the faeries! I will never forgive the faeries! I don't like monkeys. That's the truth I chose.

Monkeys is by the way, the word Geto uses to refer to normal people who cannot fight curses or even see them. People who don't have superpowers.

One more time I want to emphasize Geto did not come out of the womb wanting genocide. Hamlet didn't start out the play stabbing people. He does have his flaws, just like Morgan by assuming the role of the hero he sees himself in a separate, superior category to the people he wants to protect. There's a line I like in a youtube analysis for for Yuji that applies to Geto as well.

(Other people exist to be saved, which gives Yuji a role in the world) In a way Yuji thinks other people exist to validate his own existence.

Geto begins the story not seeing other people as people. They exist in a category separate from himself. Part of the reason that his failures hit him so hard, is because they disprove this idea of superiority he has for himself. He's shown his god complex is just a complex and he's as flawed and capable of failure as any mortal.

It's an inability to recognize that failure, learn from it, and reconcile it with themselves that causes both Morgan le Fay and Geto to spiral. They are the hero, they are trying to be just, they should reap the just rewards for being a hero. Geto even says as such in a moment of rare jealousy for Gojo, that Gojo is someone who also has godlike power and if Geto had that same power he could change the world the way he wants. He could create his more just world.

Morgan and Geto are characters who begin their narratives with superior complexes and senses of entitlement, selfishly selfess heroes and those negative qualities eventually lead them to fail. Geto thought being a sorcerer made him superior, he just also thought that with that superiority came a responsibility to protect others. Morgan le Fay thought she was the rightful king of Britain, she also thought that divine right to be king also came with an obligation to protect Britain. However, they're not meant to be seen as people who all along wanted to oppress and hurt others.

The key word with tragedy is catharsis, we are supposed to feel for the protagonists of tragedies. We're supposed to see our own traits reflected in them. It's their human qualities to drive them to tragedy.

After all, you reader on tumblr would probably not be able to be a perfectly selfless hero. If you saved someone and then they immediately tried to kill you, you would probably just be a little bitter about it. If you were like Geto and you were working tirelessly to exorcise curses, and all you got was your friends dying, I don't think you'd be like "This is okay :D". If anything, going mad in their extreme circumstances seems like a reasonable response, because could we as the audience do any better in their situations?

Of course the last similarity between Geto and Morgan (besides the fact they both adopt daughters they raise up to be little psychos but this post is getting too long already) is the fact that they both heavily foil the heroes of the story they occupy. They see themselves as villain, they play the role of villain, but they're really just heroes of another story.

Paradise or god or fate or whatever in Faerie britain eventually conjures up another chosen one. This chosen one Altria or as the fandom calls her Castoria is far less heroic. IN fact unlike Morgan who embraces the role of savior she would rather do anything she could to avoid Britain.

This is because for similiar reasons as Morgan, the faeries have basically abused her and tormented her all her life. Yet they still expect her to selflessly step up as their chosen one and save the day from the evil oppressive tyrant Morgan.

You have one protagonist who embraces their heroic quest, and even goes above and beyond by ignoring her destiny to wipe out the faeries and saving them instead. You have another who continually runs away from the heroic quest, and honestly doesn't seem to care that much about saving faeries.

Morgan is actually openly sympathetic to Castoria, and even offers to ally with her a couple of times because she bears the same burden as chosen one. This is another example of how Morgan doesn't quite fit the role of either hero or villain, the ambiguity who makes tragedy.

However, while Morgan does everything to defy fate, Castoria just kind of keeps marching along every step of Joseph Campbell's the heroes journey until she ends up defeating Morgan. Well she doesn't truly defeat her, but Morgan meets her tragic end and gets stabbed a whole bunch of times.

There's a similiar foiling between Geto, and the series protagonist Yuji who both start out the story believing that as sorcerers they have a duty to save others. There are several in story comparisons and direct parallels between the two.

Yuji attempts to save others with his power as a sorcerer over and over again, and is met with the same continual failure that Geto has. Yuji is the only real sorcerer in his generation that cares about saving strangers with his powers. Nobara wants money to live in Tokyo, Megumi only cares about protecting Yuji and his sister, Yuta only cares about his friends, Maki only wants revenge against her clan. Like Maki blatantly says whether people get saved or not by her actions is none of her business.

His own attempts to save people not only fail badly, but he watches people die. He watches a lot of people die in a situation where he is powerless to stop them.

He's met with the same tragedy of Geto but he doesn't succumb to it. The same for Castoria she doesn't decide to be a Tyrant the way that Morgan le Fay did. I would argue this isn't because of any inherent goodness that Castoria or Yuji have but rather because both of them are able to let go of their egoes. Yuji kind of believes the same thing Geto does, that other people exist to be saved by him. He's broken when he realizes that he's not a savior after all...but he's able to continue in a way that Geto isn't.

Yuji lets go of his ego entirely and believes that he's just a cog in the machine and he doesn't need to be some big hero or be rewarded at the end of his hero's journey.

Geto and Morgan le Fay both long for a role in the grand scheme of things. They are still employing narrative thinking, they need to play a story role to validate their existences. It's just that they flipped their role, they tried being the heroes but it didn't work so they're the villains now.

Geto is similiarly rebuffed by Yuta who is his eventual killer by saying that he doesn't actually care about saving the world or if Geto is right that sorcerers are superior to humans, he's only fighting for his friends.

I would say for both castoria and yuji it's not a matter of being inherently good people, but rather of being better at enduring than their counterparts are. Morgan le Fay and Geto try to take the world's suffering on their shoulders, and it breaks them because they're not heroes they're just normal people. Yuji, Castoria and to the same extent Yuta kind of learn to let go of their great heroic aspirations but because of that they're able to take on suffering better. They're trying to live in reality not a grand heroic fantasy.

To bring the example back to FGO, for Castoria and for Morgan the light of hope that led them down their heroic journeys mean two different things. For Morgan that light is an insect trap. Her flying towards that light just causes her to keep suffering through her sisyphian task. Castoria has a much more realistic point of view, she's not trying to get a happy ending or even save people, that light is the hope that at the end of her journey her actions will have meant something. It's more about the journey itself and the people she met along the way, then some big grand reward at the end.

Morgan le Fay and Geto both fail because they are fragile, because they are human. That's the most important takeaway of this long rambling post. They may be selfish, they may be entitled but they're flawed in human ways. After all, who doesn't want a happy ending?

#jjk meta #fgo meta #morgan le fay #fgo morgan #camelot #fgo lostbelt #geto suguru #suguru geto #idk what else to tag this #for the three people who are going to read this post #i hope you like this comun #the things i do for love

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llamagirl28 · 6 months

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A song I really think about when playing BOC is "Never Love an Anchor" by the crane wives. It's SUCH a good song, and it applies well when we look at Arthur as a character, specifically how he views and treats Mordred.

At the beginning of the song, the opening lines "On some level, I think I always understood/That these hands of mine were clumsy, not clever" is such an Arthur thing to feel. Also applies to how Arthur handled the Mordred situation- his absence in Mordred's life, his adherence to Merlin's and Lance's stance on Mordred, his own conflicting feelings over his only child and their twisted conception.

He always claims that it was for the best, evident in the chapter 3 pov where we first meet him. Yet, over the course of the first few chapters, he realizes that he harmed more than he helped. He handled it the best he could given the circumstances (well, the best he thought he could) but ultimately, nothing went right. Arthur realizes, at first subconsciously, and then consciously, with full force. His handling of Mordred (or rather, Merlin's handling of Mordred, since iirc Merlin kind of influenced his thoughts about whatever presence he should have in Mordred's life) was clumsy.

The next few lines "And I tried to do the best that I could/ But try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to hold you" also cements this dynamic. Arthur is torn up inside about his avoidance of Mordred. He desperately wants to be a dad, but at the same time, is deeply ashamed of Mordred. Combined with the unacknowledged trauma of his r*pe..yeah, the line hits. He's trying his best, but he's held back by the shame and guilt of that night. It's present whether you have a good relationship or not, but far more evident if you are no contact with him.

Next stanza. "It's a secret I keep tucked inside my chest/ With this heart of mine that's guilty, not remorseful". Secret referring here to him being the father of Mordred, and up until chapter 4, how morgana r*ped him. Pretty easy to see the connection there. Though the line "with this heart of mine..." doesn't quite easily fit, since he is remorseful over abandoning Mordred, though I think it applies more to villainous mordreds/ those who act more like morgana than arthur. In the patreon side story featuring Alina (uhm, spoiler beware) there are a few options that remind Arthur of Morgana- when you smile like her, act sardonic, etc. He makes a point to say "every inch morgana's child" or something like that. He actively connects Mordred more with Morgana than with him in these instances. With these types of Mordred's, the line applies twofold- he is guilty of abandoning them, and remorseful...yet he sees Morgana so incredibly clearly in them, and he is wary. He remembers the prophecy, and, while not entirely sticking by it, still keeps it at the forefront of his thoughts in a way.

"There is love that doesn't have a place to rest/But it would have buried you if it had settled on your shoulders" pretty easy to see the connection. The love Arthur has for Mordred is mixed with wariness, shame, and guilt, and mars whatever caring he has for them. Combined with how he rarely sees Mordred, it's hard for him to express that love, especially if you don't have contact with him. (Can you tell my Mordred's relationship with Arthur yet, lol). It's expressed, instead, to Gawain, up until chapter 3 and, probably if you choose not to communicate w him at all, way past chapter 3. He showers Gawain with love because he can't do the same to Mordred, but if he was able to, he would have done it with Mordred as well. He would've been a great dad, if only Morgana hadn't...yeah.

"On some level, I think I always understood /That a ship could never really love an anchor/So, I did the only thing that I could/And severed the rope to set you sailing from my harbor" is an interesting lyric. There's a surface level meaning, but also a more conflicting one. If we apply it to Arthur it's him saying "hey, i couldn't be anything you needed me to be when you were growing up, and so i had to separate myself from you for both our sakes." It might not have been the right choice, but according to everyone around him, it was necessary, especially when you factor in the prophecy.

But. Ships need anchors, to ground them and keep them stable. Without an anchor, a ship will float adrift at sea, never to come to shore and go home. "A ship could never really love an anchor" seems more like his own guilt clouding his judgement when you have a bad relationship with him. "Of course Mordred could never truly love me. I'm an anchor and they're a ship." But ships need anchors Arthur. Mordred is bullied ruthlessly, Mordred has to deal with so many terrible things. Arthur could have been of use, could have been their anchor during this dark time. But he wasn't, because of past trauma and a prophecy hanging over his head.

A lyric that I heavily associate with a distant Chapter 4 Arthur is "There are times when I still wonder about you/ You are someone I have loved, but never known". Mordred has expressed a desire to keep Arthur out of their life, and Arthur respects that. He lives with his chosen family in Camelot, and does his everyday routines. But Mordred still invades his mind, especially around their birthday. "There are times when I still wonder about you" can basically go for the whole arthur pov in chapter 4, really, when he's thinking about Mordred's birthday. Also all the times early on in the story when he talks about wondering what Mordred was like. I for the life of me cannot remember since I've only done a route where I had a good relationship with Arthur like, once, but a scene like this doesn't really happen in chapter 4 for those playthroughs. No internal angsting over Mordred's b-day and their distance, no snake carving, no sadness over not being in contact with mordred. In the playthroughs where you have contact with him, he loves and knows you. In the playthroughs where u can barely stand him, he loves you, but he doesn't know you. He's never gotten the chance to know your hobbies, or your favorite colors, or whether you like your lessons or not. Mordred is sort of a question mark for him, an enigma between a nightmare and a dream.

"And you'll never see the reasons I had/ For keeping my claws away when they were close enough to hurt you" goes more for pre-chapter 4 Mordred's, though it can work with Mordred's post chapter 4. Mordred doesn't know why Arthur doesn't speak to them, and as a result doesn't know the truth of their conception. They chalk it up to Arthur being a coward (at least in my run), a man so shackled to a sorcerer's prophecy that he can't look at Mordred truly as a child. Arthur is pretty sure Mordred is unaware of how they were truly made (after all, Morgana will never say she was wrong without any incentive) but he did think Mordred knew the prophecy. Now that he knows Mordred had no idea about it, he realizes Mordred has no base at all for why Arthur has no contact with him.

In some of the earlier asks, there were a few au questions. Two of them live in my brain rent free: an ask about what would have happened to Mordred had Morgana died during childbirth, and how would Arthur reach out to Mordred if he could still have children. Both of them indicate that Arthur would have been kind of a trash dad. In the one where Morgana dies, Arthur is forced to kind of take custody of Mordred, though he gives them over to Merlin to be a sorcerers apprentice. He's just as absent as he is early on in the game, only reaching out in later years, and more in an uncle fashion than in a father fashion. In the ask where he's able to have more kids, he seems to be a good dad to them, but in regards to Mordred, he only waits until they're in Camelot to attempt any type of reconciliation with them, and it seems as though he'd rather not have a relationship.

If Arthur was in Mordred's life in the early years, as a teen dad with sexual trauma, he would not have been good. He would have been distant and hesitant, and probably would have given them more daddy issues than they already can have in game. I think it's something mentioned by Acolon- love must be freely given, not forced.

"I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel/ I am all the things they might have said to you" is peak Arthur Sad Hours. It's also, however, a very apt statement. These are things said to Mordred by well...everybody. They're viewed as a monster, evil through the sole purpose of being born to the wrong woman. The latter line connects what they say about Mordred to Arthur, acknowledging both the blood ties that bond them together, as well as saying that even though everyone thinks he's the hottest thing since sliced bread, he's a person too! He's not some saint whose kind and benevolent to everyone; he makes mistakes, he makes bad choices and can be (unknowingly) cruel to others, and in regards to the prophecy, is selfish under the guise of being selfless. He's not a perfect uwu will never do anything wrong EVER boy...he's just a person.

"Do you ever think of me and my two hands?/And wonder why they never soothed your fevers?/And wonder why they never tied your shoes?/And wonder why they never held you gently?" very easily brings to mind a scene of Arthur watching Kay or Lance play with their kids and wish he could do that with Mordred. Arthur, despite everything, does desperately wish to be a father, but he can't because of a curse and a prophecy, respectively. He can't (pardon my language) bring someone into this world because Morgana got rid of that ability, and he can't reach out to Mordred bc 1)trauma 2)prophecy and 3) he very much conforms to what other people want from him, even if it goes against his own wishes.

"And wonder why they never had the chance to lose you?" drives all of these ideas home. He never had the chance to be a proper father early in Mordred's life, and depending on ur playthrough, still doesn't have that chance. It's inhabited by Accolon (for now) and while he thinks that was the better option, he still yearns for that chance. He never had the chance to bond with them, to watch Mordred take their first steps and lose their baby teeth. He never got to read books to Mordred when they were sleepy, and never got to make absolutely horrid dad jokes while they grown in embarrassment. And he will never get to watch Mordred grow old (at least, in this point in the story). He'll never see them through the awkward stages of puberty, watch them rebel and yell at their parents some emo crap before going off to sulk. If you have a bad relationship with him, you only see him once more before you go to Camelot to join the Round Table, at Gareth's wedding. In the bad relationship route, this line is potent because nothing is fixed; their relationship is stilted. He will never get to see them in the Older Years, while in good relationship playthroughs, he can.

Sooo many of the Crane Wives songs are boc coded, tbh. Tongues and Teeth is THE morgana song, and The Moon Will Sing fit remorseful villain mordred's extremely well! I might do another one of these analysis's some time in the future, cause this was pretty fun. I might be off base on some points, so feel free to tell me if I got anything wrong. Now if you'll excuse me it's currently 4am, so I will be off to get some much needed sleep. Have a good one Llama!

It's a very good and thorough analysis! Thank you for sharing 💕 I'd be delighted to hear more, if and whenever you feel like doing another one.

And now I should go listen to the song itself. I only know a couple Crane Wives songs, which I love - Curses and Tongues and Teeth, and I do agree with the latter being very Morgana coded.

#the bastard of camelot #It's always such a joy to hear people's thoughts on the game #And find it stayed with them and occupies their mind

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