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The Evolving Nature of Keywords and Antagonists in Octopath Traveler II

Octopath Traveler II is a masterpiece. I find new ways to appreciate this fact all the time. I hit on one specific facet somewhat recently, so want to walk through each of the main quests and go over the extent to which the creators picked out powerful character-specific keywords which do heavy lifting on multiple levels.

I made a similar post about the keywords from OT1, if you're interested in reading that, but essentially, the "keyword" for a character is a single word chosen to represent their journey. It's used to in OT1 to denote the lead-in to Battle at Journey's End in the climax of a character's route, and in OT2 to fit into their "In Pursuit of _" route boss theme.

The keywords chosen for OT2 have had a lot of thought put into them, and represent not just the journey at a glance but how a character's objectives can change, and even how they relate to their primary antagonist.

(I recommend having the tracklist for the OT2 soundtrack beside you for this, if you're not already familiar.)

Ochette (For Legends)

Ochette is on a journey to find the creatures of legend in order to protect the island. Her journey also takes on meaning for her first chosen companion (Mahina/Akala) and Acta, who become legends in the final act of her journey.

In contrast, her opposite number Petrichor is trying to kill or incapcitate the creatures of legend. Cateracta is the only one that dies on account of her efforts, but Tera and Glacis both suffer at her hands. As does the darkling. Petrichor brings not just death, but suffering on those she seeks. It contrasts nicely with Ochette's first contemporary scene, which has her hunting a gator down specifically for eating too much of the local wildlife and disrupting the balance of the forest. There's a strong ethos about how death is faced, and why a hunt is undertaken. (i.e. to protect the larger environment versus for personal gain)

Hers is the storyline that deals most directly with the balance of life and death, and the importance of a good life and a humane death. In that sense, it's less important for Ochette to directly confront Petrichor because a good life and a humane death can be given regardless of what evils others inflict upon the world.

Castti (For Memories)

Castti, an amnesiac apothecary, is on a journey to restore her lost memories. She's also on her journey to extend a helping hand to those in need, in order to honor the besmirched memory of Eir's Apothecaries.

Her opposite number, Trousseau was the one to taint Eir's Memory, and his poison has taken hers (either chemically or through trauma). Because his continued actions as a mass poisoner threaten to further sully the memory of Eir's Apothecaries, he needs to be confronted and put down directly for the memories to be laid to rest.

Also, the fact that non-evil Trousseau shows up in her last memory at the end is an indication that it's also a fight for Trousseau's memory in her heart. She can't remember the kind man he once was because it would lead her to hesitate about what needed to be done, but she does want to remember her lost loved ones fondly. Even Trousseau.

Throné (For Freedom)

Throné is fighting for her freedom from the Blacksnakes, and her opposite number, Claude, holds the keys to the collar literally wrapped around her throat. So he has to be fought, for obvious reasons. Fighting him also secures the kind of freedom Throné's never had for the nameless baby whose crying voice can be heard at the end of her route as the camera zooms out.

Still, we see that it's not just Throné suffering under Claude's thumb. We see her adoptive father lost the woman he loved to Claude, and orphans like Mira being raised to take the place of whatever snakes might lose their heads in any given heist.

And, despite the "Not my tits, not my problem" way she handles the power vacuum created by Claude's death, her actions do cause chaos that allows some other Blacksnakes and abused orphans like Mira to break free. Which is not to say they become good. They're still seen running rigged casinos and the like after her path is complete. But hey, freedom to be good implies one also has the freedom to be evil, or else it's not really freedom!

(Sidenote: The baby at the end of Throné's route is such a great narrative tool for pushing the readers to ask more questions. Did Throné originally have qualms about killing Claude due to the power vacuum that the need to free the child overrode? Did seeing the woman first, then her child with Claude, make her realize this would keep happening unless she killed him for real, despite her dislike for killing? Did Claude, a questionably suicidal immortal, engineer the whole setup to erase her doubts about killing him?)

Osvald (For Revenge)

Osvald sets out for revenge and gets his revenge at the climax of his route in a direct confrontation with Harvey, his opposite number and the number one object of his revenge.

This is only somewhat subverted, as Osvald's revenge succeeds in large part due to the power of love (as a father who loves and wants to protect his daughter). Really, revenge being the one goal that doesn't evolve as much fits with Octopath's general "revenge is actually pretty reasonable when you've been wronged to that extent" ethos.

Partitio (For Prosperity)

Partitio is on a journey to bring the world prosperity! Economic well-being! For all his friends. And everyone (save maybe a few shitty loan sharks) is his friend.

But he gets TWO antagonists. Roque is doing it For Wealth (choice of words mine), a similar but distinctly different and much more selfish end. One of the more obscure definitions of prosperity is "attainment of the object desired". Roque was fought because he needed it knocked into his noggin that trains can be good for more than warfare.

Ori has, like him, experienced extreme poverty and suffering (though her experience as a wartime orphan was more extreme) and wants to ease the world's suffering. She just initially prefers to do so by ending the world. However, Ori is never fought because Partitio was always fighting the battle for her heart, knowingly or not. And, at the very last, he reached her. ;_;

Agnea (For Hope)

Agnea Bristarni is on a journey to spread hope. And boy, does she ever!

But she also gets two antagonists. Dolcinea Luciel, the boss of Agnea's route, performs not For Hope, but instead For Applause (The first phase of her boss fight has theme music explicitly called called "In Pursuit of Applause"). It's a form of selfishness that does have to be confronted directly, albeit onstage rather than in an actual fight to the death.

Tanzy, Agnea's other opposite number, has already lost all hope. And that void in her heart was taken advantage of to make her a pawn of the moonshades (and ultimately, a sacrifice). Tanzy remains unfought, because the battle was for Tanzy's hope all along and Arcanette won that fight before the story began.

However, very much worth noting is that Agnea is the one character to not get a "The Journey for _ Ends…" theme on the soundtrack. Instead, her route boss track, juxtaposed squarely between "The Journey for Prosperity Ends" and "The Journey for Truth Ends" is the Song of Hope (which she sings herself!). I think this is a thematic choice that reflects that the hope Agnea strives to bring is more ephemeral as a concept. ("Like trying to grasp hold of a cloud", to paraphrase the ending of Hajime no Ippo.) I think this has a lot to do with why the game has the epilogue. Because while all eight travelers go on living and trying to better the world and themselves in their own way, Agnea's journey for hope continues.

Temenos (For Truth)

Temenos' quest is rather straightforward. He's a detective on a murder investigation. He's looking to discover the truth behind the pontiff's death, behind Roi's death, and eventually behind Crick's death as well.

But in a pretty heavy subversion, his "Journey Ends" track plays in the boss fight with Kaldena, well before he actually gets to the truth. He's the one character of the eight to directly fight his HTAPOTCO counterpart outside of his specific story arc. Because the track was incomplete and his journey for truth wasn't over yet. To add to the synergy, Arcanette was the one most responsible for concealing the truth from him, from the depth of the moonshades' duplicity to the truth of her own identity. And she's already succeeded insofar as her goal was to bring about the endless night, so by the time she's actually fought she's happy to spill all the beans, and you fight her not For Truth, but For The Dawn.

Hikari (For Kingship)

Hikari Ku wants the throne so he can govern with compassion.

He's also the third character to get two antagonists. His brother Mugen is a comically evil king who governs with an iron fist and sends his army to make war with their neighbors. He's fought directly in Hikari's final battle, Hikari becomes king, and he's able to begin repairing the damage and attempting to make a better, more compassionate world.

However, Hikari's opposite number in the moonshades, Oboro/Kazan, has a different view of kingship altogether. Arbuably the center-stage antagonist who gets dialogue prior to Vide's resurrection, Oboro rejects the notion that even a king truly can ease the suffering inherant in the world. It's impossible to change, no matter how hard anyone tries. (After all, he was a master strategist and he did his best strategic thinking to reduce war casualties, but it never did a lick of good.) So, thoughout the story, he's helping Hikari's cause without believing in it.

He may be directly confronted in the climax of The Journey For the Dawn, but he's never fought because the battle here was not to gain the throne, but to convince Oboro that Hikari's rule could make a real difference once he was sitting on it.

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And that's the eight. Wish I could say I could end it on a more profound point, but I don't really have one. I guess, writing this convinced me the story design in OT2 being spot on was very much by design. And the fact it was the result of intentional writer choices and not just an accident makes me feel a deeper connection to the game.

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