Grasping at Shadows [5/5] (Suikoden II, Jowy and the Highlanders)

[puella_nerdii]

Seven months, 38.5k words, 88 pages, three garbled save files, two lost notebooks, one additional playthrough, way too many weeks of writer’s block, hours of whining, and a ton of attempts to make sense of the weirder parts of SII’s script later, I stick a fork in this fic, for it is done at lastAnd you know what, I don’t say this kind of thing a

Comments

[urbanesombrero]

An excellent conclusion to an amazing story. I love the interplay and outmaneuvering going on throughout this chapter, with Jowy, Leon, Culgan, Seed all trying to play Luca and hope that the Unicorn Army responds accordingly. Sasarai & Yuber seem to be the less likely allies, and Leon seems to be attempting to run the entire show.

Sasarai was a real standout in this chapter; I wasn't sure how much you were going to use him since he was only alluded to relatively briefly in the last chapter, but I love the idea that he was essentially 'in' on the idea to finish Luca, and was already engaging in political calculations with Jowy. The Highland/Harmonia political angle is always tricky to write about, and to be honest, the way you have written it here has really challenged me to rethink the way that I have so far chosen to approach it in one of my own projects.

Overall, I think it's interesting that the language is so direct and the action is fast paced in this chapter; it fits the tone since both the Highlanders against Luca and the Unicorn Army are on a focused mission, with no time to rest or flinch, so inevitably the emotion will catch up to them all later, as you point out in your final scene with Jowy & the knife.

[puella_nerdii]

Thank you so much for reading this one all the way through! I'm glad you liked the outmaneuvering -- when I first played SII, I was really curious about exactly how long Leon and Jowy had been planning Luca's death, and how much of it they'd planned from the beginning (and who else was in on it on Highland's side). And over the course of that plotting, I had a lot of fun playing with Jowy's shift from "I have to figure out a way to kill Luca" to "I have to figure out a way to kill Luca and replace him in a way that doesn't cast too much suspicion on me."

I had so much fun writing Sasarai, I have to say. :D He's such a smiling little jerkface. And the Highland-Harmonia political angle is tricky! It's a protectorate, but Harmonia seems a lot more hands-off in its governance than it is with some of the other states under its control, and whenever citizenship is brought up it's Highland citizenship rather than third- or second-class Harmonian citizenship. And Harmonia doesn't really get itself involved in the Dunan Unification War that much, aside from Sasarai's appearance and Nash's (mis)adventures. All that aside, I figured that Jowy had to have some Harmonian support to ascend the throne because otherwise they'd have gone "lolno." And then there's the Higheast Rebellion, gdi, I want to know more about that.

And I'm glad you picked up on that shift! I initially planned a little more downtime for Jowy in this chapter, but then I realized it would be kind of weird because he's finally committed himself wholeheartedly to the plan to kill Luca, and I wanted him to remain focused on what he had to do. He can start up the angst again once he inherits the Beast Rune!

Thanks so much again for sticking with this, and for your comments -- they've been awesome to read.