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

[val_tanelle]

I lost my original comment but I just wanted to say that I loved this fanfic the moment I laid my eyes on it. I couldn't help but reread through it when you posted the fifth chapter.

I wanted to say though that this chapter felt more like an epilogue. Each of the previous chapters were very conclusive. They build up in each of their own and had a satisfactory ending. This felt more like a pooling of facts to tie loose ends and relate to what is about to happen in the future.

I noticed you became repetitive with your sentence patterns Such as:

1) "Blood trickles between the gaps in his teeth. Jowy shouldn't watch it."
2) "There isn't anything to say to that, so Jowy doesn't."
3) "Nobody expects Jowy to shed tears for Luca when his body's brought before him, so he doesn't."

It became excessive in this chapter they lost their most of their impact. Felt like run-ons to me that give that poetic effect. I know you did them a lot in the previous chapters but it didn't seem quite right here.

There were a lot of thoughts from Jowy and maybe it's just me but I found them unnecessary. The previous chapters always left it to observation for us to know what Jowy feels. The thoughts were direct and were less effective.

The constant mention of the Black Sword Rune became redundant; it never really did anything anyway. It was just there to throb and hum whenever Jowy is feeling upset. Its importance didn't seem to have been explored. It's disappointing we didn't even get to see it used once.

I love Luca Blight's characterization the most. He's very consistent and his scenes are the best. I think my main criticism with Jowy is that he didn't seem to have grown at all, hardened by everything that he'd done. With so many things that he'd experience, all it seemed to have done to him was make him lament. I thought after having Culgan, Seed and Leon to back him up, he would have become much more confident. In the way he treated Rowd that was evident but for this chapter he didn't show better grace. Maybe it's the thoughts; how you translated almost every single detail that happened in the chapter to something in Jowy's thoughts.

The way in which he dealt with Sasarai (I love Sasarai) was lacking. I would have thought he'd use his charisma to try and get the conversation more friendly. Though yeah, dot dot dot suits Jowy just fine too.

Al in all, I think the chapter suffered from the fact you finished this months later after the previous ones. You probably lost your trail of thought, your rhythm; I can tell but this story has been an amazing journey nonetheless. My only complaint is the lack of Black Sword Rune action and I wished there had been more scenes with Jowy dealing with Highland soldiers and the people. It lacked political debates too. There were some, but I don't see Jowy's ideal being challenged and it would have been completing to see Jowy's dream be questioned and reinforced.

If you're planning to write a sequel, you should approach his character more differently. You've consistently written Jowy the same as you've written him in chapter 1 and I felt that stunted his growth. Looking forward to the rest - Suikolove will keep me updated. She linked me here :D

[puella_nerdii]

This is a really thoughtful critique, and thank you for it. I'll try to answer as much of it as possible.

fff, you aren't the first person to point out the repetition. I was trying to do it to reinforce Jowy's state of mind, but I guess it weakened the effect instead of strengthening it. Oh well. Lessons for next time.

Hm. I think I see what you mean about this chapter feeling like an epilogue. Jowy completes one of the most important parts of his arc (going from thinking the war will be over once he kills Luca to realizing he has to take responsibility for what comes after that, and that he's going to have to use some Luca-style tactics for the sake of future peace) in the first scene, so in a way I suppose the rest is almost denouement. He's come into his own as a strategist and learned what it actually means to do whatever's necessary to get what he wants, and he's cut himself off emotionally from, well, a whole lot. That might be part of the reason why he's feeling stagnant -- instead of growing into his abilities the way Riou is, he's deliberately shutting parts of himself down.

I do, in fact, have a sequel planned for this, and the Black Sword action (obviously) comes into play there. Tt's kind of narratively cheating, I suppose, but I didn't want to not mention Black Sword in this at all and then kind of have it become important out of nowhere in the sequel.

I would have thought he'd use his charisma to try and get the conversation more friendly.
You know, I've never thought of Jowy as that charismatic. Riou obviously is, and Luca has his own brand of charisma, but Jowy doesn't seem to inspire the same kind of loyalty in his troops that either of them do. Even most of his closest advisers seem to be motivated by love of Highland rather than love of him. ...it probably doesn't help that he's, by any definition, a traitor. (One of the reasons why I didn't have Jowy deal as much with Highland soldiers and the people in this is because I don't think he's very good at it. Although it might be fun to show him trying and failing. Hm.)

Anyway, that's sort of my logic behind a lot of the choices that I made, but if it doesn't come through in the text, it doesn't come through in the text. Thanks for bringing it all up, though; if I've found out anything about Suikoden fandom since I joined it, it's that everyone has opinions on Jowy and why he does what he does, and those opinions vary a lot.

I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, though, and read it through to the end. And as much as I cringed writing the Luca scenes sometimes, a lot of them ended up being my favorites. It's fun to figure out what makes him tick -- although I'm not sure if I should use fun or frightening in that last phrase, considering. Hopefully I'll be able to get the sequel out in a reasonable amount of time!

[val_tanelle]

I suppose it's the game's fault why I felt Jowy was the more vocal one between the two, what with Riou being a silent protagonist and seemingly following every Shu's command. I do understand your interpretation; it reinforces the difference between the two of them so I would have really wanted to see Jowy try and failing, and I doubt it would always be so amusing. I wound find it personally painful what with all the ideal he has, he lacks (as per your interpretation) the power to bring people together (I guess that makes him better suited as a strategist). Most of us seem to accept Jowy's statement of how he envies Riou to be able to bring people together but from what we've seen so far, Jowy isn't really that different despite what he says. The only understanding there is to what he said was because of the whole 108 SoD thing.

To be honest though regarding Jowy, I agree with Jillia. I'd admire him for his dreams and ideals. I disagree that Culgan and Seed only followed him because of their commitment to Highland. That's just part of it - I believe they saw what Jillia saw in Jowy. Or else wouldn't it be safer to side with Agares Blight? I don't disagree exactly with what you said; I think that's sort of true but only because Jowy finds it harder to open up. He didn't have a sister like Nanami on his side to support him. He only had Pilika, a constant reminder of how he failed her and her family.

He hides a lot of secrets and agenda. He might not have charisma as you say but he might have had the same power as Riou if the circumstances had been different; if only he could forgive and love himself. Given what he's done, he doesn't seem to care about his own life. Not out of martyrdom but as atonement for his sins.

Oh and my rp staff and I once discussed a theory that Jowy conspired to bring Highland down all along from his declaration in the beginning of the game that he would never forgive the country that betrayed them. It might sound crazy but he might have plotted to let Jowston win the war to get rid of Highland from the map.

EDIT: And I wanted to add about my comment regarding the thoughts and why they didn't do the impact they were supposed to have. It might have conflicted with the feeling you were giving that he was becoming emotional detached. It's not just with him - anyone in the middle of war would experience that and I felt the thoughts were unnecessary to add. What comes in my mind was when he wanted to "punch Sasarai." As humorous as it was, it felt childish and witty. It's not bad but the fanfic wasn't going with that kind of humor. I love that more subtle, less-talking-to-the-reader one where Seed kids about Jowy being the "right age." It's like one of the funniest, most spot-on Suikoden joke ever. And the talk with Seed's injury - there, that's the kind of humor appropriate for the fanfic. I found the scene with Sasarai out of place. It felt too direct and made the reader side with Jowy. Yeah, Sasarai was a douche but Luca is infinitely worse, yet I'm sure given his performance readers side with Luca's character still and he will surely be missed now that he's gone. The way Sasarai was portrayed made him look like a generic politician douchebag people were just supposed to hate (in a good way! Who can hate Sasarai?).

While Jowy is being portrayed to be emotionally detached, he continues to portray emotions toward the readers, so it felt like it wasn't being cohesive to me and the style at the last part seemed abrupt. Because at first Jowy had this "voice" to the readers then as we progressed to the end, it was gone.

When I think of emotional detachment especially in the case of war, I think they have less time to reflect on what they're doing and almost move routinely. Jowy came off to me as if he's wearing his heart on his sleeves all the time, though he's good at hiding it.

I hope you don't misinterpret my comments. Oh, I definitely enjoyed the fanfic but Chapter 5 could have been better. I don't mean to spoil your sense of accomplishment (dude, you should really be proud) but to me, it's better to give justice to people's efforts by being reasonable and honest. Everything has its flaws. Regardless, like I said, I still enjoyed this fanfic and consider it one of the best I've ever read.