straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2019-01-19 08:04 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2019-01-19 08:04 pm
205 | final thoughts on OZMAFIA!!
I’ve finally completed OZMAFIA!!!
It’s not a proper otome game if I don’t cry at least once while playing it, right? More seriously, the epilogue — as the game itself calls it — was such an emotional ride for me. I cried two or three times, teared up even more, and I spent so much of it absolutely terrified on the behalf of all my favorite characters. Seeing all those characters I’d come to know and be killed off one by one — it was really brutal. I mean, yes — I figured that something would happen to fix those deaths, but even so, it was painful.
I will give the game this: it did a good job of imparting the impact of these immortals suddenly realizing that they could now die. Because I-as-the-player had also grown used to the idea that these characters couldn’t die, and to suddenly have that unexpectedly be ripped away and changed — it was really shocking, and all the more painful for that shock.
This was also the most mafia-like this game has ever been, especially during the battle between the Grimms and the Andersons — the revenge killings, and wanting revenge in turn for those killings… Aelling cut straight to my heartstrings here, when he says this after Hansel kills Melius:
I never paid much attention to him, but that moment hit me hard. And then, that scene after all the Andersons are dead and Hansel is dying from Melius’ poison—! That hit me so hard — I was genuinely sobbing throughout that whole scene. That was the most open and vulnerable that Gretel’s ever been — her voice, oh my god. How frightened she sounds when Hansel doesn’t answer her — and then how small her voice sounds when she’s talking to him, and the fragile way she say “big brother”... And Hansel, worrying about how he’s leaving her behind, and it killed me, it killed me, it killed me.
And then when she steps on that landmine by accident! And this — her smile when she says this:
And then, on top of that, there was Hansel asking Gretel to look out for Scarlet before he dies, their telling the Andersons that they’re getting revenge for Hamelin’s death — revenge on everyone who agreed to locking up Hamelin and so leaving him vulnerable to whoever murdered him — and then, this — Gretel’s last words before she chose to kill herself rather than be blown up by Melius’ landmine:
T_T
But I jumped ahead a little. To go back a little earlier — Heidi’s death. The first death, really, after Hamelin’s, and the one where I realized that this was really going to get serious, though I wasn’t yet sure if the LIs were going to get killed too, or only the non-LIs. First, on a less emotional note — we learn that “Peter” is the name that Heidi gives her top subordinate, and that there’s been multiple “Peter”s throughout the history of the famiglia — but the current Peter is the strongest one.
Second. Um. You know how I’ve been shipping Heidi/Peter? And you know how Peter never speaks, not once, in all the routes?
She spoke.
Heidi’s death makes her speak.
And that rampage she went on — how she said Heidi’s name, how she declared to Caesar that she was going to kill him — and how she kept on trying, even after Caesar offered to let her live —
That was really, really good. Heartbreaking! But such amazing and totally unexpected fuel for this tiny little ship of mine.
I was also very struck by how Pashet was genuinely afraid of Caesar, in a way that she’s never been. But it also makes sense — she just saw him kill an immortal. And it makes that later scene, where she deliberately seeks him out in an attempt to end him, more poignant for me. Because she is afraid. She has everything to lose from seeking him out. But she still does it, because she believes just that strongly in justice and order — even when all the famiglia around her are ripping each other apart and falling to pieces, she wants to do what she can to (what in her eyes is) protect(ing) the town.
tl;dr Pashet is amazing.
Kyrie having Fuka poison Robin Hood was pretty shocking too! (...Also obliquely satisfying, considering what Robin Hood did to Fuka in his route, but anyways…!) I was surprised to see an choice here — it was the only choice we get, in this epilogue, and it doesn’t really affect anything, so I’m not sure why it was there. I checked out both options, and I think I like the one where Fuka tries to warn him better, if only for Fuka herself — the end result is the same, but I think it’s better for her if Robin Hood makes it clear that he knows what’s in the tea, and then drinks it anyways.
I’ve been thinking about why Famiglia Oz would poison him, though. They spend the whole war building their defenses, and in the end never have to fight anyone — Robin Hood is the only instance where they’re proactive. And I wonder — was it a strange sort of kindness? Kyrie does say that it would be a quicker death than most. And Robin Hood had no chance of surviving the war — the letter made it very clear that it was a last man standing scenario, and Robin Hood is the only one of the mafia factions who is completely, utterly alone. If they kill him first, before anyone else gets to him, then at least they could guarantee that his death be relatively painless.
Their attitude towards Dorian Gray’s faction also seems to pay heed to that. Things are briefly tense between them, but when Dorian tells them that they don’t intend to fight, but rather have a more peaceful death on their own terms, they — aside from a tasteless joke on Kyrie’s part — allow them to have that chance to die in a better way.
Alfani also gave me too many feelings. His conversation with Fuka — that killed me.
He’s so fucked up, and I feel so bad for him. And I love Fuka’s line there.
Kyrie taking the blame for killing Robin Hood definitely gave me feelings too. His logic for it was perfectly himself.
Scarlet and Pashet’s plan worked out pretty much how I thought it would. The only difference is that I expected Caesar to kill Pashet while Scarlet was murdered by Soh above, but no. Also — I know I keep saying this, but Scarlet was so heartbreaking. His not wanting to participate in the war/hurt anyone, but also not wanting to let Famiglia Grimm disappear with him… His smile when he realizes he’s going to die… And his wondering to himself if his dream of peace was really too much to want.
Scarlet ;_;
I do wonder, though — at the end, when everyone is revived through Fuka’s wish — it’s made clear that they do remember dying. And part of her wish is that they’d be able to live happily, so I assumed that peace was a part of that. Furthermore, they do seem to treat one another relatively normally in what we see from them in the grand ending.
But… I can’t help but feel like it can’t be that simple. They literally killed one another. The Andersons and Grimms witnessed each other murdering the people they loved most. For all Pashet knows, Scarlet double-crossed her — how was she supposed to know that someone else took the gun from him to snipe her? Sure, they all came back in the end, but they didn’t know that would happen when the killing was happening. Forgiving one another for what they did to each other — that can’t be easy, if it’s even possible at all.
I also wonder what happened with Hamelin. Did he come back too? Was he just re-imprisoned? After all — the famiglia have no way of knowing what Fuka learns — that he was literally being controlled by someone else.
But now I’m getting to the end-game revelations, so I should probably talk about that. In short… some of the revelations were about what I expected, while others completely blindsided me.
One thing that struck me was that my understanding of the world they lived it was fundamentally incorrect. I thought it was a fantasy amalgamation of fairy tales / children stories — one of those “all the stories are true and they live in the same world” sort of things. But that’s not the case — this is a story set firmly in the world of the The Wizard of Oz, and the other characters are only there because Dorothy created them based on her memories of stories from her own world — our world.
This is an important distinction for me, because it means the answers to the mysteries are based solely on the story of Oz, rather than from a mishmash of all the stories. (I’m looking at you, my reincarnating wolf theory.)
I was right about Soh being literally the tower, though I didn’t expect the “and also a bit of Toto’s will” bit. Tbh, I’d forgotten about Toto in total — I barely remembered Dorothy, honestly, beyond the occasional “I wonder if Fuka is Dorothy? but then why wouldn’t Kyrie say anything? Maybe she’s not Dorothy…” musings — so he didn’t really play a role in any of my theories.
Soh being the mastermind wasn’t really surprising. The extra scenes in his route made it really, really clear that he had some sort of plan revolving around Fuka, and I was already wondering if Caesar’s actions in the epilogue were a part of that “plan”.
I was genuinely surprised that he was the one controlling Hamelin, though! My strongest theory was that it was the narrative force of the Pied Piper story — kind of like the “Tradition” in Mercedes Lackey’s 500 Kingdoms universe — pushing him along; but, of course, that doesn’t make sense within the “this is actually just a sequel/canon divergence AU for Wizard of Oz” framework that this game turned out to have.
On that note, poor Hamelin. ;_; He suffered so much — just because he had moral integrity.
I did briefly wonder why Hamelin and Soh didn’t recognize one another in Hamelin’s route if they’d met before, but realized that the answer was obvious — Soh only needed to pretend like he didn’t know him, and he probably just erased everyone’s memories of his being the one to give them weapons / encourage them to violence and war.
I liked the revelation of who Fuka is. She’s born from a part of Dorothy — her soul — but she’s not actually Dorothy herself, which worked much better for me than if she had simply turned out to be an amnesiac Dorothy.
Now, who Caesar turned out to be — that completely blew my mind. I can honestly say that I did not see that coming at all. HE WAS BORN FROM A PART OF DOROTHY TOO. Her magic, to be precise. I’m still digesting it, to be honest. I’m not entirely sure how I feel? I didn’t think the “big bad wolf” stuff would be a red herring, and I’m not sure how to reconcile it, but the rest of it — it does make sense. Especially in regards to the similarities that he and Fuka share. They’re literally twohalves parts of one whole!
It explains, too, why he was so driven to hunt her — because, even though he didn’t know the truth of who he was either, an unconscious part of him still recognized that Fuka was also a piece of Dorothy, the part that he had to find.
On that note, this epilogue turned out to be so good for my Caesar/Fuka feelings. That whole scene between them — it was almost like getting another Caesar/Fuka ending. His jumping in to protect her from Soh! His telling her about how he’d come to “respect her will”! His wanting to know what Fuka wants —
I can’t help myself. I (barely) managed to resist with the Hansel/Gretel death scene, but I can’t here — I have to share the conversation that he and Fuka have.
I love him and her and them so much. ;_; Like I said — it was almost like getting another Caesar/Fuka ending. He ends up caring so much for her, even if they — in this scenario — have only really interacted in the predator/prey sense. And Fuka — oh, Fuka broke my heart. She’s really grown into her own person here, and I love seeing the growth she’s made along the way reflect here. This was just too beautiful. ;_;
(On a side note — I wonder if both Caesar and Fuka mistaking Scarlet for a girl is because they’re parts of Dorothy? I mean, yes, it could be that they’re really just that dense, but if they’re a part of Dorothy, then perhaps it could also actually because a part of them still thinks that “Little Red Riding Hood” must be a girl, like she is in the fairy tale, even if they have no awareness of the fairy tale itself.)
I cried at the end of the epilogue too, with Kyrie. His being left behind as the only one who remembers, again, and his reaction to that — it’s just too heartbreaking. There’s so many echoes of his own loathing and regret that we see in his route, especially in the transferred affection endings. And I can’t help but think that it’s even worse this time — because he’s already suffered this before, and now he needs to suffer through it again, with another person who was important to him.
Even looking at these screenshots are making me want to tear up again. ;_;
As for the grand ending — it was alright? I was glad to see Fuka reunited with everyone — as her own person now, separate from Dorothy, though still created by her. Though it did really, really bother me that there was no mention of Dorothy doing the same for Caesar. He was his own person too! He also deserves to live! Let him come back! I’m going to headcanon that he does, because otherwise it’s just too painful. (Though, uh, things might be even more complicated for him in that instance, especially with Famiglia Adelheid. But it would be worth it for him getting to live.)
Another thing — we find out that the ruling class are all immortals because they were all created or (in the case of Famiglia Oz) completely transformed by magic. By that logic, then Fuka and Caesar must be immortals too, correct? Especially in the grand ending, but I feel like it must be the case for the other routes too — especially for Caesar, since he’s not just made from magic, but literally is magic-turned-flesh.
On a more minor note — I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Fuka actually has a voice in the epilogue and grand ending! It was a little weird at first — her voice sounded different than I was imagining — but I did get used to it, by the end.
I’m still trying to figure out how the timeline for everything worked. It sounds like the inter-famiglia fighting started at Robin Hood’s wedding, but the fighting has already been going on for who knows how many hundreds of years — enough that everyone in the town has accepted it as “just the way things are”. Robin Hood’s wife’s lifespan isn’t really a problem — she’s clearly in a stasis state anyway — but Fuka’s birth is, because it happens as a result of Dorothy breaking the taboo. I think I’m going to have to puzzle this out a bit more, because that’s the only part that’s still genuinely unclear for me. (Well, that and things like “what the hell happens with Hamelin” and “wait, why doesn’t Caesar get his body back too??”, but those are relatively minor details for the overall story, even if they’re important to me.)
Overall, I really liked this game! Which is surprising, considering both its reputation and how hard I bounced off it the first time I tried playing it. This has been a true enemies-to-lovers experience for me, haha.
It’s not a proper otome game if I don’t cry at least once while playing it, right? More seriously, the epilogue — as the game itself calls it — was such an emotional ride for me. I cried two or three times, teared up even more, and I spent so much of it absolutely terrified on the behalf of all my favorite characters. Seeing all those characters I’d come to know and be killed off one by one — it was really brutal. I mean, yes — I figured that something would happen to fix those deaths, but even so, it was painful.
I will give the game this: it did a good job of imparting the impact of these immortals suddenly realizing that they could now die. Because I-as-the-player had also grown used to the idea that these characters couldn’t die, and to suddenly have that unexpectedly be ripped away and changed — it was really shocking, and all the more painful for that shock.
This was also the most mafia-like this game has ever been, especially during the battle between the Grimms and the Andersons — the revenge killings, and wanting revenge in turn for those killings… Aelling cut straight to my heartstrings here, when he says this after Hansel kills Melius:
I never paid much attention to him, but that moment hit me hard. And then, that scene after all the Andersons are dead and Hansel is dying from Melius’ poison—! That hit me so hard — I was genuinely sobbing throughout that whole scene. That was the most open and vulnerable that Gretel’s ever been — her voice, oh my god. How frightened she sounds when Hansel doesn’t answer her — and then how small her voice sounds when she’s talking to him, and the fragile way she say “big brother”... And Hansel, worrying about how he’s leaving her behind, and it killed me, it killed me, it killed me.
And then when she steps on that landmine by accident! And this — her smile when she says this:
And then, on top of that, there was Hansel asking Gretel to look out for Scarlet before he dies, their telling the Andersons that they’re getting revenge for Hamelin’s death — revenge on everyone who agreed to locking up Hamelin and so leaving him vulnerable to whoever murdered him — and then, this — Gretel’s last words before she chose to kill herself rather than be blown up by Melius’ landmine:
T_T
But I jumped ahead a little. To go back a little earlier — Heidi’s death. The first death, really, after Hamelin’s, and the one where I realized that this was really going to get serious, though I wasn’t yet sure if the LIs were going to get killed too, or only the non-LIs. First, on a less emotional note — we learn that “Peter” is the name that Heidi gives her top subordinate, and that there’s been multiple “Peter”s throughout the history of the famiglia — but the current Peter is the strongest one.
Second. Um. You know how I’ve been shipping Heidi/Peter? And you know how Peter never speaks, not once, in all the routes?
She spoke.
Heidi’s death makes her speak.
And that rampage she went on — how she said Heidi’s name, how she declared to Caesar that she was going to kill him — and how she kept on trying, even after Caesar offered to let her live —
That was really, really good. Heartbreaking! But such amazing and totally unexpected fuel for this tiny little ship of mine.
I was also very struck by how Pashet was genuinely afraid of Caesar, in a way that she’s never been. But it also makes sense — she just saw him kill an immortal. And it makes that later scene, where she deliberately seeks him out in an attempt to end him, more poignant for me. Because she is afraid. She has everything to lose from seeking him out. But she still does it, because she believes just that strongly in justice and order — even when all the famiglia around her are ripping each other apart and falling to pieces, she wants to do what she can to (what in her eyes is) protect(ing) the town.
tl;dr Pashet is amazing.
Kyrie having Fuka poison Robin Hood was pretty shocking too! (...Also obliquely satisfying, considering what Robin Hood did to Fuka in his route, but anyways…!) I was surprised to see an choice here — it was the only choice we get, in this epilogue, and it doesn’t really affect anything, so I’m not sure why it was there. I checked out both options, and I think I like the one where Fuka tries to warn him better, if only for Fuka herself — the end result is the same, but I think it’s better for her if Robin Hood makes it clear that he knows what’s in the tea, and then drinks it anyways.
I’ve been thinking about why Famiglia Oz would poison him, though. They spend the whole war building their defenses, and in the end never have to fight anyone — Robin Hood is the only instance where they’re proactive. And I wonder — was it a strange sort of kindness? Kyrie does say that it would be a quicker death than most. And Robin Hood had no chance of surviving the war — the letter made it very clear that it was a last man standing scenario, and Robin Hood is the only one of the mafia factions who is completely, utterly alone. If they kill him first, before anyone else gets to him, then at least they could guarantee that his death be relatively painless.
Their attitude towards Dorian Gray’s faction also seems to pay heed to that. Things are briefly tense between them, but when Dorian tells them that they don’t intend to fight, but rather have a more peaceful death on their own terms, they — aside from a tasteless joke on Kyrie’s part — allow them to have that chance to die in a better way.
Alfani also gave me too many feelings. His conversation with Fuka — that killed me.
He’s so fucked up, and I feel so bad for him. And I love Fuka’s line there.
Kyrie taking the blame for killing Robin Hood definitely gave me feelings too. His logic for it was perfectly himself.
Scarlet and Pashet’s plan worked out pretty much how I thought it would. The only difference is that I expected Caesar to kill Pashet while Scarlet was murdered by Soh above, but no. Also — I know I keep saying this, but Scarlet was so heartbreaking. His not wanting to participate in the war/hurt anyone, but also not wanting to let Famiglia Grimm disappear with him… His smile when he realizes he’s going to die… And his wondering to himself if his dream of peace was really too much to want.
Scarlet ;_;
I do wonder, though — at the end, when everyone is revived through Fuka’s wish — it’s made clear that they do remember dying. And part of her wish is that they’d be able to live happily, so I assumed that peace was a part of that. Furthermore, they do seem to treat one another relatively normally in what we see from them in the grand ending.
But… I can’t help but feel like it can’t be that simple. They literally killed one another. The Andersons and Grimms witnessed each other murdering the people they loved most. For all Pashet knows, Scarlet double-crossed her — how was she supposed to know that someone else took the gun from him to snipe her? Sure, they all came back in the end, but they didn’t know that would happen when the killing was happening. Forgiving one another for what they did to each other — that can’t be easy, if it’s even possible at all.
I also wonder what happened with Hamelin. Did he come back too? Was he just re-imprisoned? After all — the famiglia have no way of knowing what Fuka learns — that he was literally being controlled by someone else.
But now I’m getting to the end-game revelations, so I should probably talk about that. In short… some of the revelations were about what I expected, while others completely blindsided me.
One thing that struck me was that my understanding of the world they lived it was fundamentally incorrect. I thought it was a fantasy amalgamation of fairy tales / children stories — one of those “all the stories are true and they live in the same world” sort of things. But that’s not the case — this is a story set firmly in the world of the The Wizard of Oz, and the other characters are only there because Dorothy created them based on her memories of stories from her own world — our world.
This is an important distinction for me, because it means the answers to the mysteries are based solely on the story of Oz, rather than from a mishmash of all the stories. (I’m looking at you, my reincarnating wolf theory.)
I was right about Soh being literally the tower, though I didn’t expect the “and also a bit of Toto’s will” bit. Tbh, I’d forgotten about Toto in total — I barely remembered Dorothy, honestly, beyond the occasional “I wonder if Fuka is Dorothy? but then why wouldn’t Kyrie say anything? Maybe she’s not Dorothy…” musings — so he didn’t really play a role in any of my theories.
Soh being the mastermind wasn’t really surprising. The extra scenes in his route made it really, really clear that he had some sort of plan revolving around Fuka, and I was already wondering if Caesar’s actions in the epilogue were a part of that “plan”.
I was genuinely surprised that he was the one controlling Hamelin, though! My strongest theory was that it was the narrative force of the Pied Piper story — kind of like the “Tradition” in Mercedes Lackey’s 500 Kingdoms universe — pushing him along; but, of course, that doesn’t make sense within the “this is actually just a sequel/canon divergence AU for Wizard of Oz” framework that this game turned out to have.
On that note, poor Hamelin. ;_; He suffered so much — just because he had moral integrity.
I did briefly wonder why Hamelin and Soh didn’t recognize one another in Hamelin’s route if they’d met before, but realized that the answer was obvious — Soh only needed to pretend like he didn’t know him, and he probably just erased everyone’s memories of his being the one to give them weapons / encourage them to violence and war.
I liked the revelation of who Fuka is. She’s born from a part of Dorothy — her soul — but she’s not actually Dorothy herself, which worked much better for me than if she had simply turned out to be an amnesiac Dorothy.
Now, who Caesar turned out to be — that completely blew my mind. I can honestly say that I did not see that coming at all. HE WAS BORN FROM A PART OF DOROTHY TOO. Her magic, to be precise. I’m still digesting it, to be honest. I’m not entirely sure how I feel? I didn’t think the “big bad wolf” stuff would be a red herring, and I’m not sure how to reconcile it, but the rest of it — it does make sense. Especially in regards to the similarities that he and Fuka share. They’re literally two
It explains, too, why he was so driven to hunt her — because, even though he didn’t know the truth of who he was either, an unconscious part of him still recognized that Fuka was also a piece of Dorothy, the part that he had to find.
On that note, this epilogue turned out to be so good for my Caesar/Fuka feelings. That whole scene between them — it was almost like getting another Caesar/Fuka ending. His jumping in to protect her from Soh! His telling her about how he’d come to “respect her will”! His wanting to know what Fuka wants —
I can’t help myself. I (barely) managed to resist with the Hansel/Gretel death scene, but I can’t here — I have to share the conversation that he and Fuka have.
I love him and her and them so much. ;_; Like I said — it was almost like getting another Caesar/Fuka ending. He ends up caring so much for her, even if they — in this scenario — have only really interacted in the predator/prey sense. And Fuka — oh, Fuka broke my heart. She’s really grown into her own person here, and I love seeing the growth she’s made along the way reflect here. This was just too beautiful. ;_;
(On a side note — I wonder if both Caesar and Fuka mistaking Scarlet for a girl is because they’re parts of Dorothy? I mean, yes, it could be that they’re really just that dense, but if they’re a part of Dorothy, then perhaps it could also actually because a part of them still thinks that “Little Red Riding Hood” must be a girl, like she is in the fairy tale, even if they have no awareness of the fairy tale itself.)
I cried at the end of the epilogue too, with Kyrie. His being left behind as the only one who remembers, again, and his reaction to that — it’s just too heartbreaking. There’s so many echoes of his own loathing and regret that we see in his route, especially in the transferred affection endings. And I can’t help but think that it’s even worse this time — because he’s already suffered this before, and now he needs to suffer through it again, with another person who was important to him.
Even looking at these screenshots are making me want to tear up again. ;_;
As for the grand ending — it was alright? I was glad to see Fuka reunited with everyone — as her own person now, separate from Dorothy, though still created by her. Though it did really, really bother me that there was no mention of Dorothy doing the same for Caesar. He was his own person too! He also deserves to live! Let him come back! I’m going to headcanon that he does, because otherwise it’s just too painful. (Though, uh, things might be even more complicated for him in that instance, especially with Famiglia Adelheid. But it would be worth it for him getting to live.)
Another thing — we find out that the ruling class are all immortals because they were all created or (in the case of Famiglia Oz) completely transformed by magic. By that logic, then Fuka and Caesar must be immortals too, correct? Especially in the grand ending, but I feel like it must be the case for the other routes too — especially for Caesar, since he’s not just made from magic, but literally is magic-turned-flesh.
On a more minor note — I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Fuka actually has a voice in the epilogue and grand ending! It was a little weird at first — her voice sounded different than I was imagining — but I did get used to it, by the end.
I’m still trying to figure out how the timeline for everything worked. It sounds like the inter-famiglia fighting started at Robin Hood’s wedding, but the fighting has already been going on for who knows how many hundreds of years — enough that everyone in the town has accepted it as “just the way things are”. Robin Hood’s wife’s lifespan isn’t really a problem — she’s clearly in a stasis state anyway — but Fuka’s birth is, because it happens as a result of Dorothy breaking the taboo. I think I’m going to have to puzzle this out a bit more, because that’s the only part that’s still genuinely unclear for me. (Well, that and things like “what the hell happens with Hamelin” and “wait, why doesn’t Caesar get his body back too??”, but those are relatively minor details for the overall story, even if they’re important to me.)
Overall, I really liked this game! Which is surprising, considering both its reputation and how hard I bounced off it the first time I tried playing it. This has been a true enemies-to-lovers experience for me, haha.