#and how well the scene conveys yuri's real emotions in jp which were left out of the loc

[goldentigerfestival]

I absolutely have to point out how much I love Yuri using "teme" toward Sodia when she gives up on the possibility that Flynn is still alive/will still be alive when they arrive. Yuri was so disappointed in her in that moment and was willing to very verbally make sure she sure knew. He found her so pathetic for giving up that he couldn't even keep to his usual demeaner and ended up letting his real feelings show. He was disappointed and angry, and I love how you can hear that very quiet and controlled anger in his voice.

Also, the localized text has him ask if she could be any more worthless, but the JP audio actually gives more insight into Yuri's actual feelings toward Sodia that he's never liked her and always saw her this way. The localization left out Yuri saying "as usual" when he berates her - which is to say, in his perspective, as usual, she's worthless. It's not just right now that he thinks it, but he just never let it show that this is how he's always felt about her. He kept up that façade of not really caring, but here he finally lets it be known that he's always felt what he's now finally expressing.

I find this particularly interesting because he's technically... not wrong, but I think he probably didn't want to let his personal feelings get involved in his opinions too much since she was Flynn's second in command. But that said, all she ever did was follow his orders blindly - never questioning him and never really behaving like a second in command. When Flynn followed Alexei's orders blindly, she could have been questioning him and raising concerns with him. If someone from within the knights had done so, he might have actually stopped to rethink his actions during act 2.

And I think, because of her lack of doing anything like that, that Yuri had been seeing her as worthless this entire time and just tried not to be bias about it. It's also true that every single time Yuri's group was trying to do something that was inarguably beneficial to the knights and/or Flynn that Sodia had to Make A Scene Right Quick. Yuri always acted like he didn't care, but he obviously did, and it obviously degraded his opinion toward her over time more and more. The fact that her priorities always rested with arresting someone who wasn't an actual threat, and the fact that she would ask said non-threat to turn himself in in the middle of actively helping the situation, including literally right before they went to fight Alexei, probably had his opinion well buried in the dirt.

I can only imagine he just really didn't feel like getting into his feelings about it and for the most part probably saw it as more of an annoyance/nuisance. At this part though, when Flynn's life is actually on the line, she's given up, thinking he can't possibly make it through this and so is acting on the assumption of that. She wasn't viewing it as "we have to hurry back so Flynn will survive this", she was viewing it as "we have to hurry but Flynn probably make it by the time we get there".

And that was the last straw for Yuri. He had put up with it all those times before and didn't bother whenever Sodia was just a bother, an annoyance, what have you. She may have been worthless in his eyes, but that hadn't been something that was going to directly harm Flynn. When she gave up on the idea that he could survive until they got to him, it did become harmful to him because the urgency to save him had been clouded with the idea that he was probably already dead. All the times Sodia annoyed Yuri was just whatever, and he probably hoped she would still be beneficial to Flynn, but right now, she wasn't at all and was doing the exact opposite.

That was crossing the line for Yuri - that Flynn's own second in command didn't believe in him to survive this, and that that lack of faith in him getting through it all could have actually put him in danger.

It was one thing when Sodia's actions only brought potential harm and nuisance to Yuri. It was another thing when her actions might have brought harm to Flynn.

And no, this is not a yeehaw Sodia bash post - I'm just gushing about how a simple phrase can mean so much and give so much insight, and how unfortunately that got left out of the localization. Yuri's real feelings are hardly ever a topic the game delves deeply into, but in this moment, it does, and more so in the JP dialogue. Just that extra phrase said a whole lot about his real feelings, as well as the way he was pissed enough to use a derogatory form of "you" (also a heavy loss in the localization, because using that term directly to her face is basically completely dropping the carefree act and proving he's actually pissed and completely done with her shit).

In fact, part of me wonders if it doesn't actually make even more sense for things to go in the direction of the JP dialogue (I mean obviously, the game was made in Japan, but I assume y'all know what I mean). Yuri finally dropping the act in front of her and basically pouring out his feelings toward her may have been the slap in the face she really needed.

Obviously it works in the English version, but I personally found the JP dialogue to be a much heavier motivator due to Yuri's usual personality/behavior and the absolute change in tone/verbiage in that scene. All this time she had thought Yuri was a problem for Flynn and that she'd be the one to fix it, but right there, she's realizing that her almost-screw up here borderline infuriated Yuri, and because it involved Flynn.

He trusted that Flynn would be okay with her as his second in command, and he's angry that he was wrong. She's realizing this is the real Yuri, who is disgusted by her not because she was obsessed with hunting him down, but because of an action that could affect Flynn. She's realizing that something that could bring harm to Flynn is Yuri's Do Not Press button, and it was something she hadn't seen this clearly before (again, he acted carefree and unconcerned around Sodia in the past. This is the first she's seeing of him actually more or less losing his temper, and the reason for it is because if she dawdled due to her lack of faith in Flynn's likelihood to survive, her actions could have endangered Flynn, and that's crossing the line for Yuri).

As long as she was helpful to Flynn, he would put up with her nonsense. As soon as she wavered in her ability to help Flynn or even believe in him, Yuri was done with her. He has his own personal feelings against her (ex "I'm not letting it go" does indicate a grudge that she tried to kill him, so he does at least care abut her actions toward him, but he doesn't make a big deal out of it), but as long as they don't get in Flynn's way, whatever. As soon as they do, he doesn't hide his feelings anymore.