#of the two imo. betrayal of the cause vs betrayal of whatever closeness they had. because he WAS sad to do it even though he felt he had to

[maliro-t]

veilguard spoilers if you're picky but re: ign today,,,,betrayal of felassan i am unwell

[oodlyenough]

@kobitoshiningneedle:

You had me until the Iris part. Firstly, I'm not sure the plot that just happened to be revolved around Phoenix relationship with the girl is merely "a feeble attempt at heterosexual romance", since it actually has its own pretty clear narrative purpose. Phoenix's relationship with Iris, and subsequent learning that he was right to believe in a person close to him is a beautiful conclusion to the whole trilogy's theme of trust Secondly, I agree wholeheartedly that Iris is a chararcter beyond a nice twin to Dahlia and one of possible Phoenix's love interests. And I sorta also agree that she didn't get enough focus for this supposedly important character. But still, from what we have it's not that hard to see what the gist of her character was about (and it's not "occasional blushing") Iris playing along with Dahlia crime stemmed from her twisted loyalty and an extreme gullibility. It was not some kind of malice. This still was a flaw of her, an ugly flaw that, if not for it, would prevent many tragedies. Iris is a morror to Godot who also had his gross flaws that caused the entire fallout of 3-5. And a lot of her character is not being a cute ex to Phoenix, but someone who needs to be able to stand on her own two. Sorry if my rant felt attacking, I just feel Iris gets flack for something that is a skewed perception of her

I sense I'm going to ramble a lot so I'm moving it out of replies where there's no character limit lol sorry.

On Iris: I don't think she's malicious either and if my wording implied that it was a mistake. I don't think she wanted to hurt or kill anyone. But I do think she does things (like continue to date Feenie vs just stealing the damn necklace) either out of a sort of selfishness/self preservation/self interest (she likes him, likes dating him, etc), or cowardice (doesn't want to upset him, doesn't want to upset Dahlia, doesn't want to face Dahlia's wrath), or at least I find either of those possible interpretations more interesting than her simply being unable to stand up to Dahlia out of pity ("why did you do it?" "I felt sorry for her" in the game). To have her be so gracious about Dahlia despite Dahlia's miscellaneous wrongdoings is imo part of the "good twin" umbrella that I found smothering to the character. Alternately, I would have been interested to see Iris more conflicted between her love for her sister and her love for others -- but instead she goes to great pains to protect Maya/thwart Dahlia, and reassures us she would have even killed Dahlia to protect Phoenix (?!?), so that's not really the case.

I think you could say something about how in the end of 3-5 she very stoically accepts whatever sentence she gets for mistreating a body/covering up a crime scene/etc, as opposed to hiding from culpability before with Fawles and with Feenie. But even there I feel like I'm stretching a bit against the text. I think I would have wanted to see a little more emphasis, if that was its meaning; instead it felt to me like a foregone conclusion of Iris' nobility.

On Phoenix's relationship with Iris: I don't think we're going to agree. I think what you're saying is what the game was trying to go for, it's just that I personally didn't think it was well-executed or that "actually she was good all along" was a meaningful resolution to Phoenix/Dahlia from 3-1. I would be more moved by a Phoenix who continues to trust so wholeheartedly despite a "real" betrayal*, or a Phoenix who trusts stranger-Iris to not repeat the mistakes of her sister despite resembling someone who hurt him badly, than by what the game was giving me - this idea that Feenie and "Dollie's" relationship was genuine and she "was always the person he thought she was" and his trust in her even in 3-1 was founded. We see him trust in the face of great odds all the time; it wasn't a new direction to take him imo. Him being wrong, in a very personal way (not just magatama BS with Engarde lol), and how he reacts to and moves beyond that is more interesting to me and speaks more to his character than "he always trusts the right person", which is how I feel the end comes across.

(*And here is also where the game and I differ, because I think from Phoenix's POV what Iris did was pretty fucked up regardless of her reasons or her feelings, but Phoenix and by extension the game do not particularly care. I suppose this is in-character for Phoenix, who forgives many things and loves with his whole chest, but... I'm not Phoenix.)

And I do feel that introducing a hypothetical girlfriend in the last case of a trilogy infamous for homoerotic tension, to then drop her again immediately, is a pretty transparent move. YMMV.

Ultimately I more-or-less agree that what you're saying is what Capcom was intending from Iris -- I just didn't, personally, think it was well-executed or very compelling, and if I think about fleshing Iris out more myself, it's not in that direction.

I've been thinking a lot about how fandom attitudes towards female characters shift, and how a lot of the outright hatred that was once prevalent now is replaced by "girlboss" "mom friend" "only braincell" type discourse... and also about the Hawthorne twins and what I see of them in fandom vs canon.

It's interesting to me that I see a lot of what feels like a fandom desire to rehabilitate Dahlia as a character from a feminist perspective, sometimes taken as a given that her canon material was bad, when ...tbqh I don't really feel that she needs it. If I think of characters wronged by their canon text, Dahlia wouldn't make the list. Even a surface-level reading of Dahlia is, imo, a compelling character, with clear motivations, consistent behaviour, agency. She's funny and memorable. You can dig deeper into speculation and headcanon territory with Dahlia (and I totally get the impulse, she's great and there's lots of potential there) but I don't think you need to do that to make her a solid character, I think she already is. I don't think she's any less complex than the other trilogy villains, and if anything she's a lot more complex already than someone like Engarde, and on par with Von Karma.

On the other hand, I think Iris got some paper-thin writing as "the good twin" and, let's be honest, a feeble attempt to set up a heterosexual romance for Phoenix which gets dropped in subsequent games anyway. There are interesting possible complexities to tease out of Iris, just as with Dahlia; Iris facilitates or participates in some pretty messed-up things, but Phoenix and the story are very forgiving, which just flattens her out further into Good Twin. I don't think the canon is very interested in Iris outside of her role as plot twist doppelganger and occasional blush sprite... and mostly it seems the fanon Iris gets in response is to quadruple down on those things. She's pure and kind and sweet, besties with Phoenix, their relationship is cast as something wholesome and innocent, despite the uh objective reality of it.

What about the Iris who helps her sister plan harebrained criminal schemes only to back out at last second, the Iris who fell in love with Feenie despite herself and yet continued to lie and place him in danger for eight months, who watched Dahlia get a death sentence without ever coming clean ... Those things are the aspects that would make her a multidimensional character, imo, but they're ignored and/or glossed over in the story and (what I've seen of) fandom. And I don't say this to mean that she's evil or irredeemable or something, she isn't -- just that the basic fact of her actions is a lot messier than is usually acknowledged, by canon or fanon. For the canon I think the reasons are obvious and not flattering; for fandom, I think the intentions are generally positive, trying to correct for the opposite end of the spectrum (and 20 years ago the attitude was probably quite different), but I still wish female characters were given more space to be complicated in ways that include being kind of fucked up actually.