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grosserfluss · 8 years ago

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30 days of suikoden challenge , day 5 ——

favorite star of destiny from suikoden iv

here we gooo the original shitty poncy noble turned antag turned redemption arc also known as my favorite character in s4 and the hands down best unit you can’t tell me otherwise drumrooolll.......... snowe vingerhut!

to be perfectly honest, snowe has one of the best narrative arcs not only in s4, but in my opinion in all of suikoden overall. it’s not only realistic and suitably solemn, but executed in a fashion that makes it believable. considering he’s just about one of the only characters in s4 who experiences any character development whatsoever ( i’m kind of tempted to say the only one...... ), it’s like the development team just put literally all their energy into making his story fantastic and then forgot about everyone else. perks: snowe is fucking amazing. cons: everything else kinda sucks character-wise. not that i’m saying the other characters are exceedingly dry and boring; there are definitely still good eggs in the cast. but none of them get character development; they pretty much stay static throughout the game. nor are they particularly dynamic in and of themselves. snowe is pretty much the only one who doesn’t feel like a trope.

he starts out the game winning trophies in the World’s Worst Best Friend contest left and right. though he’s lazlo’s best friend, it’s pretty much a given that he considers him more of a shadow than how one would really treat their friends. he’s so spoiled and self-absorbed that he never gives a thought to what lazlo thinks or wants — it’s pretty much all about himself and how lazlo can make him look good. he’s not mean to him, perse, but he clearly walks all over him and one gets the impression that he hangs out with him because he likes him, yes, but also because lazlo lets him have his way and because snowe looks good next to him. not surprisingly, he’s also an extremely shallow and immature individual, only allowed to take charge of missions and be in command because his daddy dearest has direct influence on the navy.

of course, he lets his privileges go to his head — he believes he should be in charge, that everyone should think the best of him, and is just brimming with poncy young nobleman bravado. of course all the other trainees are going to listen to him and support him, because he’s clearly qualified and they’re his friends! the game sets him up wonderfully as a character, and then comes the brilliant moment at the beginning when he drastically fucks up a simple delivery mission when their ship gets attacked by pirates.

here, we find out ( we’d gotten inklings before, but it never really showed itself until this point ) that snowe is a Coward with a capital c. the moment pirates attack, he’s paralyzed by fear and inaction. when people ask him for orders, he totally blanks. and then when lazlo takes over command, snowe is appalled that he “shows him up”. realizing that no one is listening to him ( while he fucking complains about his arm not being able to move, once again showcasing how self-centered he is ) he decides to just abandon ship in a dinghy by himself. later, the player gets satisfaction in watching the commander chew him the fuck out for abandoning ship when he was captain, and praise lazlo for actually getting shit done and fending off the pirates. this moment, of course, becomes the catalyst for all of snowe’s feelings of jealousy as the commander begins to place more trust in lazlo’s abilities ( rightfully, because snowe is a fucking weenis. )

it’s little surprise, then, that when commander glen dies and the rune of punishment transfers over to lazlo, that snowe, not knowing what happened, blames the commander’s death on his friend, resulting in lazlo’s exile. while snowe seems to express some kind of guilt over causing his friend’s exile in what had been a moment of blind panic, he also seems to selfishly realize that this is also the perfect opportunity for him to regain his former esteem with lazlo gone.

however, no one is surprised when snowe continuously proves himself incompetent over and over again. he gets ousted from the razril and ends up hopping around to a bunch of different places, trying to make a name for himself and get back some of the prestige he once had, joining up with pirates and even the kooluk empire in an attempt to make something out of himself and continue to compete with lazlo. over and over, lazlo and his army encounter him, and each time snowe expresses envy that his best friend is able to be so successful, raising up and leading a unified army, while he continues to fail. he asks “why you?” to which the player doesn’t really have an answer other than snowe’s a fucking immature jackass, but he tries so hard and fails so pathetically because of his lack of understanding that you can’t help but feel sorry for him at the same time, because he just doesn’t get it. he refuses to join you each time out of resentment and jealousy, and you can either kill him or let him go.

if you choose to let him go each time, sending him away in a sad little dinghy after sparing his life, and recruit all the other 107 stars, snowe is your 108th star. i think this is really fitting and symbolic because it’s like your reward for uniting all these people is the chance to give your best friend an opportunity to redeem himself, the one who has clearly thought little of you and sabotaged you since the beginning of the game. the suikoden games focus a lot on the theme of forgiveness — riou and jowy in s2, most notably — but s4′s forgiveness is done so well because, unlike jowy, the player probably doesn’t want to forgive snowe for what he’s done. he was so awful in the beginning, and is the reason lazlo was cast out of razril. he’s been so jealous of you the whole game. but if you choose to be sympathetic to him, you get what becomes a truly equal friendship. the game doesn’t just depict forgiveness for an otherwise sympathetic character, it asks for it from the player for a character who 100% doesn’t deserve it.

and the moment is a truly pitiful one. after you’ve gotten all 107 stars, you’re given the chance to find snowe literally floating on some driftwood in torn up rags for clothing. you’re the leader of a strong, unified army, and he’s hit rock fucking bottom, and when he stands before you and all the people he’s wronged, he knows how low he’s fallen and he’s clearly humbled. he has nothing to say other than “i’m at your mercy”, and when you choose to forgive him and let him join you, he says “i have no choice but to acknowledge how powerless i am. i knew it...i knew it all along”, indicating that he is finally mature enough to realize that everything he’s been doing was out of inferiority complex, and he realizes his mistakes. he thanks you ( for possibly the first time?? ), which shows he’s finally not taking things for granted anymore. the knights surround him in a show of acceptance, and it’s so emotional jfc my heart.

my favorite thing is that his growth comes across in lazlo’s co-op attack with him too. at the beginning of the game, your “friendship” co-op animation consists of lazlo going in and doing all the work, and then snowe coming in and delivering the showy final blow. when you get him again at the end, the co-op has changed to “true friends” and the animation is also different — the two of you are now working together, each pulling his own weight. ( it’s legit one of the best co-ops honestly the dmg output is cray ). i’ve always enjoyed this subtle indication of not only his character development, but also the development of lazlo’s friendship with him to something far more healthy and equal than it used to be.

plus, the fact that you can fish for his alternate outfits that he’s worn throughout the game and dress him up differently is fun. i always put him in his kooluk outfit cause he looks so spiffy and i feel so bad leaving him in those rags haha. he’s also an outstanding unit in my opinion, easily one of the best by end-game. he’s not versatile, but he’s a really powerful melee fighter, and i always stick a fury rune on him and have him doing upwards of 800-1000 dmg per hit, easy. for my play style ( aka. make each unit unto their own one-man army ) snowe is like. the bomb diggity.

so basically, snowe is euram barows but about 20x better. euram was clearly trying to follow the same narrative path as snowe — underdog nobleman who obviously doesn’t have much talent and is trying to sabotage the protag but realizes his mistakes in the end and learns humility. the difference is that snowe, while certainly pathetic and worthy of scorn from the player, is never reduced to farce the same way that euram is. while the player has a hard time taking euram’s bombastic personality and slapstick actions seriously, snowe's repeatedly failed attempts to make something of himself are 100% serious. thus, his endgame redemption feels much more believable than euram’s, which felt really shoehorned in. snowe also shows more inklings of development throughout the game — though he continues to be resentful and envious each time you encounter him, he slowly loses the hubris of early game and starts to visibly question himself well before you get to recruit him, setting up for the moment of his recruitment very nicely. it doesn’t feel sudden or forced at all, unlike euram where it was sort of like you hit a switch and suddenly he got a lobotomy or smth and is now redeemed.

i’ve already written way too much but basically snowe is, in my opinion, the best example of character development and personal narrative in the suikoden series. his early-game self is infuriating, but believable, and his progression through the game is organic and equally well-executed. his redemption is really a redemption — unlike jowy and sialeeds, he didn’t have good intentions for his bad actions. he straight up did awful things and was a pretty awful person. there’s no reason we or lazlo should forgive him. but the point of real forgiveness isn’t to forgive someone you already want to forgive. unlike any other suikoden game, s4 presents us with a character who didn’t have any good, ethical, grey-area reasons for doing what he did, and asks us to forgive him anyway. and when we do, he truly learns from his mistakes and becomes a better person. yells into the void i love snowe!!!

honorable mentions: kika, elenor silverberg, nalkul, ted, helmut

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