#this was spurred on by me repeatedly seeing the “i'm so glad that Sunday is dead” sentiment being expressed by mainly Aventurine fans

[tabr1-s]

aventurine rant and personal critiques about 2.1's writing below

(to preface... i am biased towards Sunday and his plight, and firmly against the IPC and their plans concerning retaking Penacony. but that's not to say that i support the Family as a whole either.)

why was 80% of the 2.1 quest about Aventurine? isn't that what character stories and companion quests are for?

to begin, the first thing that bothered me was how the game seemed to want the player to believe that Aventurine's offer wasn't forced. examples below:

although it... was forced. you can tell him that you won't associate with the IPC and he will tell you not to worry about it, and just "reconsider it" by talking to your companions (mainly the Navigator, Himeko) at the express (basically implying that our opinion does not matter to him in the slightest). dialogue below:

(now i don't know if it's my personal hatred for being controlled and told what to do that's making me see this differently... but i have talked this over with a friend of mine and they do agree that it Does seem forced. i might be putting myself in an echo chamber by doing this, but at least i'm not alone!)

my point with the above is that the game tries to get you to sympathize with Aventurine from the beginning, and forces your hand when it comes to agreeing to his proposal by making some - frankly - stupid excuses as to why we should trust him. maybe others found them to be convincing/enough, but to me it just seemed like a cheap way to get the story rolling. (also, since when did we become pawns of the IPC? Penacony's debt is none of our business, and, not to get political... but it reminds me of real life sentiments that colonialist people hold about countries that "belonged to them in the past", despite that country having years of history and development since/before then (and i do not care if that country's political system is corrupt, or that they have unpaid debt. that is not an excuse to bring about war and occupation.). also, i sincerely hate how Aventurine wasn't even hiding that he views Robin's death as an opportunity, or, in his words, a "bargaining chip". we're made to sympathize with him and his dead family but he can't read the room and show some genuine sympathy himself, can he?)

...so the story goes on. we get some Welt and Acheron bits, a bit of Black Swan, and some investigation on the front of Himeko, March 7th, and the trailblazer. then the focus falls back on Aventurine. but, for the time being, it's fine - because at least he's alongside Dr. Ratio and their bickering is entertaining.

which leads to the scene where Sunday confronts Aventurine. yes, Sunday is manipulative. he begins by praising Aventurine and buttering him up, seemingly trying to get Aventurine to lower his guard. but let's not forget that Aventurine is also being manipulative - using Sunday's recent close family death as leverage for his own schemes. Sunday knows this, and so calls upon the help of Xipe, the Harmony, to bring the truth to light.

now, Sunday doesn't outright warn him about the consequences of not answering or answering falsely, but the implication is there. Sunday gives Aventurine a chance to come clean. and what does Aventurine do? he lies, basically securing his own fate like that. another example of Sunday giving Aventurine a chance to admit the truth was here:

"it's your last chance to defend your honor". up until the point where he gave Aventurine the box, Aventurine had countless chances to stop betting with his life and do the simplest thing - answer truthfully. but he didn't. so, my question is: why does all the blame fall on Sunday when it was Aventurine who got himself into that predicament in the first place? it also gets implied multiple times that Aventurine wanted that conclusion all along...

...which leads me to the next topic. people viewing him as this "genius mastermind" - when in reality, he's no more than a self-destructive gambler that simply puts faith in his good luck to lead him to the conclusion that he wants. and, honestly? that seems like a very immature mentality to me. there's nothing admirable about him risking it all time and time again, and i'm not sure why exactly i'm meant to sympathize with that part of him. also...

don't be a hypocrite yourself, Aventurine. you also lied and was planning to manipulate from the beginning - them expecting the truth from you shouldn't come as a surprise.

now, i'm not going to fully go into the 2 or so hours of pure Aventurine³ content (or, as my friend put it, "exposition vomit"), other than saying that his story could've definitely been told in a much more concise manner than what we got. i mean, good for the Aventurine fans out there, i'm happy for them. but, writing-wise, that was pretty out of place. in comparison, Acheron's backstory only got implied, and was kept mostly a mystery. you can only find bits and pieces of Sunday and Robin's upbringing by reading the letter Robin sent to her brother, and observing the "concert for two" lightcone in that same room. Firefly says some things about her condition and spends a significant part of the 2.0 quest with Trailblazer, but at least the main character is part of that story. Aventurine's case seemed like a blatant pity party from the writers - from the beginning of 2.1 til the end. now i'm not saying that his backstory isn't tragic; the first time i played through the story i sympathized with him. it was heartbreaking. but that genuinely could've been saved for a companion quest.

another thing i thought was out of place was Aventurine's hatred for the Family. seeing his backstory, i believed that they were leading up to the Family being somehow responsible for his rough upbringing/period of slavery, so that was Aventurine enacting his revenge on them. but that was... not the case. instead, he's only(?) doing this for the IPC, with no true motivation of his own. in other words, why is he trying to bring the Family down so avidly? i'm not convinced that his reasons are good enough for him to cause so much chaos to a nation/organization that has nothing to do with him. if it is purely because of the IPC's whims, then that is not very "free will" of him.

despite all my qualms, i don't hate Aventurine. the Penacony characters are hard to hate in general, for they're all intriguing in their own ways. but i do think i've been a bit too over-exposed to him. maybe i'd go as far as to say that he was overhyped - they could've handled his story better, and not simply thrown everything they had for him in one singular questline right before his release. personally, even with the characters that i have biases towards, i would prefer for their stories to be told through character stories, companion quests, texts, and readables. that way, you find out about the character on your own volition without it feeling forced. and, if their backstories are relevant to the main storyline, you can easily make it brief and showcase what's, well...

relevant.