#what did they do to youuuuu... oliver i'm so sorry

[sweetpea-sprite]

i love that a large part of oliver's character arc is coming to love ni no kuni over time until the journey is no longer only about saving his mother to him but about defeating shadar. and i will forever be pissed that level 5 got rid of most of it in wotww. btw.

accidentally wrote an essay about this so i'm putting it under a read more

they didn't get rid of all of it. he has his soulsnare moment. he. uh. i'll be completely honest with you i'm entirely blanking on ANY other moments. like obviously he willingly sacrifices himself to defeat shadar but that's like the culmination not the build up. um. what other. uh.

okay anyway in dotdd you can SEE him get more attached to ni no kuni. literally the first cutscene you see of him after gateway (the deleted ghibli scene. you can see it in the casino in wotww) is him staring at the world in awe. it's emphasised. there's a zoom in on his face. in wotww he has a moment like this but it's a lot less focused on oliver's reaction and more on showing You the beauty of it. (the ghibli scene is prettier anyway...)

in general dotdd does a much better job of showing oliver falling in love with the world and its inhabitants. listen i am the fairyground's #1 fan but in the arc it replaces there's a scene where swaine protects esther, and then immediately after they start fighting again, and oliver starts laughing because he's FOND OF THEM. they're FRIENDS. it does a much better job of showing the party's bonds with each other than the fairyground does. (in a perfect world we would have both the fairyground and del mokahl.)

it's even little thingsss. stuff like swaine directly saying he wants to go with oliver. the tombstone trail where oliver makes friends with a ghost and cries when she disappears. it's so much more obvious that he's getting more and more attached.

and then in xanadu when they discover that mornstar's stones are scattered and they have to find them there's a TURNING POINT. where oliver steps forward and stubbornly says well i don't care that it seems almost impossible. there's a CHANCE. we can do this. think of everyone who's out there suffering we have to TRY. otherwise what was the point of everything we've done up until now? (foreshadowing for his soulsnare moment!) and he doesn't mention alicia ONCE.

in wotww the only stone guardian where you clearly help someone in need is aapep, where you help ali and yasmina break their curse. in dotdd it's all three - oliver promises to look after grey/cerboreas for his past owner, and also, um, organises a union during crossbones. it's just a lot more obvious that oliver wants to help people. he had an ulterior motive for coming here but now he genuinely wants to help and it's OBVIOUS.

and then oliver gets really fucking angry at shadar in perdida. he gets more pissed off in general in dotdd (yet another trait i wish wotww oliver had...) but specifically at shadar he starts shouting about it to the sky. he gets PISSED. it's set off by them discovering a girl who had a piece of her heart stolen by shadar due to her grandmother, on purpose. oliver shouts to the sky that he is "going to SAVE that little girl!"

even the SOULSNARE isn't only about alicia! esther and swaine get trapped in there too and oliver tries to run directly into the poison marshes HIMSELF to get them back and is only stopped by drippy who rightfully points out that he will DIE.

when he finally frees the souls in the soulsnare he has the wotww moment of "everything we've done up until now was for nothing" and then is reminded of everything they've done, and his reason for fighting CHANGES ENTIRELY!!! and it changes in wotww as well - this is the most important part of oliver's arc, after all - but in dotdd. it's already changed. they don't even need the pea montage because you already know how much oliver loves this place.

and then he SACRIFICES HIS LIFE FOR IT!!!!!!! he came here to save his mother - remember, he SAID NO when drippy asked the first time, until he learned about alicia. but he's become so attached and in love with ni no kuni that he heads into a battle he knows he's not coming back from to keep it safe. it drives me NUTS. this world isn't his own and he's killing himself for it because he adores it so much. it's [SCREAMING]

and then in wotww they get rid of almost all of this and oliver is still a fantastic fucking character. they got rid of all of his anger and most of his tears and he's still phenomenal. isn't that crazy. like dotdd oliver is superior but wotww oliver is still really good is the thing

god. anyway. this is your sign to play dotdd. please. please. please. pl