edgeofjustice | Question meme

In general, Yuri tsuns at people who say true things about him, which is maybe why Flynn gets ALL THE TSUN, because he knows EVERYTHING about Yuri. Yuri doesn't like being called out on what's actually going on in his head, thus why he is so casual and smooth even if he's mentally trainwrecking. It's a lot easier to make him tsun in Aather because he is, against all odds, more open. Especially lately his walls have been fraying at the edges, and he's had to force some of them down entirely for the sake of his relationships.

Tell me about Lloyd as a protagonist!

Goshhhhh. Okay, so, Lloyd is introduced as your really stereotypical dumb boy protag! And this is not a lie. He falls asleep in class and jokes around with his friends and says stupid things when they come to mind and his whole party abuses him for being a moron, and all this is very genuine. He's hot-headed and stubborn and believes in justice and optimism and being all you can be! It's all very derp.

Despite the derp, however, Lloyd is super self-possessed all the time, because he basically has complete self-confidence. This also makes him very ruthless. He kills people without it even phasing him if he thinks it's the right thing to do, he's incredibly pushy in all his relationships at some level because he thinks he's right, and he decides to change the world on the strength of "I don't think it should be this way." He has trouble with regrets or guilt. He can admit it when he makes mistakes, but because he feels strong enough in himself to change his course to being more right, not because he thinks he was wrong per se. He knows who he is and what he wants, and it takes an awful lot for him to give any fucks about a path he thinks is stupid.

He'd honestly be a kind of terrible person if not for the fact that he super loves people. People are awesome! He's an extrovert's extrovert; just being around people being people makes him happy. He has enormous faith in people to basically be okay somewhere even if they're being douchebags. He can kill at need and without regrets but his friends and acquaintances can get all the trust and admiration from him, because he genuinely thinks they are awesome! And he is Lloyd so he is right, obviously.

It's interesting to see how being a stubborn jerk of a jesus gets parsed into being a hero. Lloyd ends up the leader of the party not because he's selected or because it's originally his initiative in any way, but because the Chosen, who is the leader of the party, is pretty clearly just. Used to deferring decisions to Lloyd all the time, since she is a people-pleaser and he is him and they grew up with each other. Eventually when Lloyd decides they should ragequit the Chosen system and save Colette, they keep following him because no one really liked the Chosen system, but he's the only one confident that they absolutely must be able to change it somehow. And part of it is that he's confident they can change it — he loves his party and most everyone in Symphonia has existential issues and needs a lot of love and validation.

The way the game itself frames it is that Lloyd is a hero who keeps pushing on through everything, which is not always great — Kratos explicitly points out that he could have been another Mithos if he was less willing to stop, back up, and acknowledge and take responsibility for his fuckups. In ToS:DotNW, Emil, the new protagonist, kind of acts as his opposite in that he's a hero that can only accomplish his journey through not knowing who he was and discovering it; Lloyd is the protagonist who just hits the world with a sword till it does what he wants without looking back.

REVERSE FOR YURI!

OH GOSH I LOVE VESPERIA AND PROTAGONISTS!!!! Because Vesperia fucks with protagonism in a couple of different ways, I think.

Yuri is introduced as this sarcastic, unhurried sort of guy who’s observant but kind of shifty. The prevalent attitude of the NPC isn’t that ‘Yuri will save us!” it’s “Oh god Yuri is going to get himself, AND us in trouble AGAIN.” He fucks off to rescue the aqua blastia that was stolen from the lower quarter but he doesn’t actually tell anyone what he’s doing. He makes it look like he’s just being irresponsible and screwing around. Also the Lower Quarter can’t get enough of talking about how great his best friend Flynn is, and what a successful Knight he is, etc etc and Yuri is very obviously bitter about it.

So basically we have Yuri Lowell, a failed knight who doesn't like himself and ISN'T very optimistic about the world.

And really, Yuri, despite being a very good party leader in terms of keeping everyone moving puts ALL THE AGENCY on Estelle. it’s always ‘What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?” Now that I think about it, I really don’t think Yuri was ever “Hey, let’s go there because I want to/I think it's a good idea!” He does the same thing with Karol, when he forms their guild. He makes it very explicit that KAROL is the boss. He bucks at the yoke of protagonism (“I never asked for this!”) ONCE, and his restlessness is alluded to only twice more, BARELY (”it must be hard looking after everyone else” and “You should pull yourself together before everyone starts to worry.”)

When he takes agency (being a vigilante) he does it alone. He is very firm and unwavering in his decisions but he always keeps sense of moral weight. It’s ‘easy’ in the sense that his decisions are sure, but it’s hard in the sense that he doesn’t have the conviction to write something off as a ‘right’ decision. Rather, he always looks confident because he’s aware of weight of his decisions at all times; he is constantly paying attention to morality and he's not afriad to be on the other side of it. But there’s also a line of brutality that goes through him. Aviy and I were chatting about this the other day, about how Tales can be really selectively kind of horrific: Yuri kills someone by letting them drown in a sandpit. And then he just flips a switch and acts completely normal.

So this is where it all ties together: YURI IS A CONCEALER. He DOES have a lot of feelings, very strong feelings, even but he constantly keeps himself in check. He denies his own importance as an agent, so of course he denies his feelings have any relevance. They only slip out through the cracks when he is RAGINGLY pissed off. Yuri, rather than take charge as the protagonist, he teases out the autonomy of Estelle and Karol, and gives them room to make decisions.

Of course, party structure is also waaay different. Outside of Karol and Estelle (who are coincidentally the morally upright characters) Vesperia party is made up of SUPER independent people who DON'T look to each other for emotional support. Even when everyone goes after Yuri and punches some sense into him, it's more playful and joking, more violence than talking. We are a party who does not like talking about feelings, and more supportive in the sense of "I'll DO whatever I can for you" rather than verbal comfort. If ToS is /Party abuses Lloyd, Vesperia is /PARTY ABUSES PARTY.

I super love this skit because it demonstrates the role confusion. Estelle says, ""My ideal man... is someone like the Amber Knight in the Tale of the Jade Planet. In the Tale of the Jade Planet he's a good friend of the main character--" IT MENTIONS KNIGHT so it is automatically analogous to The Yuri-Flynn-Estelle relationship, but you DON'T KNOW who the main character. Is it Flynn, the real knight? Or is it Yuri, the knight at heart (he does get a "True Knight" costume).

Brief mention it makes me laugh that we have Yuri the not-protagonist and Duke the non-antagonist...

So yes. Yuri is a protagonist who doesn’t really want to be a protagonist and who probably SHOULDN’T be a protagonist given how his protagonism manifests (always through violence). Nobody has to tell him that, however, because to a lot of ways he is VERY aware which... makes him a pretty killer protag.

How does Lloyd respond to tsun?

Gooshhh I love the way moral weight and how different characters deal with it is handled in Tales games. When I think about it, the thing that stands out about Luke, Lloyd, and Yuri alike is that they all unflinchingly accept moral responsibility for their actions — but they're all such different characters. So Luke shoulders it by denying his own worth in response, Lloyd isn't wired that way but goes the direction of TURNING IT ALL INTO DRIVE so he can make up for his mistakes, and Yuri uses it to judge when he thinks a bad guy is necessary. But they all take responsibility even with such different approaches! SO INTERESTING.

Lloyd mostly tsuns back or ignores tsun :|a it doesn't deeply phase him. The majority of his party is some degree tsundere for him so he eats tsun for breakfast for the most part.

would you be up for a non-sexy knight sleepover, Yuri Lowell

Y... es. He would be bemused but sure why not.

what would we do at our sleepover Lloyd?

pillow fights.

WOULD YOU DO MY HAIR, TOO.

I could braid it if you really wanted me to.

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