By Jacob Argyle

Estinien & Tiamat

Winter Woods - Hasselblad X1D II 50C Photographed by Freddie Ardley

I deeply enjoy Fordola's story for three reasons: 1) Her actions and the grave harm they caused is not minimized, softened, glossed over, or forgotten. She did terrible things. She accepts she did terrible things - and her story hinges upon her accepting the consequences. 2) When the NPCs do not forgive her, the narrative does not portray them in a negative light. The most powerful line in 4.1 is an NPC saying "You are not forgiven. Not you. You I will never forgive.

But I will thank you."

The story makes it clear Fordola is not entitled to forgiveness or absolution simply because she wants to do the right thing now - and that's okay. When people harm us, they are not entitled to forgiveness just because they're sorry. Fordola accepts and understands that. 3) The NPCs moving on with their lives is not used as reason to magically absolve her of anything. She still accepts the consequences of her actions and is still trying to make right her wrongs even if she may never be forgiven - which a sign of someone who truly has changed. Doing the right thing shouldn't hinge upon whether or not you are forgiven in the end. It should be something you strive to do from that point on, because you want to change yourself for the better. Also, there are many stories about how people who have been harmed or abused need to forgive the people who hurt them in order to truly heal and it's simply not true. The path to healing varies. Sometimes it involves forgiving. Sometimes it involves embracing your anger. Forgiving someone when they haven't acknowledged or accepted their wrongdoings and aren't committed to consequences and change is dangerous. Forgiving someone when you don't feel ready and it is not an authentic representation of your truth can damage your path to healing. It has a lot of grounding in real-world issues and handles it in a way I don't often see (most stories just go with the "you're forgiven and everything is fine!" route) - which is really refreshing.

FORGIVEN DISSONANCE

Nobuyoshi Araki - Pink Bouquet, 2006. 

カエアンビロード装備かわE！

DRUMROLL PLEASE…

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bartender: i wanted to tell you that-

me, crying into my drink: people say zenos is boring and flat when he's a perfect prime example of the culmination of the efforts of a horrific empire built on the suffering of thousands upon thousands of people, a literal weapon in human form, a political pawn that was constantly treated as such by the people around him and never experienced love or affection or even a proper childhood, who is considered "spoiled" even though material things and a king's education could ever be a replacement for simply being treated as a human being, whose skills were many but was made to kill even though he had no genuine love or joy for it at all, and only found some semblance of value in his own life by treating it as something to be put on the line in a game of death in the throes of a grand epic battle like the stories and legends he idolized in his childhood. people say zenos is one-note when that's what he was meant to be before he experienced the pure joy of something close to being a human for the first time which was so profound to him that he threw away the empire that raised him into a tool without any hesitation whatsoever, because he never had any love for that empire or its people or its ideals and was only ever a figurehead to begin with. zenos is a horrible man who has killed so many others and even started the end of the world for his own desperate desire and acknowledges that completely and utterly without any pretenses or attempt for sympathy, because he is a weapon, he is a being that is able to look upon evil and say that there IS no good reason for it, evil is evil, violence is violence, death is death, and not a single excuse in the world can ever justify it. zenos is a character that is not just defined by the wol, but is defined by the entire context of his existence, and that makes him a much more complicated character than people realize.

bartender:

bartender: i wanted to tell you that you have been here for five hours now