Now that the classic Resident Evil saga - that is, from the very first game until the sixth, including the side games - has seemingly come to a halt, for the time being at least, it looks like a good time to view the highly underrated Resident Evil 6 in retrospect, and under a different light. I had written an extensive review several years ago, but now that it's been almost a decade since it's initial release, and taking the remake of Resident Evil 2 into consideration - since this is very important, as I will explain in the article that follows - I feel that I have more specific feedback to offer, seeing how I also came to realize a few things which did bug me from the start that I couldn't exactly distinguish back then, although I loved the game and it still is one of my favorites of the series.

 

Resident Evil 6 is, on first look, an impressive game with a stellar cast, featuring four characters that belong to its classic core: Leon, Chris, Ada and Sherry come from the long past of the series, each one of them being connected to some of the most memorable stories of the saga. We could also include Ingrid Hunnigan in this dream team, since she is also a character who has appeared in Resident Evil 4 alongside Leon and established herself as a memorable part of the cast. But the four aforementioned characters, since they are protagonists in their own plotlines, are the ones who star, and inevitably attract most of the limelight. Each of them has a different story to tell, although at certain points their paths cross and they experience the same things from a slightly different aspect. Technically, this has its pros and its cons, but I am not going to go there in this article, since I will focus exclusively on the story from a "literary", so to speak, point of view.

 

What happens in the game plot-wise is that we have one main story which is split in four parts. Its core is a linear development of a series of events, while the additional storylines offer extra insight concerning certain characters and sub-plots. The very essence of the game's plot revolves around Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin, who find themselves stranded in war-torn Edonia after Sherry tracks Jake down among other mercenaries that are fighting in the civil war that is gradually devastating the region. Jake is Albert Wesker's son, and thanks to this heritage he has antibodies that can help fight the C-virus. Sherry has been sent to find him and bring him to her boss, Derek Simmons, naively believing that the latter wants Jake so as to use his blood for the development of an antidote for the virus. At some point they fall in a trap set by Carla Radames, a mad scientist who has cloned herself into an Ada Wong lookalike and whose intent is to use Jake's antibodies in order to make the virus stronger for her own gain. After spending six months imprisoned in a luxurious facility in China, Jake and Sherry manage to escape, at which point Sherry finds out the evil plans of her boss and decides to ignore all orders so as to save Jake and prevent the bad guys from taking advantage of his precious blood. 

 

In their long journey, Jake and Sherry come across Chris and his men, first in Edonia and later in China, Leon with his partner Helena and Ada who, however, never reveals herself to them. The campaigns of Chris, Leon and Ada explain how the three of them got involved in Jake and Sherry's story, each one of them following a very different path up to the point of each reunion. 

Stripping Resident Evil 6 off its many plotlines and focusing on the core of its story, all loose ends basically lead to Jake: he is Albert Wesker's son, which automatically makes him an extremely intriguing character, and he carries the antibodies that can help eliminate the virus. Simmons wants him in order to kill him or maybe keep him under control so as to prevent the discovery of a potential cure, Carla wants him so as to experiment on his antibodies and make the virus stronger and Sherry has been tasked to accompany him throughout his dangerous journey, putting her own life into great risk. All the surrounding stories eventually lead up to Jake one way or the other; Carla has even created a specially trained monster, Unstanak, that is able to sniff out and locate him. People die and sacrifice their lives for him, even unbeknownst to them. Chris himself crosses paths with him many times, helping him out on several occasions and eventually rescuing him from Carla's underwater facility. Ada literally watches over him, intervening whenever it is necessary to offer a hand. Leon, with his valuable intel, provides information about him that helps push the story forward, and he as well aids him in practice at a certain point. Jake is the leading key character in the game, he is essentially its driving force. His part of the story is the most important, and in my opinion it deserved more screen time and needed to be more complex and elaborate than the others. Leon's story is great and brings back memories of the older games, Chris's story is powerful, touching and heart-breaking, Ada's story has a mildly interesting plot with excellent gameplay - all of them have something to offer to the main story, but it is actually Jake's campaign that is to the point, it is the one where the "hot-stuff" happens, and Jake is the character who basically leads almost everyone's steps, although most of the times he is unaware of it and the game is structured in such a way as to (un)intentionally conceal it. When there is so much to do in the other three campaigns, it is inevitable that the main focus is lost, and Jake's story is considered on the same level of importance as the others - or less, even.

I could perfectly see an extended version of Jake's campaign, maybe with flashbacks of his childhood, his mercenary past and memories of his father, as the main game with all the other three stories as accompanying DLCs; and moreso since now we have more insight concerning certain of the characters involved.

 

 

The release of Resident Evil 2 remake put Leon and Claire's relationship in a new path. The emergence of a more than notable amount of fanart featuring the two of them as a "couple" after the remake, is on its own a strong proof of the impact that this unexpected but welcome change had. I don't know if this was done intentionally by the developers or it just happened randomly in the making of the game, but it looks like the remake simply highlighted what has always been there but the creators ignored, for some mysterious reason: Claire has always been the perfect choice of a female love interest for Leon, and not only because they look so good together on screen: Claire is the sister of Chris Redfield, a character as strong, charming and fascinating as Leon, and she has gone through a series of extremely dangerous adventures that she has carried out with impressive bravery and skill. So she is pretty much like Leon on that matter, their only difference being, up to a point, their social status: before Claire joins Terra Save, she is a civilian, while Leon is introduced to her as a police officer before he becomes a government agent. 

 

As much as I like Ada, I always felt that, excluding Resident Evil 2 where she made her first appearance, she was thrown in the stories mainly as a plot device and much less as an independent character. Although she did have her separate plots in Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 6 plus a small part in The Umbrella Chronicles, her mysterious and constantly vaguely explained (if at all) intentions seemed to be simply a cover-up for her real role: she was there as a distraction for Leon, acting the same way towards him every single time, secretly helping him in a way (although, in practice, her help was not really of much use, unless you take the infamous Rocket Launcher drop into consideration), and always disappearing in the end. Even in Damnation, the second of the CGI movies starring Leon, her role, albeit seemingly crucial, was in fact nothing more than a series of expected stunts; and although there is a mention at some point of "something" that she and Leon started but never finished, this stays in the air and, considering that Damnation took place just before Resident Evil 6, we cannot even be sure that it was indeed the real Ada in the movie, or if it was Carla, her evil "clone"; on the contrary, the story focused discreetly on Leon's connection with Alexander, something that became more and more obvious as the movie progressed, and especially in the finale.

Claire has always been there by Leon's side, obviously the ideal companion for him but constantly ignored by her own creators. Just think of Degeneration, the first CGI movie: Leon would flirt with Angela as if this was the only expected prospect for him, while Claire would again be his "buddy". Not surprisingly, this changed in the brand new series, Infinite Darkness, which came right after the Resident Evil 2 remake: you can definitely catch the undertones in the interactions between Leon and Claire, and although there is another female character in the story, Shen May, Leon has no romantic interest in her, nor her in him;  she seems to be quite smitten with the ill-fated Jason, although she expresses it a bit too late; and in fact the one who ends up fascinated with Leon is Patrick, the young agent whom Leon saves early on from the attack of a bloodthirsty zombie.

 

 

I have the impression that in their attempt to establish Ada as a main character in Resident Evil 6, the developers came up with the whole part involving Simmons's obsession with her which eventually led to the creation of her evil twin and his own tragic fate. Because this way, Ada would be essential for the story, and where she would simply appear and disappear again as a supporting character, like so many times before, instead she became the one who actually caused the evil mastermind's outrageous actions (albeit without her knowing), gaining more power as a character compared to her co-protagonists. This could have been an interesting standalone plotline, had Ada a game of her own. But in the whole context of Resident Evil 6, it is as if this specific story is there to minimize the importance of Jake's part and shift to Ada the focus that should have been all on him. In a different context, had the whole story been more elaborate and differently structured, Ada's "interlude" with Simmons could have been an ideal red herring. This basically means that if Simmons was "just" an evil guy without any interest in Ada, there would have been no need to create her clone; Carla would have simply been a genious-turned-crazy scientist (like Sherry's father), aiming at taking over the world (like Jake's father); and if Ada still appeared in the game, her role would have been very limited, and additionally Helena's story in the game would also have been unnecessary, at least as far as her sister's part was concerned. 

Chris's story, on the other hand, was more than strong enough to get a separate game on its own. For what it's worth, Chris deserved it. We have witnessed instances showing the strong bond that he shared with his comrades - like in the first game with Richard, for instance, but never before have we seen our beloved marksman in action with a group of soldiers under his command, until Resident Evil 6.

This was the first time that we saw him as a leader of his team, and his relationship with Piers was very intriguing, to say the least. Most of us have noticed the desperate subtle confession that Piers mutters to Chris at the tragic finale of the story, and how sad and devastated Chris is in the concluding scenes. It would have been extremely interesting if the ending was extended, and we, as Chris, could get to choose between two possible endings a-la Life is Strange with a dramatic "Save Piers or Save the world" kind of moral dilemma. I confess I would have chosen to save Piers without the slightest remorse.

Speaking of which - and this is something I have mentioned also in my review - I love the character development in this game, although now, after having replayed it recently, I wish it stood out a bit more. We see Helena becoming more compassionate thanks to Leon's influence; Jake ends up far less cynical thanks to Sherry, and Sherry gains more confidence in herself because of Jake; Chris gradually frees himself from the ghosts that haunt him thanks to Piers's support, while his unexpected meeting with Leon seems to play a highly important role in him admitting that he was indeed trying to hide from his past: Leon somehow connected him with his "original" self, the "legendary Chris Redfield" like Piers calls him, since Leon came from a time in his life when everything was different. It is not random that it is after this specific encounter that he comes completely to his senses; and then bumping onto Jake, his archenemy's son, brings out his real, heroic and just character. Piers and Leon, for their own part, are by default positive and balancing characters, with their sense of duty and kind heart always showing, never losing their nerve and constantly being ready to face any situation with calm and insight. Only Ada seems to be totally detached throughout the whole story, just momentarily showing a hint of emotion during her meeting with Leon, and then going back again to her cold self. The sole moment when she really seems emotionally overwhelmed is at the end when she destroys Carla's lab; but this is probably due to the fact that Carla stealing her identity was something that personally affected her deeply.

What is more interesting, however, is that in spite of the presence of so many known characters, it is actually Leon who represents the spirit and essence of Resident Evil (the whole first chapter of his story is a tribute to classics like Resident Evil 2 and Nemesis), while at the same time being the link that connects all main characters: he personally knows Sherry, Chris and Ada and he is the one who sends Chris to rescue Jake and Sherry. Leon functions as an invariant in the Resident Evil saga, much more than the other classic characters, and this is something that becomes much more evident in Resident Evil 6, if you view the game with the distance of time and taking into consideration the power and gravity of Leon's presence and his emotional and intellectual development throughout the games.

 

Related articles: 

» Resident Evil 6 Review

» A Love Undercover

Elements of the Archetypical Fairy Tale in Resident Evil 7

I have mentioned previously in this blog that video games are like fairy tales of the new era; a good amount of them follow the structure of classic fairy tales, but in some this is extremely dominant, resulting in being an essential part of their plot, their mood and the development of their characters. BioShock Infinite is a very characteristic case, which I analyzed in a previous article, and Resident Evil 7 shares a similar trait: it is built around the logic of an archetypical fairy tale, including in its plot several such elements as crucial axes. 

Fairy tales in general, and specifically those that are or based on folk material, no matter where they originate from, have a few standards as far as both their plots and their characters are concerned: there are some good characters, some villains who usually chase and wish to kill the good characters, there is someone (most of the times, but not always, a girl) who is locked in some sort of prison, sometimes there is a cruel giant, a witch, an evil stepmother with an equally evil daughter, other times there is a knight or prince who arrives at just the right moment to kill the villains and free the imprisoned girl. A mysterious house is a place of interest in several tales, together with its strange residents - whether those are humans, animals or creatures that belong to another world, doesn't really matter although it may make a difference as far as the development of the plot is concerned.

What usually dominates is an evil force; one which may have numerous manifestations in a tale: the aforementioned evil antagonists are such a case, also a supernatural and very powerful entity can represent it, while sometimes all the aspects of evil can co-exist in the same story. In Resident Evil 7, the spirit of evil that dominates Ethan's story, is Eveline, the bioweapon that takes human forms, first appearing as a lost little girl, then transforming into an old, seemingly harmless invalid woman who seems to be everywhere in the Baker family home where the story unfolds. Eveline, who slyly invaded the house a while back, infected the members of the family, turning them into monstrous, cannibalistic creatures with absolutely no sense of humanity inside and about them, making them carriers of evil.

Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty were metaphorically imprisoned, as they were doomed to remain asleep for a long time. Rapunzel was literally imprisoned, high up in a huge tower. In Resident Evil 7, the role of the imprisoned princess initially belongs to Mia, whom Ethan finds literally asleep in the dark and gloomy dungeons of the Baker property grounds, among suspicious-looking stuffed bags and weird tools. During the same time, Ethan has the role of the liberator prince or knight; instead of on a white horse, he arrives in a fancy car, and he does not find a castle or tower but a grim guest house. The rescue process goes anything but well, as Mia, possessed by Eveline, unexpectedly abandons the role of the victim/princess and takes that of the bad witch, attacking Ethan viciously and subsequently attempting to kill him. Eventually Ethan stops being her rescuer, and is forced to attack her so as to save his life. At the end of a frustrating battle between them in the attic of the guest house, Jack Baker arrives and drags an unconscious Ethan in his actual "castle": the family's house, where Ethan comes face to face with its inhabitants: Jack, Marguerite and Lucas. He also indirectly meets the family's daughter, Zoe, infected as well but much less than the others and is able to control herself, who promises to help him escape.

Jack is the fairy tale's giant - a terrifying and merciless cannibal who is constantly hungry for human flesh. When he walks around the house looking for Ethan, he is a reminiscent of the giant who returns home and senses that there is a human hiding somewhere because he can tell of their scent. Later on after he mutates, he becomes a literal giant, a huge, monstrous creature that is uncontrollable in its appetite and attacks.

The dragon Jack establishes his position in the main house, while Marguerite guards the old house and Lucas locks himself up in what used to be the barn and storage area. The main house is filled with traps, monsters and intimidating doors decorated with dead animals, and to be able to escape from there, Ethan has to find three key items that unlock the exit and fight against Jack in the basement and temporarily defeat him. Then, following Zoe's plan, he goes to the old house where he has to evade Marguerite's tricks and eventually confront her in the greenhouse. Marguerite, whose mutation involves giving birth to giant flies and swarms of spiders, gradually identifies herself with her insects, growing extremely long arms and legs, additionally developing her cannibalistic habits even more, which is also an attribute of a specific genre of fly. Her attacks are vicious, and she grows a particularly wild appetite for Ethan's family jewels. Of course this is not random; as she gradually strips off her human nature, the primordial instincts come forward; but her cannibalistic tendency messes with her lustful appetite and she wants to devour Ethan for real. At this point, she borrows the trait of her husband and expresses a hunger for human flesh, therefore taking herself the role of the giant since he is temporarily out of the picture.

The role of Lucas Baker in this dark fairy tale is a complex and twisted one. Although Ethan does not belong to the dragon Jack's family, he and Lucas seem to be two sides of the same coin. In several fairy tales, there is a beautiful and kind maiden, unlucky enough to be the stepdaughter of an evil witch who also has a daughter of her own, a girl who is ugly and wicked like her mother. This girl is generally aware of her unpleasant physical appearance, but prefers to turn a blind eye to this fact and instead play along her mother's various devices that aim at making her believe that she is pretty. At some point, the beautiful girl sits on a tall tree with a well below it, and the ugly girl goes to the well to get water; she sees the reflection of the pretty girl and thinks that it is her own. When the revelation comes, the ugly, evil girl hates the pretty, kind girl even more, and does everything to humiliate and/or exterminate her. 

With Lucas taking the part of the ugly, evil child, Ethan becomes his counterpart - the male version of the kind, beautiful maiden. Although we can never see Ethan's face, we can assume that he is good-looking; a fair-haired young man with white skin, obviously coming from a rather well off urban environment, whose life was undoubtedly happy until he got involved in this nightmare. Lucas does have a natural sister, Zoe, but her role in this fairy tale is that of the companion and helper of the hero: she is the one who guides him via phone calls and offers him valuable assistance during his quests. From the moment when Zoe escaped the Baker family home, distancing herself from her disturbing family, she became an outsider; and she is literally one, since she is never seen actually getting inside the house, unlike Ethan who wanders around getting to know every single room and secret passage in there. Zoe, with her medical knowledge, is also the positive counterpart of her mother - Marguerite is the evil witch while Zoe is the good witch who performs "magic" for a good cause and creates "spells" that are able to rid of "curses": she uses two objects with magical significance - a head and an arm - to create the serum which will be used to free herself and Mia from the virus with which they have been infected.

Lucas, unlike his parents, never transforms into a monster in the main game; Ethan has to deal with his human form only, but this does not correspond to a typical boss fight. The son of the Baker family is playing hide and seek in the chaotic and mazey storage area, where he has set up all sorts of twisted and lethal traps in order to torture and eventually kill his victims. Ethan is forced to fight several monsters and go weaponless through a stressing trial before he is able to take back one of the valuable ingredients for the serum, which Lucas has stolen. So just like in the fairy tales, the evil character is constantly trying to prevent the good protagonist to reach his goal, which now is to save both his wife and Zoe whom Lucas abducted in the meantime. 

At this point, Ethan still carries the role of the liberator/knight, but it won't be long until this condition is reversed, because after he leaves the Baker property with either Mia or Zoe, the fairy tale takes an unexpected turn:  Ethan becomes the male counterpart of the imprisoned princess, and Mia acts the part of the knight who battles all sorts of evil forces in order to save him. Eveline traps Ethan in a cocoon in the wrecked ship in an attempt to keep manipulating Mia; but Mia, who still has her free will, manages to liberate her husband and nearly sacrifices herself in order to make sure he will be safe.

Puzzles and trials many times form the core of fairy tales, and this is one more element that makes video games relate to them so strongly. Ethan's story is full of both, and most of them are dangerous and cunning. The main house itself is one big puzzle, as nearly all of its passages are locked and Ethan has to look for keys to open the intimidating doors that block them. There are items hidden in bathtubs, grandfather clocks, books, corpses even. The basement of the house is yet one more puzzle, accessed through more than one entrances, that has been transformed into a huge slaughterhouse.

Although the main house of the Bakers is the dominant environment, it is in fact the old house that is the most compelling and iconic stage of action. Broken wooden floors, hidden crawlspaces, melted candles, torn wallpapers, swarms of bugs and flies that either fly around or hang on nests, a secret altar with items that echo the voodoo ceremonies of the rural Louisiana, where the story takes place, bridges decorated with dolls and doll heads, an abandoned greenhouse with wild vegetation, narrow passages filled with crawlers, vintage objects that are used as pieces of puzzles, like a wooden crank or an oil lamp, are only some of the elements that describe the chilling atmosphere of the old house, which is Marguerite's domain. If the main house was a death trap, the old house is like a witch's lair, where any intruder is unwelcome.

The old house is partly the fairy tale's maze; although not a literal labyrinth, its setting is equally confusing due to the many doors, locked passages and similar-looking rooms. Ethan has to cross its hostile grounds several times, while being hunted by Marguerite and her bugs, as he is looking for a series of items that will lead him to one of the ingredients that Zoe has requested. Prior to getting inside the old house, however, Ethan has the chance to watch a revealing video cassette which shows Mia wandering around the place while Marguerite is looking for her. This creepy footage offers some hints as to where he should go and what he could look for in order to solve the many puzzles of the old house. Marguerite appears eventually, unleashing her bugs to make him go away from her realm and blocking his path on several occasions. Ethan has to find ways to outsmart her in order to complete his exploration, but it is not until he faces her mutated form and kills her that he is able to find the ingredient for the serum.

The less fairy tale-looking environment is the wrecked ship, a stage that somehow switches the story back to reality with its grim grey/blue colors that contrast the faded sepia/yellow tones of the Baker family property sceneries. It is interesting that after Mia's part is complete on the ship and we return to the Baker house with Ethan again, the colors of those areas are not sepia/yellow anymore; their tone resembles more that of the ship; and additionally, the whole look in the guest house, which was the very first area that Ethan explored when he arrived, is now like it belongs to a hallucination. The atmosphere is dense and thick, Ethan has disturbing visions on his way, and eventually he finds himself back up in the attic where it all began - where he had that very first battle with the possessed Mia. Now it is Eveline waiting for him there, taking her human forms before she reveals the literal monster that she really is: a huge mutant that has taken over the guest house and whatever is around it, a creature of unidentified identity that reeks of poison, destruction and death, the personification of Evil in its most extreme form. Like in fairy tales, Evil is defeated in the end and Good prevails, but as we know Evil never actually dies for good, always finding ways to resurrect itself from its ashes.

Choices Matter For Your Love Life Vs Your Morality In Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

In my review of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, I mentioned how certain choices that you make affect the development of your protagonist's character in more than one ways. In this article, I will elaborate a bit more on this matter, focusing on how their decisions affect the outcome of their love life in connection to their morality, as I think it is a very interesting subject. When characters are shown to have emotions and, subsequently, a romantic side, they are more realistic and thus become more human. When faced with related dilemmas, they can follow the path of either Vice or Virtue; and since the main hero of this game comes from Ancient Greece, any association with said myth of Heracles couldn't be more fitting. In this article, I will not analyze all the romances or their outcomes (there are that many choices you can make in each case); I will focus on certain stories which are the most interesting and stand out among the rest, when it comes to love versus morality. For the purpose of the article, I will use only my own choices as examples, and I will have Alexios as my hero, as I mostly play the game with him.

On the island of Hydrea, Alexios meets a young woman, Roxana, who comes from a family of warriors and is in the process of tough training as preparation for a savage battle called "The Battle of One Hundred Hands" that will take place soon on the neighboring island of Melos. Accepting to spar with her and deciding to participate in the upcoming battle yourself, marks the beginning of the questline which starts with the quest Sparring With Roxana. Almost from the start, the game tries to trick you towards flirting Roxana, although your initial choices will not make much difference really. Your crucial choice is right before the battle quest begins, when you will have to decide between fully romancing her or keeping your distance. At that point, you already know that you and Roxana will unavoidably be rivals in the battle, the purpose of which is to bring forth only one winner, with all the other participants being gradually eliminated. This practically means that, in the end, you and Roxana will be called to fight against each other in a duel where only one will survive.

The only way to save Roxana at that point and open up the possibility to avoid the fatal duel is to romance her before the battle. If you do that, when the time comes for her and Alexios to fight, Alexios will be able to persuade her to cancel the duel and then he can ask her to join his crew (she is a legendary lieutenant, by the way), a proposition that she will gladly accept. In similar cases involving other people, you can choose between several options in various combinations: flirt the other person, part with them peacefully, recruit them, attack them; but in Roxana's case, you only have two: recruit her or kill her. There is no way to simply part with her in friendly terms and let her go; you either have to take her with you or murder her. So if you did romance her earlier, which will make way for her accepting to cancel the duel, the only way to spare her during the duel sequence is to recruit her as a crew member. Following this path, Roxana becomes one of your available lieutenants, and you forget about her as you go on with your journey, until you get involved in another quest, much later.

Said quest waits for you on the island of Lemnos: Neleus, a promising athlete who also happens to be the nephew of your dear friend Barnabas, seems to be in serious trouble and you are called to offer a helping hand, foremost for your buddy's sake. Starting with the quest Tough Love, the story involves several people and is one of the most complex and interesting questlines of the game. Upon arriving at the house where Neleus is, Alexios meets Mikkos, who is the boy's caretaker and your very spicy romance option for that questline. Mikkos is a few years older than Alexios, and doesn't hesitate to make bold advances even during your first meeting with him. As the story unfolds, you have the chance to fully romance Mikkos at a party, and in the finale, assuming you did everything to get a happy ending for Barnabas's nephew, you will be able to have one more romantic encounter with Mikkos in the sunset, before saying a goodbye that, since you never cease to be a traveler, may not be definitive.

During your first runs of the game, you can complete the Hydrea & Melos questlines fairly early, as their level is relatively low; but you are recommended to travel to Lemnos only when you are strong enough to survive the demanding quests there. This means that, upon arriving on Lemnos, you may have already done Roxana's quests, and if you romanced her and spared her, she will be with your crew. If this is the case, when the questline on Lemnos reaches its conclusion, Roxana will arrive with Barnabas to greet you. After everything is settled, she will literally send Mikkos away to stay with Alexios herself, claiming her antagonist's place in the sunset scene. This unexpected twist has one extremely disappointing downside: the game takes for granted that you prefer Roxana over Mikkos, as you are not given the chance to choose between the two of them at that point. Mikkos gets too intimidated by Roxana's authoritative stare and warrior aura and he withdraws with a sad look on his face that speaks much more than any words could. I am pretty sure that Alexios would have picked Mikkos if he could choose, given that the main questline's title is Have You Seen My Mikkos?. Not to mention how much fun, deliciously wild and adorably campy the romance with him is. You can still reject Roxana during the ending scene and make her leave you alone, but even so you have already lost your last chance of romancing Mikkos in the sunset, as he will be nearby afterwards, but apart from complimenting Alexios on his looks, he will not say anything else to him.

The way the two stories are entwined challenges your moral status in a rather frustrating way, as in the end of the Lemnos story you are robbed of your free will if you spared Roxana on Melos. Even if you want your character to follow a specific path in their sex life, but decide to romance Roxana strictly out of human compassion so as to not sacrifice her (and for practical reasons, so as to hire her on your ship), she will totally ruin your affair with Mikkos later and, what's worse, you are not even given the chance to decide yourself which lover you will pick. Your story with Mikkos will end happily only if you have killed Roxana on Melos, or if you start her story after Mikkos's questline is safely complete. But even if you do the latter, you will still have to kill her if you don't want to romance her. Plainly put, the game practically forces you to romance Roxana if you don't want to be a murderer.

On a different pace and atmosphere, the enchanting adventure Trouble In Paradise which takes place on the Silver Islands, is a beautiful and immersive story that could even stand alone as a DLC episode. Alexios arrives on Mykonos to hunt down and kill one of the Cultists, the ruthless Podarkes, who rules the islands with an iron fist, after receiving a message from Kyra, the leader of a group of rebels who fervently want to get rid of the evil man. Kyra has one more reason to hate Podarkes, as he had guards kill her mother when she was little. Alexios meets Kyra and he also meets Thaletas, a Spartan polemarch who had also received a similar message from Kyra and arrived on Mykonos to help her free and secure the Silver Islands. You can flirt with both of them, but you can fully romance only one, and your decision will naturally have consequences. Like in the previous case, I will analyze my own choices only, with their own outcomes and side-effects.

Kyra is a smart, funny and pretty girl, and among all the possible female romance options for our character, she seems to be the second most fitting choice after Odessa. Similarly, Thaletas is handsome, intelligent, brave and proud; hands down, the best match for Alexios among all male romance options, and all romance options, for that matter, since my Alexios prefers boys anyway; so I always romance Thaletas in this questline. In my headcanon, Thaletas is Alexios's destined soulmate and lover, partly due to their common background, since they are both Spartans, and mainly because there is this intense chemistry between them. Thaletas is a seemingly arrogant young man who, however, hides a very sensitive and romantic side behind his beautiful features, and it becomes rather obvious that he is smitten with Alexios from the moment when the two of them meet for the first time.

 

Interestingly enough, this becomes initially clear only if you take a specific path at the start of the questline. As soon as the story starts, you have to check two locations: Kyra's hideout in a secret cave and the beach where Thaletas and his men are fighting against Athenians. If you go to meet Kyra first, she and Alexios will eventually run to the beach to assist Thaletas and will fight alongside him. After the brief battle is over, the scene plays out in a rather neutral way for our hero, as Thaletas's attention is mainly focused towards Kyra, with whom he has an affair, and he doesn't seem to take Alexios into much consideration. Whereas if you go to the beach before visiting the hideout, the first contact with Thaletas will be between him and Alexios only. Kyra will not be present, and in the scene after the battle Thaletas will openly express how impressed he is with Alexios and his battling skills. You can definitely see those love sparkles flickering all around the white sands, and it is more than certain that it was written in the stars for the the two boys to come across each other. Although the rest of the story will unfold the same way even if you and Thaletas had a typical first meeting, choosing to go to the beach first to meet Thaletas on your own, sets the mood and gives you a hint about what the young Spartan might be hiding from his girlfriend. Moreover, if you go to the beach first, Thaletas will arrive a bit later at Kyra's hideout, and there is a brief extra segment in the scene, during which Thaletas offers an almost missable cue about his unexpected feelings towards our hero.

The next part of the story takes place at the rebel hideout where you are called to choose between Kyra's strategy and Thaletas's plan, both aiming at weakening the Athenian forces and, subsequently, making it easier to kill Podarkes. If you decide to aid Thaletas with his aggressive plan, you will have a golden chance to find him alone at the beach and directly flirt with him for the first time. Notably, out of the three crucial dialogue options that you are offered, the two have strong sexual undertones and, even more notably, Thaletas will respond accordingly to either of them, confessing that he is attracted to Alexios, but cannot leave Kyra for the time being. He will then send you on a couple of risky missions that will harm the Athenians, therefore setting the ground for a battle that will favor the Spartans.

At this point, you are recommended to go and talk to Kyra and agree to help her too with her own plan. Her strategy is more stealthy, as it involves secretly destroying the Athenians's supplies and stealing their money. You may skip all her quests, but it is recommenced that you do at least one in order to further weaken Podarkes, therefore making him easier to kill. In any case, after certain missions are completed, an extra one will be unlocked, which will reveal to you a shocking secret about Kyra's past: she is Podarkes's illegitimate daughter, something that she was unaware of all these years that she was seeking revenge from the man who was responsible for the murder of her mother. Meanwhile, your romance with Thaletas keeps blooming, and when all his tasks are done, you can then openly ask him to become your lover, which he will finally accept and admit that he is in love with our hero after teasing him a bit more. But as it turns out, it is more than worth the while, and after their love is consummated, he and Alexios will exchange a warm vow to meet again after the war is over.

On the Kyra front, however, things are rather nasty. You are facing the moral dilemma to reveal her secret to all the rebels or talk to her about it in private. If you do the former, her troops will abandon her and she will get mad at you. Although this looks like a bad move, it is a choice that somehow highlights your intention to take the girl out of the picture, to ensure that Thaletas will never go back to her. Later on, after Podarkes is dead, you will need to speak to her as she is about to burn her father's corpse. There are a few things you can tell her at that point, but only one choice each time will have a good ending as far as she is concerned. All other choices will lead her to commit suicide by falling off a cliff. As bad and malicious as the latter feels, it is the only way for you to have a little hope considering your future with Thaletas, who now seems to have finally made up his mind and has decided to go back to Sparta, praying that he and Alexios will someday cross paths again. So your last chance to keep the flame burning is to make Kyra fall to her death and then lie to Thaletas about her demise. If you tell him the sad news, he will get extremely upset and will not want to see you again, which means that you totally messed up everything. If Kyra is alive, however, not only will Thaletas go back to her, but he will also decide to stay on the Silver Islands with her instead of returning to Sparta. On the positive side, you remain good friends with both of them, and as a bonus, Kyra is thankful that Alexios taught Thaletas new tricks. I guess she is either too confident or too naive to believe that her boyfriend will not seek an encore with the master in the future.

 

So the choices that you make in this story are decisive for your love life but at the same time are constantly testing your moral standing. If Alexios chooses to save Kyra, he will lose Thaletas for good. But if he makes her kill herself and, assuming he and Thaletas do find each other again after the war as they promised, will he be able to live with the burden of her death in his conscience? My guess is that, since the mercenary's life has definitely hardened him, and seeing that he is able to lie so easily about such a serious matter, he will get over it sooner or later, especially since the prospect of a blissful love life still remains bright for the days to come.

Yukio Mishima and The Evil Within

Some other time in this blog, I mentioned how the backstories of the characters in video games give us a rich insight concerning the research that the developers went through while shaping them. Sometimes, said backstories involve details that may be offered randomly and thus pass unnoticed, until you get a clue to put them together: then it is like puzzle pieces that are placed in the right spots to form an image, thanks to which the character that they concern is set under a new, revealing light.

In The Assignment, one of the extra episodes of The Evil Within, where we get to play as Juli Kidman, we have the chance to view parts of the main game's story through her eyes. While literally floating in a state between reality and nightmare, Juli comes across some particularly nasty surprises in her way. The most revealing of them is having to fight Joseph Oda, who appears before her as a Haunted, determined to kill her. In her attempt to distract him so as to perform her attacks against him, Juli can resort to several diversions, one of them being turning on a film in a small cinema, which depicts Joseph as a Samurai, yielding a katana.

 

It is interesting that, although we are already aware from the main game that Joseph is the descendant of a historical family of Samurais, this is the first and only time that we see him literally paying homage to his heritage, and it is through an indirect means, in the distorted reality created by Ruvik in STEM. As Ruvik is exploiting the memories of his victims, blending them with his own so as to be able to control them, it becomes clear that the appearance of this specific film comes straight from Joseph's memory stash, serving as a way to confuse him at that point (because he is a Haunted, therefore not himself), while offering Juli the chance to stealthily attack him.

Joseph is described as a considerate and composed man, but it is hinted that he is constantly suppressing himself in order to comply to the norms and stereotypes of society. Coming from a strict upbringing, he feels forced - partly by his environment and partly by his own self - to keep his sensitivities and weaknesses hidden. This is something rather typical of the Samurai upbringing, so it is natural that Joseph, due to his family's historical past, had it too, to some degree at least. The film that we have the chance to see in The Assignment shows that he had been through Samurai training as part of his celebrated family's tradition.

Mostly known for his ritualistic suicide via "seppuku" (or harakiri), Yukio Mishima was nonetheless a multi-talented writer, considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. Both as an artist and a personality, he was obsessed with beauty, eroticism and death, as well as their becoming one. Mishima was a homosexual, but growing up in the extremely strict Japanese society of the 1930ties made it particularly tough for him to accept and express himself as far as his sexuality was concerned. In 1949, he wrote his now considered iconic novel "Confessions of a Mask" which, although not entirely autobiographical, narrates episodes and memories of its protagonist that are greatly connected to the author himself. Written in first person, the novel explores a young man's continuous agony as he struggles with his ever-growing and forbidden sexual desires while evolving in a society and a family environment that are not only particularly strict, but moreover guide their members towards very specific, predesignated paths from which it is quite hard - if not impossible - to divert.

The young narrator starts his confessions going back to his childhood and early teens, during which time he had his first sexual awakenings triggered by random visual experiences. Although not the very first, the strongest, most memorable and critical one was an image of Saint Sebastian that he saw in a book, a painting by Guido Reni which depicted the saint during his torture, tied on a tree with his body pierced with arrows. The hero describes with both precision and subtlety all the emotions that rushed through him while looking at that painting, resulting in a rather intense first experience of culmination which defined his subsequent view of people and the world and made him more than conscious of his sexual identity. However, living in a society that condemned such deviations from the accepted norms, he knew that he would be forced to live his life in disguise, always putting on a mask that would hide his true self from the rest of the world.

Joseph of The Evil Within has grown up in a similar environment - probably not so strict, but still the values and beliefs that characterized old-time Japan should have been ever present in the life of his family and surrounding environment. Apparently he took some important education, then trained to become a detective. We can see from his attitude and approach that he likes to dig into things, examine them deeper and he also has a notable combinatorial mind. He has a small notebook where he writes down everything that he sees or thinks that can be related to a crime case. He got married at a relatively young age and made his own family, but he still seems to be quite vulnerbale socially, despite his smartness and the choice that he made to follow a dangerous line of work. But maybe he chose the specific line of work for this reason: so as to give him inner strength and help him overcome his fears and anxieties.

 

Teaming up with Sebastian was a turning point in both his professional and personal/social life, as Sebastian was quite different as a person, and came from an equally different environment and background. Although he was not too open as a character either, he was much more free sentimentally and spiritually and, unlike Joseph, obviously not hunted by strict rules and norms. The two partners formed a close bond and became good friends, always caring for and helping each other. From a symbolic aspect, Sebastian was for Joseph what Saint Sebastian was for Mishima, a new force in his life which brought forward a mental strength that he always had but kept suppressed and maybe woke up in him some darker and forbidden desires (maybe towards Sebastian as well). Sebastian, aptly named after the saint, was in a similar way tortured - not literally like him, but psychologically broken - but he was also a hot-blooded, passionate man who would always show his feelings and never suppress himself. Although he too was positively affected by Joseph's presence in his life - the calmness and love for order that were due to Joseph's upbringing helped Sebastian have better control - the biggest influence was the one that he had on Joseph, something that the latter obviously came to realize while being trapped in STEM, during which time his subconscious took over and brought him face to face with new revelations about himself.

There are several instances in the game, where we can see a progression of this newfound self-awareness, albeit they all occur in the dream-like sequences that STEM creates. What triggers the initiation of this development is his succumbing to Ruvik's power and becoming a Haunted for the first time. This transition could very well symbolize the awakening of his darker side and all those elements that he kept hidden in the real, "civilized" world. During the sequences when Joseph is a Haunted, he seems to possess an insane power which makes him become extremely violent and lethal. Unlike any other random Haunted, however, he is totally aware of this transformation and seems to be able to control it, as he can go back to normal and vice-versa. In a most revealing scene at the start of Chapter 7, after he and Sebastian found refuge in an abandoned church, he acknowledges that he does like it when he turns, since this transforms him into someone that he cannot be in real life. Although it scares him, it also fascinates him, and this is one more reason why, in the previous chapter, he tried to put an end to his life. Embracing his dark side would mean accepting all that would come along, and this is something that can also be applied to his normal, real life. Just like Mishima, Joseph is in a constant struggle between faithfully following the rules with which he grew up and freeing himself from everything that keeps him enslaved

Brotherhood and Romantic Love in Life Is Strange 2

Life Is Strange 2 is not an easy game. It is not just a game, to begin with. It is an immersive, life-changing tale, guaranteed to leave you with a broken heart. It tells the powerful, emotional story of two brothers, Sean and Daniel Diaz, 16 and 9 years old respectively, who are forced to leave their home in Seattle after a tragic incident and begin a journey to reach the homeland of their father in Mexico while being chased by the police. In their journey, they will meet dangerous people but they will also make great friends; they will get separated, then be reunited again, until they finally reach the Mexican border where, depending on your choices throughout the whole game, the ending will be different. Just like in the first Life Is Strange game, here too it is the player's choices that matter, but this system is far more elaborate and complex in Life Is Strange 2. The supernatural element, ever present in the Life Is Strange games, is in this case Daniel's telekinesis, a secret weapon that, depending on its use, can prove to be a blessing or a curse.

The game is split in five chapters (Roads, Rules, Wastelands, Faith, Wolves), with each one focusing on a specific aspect of the main story, and we play as Sean, the older brother. Roads introduces the two brothers who live a happy life with Esteban, their Mexican father, in Seattle until the latter is accidentally shot dead by a rookie officer during a scuffle. Daniel's telekinesis is triggered due to the shock that he suffered seeing his father killed in front of his eyes and he unintentionally causes a havoc, killing the officer. Fearing that the two of them will be considered suspects and that they will get separated, Sean takes his little brother and they leave in a haste. Having nowhere else to go, they agree to escape to Mexico and get to Puerto Lobos, their father's homeland.

In Rules, the two brothers have found refuge in a cabin in the woods of Oregon where Sean trains Daniel to use his power properly, get better with it and not waste it. But it is winter already; Daniel is sick and they are still chased by the police, so they hit the road again and find shelter in the home of their mother's parents. It is there that we learn a bit more about their mother and how she abandoned her family when Sean was 8 years old and Daniel just a new-born baby. Daniel becomes good friends with Chris, a boy who lives next door with his father, with whom he seems to have a lot in common. Soon though the police manages to track the brothers down, so they leave that place too and hop on a train heading to California.

In Wastelands, Sean and Daniel are in California already, with a group of young drifters who work at a pot farm. Despite the rather unusual circumstances, the two brothers have a good time there, although Daniel starts becoming arrogant with his power which never stops getting more impressive each day that passes. A dramatic incident at the end of the episode results in Sean getting severely hit and Daniel being rescued by Jacob, one of the drifters, who takes him to the cult where he once belonged.

In Faith, Sean is in hospital after the incident of the previous chapter, having lost his right eye, bound to be taken to Juvenile Court and having no idea where his brother is. However, he finds a note from Jacob, informing him of Daniel's whereabouts. Sean escapes from the hospital and after a painful journey he reaches Haven Point in Nevada, the place where Daniel is, living with Lisbeth Fischer, a power-obsessed reverend who uses religion for personal gain and has brainwashed Daniel into believing that his power is a gift from God, resulting in him denying to follow his brother. Just then, Sean's estranged mother, Karen, arrives, offering Sean the moral support that he needs in order to make Daniel see clearly, and the two brothers are finally reunited.

In Wolves, Sean and Daniel are happy together in Arizona, in a place lost in the desert where their mother, along with several other people, has chosen to live an independent and free life, away from the world. Soon though the time comes for the brothers to leave, as the police is breathing down their neck, and they drive through the desert until they reach the Mexican border. Due to an unexpected sequence of events, they end up in jail but Daniel uses his power to free himself and his brother and they reach the exit to Mexico, only to be stopped by the police. This is where you see your choices throughout all episodes paying off or not, as the game offers four different endings (with a few more variations), depending on the sum of your decisions and on how Sean's attitude affected Daniel's social education and morality.

In this article, I will focus on Wastelands, the third chapter of the game, which is impeccable in its development and the most pivotal one. In this episode, the relationship between the two brothers becomes more defined while Sean, being the older one, has the chance to find love, choosing between two potential lovers - a girl and a boy. Both brotherly love and romantic love are thoroughly explored in this episode, and it is interesting to see how, when it comes to romantic love, one choice of partner may be way more canon than the other, affecting the main story and its outcome in direct connection to brotherly love. Remember how in the first Life Is Strange Max has the chance to kiss Chloe or Warren - or both? Still, near the end of the game, it is always her and Chloe at the top of the hill, which means that Chloe is Max's canon choice no matter what. Something similar happens in Life Is Strange 2, although it is not as clear or direct, because the game itself is far more complex.

In Wastelands, the two brothers are in California, members of a company of young drifters who move from place to place living on the road and occasionally taking on temporary - and often illegal - jobs that offer them just enough money to keep going. The main core of the group consists of four people: Finn, a charming young man, Cassidy, an errant singer, Hannah, a tormented soul who seems rather hard, and Penny, a weird guy who believes in conspiracy theories and is desperately looking for Jinx, his friend and, possibly, lover. Sean and Daniel have already met Finn and Cassidy near the end of Rules, and when Wastelands begins we find the two brothers in a beautiful forest, having their own tent in a makeshift campsite along with the four aforementioned friends and a few other companions: Jacob, a lonely young man who has escaped from a cult, and a Swedish couple, Ingrid and Anders, who are obviously on an organized road trip around the globe. All of them are working at an illegal pot farm that belongs to Jonathan Merrill, a seemingly decent boss but in fact a ruthless man who runs the place with the help of his creepy goon, Big Joe.

The whole third episode focuses on how the relationship between Sean and Daniel changes due to them now living together with other people. The fact that most of those people are around Sean's age doesn't help keep the little one at ease, as he feels that his brother spends more time with his new friends than with him. The episode reaches its climax when something goes wrong because of Daniel, resulting in Merrill firing the two brothers. Subsequently, Finn, Cassidy and Jacob become witnesses of Daniel's power and Finn conceives a plan to break into Merrill's house, use Daniel's power to smash open his safe, grab all his money and go. At this point, you have the chance to decide whether you will follow Finn and be in for the heist, or refuse, in which case Daniel will be the one to ask Finn to go for it with him. In this episode, you also have the chance to decide between two love interests for Sean - Cassidy and Finn; a side-plot which, depending on your choice, may get tightly connected to the core story of the heist in Merrill's place and have long-term consequences on the development of the plot.

Finn and Cassidy look like twin siblings, with their crazy decorated dreadlocks, their ear tunnels and their hippie appearance, but in fact they are not related. They have been on the road for quite some time, and have become good friends. The game makes it clear that there is nothing romantic involved between them, obviously never was; they are like brother and sister, sharing a similar style. As it turns out later, however, this semblance is limited to looks only. After we get to know them better in Wastelands, we come to realize that they have almost nothing in common. Their way of thinking is different, their character is different, their dreams and ambitions are like night and day. But when Sean first crosses paths with them in Rules, he practically sees two sides of the same coin before him. He is not able to tell much about their character, and his first impression is based on what he sees. He essentially has a first contact with a world that had been unknown to him up to then. He is obviously attracted to that world as an idea, and this is something that the game smartly brings to the foreground by having him meeting simultaneously a girl and a boy that could be manifestations of the same person.

As the game proceeds in Wastelands, we find out that Cassidy, despite her wild looks, is a very mainstream and low-profile character, with a rather strict morality concerning social behavior. This comes to contrast with her overall style which she might have adopted in her early years of wandering with Finn, in an attempt to imitate his laid-back, hippie look and try to be more like him. She avoids getting into trouble, maybe tries a bit too hard to look cool. As outrageous as she may seem on first look, she is rather predictable and toned down as a character; somehow not strong enough to dramatically affect the plot. Finn is the exact opposite; he is multi-dimensional, a charismatic person with a captivating aura, and his character is so powerful and imposing that his obvious connection and strong chemistry with Sean is extremely complex and intriguing as far as the development of the plot is concerned. Besides, it is his plan that pushes the story forward, offering the necessary dramatic turn that it needs so as to move to a new level.

Cassidy seems rather rough when it comes to sexual attraction and what comes after, which stresses the fact that she tries a bit too much to show she is a rebel. She is quite raw compared to Finn and marginally predatory - surely with no bad intent, but it is as if she somehow cannot see very clearly what kind of person she is dealing with. If you take the time to talk to her before the heist, and pick certain choices of words, you may notice that she tends to label people, albeit subconsciously to a degree, and seeing how she likes to keep things as simple as possible, people around her are either "friends" or "lovers". She clearly sees Finn exclusively as a friend, for instance, and she would never cross the line with him, as this would make things way too complicated in her mindset. It is equally clear that she sees Sean as a possible lover from the start, something that is hinted to several times throughout Wastelands, but is miraculously completely eliminated if Sean confesses to her that he likes Finn and that they kissed. Immediately then Sean moves to her friend zone once and for all, and she is neither heartbroken nor sad, exactly because she wants to keep things clear and straight; and as soon as she makes sure that she has absolutely no chance with Sean, she "stores" him as a friend and everything becomes simple again.

Cassidy is an earthly person, and as such, she tends to keep everything clear-cut and within her control. This becomes even more stressed if we consider her overall attitude: she is obviously a talented singer, but prefers to play in secluded suburban markets and work in pot farms than possibly chase a career in music or whatever would be that could make her life better. This of course would require lots of personal effort that she does not seem disposed to make.

Finn, on the other hand, is very careful with words, subtly giving Sean hints that he loves him more than just a friend. It helps a lot that Sean obviously likes him and enjoys his company, feels happy and relaxed when they are together and he may even go as far as show him absolute trust. Finn comes from a dysfunctional family and has grown up in an environment where theft and deceit were on the everyday menu. It is not weird nor random that he is the one who conceives the heist plan, because he was "educated" that way, thanks to his criminal father. So, taking into consideration the story's facts, he is not to blame for his idea, because this is exactly where we all (we, the players, but also most importantly Sean and Daniel), see in practice how a bad education can influence a young person. Daniel's morality will not be affected if Sean agrees to do the heist; in fact, the outcome of the plan is a painful but valuable life lesson for both Sean and Finn and, on a different and deeper level, for Daniel as well.

Finn is a socially gifted young man despite his hardships and misfortunes, able to charm people around him. He can read people and understand them, even play them if he has to. From the moment when he first sees Sean in Rules, he knows how to treat him; which is why, by the start of Wastelands, we can see that the two of them have grown quite close, and that they feel genuine love and respect for each other. Unlike Cassidy, Finn does not rush things; he gradually enchants Sean but leaves him room to breathe and is patient and gentle in his approach. If Sean agrees to go for the heist, Finn will take it as an unofficial oath of trust and confess to Sean that he is attracted to him. At this point, you are given a unique chance to chose Finn as Sean's love interest. Doing so may seem random, but in fact it can potentially play a major role in the subsequent course of events. Whereas if you choose Cassidy as Sean's love interest, this will not only keep him away from the main action, but it will also put his fragile relationship with Daniel at great risk. Not to mention that Finn, unlike Cassidy, will get heartbroken if his love is rejected.

If Sean refuses to take part in the heist, this decision will somehow shift his character to a different path which comes to contrast with his choices so far. His initial decision to take Daniel and hit the road was what made him and his brother illegal outcasts. The way that the game is planned out constantly brings this forward, and it is not random because what Sean did at the beginning was to take complete control over Daniel's life without his little brother's consent. There are plenty of situations throughout the story when we see Sean trying to make up for this; sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails. As Daniel grows up - and much faster than normal under such extreme circumstances - he starts having a voice of his own and from a point and on it is his turn to make crucial decisions. Those may be wrong, but Sean also made a decision for both of them at the beginning which might have been wrong as well. The fact that Daniel is in for the heist no matter what Sean wants marks the critical point when Daniel takes a decision for both of them without his brother's consent. Which somehow brings us back to the start, only now the roles are reversed: now it is Daniel who takes control over his brother's life. But since Sean is in position to make conscious decisions right from the start, it is only natural for him to take one more risk at this point, so deciding to be in for the heist should only be on him.

There is one detail which may seem trivial, but in the Life Is Strange games, nothing can be considered as such. As I mentioned earlier, Cassidy is a deeply moral character when it comes to social behavior. When Finn first talks about the heist, her reaction towards him is violent and intimidating; it is like that of a mother giving her children an angry lecture about good and evil. If  later Sean accepts to do the heist and she learns about it, she gets infuriated and may go as far as to forbid Sean to contact her ever again. On the contrary, when Finn tries to persuade Sean to follow his plan after they are left alone together, his manner is soft and sweet; he does not have to resort to yelling to make his point clear. So it is Cassidy's attitude versus Finn's attitude in this case, and although Cassidy represents the good and moral path, her reaction is more likely to act like a scare-gun, succeeding in terrorizing Sean who then decides to refuse to do the heist, directly affected by Cassidy's outburst and very much less because he himself thinks it is a bad thing to do. Whereas Finn gives him time and space, treating him like an equal, like his trusted friend, offering him the chance to make the decision on his own, unaffected of exterior factors. This means that if Sean accepts to take part in the heist, it is a decision based solely on his own considerations; a decision where he puts the well-being of his little brother first, and this is something that will also keep him in good terms with Daniel which is majorly important at this point. Whether this is a good or bad decision, does not really matter now; keeping brotherhood on a high level is what counts in the story, and sometimes you have to pay a high cost for it.

So the game practically tricks you into choosing to not go for the heist believing that it is the best decision, but this will deal a severe blow to Sean's relationship with Daniel. It is worth mentioning that, in Daniel's eyes, Cassidy is an enemy; someone who will take his brother away from him. It is also notable that Daniel will always have this impression of Cassidy in the case that his brother refuses to do the heist, even if Sean remains just friends with her and does not romance her. Daniel sees Finn as a friend, an ally, one more older brother. But he views Cassidy as an intruder, someone who will influence Sean against him. This may sound strange, but in fact it is not: Daniel is very young, still in the process of shaping his personality and mindset. He adores his brother, he trusts him and feels strongly connected to him. At the beginning of the story, he is unaware of what is going on; he is gullible and naive. As soon as he realizes what happened, that it was his power that killed the officer and that Sean took the brave decision to escape with him in order to keep him safe, his world turns upside down. From that moment and on, Sean becomes a rebel and a hero in his eyes.

Daniel can relate to Finn, but he cannot feel the same for Cassidy. And it is not because she is a girl, because he does like Hannah, for instance. A child's instinct, maybe? It is obvious that Cassidy is a goodhearted person, loved by her friends, so what is it that Daniel sees that the others don't? It is not mere jealousy, because he doesn't he feel the same about Finn, with whom Sean spends a lot of time as well - apparently much more than with Cassidy, according to the doodles in his sketchbook. Daniel may be spoiled and mischievous, but he is not ungrateful. He always keeps in his mind that his brother did everything he could and more in order to protect him. Even if he picks on Sean, he loves his brother unconditionally, thinks highly of him and would do anything for his sake. Living on the margins of society together, fastened their brotherly bond even more, in a way that their normal family life back in Seattle could never achieve. So at this specific point, in Daniel's eyes, if Sean somehow manages to go back to normal life, he will lose him. It is a perception that is progressively reinforced in his mind, as he feels that his power is getting stronger, which gives him a sense of superiority, but at the same time he gets more and more dependent on Sean, both practically and emotionally, because the conditions around them become gradually more wild. It is interesting that what Daniel fears is indeed what happens in two of the possible endings of the game where both the brothers or one of them go back to normal life, as well as in the one ending where Sean decides to surrender but Daniel denies: they get separated, and in ways that vary from soothing to heart-breaking to downright tragic. Whereas if they stay on the margins, they remain united forever. The cost they pay for this is high: they have to live as criminals; but they do not care as long as they are together.

As contradictory as it may seem due to her appearance, Cassidy represents that normal life that Daniel fears. Given the circumstances, she is the most mainstream of their immediate group of friends. She is even more mainstream that Anders and Ingrid, who seem ordinary but in fact are rather unconventional, since they are a casual, everyday couple leading a way of life that comes to contrast with their looks and attitude. Cassidy is mild, cautious and law-abiding (at least, as law-abiding as her way of life permits) and - contrary to most of her companions - she moved to the margins of society out of her own free will. Hannah implies at some point while talking to her that Cassidy comes from a wealthy family to which she can probably return if things get too bad for her. Another important detail is that "Cassidy" is not even her real name (we learn in Faith that she is called Lucy Rose). It is as if her whole appearance - outfit and name included - is a persona that she chose to use to separate herself from her past and get connected to her current life. Unlike Penny, who also has a nickname but gladly shares the story behind it, Cassidy avoids to talk about her own memories. There is an interesting backstory involving her father and her brother, who reacted violently when they found out that her boyfriend was not white; she presumably left her home because of this, but obviously not intending to support her boyfriend, as she was always single for as long as Hannah or Finn knew her. Maybe this incident was just the excuse that she needed in order to get away. What if most of her other memories are just too mundane to narrate? Maybe it was all about a bored girl with artistic skills who simply wanted to live a simple life, away from her traditional bourgeois home. Does this ring any bells? Karen, Sean and Daniel's mother, was a pretty similar case - although Karen was driven more by her own inner tendency to live like a lone wolf and much less by her disdain for social dictations.

So Cassidy is not a regular outcast; she consciously chose that kind of life, unlike Finn who was rejected by society - just like Sean and Daniel were. Maybe Daniel senses this difference in ways that the others are not able to perceive. Let's not forget that Daniel has an unusual, special power; this means that all of his senses are on a higher level than those of normal people, almost always heightened. Maybe he can see things that others cannot. As he gains more control over his power, his instinct and intuition become stronger. And remember - Daniel was there when Cassidy yelled at Finn for his idea about the heist. This was definitely something that got recorded in his mind, so if Sean decides against the heist, Daniel automatically thinks that he did so because of Cassidy. If this happens, Daniel goes to Merrill's alone with Finn, and Sean arrives there soon after with Cassidy to stop them. Daniel loses it completely when he sees her, and depending on the player's choices, he may even go as far as use his power intending to murder her, and he only stops because Sean begs him to.

The first ally that Sean and Daniel meet during their journey, very early in Roads, is Brody, a journalist and urban nomad. He is not exactly an outcast, given that he has a job, enough money to keep himself going, plus a family base where he can always turn to if things get too hard for him. Still, he is a free spirit and he lives independently of the world around him, having reached a magic balance between freedom and social acceptance. There is an escalation of this pattern as Sean and Daniel proceed further from their base and closer to their goal. Finn's group in California consists of people that are a far hippier version of Brody: they not only live as outcasts, but also are outcasts.  Karen's desert community is a more elaborate variation: her group consists of people that are older, definitely conscious of their decision to live away from civilization, and far more organized. They are not drifters, but they live in the isolated desert of Arizona, being their own boss. Could Finn's group evolve into a community similar to Karen's in an ideal future? It is not so hard to tell; given the developments that followed the heist, it is more likely that they would move on their separate ways later anyway.

Most of the members in Finn's group have probably committed minor crimes during their wanderings (trivial thefts, for that matter), but the one with the most impressive CV is Finn himself: he was part of his father's gang that stole, stripped and sold cars, an illegal activity that eventually cost him and his brothers their freedom. It is worth noting, however, that while Finn is obviously the most blatant outlaw of his Californian group, he also is the most complex character, the one with intellectual interests (a copy of Lord of the Flies can be seen in his tent, and there is a graffiti, obviously made by him, judging from the style, that reads Bonjour Tristess (sic) on a tree trunk, just beside Sean and Daniel's tent) and personal ambitions that go beyond life on the road. Cassidy likes that kind of living and does not seek anything else; Hannah and Penny carry along their dismay and pessimism, Jacob is too confused to think about possible future plans, Ingrid and Anders on the other hand simply see the job at the pot farm as something temporary, something that will pass so that they can eventually continue their organized journey.

Finn is not afraid to take risks, no matter how daring they may be, and this is exactly why, emotionally and spiritually, he connects to the Diaz brothers, and foremost to Sean. For what it's worth, Sean and Daniel's journey began when Sean himself took a great risk. It was a painful coming-of-age journey that pushed them headlong into the wild ride of life together. Finn is of that same kind. This is how Daniel sees it, and this is how his bond with Sean is guaranteed to remain strong. Finn's presence remains in the game in various forms after Wastelands - a photo, a sketch, a note, a letter, a mention in a dream, a token, a bracelet, a spoken word, appear as reminders of the major role that he played in Sean's life. He is even there at the hospital in Faith where, depending on your choice of words, he and Sean can have a heartfelt and strongly emotional conversation. Arthur and Stanley, the middle-aged couple from Karen's desert camp, are a confirmation, in Sean's eyes, that love knows no rules and no limits. In Wolves, we can also see a huge drawing made by Daniel, which depicts Chris, his friend from Oregon. Daniel subconsciously sees Finn as an older version of Chris. In his mindset, Chris is his own Finn, and Finn is Sean's Chris. There is an analogy that is not at all random at this point.

Daniel values brotherhood very much - not only in the literal sense of his bond with his brother, but also in the wider sense of connections between friends. Notably the most crucial instances where he uses his power to affect the course of events are related to this kind of bonds: the first time, it is after he sees his father getting killed; at that point, he is not yet conscious of his power and he is not able to prevent the upcoming tragedy but his reaction is to kill the rookie officer who caused it, albeit without controlling it. Daniel felt his father as his best friend, as he confesses at some point in Wastelands, therefore sentimentally he was connected to him with bonds of brotherhood as well, besides their father-son relationship. The second time is when he stops a police car from hitting Chris. The third is when he violently attacks Merrill to stop him from killing Finn. The fourth time is when he does the same to Nicholas, Lisbeth's thug, in order to save Sean from getting shot. In the most compelling finale, he uses his power to eliminate everything and everyone in his way, while forming a protective shield around Sean so that they can both safely cross the border as swarms of bullets fly around them. For Daniel, his blood link with his Sean is sacred, and equally sacred is his bond with Chris and Finn, whom he values as brothers of his heart. So if he senses that Sean values Finn the same way, his own perception of brotherhood is reinforced, and subsequently his bond with Sean becomes unbreakable. This is intensified even more if Sean urges him to use his power to stop Merrill from shooting Finn; Daniel will immediately do so even if Sean had prevented him from resorting to his power at any cost in the past.

Finn seems to be the canon match for Sean because he is able to connect with him on all levels, help strengthen his bond with Daniel, and be not only his lover and friend, but also his soul mate. There is subtle evidence for this in Rules, if you want to trace the game's semiological map - which, by the way, is extremely rich. Early on when Sean and Daniel are still hiding in their grandparents' home, there are several interesting things to see and comment on, among which an aquarium with a tropical fish in it. The fish is trapped behind a log, so Sean can ask Daniel to lift the obstacle with his power. As soon as Daniel does so, the fish swims freely in the water. When Sean sees it, he comments that "he is beautiful". The fish has a deep blue body and orange fins. Minutes later, Daniel looks at the aquarium and says that Sean scared the fish back into its cave, and Sean replies that he will see it one day or another. The following day, Sean meets Finn for the first time in the market. Finn is a redhead with blue eyes, sharing the same colors with the goldfish - and in this allegorical context, the Finn / fin pun could not only be considered intentional, but also pretty much canon. Subsequently in Wastelands, there is an instance when Daniel tells Sean that Finn wants to show him a secret cave on the other side of the lake where they are camping, and Sean replies to count him in as well (click here to watch the respective scenes). On a metaphorical level, Finn's "secret cave" may stand for his secret feelings for Sean that he is hesitant to show directly because he is not sure how Sean will react. He throws hints every now and then, calling Sean "honey", "sweetheart", "sweetie", "my little Sean", along with showing signs of affection, like offering a hug or a tender touch, but without crossing any boundaries, until he is assured that he can make the next step. All these facts, in connection with Sean's cryptic answer when his grandmother asks him about his love life in Rules, are progressively foreshadowing his canon romantic choice in Wastelands.

Sean and Finn lived different kinds of lives, but when they crossed paths, their destinies intertwined. They both reached a point of no return when they took a big risk: Sean when he escaped with Daniel after their father was killed, and Finn when he conceived the heist plan after Merrill fired the brothers. As I mentioned earlier, Finn is a complex character. He may have gotten greedy thinking how he could get hold of all that cash from Merrill's safe - which is only natural, given the circumstances and his past - but his motive for the heist had always been to help Sean and Daniel. Even before he confesses to Sean how he feels about him, he tells him that he wants the brothers to stay with the group, in a genuinely caring and protective manner. How Finn sees it, is that stealing the money may make everyone's life's easier and take a much desired revenge on Merrill, but mainly it will guarantee that Sean and Daniel will not leave. Simply put, doing the heist is a desperate last-minute plan to keep Sean and Daniel there with him; because the brothers were about to hit the road first thing the following morning.

Finn is the only one whose mind leaps further, therefore the only one who can actually help Sean and Daniel make their own (literal and metaphorical) leap of faith. There is also one very important element that Sean and Finn have in common, regarding their family background - their connection with cars. Sean's father was a mechanic and he repaired cars. Finn's father would steal cars, rip them apart and sell their parts. On a symbolic level, this may stand for how Sean's father managed to keep his family together despite the absence of the mother, and how Finn's father literally destroyed his family by sending his sons to jail. But on a metaphysical level, it could mean that Sean's meeting with Finn was karmic; it was written in the stars to happen, one way or the other.