General RPG Theory: Developer Large Battleship Studios's Games as a Collective Meta-Story

Major spoilers for Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle and Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA in this rant, and I’ll also be speaking with the assumption of knowledge of Quantum Entanglement and A Dragon’s ReQuest, so, y’know, be warned.  You should probably play the games before reading this.  On the other hand, reading this rant might pique your interest in them, and they're tragically deprived of attention and recognition, so hell, if it means the possibility of more people checking Large Battleship Studios's works out, maybe the price of a few spoilers isn't too high.  I'll leave the choice to you, I suppose.

Also, thank you to Saint Bomber for letting me question him about the following observations and theories I've made, and for permission to share this rant that may (or may not; I'm no stranger to my ideas being totally off) be somewhat personal.



Back when I was in high school, my English teacher had my class read J.D. Salinger’s 9 Stories, a collection whose last story (Teddy) incorporates concepts from Hinduism like enlightenment and reincarnation, which, having only just read Hesse’s Siddhartha the previous year, I latched onto with fascination.  We were, of course, eventually tested on our 9 Stories unit, and I remember that I was in the middle of the essay component when a stroke of insight hit me--it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps all of the 9 Stories were also tied to the same Hinduist concepts that Teddy more overtly displayed, and that the collection as a whole actually represented a single soul’s journey across lives to reach the enlightenment that would allow it to escape the cycle of reincarnation, with each life being more self-actualized and closer to true understanding until it finally achieved enlightenment with Teddy.

How valid an interpretation of the collection this may be, I couldn’t say--although my teacher really liked it, and I’ve heard that Teddy was chosen as the end of the collection specifically to balance out the brutal and hopeless A Perfect Day for Bananafish that begins the collection, so there may be something to it.  But what mattered to me was that it was a genuinely marvelous moment in which a new level of understanding and capacity for me clicked into place, and I suddenly comprehended an entirely new level of meaning that stories could hold.  A story could be more than the sum of its parts, could exist on a level beyond a self-contained universe of plot and purpose--it could also be a part of a greater whole of its fellows, a cog in a grander machine.  A tale formed only when stringing smaller stories together by their greatest themes and concepts; a universe that could only come into clarity by the joint light of smaller universes in sequence.

Yes: I had had my eyes opened to the fact that individual narrative entities can transcendently amalgamate, and achieve a Yo Dawg of storytelling.

What’s the point of all this jawing and patting myself on the back for getting a good grade on an essay over 20 years ago, you ask?  Well, to entertain myself, for starters, but more importantly, to establish the concept that sometimes a creators’ works, taken together, can tell their own collaborative story above their confines rather than within them.  And also to establish that I really, really like the idea and am always eager to find examples of a meta-level story of this sort.  And we’ve done all this preamble to establish this, because I think I may have recognized something of this sort in the works to date of Large Battleship Studios.

I’ve yapped about LBS and its titles several times now, but as a quick refresher, Large Battleship Studios is an extremely obscure RPG developer headed up mostly by 1 fellow, who goes by Saint Bomber.  Its games are generally very indulgent, but highly intelligent and emotionally complex RPGs, and while each is very much its own entity, they all share some significant commonalities.  You can depend on an LBS title to be packed with amusing banter and referential humor, and a huge focus on romance, nearly always between women--they’re made for huge yuri fans by a huge yuri fan.  Their lore is intricate and unfolds with the elegance of a well-written mystery, the casts are ferociously well- and constantly-developed, and each narrative masterfully knows when to use comedy to lower your guard for an emotionally killing blow, then use comedy again to help you recover from what it just did to you.

But 1 of the most noteworthy and standout shared traits of the LBS canon is a very significant, recurring theme and examination of trauma.  Lingering trauma from the past, trauma created by the events in-game, PTSD, emotional wounds that still weep, the trauma of loss, of rejection, of suffering, of imprisonment, of despair, of terror; coping mechanisms, those who have found ways to live with the scars in their hearts, those who can’t...the enduring pain that shapes us, and whether we carry it or it carries us, is an ever-present and huge part of Large Battleship Studios titles, perhaps to a greater degree than any other RPG can equal.  These are the stories of a creator who has gone through hurt and carried it with him, and channeled it into art and creation, while observing the similar anguishes of others and incorporating them into his stories, as well.

And that’s interesting, and valuable to analyze and comprehend, with each story that Saint Bomber creates.  As I’ve mentioned each time, I have an enormous fascination with and respect for every RPG that Large Battleship Studios releases, and this relentless exploration of trauma within its casts and stories is a major part of that.  But as I was playing the newest LBS release, Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA, and experiencing the ways that trauma is portrayed through its protagonist Simone and her fellow cast members, the ways in which lasting damage is made evident, explored, and handled in AAAVXA made me look back at how the previous LBS titles approached this major theme, and I realized something:

Saint Bomber’s games don’t just individually tell stories about trauma.  Each one’s approach and use of it also, when all taken together in sequence, represent a progressing path to recovery from it.  The games are not just by themselves about the battle to overcome trauma, they are collectively showing that journey, too.

It starts with Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle.  This RPG represents the first step to healing one’s heart and mind, and that is the realization that one is affected by trauma to begin with, that it has a hold over one.  Duchess Catherine comports herself for much of the game quite lightly, and without seeming to think overmuch on the darker things within her and her past, and while after a point it's an unavoidable conclusion that she's carrying a lot of pain and brokenness, it's something she can't seem to touch yet without it overwhelming her.  To let herself really square up to it reduces her to the helpless child she was while going through her torment.  The game involves a discovery (if only for the player) of this hurt, but it's too raw to directly confront or put names to--it can only be salved, with what joys of love her life can be filled with. Catherine is, in the real world, still trapped and unable to escape from that which is hurting and breaking her.

But the game also contains the earliest hope for someone who is harmed and trapped: that there's at least the possibility that life will be able to be good and fulfilling someday. There is the hope that this situation is something that can one day be in the past, rather than the present (as evidenced by the fact that the entire fulfilling and joyous potential life that the game displays is actually a prophecy Catherine has dreamt for herself).  Before any action to bring resolution can be taken, the first step to healing is to know that there is something to heal from, and to believe that recovery is possible.  With its light but insistently assessing touch at Catherine’s still-tender psyche, and the game’s nature as a promise to herself of what can someday be, Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle represents this first step aptly.

The journey continues with Quantum Entanglement.  A survival-horror in which protagonist Marine and her girlfriend Gabby rely on one another not only to survive, but to hold themselves together and keep going in the face of extreme fear, stress, and horror over the death they’re constantly confronted with along the way, QE is a confrontation of trauma by (re)living it in real time.  As such, it represents an advancement from Catherine’s situation of only being able to very slightly touch the wound in her psyche before recoiling in pain--the terror and revulsion are here, unavoidably acknowledged and struggled with, and thus in QE trauma is defined, which allows one the courage and fortitude to fight it.

Additionally, methods for responding to and handling emotional injury now make their first real appearance in LBS titles.  Marine and Gabby, and ODSA, are a warring dichotomy between facing the trauma for what it is, and defense mechanisms that bury or otherwise avoid it in some way--memory wipes, branching timelines more like the end of a frayed rope than an expanding tree, different and sometimes mentally concurrent selves, these are good analogies for things like repression and compartmentalization. Up to this point in Marine and Gabby's life, the procedures (akin to avoidance strategies) of ODSA have been working, but now the traumatic situation will be avoided no longer, and they have to confront it, accept what it’s doing to them, and fight through it.

As terrible and overwhelming as the disaster that Marine and Gabby must survive is, nothing can be handled and defeated before it is known, and both the mental tools which begin the process of dealing with trauma, and the unavoidable necessity of undergoing that process, make themselves known.  The deep-rooted pain that was recognized in Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle is now defined in Quantum Entanglement, and the process to reach the dreamt-of point beyond it has now begun.

The game that follows is A Dragon’s ReQuest.  Although they're painful and she doesn't often, protagonist Hinoki seems far more able to acknowledge the agonizing incidents in her past in more frank and whole detail than Catherine was, and not just understand that they do affect her in the present, but also consciously recognize at least some of how they do so. She represents having progressed, through Quantum Entanglement's frank facing of the darkness and fear, to the point that one can carry the weight of one's damage--even as it still harms!--and still accomplish great things in spite of its hold. Her trauma still colors her ability to see and process the world and other people, like how she almost spontaneously grasped at the straw of Payola perhaps secretly being her mother.  It’s an impulse thought of want and pain that comes to her seemingly out of nowhere in the conversation which shows that her traumas are still influencing her, but ultimately, Hinoki can function in her life, and even function well enough to do great things (in this case, undertake a world-saving RPG quest).  Great a heroine though Marine really is, what she accomplished in Quantum Entanglement was all in reaction to, and triumphing against, the traumatic incident thrust upon her.  And being able to fight back against one’s trauma, and see landmarks of victory in their quest to overcome it, is important.  Hinoki’s achievements and triumphs, on the other hand, are outwards; she works toward and achieves goals unrelated to the burdens of her own pains.  She is living a functional life that, if still colored by her trauma, is not defined or halted by it.

As such, A Dragon’s ReQuest represents a stage in the ongoing voyage of recovery at which one has progressed enough to be able to look at, and contemplate, one’s trauma without having it overtake one, and while it still weighs upon the sufferer in inescapable ways which may, unwanted, make themselves known, it no longer defines all that one is and does.  It’s an important milestone in the journey of healing that ADRQ displays, to be at a point where one knows that one can live a functional life and accomplish goals that exist independent of the scars within one.

Finally, we arrive at Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA.  Although there are moments when they overcome her, Simone not only knows about many of her points of trauma and their triggers, she can openly address them and relay them to others, and speak of trauma as a subject with some knowledge and candor. Simone has accepted that she carries lasting pain, and that that's not going to change, but she's also taking steps to not just live with it, but to move forward with her life in ways that don't need to specifically account for it.  Her living a late adolescence now, for example, is a way of building psychological foundations that she didn't have a chance to do back during that actual period.

If A Dragon’s ReQuest showed us a point in the journey of recovery in which one functions and succeeds in spite of their trauma, Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA strides forward still to display a moment at which one is beginning to function and succeed simply on one’s own terms, without the trauma always having its hand upon one’s life.  In ADRQ, Hinoki managed to function and achieve while she carried the weight of her damage on her back, but in AAAVXA, Simone is at a point in which her harm and hurt are forced to walk on their own--still there, sometimes even getting in her way, but the rest of the time forced to merely stand beside or even behind her as she lives her life.  It’s a point in which the effort, time, and work that have gone into the healing process are demonstrable--even if there are still some parts of it that are blackouts for her, Simone knows her trauma in the qualified way that comes with things like research, therapy, social support structures, etc.  The tools and methods she’s using to deal with her pain are not just basic coping mechanisms, they’re ones specifically suited to her.

The journey to healing is not over by the time we reach Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA--it may, in fact, never truly be finished--but this game does show us a healthier, more positive place on that journey in which real progress has been made and one has been armed with tools and knowledge that allow one to meaningfully handle one’s trauma.  The creation of a true and free Alouette in the game is a symbol of a renewal of the self and a real step forward in which the past is finally just that: an element that happened, that will never not be a relevant part of one, but doesn't have to be something that derails the present and future.

It may even, in fact, be that the game is meant at times to look at the person who comes out of a bad experience and rebuilds herself as potentially greater than she could otherwise have been.  Saint Bomber posed a question to me after reading my initial rant on AAAVXA of whether the game was, as I said, a celebration of anime and an exploration of trauma, or whether it might instead be a celebration of trauma and an exploration of anime?  Which of course could just be him yanking my easily distracted chain, but as I'm loathe to disregard any bone he tosses my way about his intentions or thoughts in making these games, I've reflected and come up with multiple instances in AAAVXA in which Simone is better suited to be a heroine and a healer because of her traumatic past than she possibly could have been otherwise.  So while I don't know whether the game as a whole truly represents a celebration of trauma per say, there's definitely a case to be made that AAAVXA is, in addition to a reassuring triumph that there can be a time when the past is truly the past, a dipping of toes into the idea that there can be genuine good that comes of it, and celebrating that fact.

And that’s it, for the moment.  There’s more to come from Large Battleship Studios, but for now, this is the general impression I’ve gotten of a gradual journey of recovery that Saint Bomber’s titles could describe when taken as a collective whole.  I’ll be interested to see what the next title’s overall nature will contribute to this meta-story!

General RPG Lists: Greatest Betrayals

Welcome back, everyone!  I've no doubt that it was a long and stressful year without these charming and sophisticated rants to soak up your free time that they so definitely and completely deserve...but at long last, we are BACK IN BUSINESS!

Uh, sort of.

Okay, so like, as I sort of mentioned in the last rant, while I did manage to build a bit of a backlog cushion during my sabbatical, it wasn't so sizable and my writing output isn't so prolific that I can really maintain the same schedule I've always kept before.  So...we're gonna try doing a rant on every other 8.  Basically, I post a rant on the 8th, then the next one's on the 28th, then the following rant's on the 18th of the next month, then it's the 8th of the month after that, and so on.

We'll see how it goes.  Hopefully this isn't too great a disappointment for my readers (at least, those of you who aren't just fucking AI being trained on my posts without my permission; don't think I didn't notice the huge jump in page views that began right around the same time that started occurring, you amoral tech industry asswipes!).  But if my readership does feel misused, lied to, and deceived by this decision, then good news!  You're totally thematically on-point for today's rant!



Betrayal!  Fiction in all forms is rife with traitors and backstabbers and fair-weather friends, and for that matter, they’re far from unknown in the history and present of the real world, too.  RPGs are predictably no different, and you’ll find pivotal moments of betrayal dotting the landscape of RPG plots like thumbtacks on a conspiracy theorist’s bulletin board.  Party members, love interests, secondary characters, tertiary characters, outright NPCs, dudes you haven’t even seen before, even occasionally an outright established villain that was somehow taken into confidence just long enough to remind one that they shouldn’t be, everyone gets in on the betrayal game sooner or later in the wide and wacky world of RPGs.

So which of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of betrayals that this genre has played host to, were the very best?  That’s what we’re here today to find out!

...Well, no, actually, that sentence was kind of misleading.  This isn’t a collaborative “us” effort.  I’m kinda just gonna tell it to you.  Sorry.

As always for my lists, though, I’ve got some ground rules to lay down first, because no rant is so boring that it can’t be made just a bit duller.  First of all, we’re only counting cases in which good guys (or innocent enough neutral parties) are betrayed; turning against the bad guys to join the heroes doesn’t qualify.  You won’t see the defeated imperial generals of Suikoden 1, or Final Fantasy 6’s Celes here, for example.

Betraying a cause or a memory doesn’t count.  Fallout 4’s Maxson may be an absolute disgrace to everything the Brotherhood of Steel was meant to stand for and a soulless traitor to the great Owen and Sarah Lyons who raised him, but he’s still not gonna be on this list.  Betrayal, in my opinion, is truest when it’s personal.  Though I’d still spit in Maxson’s face in disgust if he were a real guy and within hockin’ range, of course.

A character turning against the protagonist when the player’s made a choice that obviously goes against everything that the character stands for doesn’t count.  If Zevran in Dragon Age 1 has a low approval rating of the Grey Warden, then there’s no trust to be broken when he rejoins the Crows.  Only a fool would be surprised that Wrex would attack Shepard in Mass Effect 3 if the player forced Shepard into making the dumbass decision not to cure the genophage.  It’s only natural that the party would fight back for survival’s sake when you opt to have Ryu join Fou-Lu at the end of Breath of Fire 4, or have Nanashi actually buy into Dagda’s hypocritical bullshit in Shin Megami Tensei 4-2.

Relatedly, we’re not going to count acts of betrayal that are instigated by the player.  This is a list of scripted betrayals as occur within the course of telling a game’s story, and frankly, there’s a lot about choose-your-own-betrayal in RPGs that feels more like perverse shock value than anything of substance.  Siding with Morinth over Samara in Mass Effect 2, mind-controlling Minsc to murder Jaheira in Baldur’s Gate 3, having the Light Prism go back to its abuser in Steven Universe: Save the Light, selling your companions to cannibals as meat in Fallout: New Vegas, selling your companions into slavery in Fallout 2...there’s plenty of fucked-up betrayals you can choose to engage in within RPGs involving player choice, but few have any noteworthy weight beyond their extreme cruelty, in my opinion.

Finally, to count, the betrayal must be something negative.  Which seems like it goes without saying, but there are a good number of cases in RPGs in which what seems like a betrayal was actually something done specifically to help the heroes’ cause.  Specifically and successfully, I should clarify--a betrayal done out of good but misguided intentions that is ultimately harmful does still count.  It’s only cases like the faux-betrayals seen in games like Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Wild Arms 2, and Makai Kingdom, ones that are shams performed only to help the good guys, that are disqualified.  Mind you, a well-meaning betrayal has to actually work as intended not to count; selling out the heroes’ cause in an attempt to keep them safe and then gasping in shock as the villain you made a deal with doesn’t follow through does make you eligible for a spot here, albeit less likely to place than a betrayal of genuine malice.

Alright, enough stupid rules and preamble.  Let’s do this: the 15 Greatest Betrayals in RPGs!

NOTE: As with my Greatest Deaths list, the game is listed and the traitor must be highlighted to be seen, to avoid potential spoilers.



15. PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER
Nyrissa tries to euthanize her Hound

Whether or not it’s seen coming, this is a good, basic plot twist betrayal as the quest-giving plant damsel you’ve been helping and, let’s not kid ourselves, probably simping for reveals that she’s been playing you against your adversary this whole time, and it turns out you’re just the most recent sap in a long, long line of dominoes that she’s been setting up and knocking down.  More than its face value, though, this is a good betrayal for the fact that it sets the stage for understanding the truth of Nyrissa and what was stolen from her, and a great one for being an elegant approximation of her own fall at the hands of an unfair higher being, a case of her suffering begetting that of others.  And the fact that you survive this betrayal is the igniting spark of Nyrissa’s potential redemption, as the first instance that shows her it’s possible to overcome such treacheries, as well as, should you choose it, a hopeful first step to restoring her love through your own as you later show her its power to forgive.  Nyrissa’s betrayal’s finest qualities are the long term ways it coalesces in the plot and themes, and forms the basis of redemption and love.


14. SOUTH PARK: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE
Cartman does what Cartman always does

Most of the time, a great betrayal relies pretty strongly on being unanticipated to at least a reasonable degree, but when your shining virtue is humor, that necessity flies out the window--I mean, how hard was Seth telegraphing that there was something off about him in Phantasy Star 4?  Hard enough that I’m not even spoiler-redacting that one; it’s just damned funny that Chaz actually fell for fucking Hugh Mann.  So yeah, is it surprising in any capacity at all that Cartman, one of the most selfish, narcissistic, sociopathic, and, most notably, reliably treacherous little assholes ever written, betrays his friends and fellow make-believe heroes?  Not in the slightest; it was only a matter of when his ego would demand it.  But is it still great?

Yup!

Because Cartman actually expects the New Kid and the rest of the friends he’s betraying to buy his bullshit.  Instead of just owning up to his selfish aim to keep himself in the spotlight, Cartman resurrects a gimmick of South Parks’ past, draws a face on his left hand, then “talks” through it as a different personality named Mitch Conner, and he sincerely thinks that no one will see through this deception, acting the whole time like he himself is a separate and innocent entity from the evil mastermind crudely painted onto his hand.  The delusional audacity, the fact that you KNOW some stupid treachery is coming, the earnestness of his performance, it all comes together in the revelation of Cartman (through proxy of Mitch Conner) as a traitor to be one of the funniest, most amusingly and masterfully stupid moments in a game already full to bursting with masterfully stupid humor.


13. SUIKODEN 2
Jowy kills Annabelle

In a game rich with overwhelming emotion and meaning, the scene of Riou, Pilika, and Nanami waiting in vulnerable hope at the entrance to Muse for Jowy to return to them is 1 of the most poignant in Suikoden 2, and the relief and joy at seeing their hope rewarded, in knowing that he made it back from the clutches of the enemy camp, is so powerful that even the player feels it...enough that we may not even think to wonder how Jowy did accomplish his return.  To realize that it was bought with a terrible, treasonous bargain.  When you start to feel that something is wrong with Jowy...when you see him come into Annabelle’s room, and realize what he’s about to do, your heart drops into your stomach, and you race to get Riou and Nanami there in time to stop him, only for it to be too late, and the terrible scene is laid out before their uncomprehending eyes.  Jowy’s betrayal breaks their family apart, pits him against them in a war that he thought he was ending before it could ruin more lives, and sends Nanami and presumably Riou reeling.  Jowy’s betrayal is high-level political-military maneuvering, and yet also so very personal even though the people it emotionally hurts most weren’t even present to witness it, and its gravity earns its spot here.


12. FINAL FANTASY 7
Yuffie steals your materia*

Oh you absolute bitch, GET BACK HERE WITH MY MATERIA!

This is such a unique and iconic RPG betrayal.  On a story level, it’s interesting because it holds almost no emotional weight whatsoever--the party doesn’t especially trust Yuffie and they barely even seem to like her (and honestly, she’d made little particular impression on me, too).  But that’s the thing--this isn’t just a betrayal on the story level.  It’s notable because Yuffie is betraying you, the player.  Like her or hate her, she’s a party member, and while you might expect the occasional backstabber in the main cast to keep the story moving, what you don’t expect is for one of them to, in the process, also rob you of 90% of your gameplay agency in combat, messing up your own forward momentum just as much as it hinders the party’s in-game.

And credit also has to be given for how well it’s done, too.  It’s totally unexpected--while Yuffie’s been sketchy from the start, the actual moment when she makes her move is truly out of the blue, with the scene simply occurring while you happen to be exploring a newly accessible (and totally optional) part of the world map, with no warning whatsoever to prepare you.  The gamer is essentially taken as much by surprise by the betrayal as in-game characters typically are, more than them, in this case!  Furthermore, the actual revelation of just what Yuffie’s done to us is cleverly revealed through a battle with some Shinra flunkies, in which you suddenly realize you don’t have any combat options related to your materia--it’s spelled out afterwards that she’s stolen the party’s materia and hightailed it, but you’ve already discovered her treachery firsthand.  And then there’s the fact that this stops we, the players, in our tracks just as much as it does the games’ heroes, because on both levels, we can’t reasonably continue our journey without the magic crystals that we’ve come to rely on for our power.  Yuffie’s betrayal puts all other plans on hold, as any good betrayal does (just usually within the confines of the plot), and forces us to engage in the long and frustrating Wutai sidequest immediately.

And as a final insult, when Yuffie DOES eventually give the materia back, she completely messes up who’s got what.  All that work you’ve done up until now to customize your party’s loadout, and not only is it removed unceremoniously, but it’s then replaced so sloppily that you’ve got to redo it from the ground up.

So yeah, Yuffie’s act of treachery is a great one, a rare but effective example of a game’s story and character acting in a way that reaches past their own level and affects the player him/herself.  It’s easily the most aggravating sequence in the entire game, and I hate it, and that’s what makes it such a great betrayal.


11. BATEN KAITOS 2
Verus unveils his machinations

Pretending not to be a douchebag for long enough to win the trust of the good guys is a trial for any villain, of course, but some baddies are definitely spending a lot more effort on keeping up their appearances than others.  You can’t say that Tales of Symphonia’s Mithos, for example, grappled with nearly as difficult a task of gaining the heroes’ confidence when he halfheartedly channeled that wishy-washy false smile of a former personality of his for a few hours as, say,  Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5’s Akechi underwent as he spent 2/3rds of a school year pretending to be polite, intelligent, and not a complete narcissistic murderous psychopath.  Some heel-turns took a lot more effort and patience to get to than others, and what a relief it must be for a baddie who’s been playing his good guy part to finally let his silver bishounen hair down and go wild.

And lemme tell you, nobody’s been villain-edging as long and as hard as Verus from Baten Kaitos 2.  This is a megalomaniac who’s not only been convincingly playing the part of an upstanding, conscientious, and dignified statesman for years in-universe and something like 30 hours in-game, he’s also managed to saddle himself with the added affectation of a cane and a limp, AND keeping up the pretense that he has an otherworldly spirit of good guiding his actions that he hears and communicates with.  This guy, who for context has this for a Resting Kill Your Family Face, has been going around for his entire political career pretending to be a champion of righteous nobility who regularly and publicly communes with a saintly voice only he hears while getting around with a cane, when all he wants to do, if you somehow couldn’t tell just by looking at that natural repose I just shared, is violently seize power and order artillery strikes on hospitals that cater exclusively to kittens.

So it’s no surprise that when Verus finally has the opportunity to drop his pretenses and spread his wings,** he villain-nuts hard.  This man isn’t satisfied with just telling the heroes he manipulated them into defeating his main rival, and then seizing power.  Oh, no.  His betrayal also involves killing Millie’s father in front of her.  Along with revealing that Verus was actually the one who had the wings of Sagi’s mom cruelly and painfully ripped off in a public spectacle.  Plus calling said mother a whore.  Additionally, informing Sagi that Verus had him experimented on as a baby and implanted with a piece of the soul of a cursed world-ending god-monster.  Did I mention the face?  Cuz that’s there, too.  And just for good measure, he also breaks up with his boytoy Geldoblame by telling Geldoblame that he used to be hot but now he’s an old uggo, giving the guy some complexes that Geldy’s just gonna make everyone’s problem in the next game.  Like, damn, boy, leave some villain juice in the tank for later!


10. BRAVELY DEFAULT 1
Airy’s role is revealed

The pivotal twist of the game may or may not take you by surprise, depending on how long you let this traitor lead you on before breaking the cycle, but it’s an epic, shocking betrayal all the same, so monumental to the plot and ideas of the game that it reshapes the title screen itself, as the name of the game is revealed to have had the answer all along.  That revelation is really cool, and Airy’s malevolent glee and disgust with Agnes are wonderfully at odds with all we’ve seen of her so far, turning the innocuously cute and opinionated mascot into a vile and remorseless monster.  The shock of the party at the revelation, the dismay of Agnes at learning that a genuine friend hated her all along, and the chilling knowledge that not only have they been dooming worlds thanks to her, but that they’re not even the first versions of themselves to do this and that Airy has murdered their predecessors, makes this a betrayal for the books.


9. UNDERTALE
Flowey takes advantage of your naivete

I made a fairly sizable rant that mostly covers why this one is so remarkable, so if you’d like the details, feel free to check it out!  Suffice to say, this betrayal cuts to the core of the audience because, as with the Final Fantasy 7 traitor, it’s a betrayal of the player her/himself, shattering the security we have through our distance from the game’s stage.  The fact that we’ve only known Flowey for moments doesn’t matter, because we’ve trusted the conventions that he takes advantage of for years, and this treachery plants a seed of distrust within our heart for a long time to come in this game, which only all the more advances Undertale’s fascinating ideas and themes.  Strikingly excellent stuff, perfectly orchestrated for maximum power over us.


8. BATEN KAITOS 1
Kalas double-crosses the party

In terms of motivation, character development, and general narrative strength, this betrayal is fine, but nothing to write home about.  But come on, you just can’t deny the fact that the game’s own protagonist was a traitor all along is an awesome twist!  And it IS a twist; no one saw this coming--you’d have sooner expected Chrono Trigger to kill its protagonist off than for Baten Kaitos 1 to have its main character turn out to be working against the party the whole time!

And what makes this even better is that it’s not just a great, creative plot twist in its own right--as with FF7’s and Undertale’s notable traitors before, this is a case of you, the player, yourself being taken unawares and transgressed against!  BK1 actually incorporates the player into its main story, with she or he taking on the role of a spirit summoned from another plane of existence intended to empower, guide, and generally assist its charge in his/her endeavors--so the fact that Kalas turns on his friends and cause without ever giving away his intentions to you, taking you as much by surprise as everyone else on his team, makes this another case of a betrayal directly against the players themselves.  Kalas even makes mention of how inconvenient you’ve been for him, an unknowing watchdog with your benevolent eye upon him even in his most private moments.  By merit of what a great twist it is as it takes advantage of Baten Kaitos’s unprecedented player involvement in the story, Kalas’s is an all-time great of RPG betrayals.


7. FINAL FANTASY TACTICS
Zalbag gives the order

In spite of his having been revealed recently to be a classist jerk, the sudden, casual, and indifferent brutality of seeing Algus lift his crossbow and murder Teta as she stands a helpless hostage is a shocking punch to the gut.  Bigoted noble or not, Algus was only just recently an ally fighting alongside Ramza and Delita, and to see him murder the innocent without a care because she’s inconvenient and because her life has no value thanks to the circumstances of her birth...

But Zalbag!  Algus the aristocratic goon who had an opportunity to learn class empathy handed to his fallen noble house and squandered it is one thing, but Zalbag is Ramza’s brother!  With Ramza viewing Delita like a sibling and Alma seeming to do the same with Teta, with Dycedarg’s assurance that he’d never let harm come to Teta and that she’s like a sister to him...the moment that Zalbag gives the order almost feels unreal, that he can so casually throw away the life of someone who’s been a sister to his family (who was only made a target for capture because of that association!) without hesitation, not for the sake of saving others, not because he or his soldiers are in danger, but simply to make a statement to his enemies...it’s a brutal bucket of water to the face, a shocking confirmation that everything both Wiegraf and Algus said was true.

The consequences of this heinous treachery extend their reach far into Ivalice’s future history, too.  From this murder, this betrayal of his trust and love and view of the world, stems every single dirty deed, every deal struck and cheated, every man and woman cut down, every back stabbed, by Delita through the rest of the game.  Delita is one of the most infamously deadly double-dealers in RPG history, and every single one of his own considerable ethically complex but undeniably violent and self-serving betrayals stem from this one committed against him.


6. QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT
Claudine takes what she wants

It’s shocking, it’s evil, it’s underscored by some of the most perfect music for terror and tension I’ve heard, and it ends in horrible, upsetting brutality.  And most of all...in its swiftness and its ugly turn, in the helplessness you feel with Marine both in the moment and retroactively at knowing that someone trusted has used their position of power for their own sick ends, it’s terrifying.  This isn’t some bad guy revealing their intentions for grandiose villainy on a global scale, it’s personal.  This is the chill of knowing that someone you trusted to have power over you, emotional and systemic, was a predator all along.  Claudine’s sudden (yet also extended) betrayal is a critical moment of emotional and life-or-death shock in an already tense game, and while I give full credit to the Undertale betrayer for the lingering trauma-like effect he has upon the player’s mindset, it’s Claudine alone on this list whose betrayal actually shook me into genuine fear as it went down.


5. JADE EMPIRE
Master Li demonstrates that he taught you all you know, but not all that he knows

When it comes to the classic, bread-and-butter moment of RPG betrayal of the leader/mentor figure you thought was in your corner turning out to be the evil mastermind behind all the world’s ills, Master Li’s sudden treachery is pretty much the best there is.  I defy anyone to claim that they saw it coming; Li somehow manages to hit a perfect spot in the middle of a Venn diagram of benevolent teacher, expectant quest-giver, fair but not coddling parental figure, wisdom-sharing elder, and exposition machine that never strays far enough into any of the roles to so much as spark a stray thought of suspicion in the player, and the story itself gives no reasonably discernible hint that there’s any greater scheme at play than the already fully-involved quest to save the empire from a dictator tearing the natural order apart.  This is just the quintessential specimen of the betrayal that you never saw coming.

And the execution is flawless, timed exquisitely for the maximum narrative shock.  I was an RPG veteran many times over when I played Jade Empire, and yet somehow Li taking the crystal plot MacGuffin in his hand slowly and turning back to address the protagonist was done with such carefully natural rhythm that it didn’t put up any warning flag for me, even though I’ve seen such a moment play out multiple times before in other games (and other media) and known at that second that a betrayal is coming.  By far the greatest part, though, is the timing of Li speaking to the protagonist, congratulating her/him on having achieved so much and expressing pride that she/he did so while still sticking to the fundamentals of Li’s training...

“Even the flaws!”

What a hell of an other shoe to drop.  Of all of the great moments of betrayal in this list, Master Li’s is the only one so succinctly powerful that I remember the experience of it in a single line, every ounce of its weight and shock in a penetrating mere 3 words.  Few are the betrayals that can rival Li’s in his field!


4. FALLOUT 1
The Overseer evicts the Vaultdweller

Not every iconic betrayal is malicious, not every traitor a villain.  Sometimes, the rug can be pulled out from under you for well-meaning reasons by a man who must weigh the reward that the few have earned against the good of the many...

...in his own cowardly, xenophobic, small-minded way.

The sheer, overwhelming unfairness of the situation of Fallout 1’s ending is powerful.  The Vaultdweller has traversed an extraordinarily hostile, dangerous, radioactive postapocalyptic wasteland on what’s almost a fool’s errand looking for a single, rare piece of electronics hidden within a world of marauders and mutants, in order to save his home and its people.  Then, after surviving for the months necessary to scour the wastes and find the water chip, the Vaultdweller is sent out immediately again to achieve an even more impossible goal of ending the threat of an army of super mutants that intends to overrun all of humanity, an insane charge to lay upon any single person--but this, too, he manages.

And then, after achieving impossible victories, living in the wilds of a nuclear wasteland, seeing the ugly realities of the terrible world that history’s follies has created from the worst traits of man...after all that he has gone through to save his home, all that the Vaultdweller has done merely to earn his chance to return to the life he had been living before this crisis...the door is shut in his face.  The Overseer tells the Vaultdweller with a heavy heart that he’s been out there too long, represents too much of a symbol of the very chaos and instability that he fought to eliminate, that others will admire him, want to follow his example, leave the Vault, and jeopardize its community in doing so.  You really can’t go home again.

It’s an iconic rug-pull, and it’s great for its symbolism of lost innocence and growing past security into selfhood, for the sudden ugly light it sheds on even the most positive conceptual view of the Vaults that will be echoed again and again throughout the Fallout series, and for the final, iconic, bittersweet scene it sets of the Vaultdweller walking, a lonely man with his dog, away from his home and past.  Struck down in his moment of victory and return by the leader of those he’d saved, in a cruelly unfair move, but one so small-minded that, in a way, it proves itself right simply by happening--the Vaultdweller has outgrown his home, for it to be represented by such a myopic leader.  What a great moment of betrayal this was.


3. PATHFINDER: WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Staunton Vhane does what he was driven to

In a sharp contrast to most cases, what makes this betrayal so noteworthy and excellent isn’t that you can’t see it coming--on the contrary, it’s the sad lack of surprise as Vhane once again throws his lot in with Minagho that gives his treachery its weight.  This moment in which Vhane turns against his cause to defend the demon who led him on and destroyed his life is one of many pivotal steps in the tragedy of Staunton Vhane’s fall, a tragedy so grandly theatrical and sympathetic that it’s more than reasonable to even call it Shakespearian--Vhane and Minagho bear, in multiple ways, resemblance to MacBeth and his Lady, in fact.

And that’s what makes this such a great betrayal: it’s tragic because it was so avoidable.  After the catastrophe of Staunton’s having fallen to Minagho’s wiles the first time, he’s worked tirelessly for 70 years to make up for his great failure that lost a city and cost so many lives within, throwing himself into the fight against the demons and putting his life on the line over what amounts to a lifetime for a human being...and the entire time, his peers have only ever treated him as a pariah for his mistake.  Staunton was allowed to live and fight the demon armies for redemption for his sins, but no matter what he’s done, how faithful to the cause, how much pain he’s suffered and blood he’s shed for his fellows, all that’s ever seen of him is a traitor.  Imagine living with the hatred of all those around you, those you fight to protect, for not months, not years, but decades, and never, ever making any headway to earning their forgiveness for a moment of weakness you experienced before many of your detractors were even born.

The chance to regain his honor through service to his cause was meant to be a mercy, but if it’s clear that he’ll never be allowed that redemption, that mercy becomes only an eternal, miserable sentence of degradation and isolation.

Small wonder we bear witness to Staunton snapping and returning to Minagho’s side.  It’s still a crime he should and will have to answer for, but can you truly blame him?  After hostile isolation from everyone around him, knowing nothing but scorn from those for whom he daily suffers and risks himself, for thousands and thousands of days, hundreds and hundreds of months, tens and tens of years, realizing and despairing more and more fully as the years roll by that the good he can do will never be allowed to outweigh the crime of his past...of course there would finally come a moment in which he broke for a second and final time, and returned to the side of the only person who’s treated him well in over half a century.  Better even the empty but pleasant manipulative love of a demon than the uncaring spite of his so-called comrades.  He’s a villain, but one of the world’s making, not his own, and though treachery is usually known for evoking indignance and hate, this turncoat I can only feel a grim sympathy towards.


2. LIVE-A-LIVE
Streighbough gives Oersted the worst day ever

Has there ever been a more devastating, cruel, infuriatingly petty and disproportionate double-cross than Streighbough’s?  This narcissistic psychopath ruined his best friend’s life beyond recognition and killed his king (the father of Streighbough’s supposed beloved, no less!) in a single stroke for the sake of his own worthless ego, and in so doing, doomed his world and nearly doomed many more.  Out of some callow feeling of inadequacy, Streighbough commits the most overpoweringly heinous and extreme betrayal in RPG history (yes, more powerful in its sin and intensity even than the one below!), and the scene in which he reveals his treason, and what follows, is a moment of jaw-dropping hateful tragedy as Streighbough robs Oersted of the only things he had left--hope, love, and the ability to trust anything he knew before this most terrible day.  The final contender below earns its position by many virtues of art, elegance, and power, but in terms of sheer potency, Streighbough’s is the top betrayal.


1. TALES OF BERSERIA
Laphicet sacrifices his life to save the world

The grand, thematic, masterful excellence and poetry of this greatest of betrayals is one which would take an entire enthusiastic, rambling rant to really describe adequately.  Which, like, I totally did already.  Yeah, I know it’s cheap and annoying to just assign you an entire other rant as reading homework just to finish this one, but there’s just too much to the craftsmanship of Laphicet’s betrayal to merely summarize here and call it adequate.  It’s just an absolutely beautiful piece of work.


Honorable Mention: FINAL FANTASY 4
Kain attacks Cecil

No list of RPG betrayals would be complete without Kain, the iconic Benedict Arnold of Final Fantasy and one of the first, most memorable traitors of the genre.  It may not have quite the gravitas, elegance, or uniqueness to make it onto the list proper, but Kain’s 2-faced turnabout is still a solid go-to of the classic best friend and/or party member betrayal, and more than 1 of the terrific traitors we’ve listed above can trace at least some of their roots back to good old Kain.



This was fun!  Hope y’all enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane--or maybe the Backstab Back-Alley would be more accurate.  If you did, then stay tuned, because I originally wanted to do a joint list of both the best AND crappiest RPG betrayals, but since this part has already turned out to be rather long, I’m gonna separate them into 2 proper, separate lists, so the rundown of the worst betrayals is forthcoming!














* All credit to Ecclesiastes on this one; I was so focused on the big story-redefining traitors for this rant that Yuffie’s betrayal of ‘mere’ sidequest theft completely flew under my radar, but she inarguably deserves her spot of honor here!


** HA HA WINGS, see cuz it’s Baten Kaitos, oh man am I ever fucking funny amirite

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