And now for my really actually final analysis post about Kieran, covering both the epilogue and also his scenes in the League Club room once youāve finished that. Somehow both of these relatively short pieces of content still managed to be packed with delightful nuance showcasing both how Kieranās still struggling with his issues and yet also how much heās grown since his main arc. They are absolutely lovely and fill me with so many warm happy feelings about my boy.
(This is an epilogue, if you will, to my previous two analysis posts discussing Kieranās character arc in The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk! Reading those before this is probably recommended.)
Before even getting into things that are strictly from the epilogue itself, can I just say: I really love that Kieran took a mental health break from Blueberry Academy to give him some time to process things? (Okay, the game only calls it a ābreakā, but letās be real, it is for his mental health, and this is Good.) It just makes me very happy that the writing acknowledged that heād probably need something like that after what heās been through instead of going straight back to business as normal at school ā and in an in-story sense, itās lovely that Kieran realised he needed this and didnāt try and force himself to just keep going as if nothing had happened. Heās starting to learn to take care of himself and not push himself way too hard!
Making new friends
The first lovely sign of Kieranās growth that we see in the epilogue is that, not only does he want to catch up with you, he also wants to meet your friends from Paldea! He must have spent some time during his break thinking about the fact that you mentioned you had friends from there.
And the thing is, with Kieranās insecurities, it would have been so easy for him to slip into a mindset of āyour friends are probably way cooler than me, why would you need meā. But instead of letting himself get caught up in that jealousy spiral again, he fought against it and did the healthy thing of asking to meet them himself. Hopefully he can become friends with them too and then heāll have nothing to feel jealous about! He outright says when he meets them, āAny friend of [yours] is a friend of mine!ā Look at him go. (Arven should take notes on how not to act insecure about oneās best friend having other friends, because damn, Kieranās managing to be more well-adjusted than him now.)
All this is also just a sign that Kieranās hoping to try and make more friends in general. Heās such an introvert that he must have figured thatād be easier for him to do with people for whom he has a mutual friend to get to know them through. Plus, if theyāre your friends, then he already has a guarantee that theyāll be good and nice people. Way more manageable for him than trying to approach complete randos.
And really, itās such a huge remarkable thing for Kieran that he is trying to make friends now. Friends, plural! This is the kid who used to be so lonely and shunned by others that his big dream was to one day be like the ogre who, according to him, doesnāt care that itās all alone. And maybe then, if he managed that, heād be able to befriend the ogre ā just that one other person who is also alone and outcast. It never even crossed his mind to try and imagine that one day he could be confident and worthy enough to justā¦ have some human friends. That wasnāt even an option in his head ā it was ālearn to not care that heās aloneā or nothing.
And yet look at Kieran now, actively reaching out to try and make new friends! I am so proud of him.
Learning to ask for help
Soon after you meet up with Kieran, it becomes apparent that something is Very Wrong with his sister. According to Kieranās account, it was shortly after he sent you the letter that Carmine became possessed, so itās not that the letter was secretly a call for help in which he couldnāt bring himself to admit the actual problem.
And even now that youāre hereā¦ Kieran wasnāt going to tell you about this problem at all until Carmine happened to wander up and start mochi-dancing in front of you. He tries to play the whole thing off like itās totally normal and sheās definitely justā¦ excited to see you???, even though he has to know that doesnāt make any sense at all. On some level this is just because itās really scary to admit to himself that something is very wrong and he doesnāt have a clue how to fix it. But itās also becauseā¦ he still doesnāt feel like he has the right to ask you and your friends for help.
This is one of the ways in which Kieranās issues and low sense of self-worth from before are still lingering and have not just been magically, instantly fixed. While he may be making a conscious effort to fight through his insecurities to try and make more friends, he hasnāt started consciously tackling everything that was holding him back just yet. It seems like he imagines that asking your friends for help, these people heās only just met, would just make him a burden on them and maybe spoil any chance he had of actually becoming their friend himself. (Although, even if youād come to visit him alone, I suspect heād still struggle to ask even just you for help, simply due to his old ingrained mindset that heās not worthy enough to deserve it.)
Happily for Kieran, your friends are all good people who instantly unthinkingly offer to help without him even needing to ask them! Kieranās sheer surprise and gratitude when this happens is so telling about his insecurities for why he didnāt feel he could ask, but itās also lovely to see him starting to realise that his instinctive way of thinking about this is mistaken. Welcome to having friends, Kieran, this is how it works actually! Most people are good and will be happy to help out a friend in need! Itās okay to need help sometimes!
Thereās another very innocuous line that I find interestingly telling about Kieranās mindset regarding this. When youāre all at the community centre wanting to use the TV, Kieran laments that itās stuck playing the tourism ad because the caretaker hid the remote, so Arven immediately suggests you all look for it. And Kieran reacts, in surprise, āWhy didnāt I think of that?ā It reads as largely rhetorical, butā¦ itās a good question.
Why didnāt Kieran think of just trying to find the remote? Because heās spent so long stuck in a mindset where, if things are bad for him, itās just what he deserves for being weak and thereās nothing he can do about it. His response to his problems during the main storyline was to completely separately fixate on making himself Stronger so that, in theory, problems would just stop happening to him entirely. It never occurred to him to try and just face and deal with his problems directly ā at least not until the climactic battle with Terapagos, which was the first time he ever found the courage to take such an approach ā so the notion to do so still isnāt quite habitual in his mind just yet.
Hopefully Kieran asking why he didnāt think of that wasnāt quite so rhetorical, and he was reflecting on it himself a little when he said it. He ought to realise that actually, taking action to directly solve his problems is a good thing and something he should strive to do more! He has already begun to do so in some ways by reaching out in an attempt to make more friends, at least.
Solving the problem
Kieran sure does get a lot more practice at Directly Solving Problems thanks to the events that go on to occur that night, doesnāt he. I love that the epilogueās plot, while ostensibly just there to give players an opportunity to catch Pecharunt, is also a narrative that exists to let Kieran get to be a hero alongside you.
Itās somewhat low key, but Kieran definitely gets pretty freaked out about everything thatās happening. Which is really perfectly reasonable ā though the effects of the possession are incredibly silly, itās still got to be genuinely frightening to see people he knows getting controlled against their will by some unknown force, especially when this includes his own family. (One detail I love is that the game uses that lack of a highlight in his eyes during certain lines to communicate the fear he's feeling and trying not-so-successfully to hide; itās a small thing, but it works so well.)
Once youāve fought off his possessed grandparents, Kieran starts to panic, convinced itās only a matter of time before it gets him (even though the evidence of how exactly the possession occurs is right there if heād just stop to think about it for a moment). On some level, he must still have this sense that, if it can get all these people he looks up to, surely itāll get him too whoās so much weaker than them. His inferiority complex is still there and affecting him, especially in this stressful situation.
Good thing Kieran has you by his side, the strongest coolest friend ever whom he knows he can rely on! If you hadnāt been there to reassure him and snap him out of it, he really might have lost himself to his panic. Or he might have just not even tried to battle the possessed people and do something about all of this in the first place ā see the earlier point about how him facing problems directly is still not instinctive to him. Heās able to do so here, but a lot of that is probably thanks to being able to follow your lead. Still, this is bound to help him get better at doing so on his own in future!
Kieranās also still a bit too liable to feel like things are his fault even when they really arenāt. He blames himself for not warning Arven and Penny about the mochi in time, even though he was literally about to do so when Pecharunt showed up and sniped mochi directly into their mouths. That canāt be called Kieranās fault at all! He tried! (And, hey, itās not like you made any attempt to warn them either.) But he still feels responsible for it anyway.
And heās also still rather defeatist when it comes to facing Strong Opponents in battle. Kieran couldnāt defeat Nemona earlier in the day, so when it comes down to facing off against her in order to get to Pecharunt, he just feels like he canāt do it, end of. Really, thatās not necessarily the case ā since this is an emergency and not a friendly battle for sport, thereās no reason you have to beat Nemona in a fair 6-on-6. Anything to get past her will do; the two of you could have taken her on in a 12-on-6 double battle, perhaps! Kieran did not need to momentarily feel useless in this situation, but he did, because not being able to win against someone still equates in his mind to being No Good At All. Kieran, nooo.
Happily, the narrative provides Kieran with something else to do with himself while you fight Nemona so that he is very decidedly not useless in the slightest ā fighting off the entire townās worth of people behind you??? That is equally as necessary as taking down Nemona, something without which youād never have managed to get to Pecharunt, and it must take some incredible battling skill to be able to hold off that many opponents at once. Like, dang, Kieran. I really hope heās able to reflect on this in the aftermath and realise how incredibly strong and cool that was of him, because it was.
(He was holding his own one-against-many, just like he always admired Ogerpon for doing!)
Kieranās fear and pessimism also show through just a tiny bit as youāre fighting Pecharunt at the end, when he reacts to the fact that you were able to damage it. Apparently he was afraid that this thing would be completely invulnerable and it just wouldnāt be possible for even someone as amazing as you to beat it and stop the curse. Yikes, that must have been a scary thought. But still, it all worked out in the end! Kieranās learning that even when things are scary and feel overwhelming, by facing up to them and doing his best, itāll usually turn out okay! Especially because heās not alone and has friends by his side to support him now.
And, hey, one way or another, it seems like the events of the epilogue did help give Kieran that last little push he needed to decide to go back to Blueberry Academy! I imagine he was already thinking about doing so ā he is actually a very stubborn and determined person at his core, so I donāt think he could ever have been considering just giving up on it ā but all of this probably helped give him the confidence to make that leap. The thought of apologising to everyone for how he acted must still be incredibly daunting ā but, heās begun to realise that he can face scary things!
(On the other hand, since there is no sign nor mention of them in the postgame, I suspect that, like Cramorant before them, his Gliscor, Shiftry and Probopass from the final Kitakami battle got released. Kieran would have only had them for like a day or two during the events of Teal Mask, since he only caught them after he fixated on getting stronger, so I doubt heād grown very attached to them during that time. Still, thatās okay, because hey, he did make them stronger, which is probably all they ever expected from him when they joined his team.)
Nemona is Good
One extremely delightful aspect of the epilogue and beyond is Kieranās interactions with Nemona. It turns out that her outlook on battling is exactly the kind of thing Kieran needed to help regain a healthier view on it himself!
His feelings about his own battling skills are still very all-or-nothing at the beginning of the epilogue. When Nemona excitedly declares that sheās heard heās really good at battling, Kieranās pretty dismissive of that idea. He couldnāt beat you, therefore that means heās Not Good At It, right? (Kieran, no.) He also says that Nemona ādestroyedā him once theyāve battled ā but based on the fact that she has nothing but praise for how good he is, I very strongly suspect that he actually gave her a really tough fight, and he only framed it that negatively because losing at all still makes his inferiority complex blow things way out of proportion.
Happily, delightfully, Nemona tells Kieran exactly what he has always needed to hear this whole time, which is that it shouldnāt matter whether you win or lose, because battles are fun either way! And with a moment to reflect on that, he agreesā¦ yeah, they are, he had a lot of fun!
Weād heard from Drayton that Kieran was always a kid whoād deeply enjoyed battling, from the very beginning. But it seems that somewhere along the way heād stopped loving it so much, at least when heās the one battling - probably because heād often lose, which would trigger his inferiority complex and make him feel bad. We only saw a small glimpse of his passion for battling ourselves at the beginning of Teal Mask, mostly when he watched you battle his sister, and a little bit in his own early battles with you, but he still felt bad over losing, poor kid.
But with Nemonaās help, Kieranās been able to remember just how much he always loved battling and can just enjoy himself with it again! In your clubroom battles with him, he has a line just before he Terastallises where he says āthese feelings never changeā ā and though he doesnāt specify what feelings heās talking about, the one thing about Kieran that has never changed this entire time, even if he sort of lost sight of it for a while along the way, is the thrill he gets from battling! He also says in another line that heās āhaving a blastā ā which is phrasing that Nemona uses that Kieran never has before, so apparently he picked that up from her? Aww. I am so glad he could meet her; she is exactly the breath of battle-loving fresh air he always needed.
Another thing we see in the epilogue ā admittedly only a small glimpse near the end, but itās something ā is that Kieranās relationship with his sister seems to have gotten a little bit healthier? They each make equal-opportunity Sibling Banter jabs at each other, and Kieran doesnāt slump and shrink and look so defeated when she bites back against one of his. Thereās probably still some ways to go here on their dynamic becoming completely truly healthy, but itās definitely progress from before, which is good to see.
I think Carmine really must have reflected on her role in Kieranās breakdown and is trying in her own fumbling awkward way to do better by him now. A delightful sign of this is one of her scenes in the clubroom, in which she resolves to be less protective of Kieran, even if itāll make her lonelier without him around as much. Thatās exactly what she needs to do! After all, this whole thing started because Carmine couldnāt bear to let her brother endure even the tiniest amount of badfeels that would have come from learning he happened to miss out on meeting the ogre. Carmine has realised on some level that she needs to have more faith in Kieran and his ability to endure and get through stuff on his own, rather than trying too hard to protect him from everything ever, which just results in coddling him and stifling his possibility for growth. She still does want to look out for him from a distance and be able to help if he really does need it, but sheās trying not to overdo it any more. Yes good, I am proud of her too.
Reconciling with his schoolmates
I said already in the Indigo Disk post that itās incredibly brave of Kieran to resolve to apologise to everyone he hurt and make amends, and this is still true. That has to have been so scary, but he went and did it anyway! It seems he even apologised to the people who cared about him, such as his sister and Amarys, for worrying them with his behaviour ā which also means he has managed to comprehend the fact that people cared about him, even back then when he was at his most unlikeable.
And by the sounds of what he says in his clubroom scenes, most people took his apologies well and are talking to him like normal now, which has to have been such a relief. It means a lot that Kieran wasnāt expecting anything of the sort and apologised anyway despite expecting backlash, simply because it was the right thing to do ā but hey, most people are nice and can probably tell he was decidedly Not Himself during that time and are willing to put the past behind them! Social interaction isnāt quite as scary as heād used to think, it turns out!
Even then, some things are still a bit weird, and with how far-reaching his impact as Champion was, Kieranās bound to keep having to deal with this for a while. There must keep being more people he was a jerk to that he still hasnāt apologised to yet, people being intimidated by him because they donāt realise heās changed, constant reminders of some of the hurtful things he said and did back then. Making amends is going to be a pretty long-term thing, but Kieran is putting in the effort to do so all the same, because itās the right thing to do, and he is so brave.
Someone who is making this harder than it needs to be is Drayton, because of freaking course he is. He still insists on rubbing in the āex-Champā thing, even though Kieran has made it clear he does not appreciate being called that (of course, he no longer minds that heās not Champion any more, but the fact that Drayton insists on constantly reminding him of his past self has to sting). On the one hand, Drayton is still concerned about Kieran in his own way, because he does effectively ask if Kieranās eating better meals now, but on the other hand their entire clubroom interaction features him deliberately dodging Kieranās genuine attempts to just engage with him in an effort to make amends, and, geez. This is exactly what he wanted from Kieran all along, and yet he is somehow still not satisfied. Seriously, Drayton.
At least Drayton is the only one of the Elite Four to be like this, and the others seem to be on good terms with Kieran now! Look at Lacey insisting that the past is in the past when Kieran acts confused that sheād want to help him after he was such a jerk to her. (Someone needs to take notes there, Drayton.) And it seems like Kieranās got another good friend in Crispin, whoās in the same class as him! Our boy is making so many new friends and it is wonderful.
He is learning! He does not need to feel like he has to perfectly match his conversation partnerās expectations in order to be their friend! Kieranās approach to his own issues has become so healthy and filled with self-reflection and growth, and I am so proud of him.
Friendship with you
Kieran is also able to be a whole lot healthier about his friendship with you, now that youāre properly friends again after everything! Possibly my favourite completely innocuous line in the epilogue is when he casually mentions that you and he became friends during the school trip to Kitakami. This is actually huge, because Kieran had spent so long utterly convinced that you couldnāt possibly have meant it when you called him a friend back then, not after the lie and all of his issues about being too weak to deserve it. But now, heās been able to reflect on that and realiseā¦ of course you meant it. Of course you always wanted to be his friend, right from the very beginning! It wasnāt on purpose of you that he got left out of meeting Ogerpon at all, because youāre a good person and you wouldnāt do something like that, and he never actually deserved that after all.
(Perhaps sometime during his break, he had a proper talk with his sister about what happened and why she lied, and Carmine finally got to fully express that you and she never meant to hurt him and shun him with that.)
Kieran is still not over his idolisation of you, mind you. He reacts to you being the one to find the TV remote of all completely mundane things with āWowzers! āCourse you found it first!ā ā which, really isnāt a wowzers or an of course? Your magical protagonist powers do not and should not extend to this, and yet they still do in Kieranās head. But even though he still views you this way, Kieran is so much healthier about it now. Heās no longer bitter and jealous and beating himself up for not being as perfect as he thinks you are, since nobody is (not even you, not really) ā instead, heās just so incredibly thrilled that he actually gets to be friends with someone so cool!
I really love that the devs went and gave Kieran a new losing animation for his clubroom battles, too. His previous ones always had him being varying levels of upset about losing, but not any more! He just stares in wide-eyed awe at your amazingness, and then breaks into a big smile and thanks you for the battle, because he still had great fun even though he lost! And heās able to freely admit that he looks up to you because youāre so strong, or, in an optional line in the epilogue, he admits that heās jealous that your friends are all really good people. He still has those feelings, but heās able to healthily express them now without letting them twist him into something harmful.
Another seemingly-innocuous but extremely good line in the clubroom is that Kieran can ask you if Ogerponās doing well and say that he thinks sheāll be pretty happy with you. He says this in a completely casual way, with no hint of bitterness ā which tells us that heās no longer jealous that you caught Ogerpon! It makes sense that he wouldnāt be, because he doesnāt need her acknowledgement any more like he used to think he did in order to feel worth something. Heās already got acknowledgement and self-worth and happiness now for so many other reasons, after all! So he can just be selflessly happy for Ogerpon that sheās found a trainer she can feel safe and happy with too, without being irrationally preoccupied over what she thinks of him.
It is interesting to see in this dialogue that Kieran initially calls her āthe ogreā before correcting himself to āOgerponā ā apparently, heās only quite recently made an effort to shift what he calls her in his head. Itās true that in his reaction to her in the Champion battle, he did indeed just call her āthe ogreā. Itād make sense that he didnāt actually work to shift his mental idea of what to call her during his Indigo Disk arc, despite knowing her species name, because the name āOgerponā likely brought back too many painful reminders of everything that happened in Kitakami. It was probably easier for him to just stick with āthe ogreā and try to forget anything had changed. But heās okay with what happened now!
And maybe Kieran trying to make a habit of using her name now is a sign that heās started to realise that Ogerpon is her own individual whoās not quite the same as the mental image he always had of what āthe ogreā was like? Maybe. Itās hard to be sure. Unfortunately the epilogue/postgame canāt do much with Ogerpon because itās always optional for her to be on your team or even in your game at all (since you could in theory have released her or traded her away). But we can at least hypothetically imagine that in Kieranās continued interactions with you, heāll get the chance to hang out with Ogerpon a little and come to understand her better. It certainly seems now that heād be able to hang out with both you and her without feeling uncomfortably jealous, which is a good start! (And Terapagos is on the list of āpeopleā he owes an apology to, so letās imagine he gets a chance to do that, too.)
Moving forward
The āclimaxā, such as there is one, of Kieranās mini-arc of scenes in the clubroom is him excitedly telling you that heās had the BB League drop him from their rankings. Although your character seems a little bewildered by it (they are still a bit of a social dumbass), this is in fact an extremely good thing for Kieran! Heās taking a step back from the competitive side of things for the sake of his mental health, so that he can untangle himself from the toxically-obsessive mindset that he was in back when he was only focused on winning! Look at Kieran doing all this good self-reflection and self-care, it is so lovely to see. He doesnāt even seem to view this as any sign of him failing, either ā heās just comfortably acknowledging that he needs to do this for now for his own sake and thereās no shame in that.
Kieran seems pretty sure that he is going to want to get back into competing once heās cleared his head a bit, but heās already so much more casual and healthy about it! He says heās going to shoot for the Champion title again, and even if you respond with a friendly taunt of āYou still wonāt beat me!ā, he takes it so well. Heās genuinely okay now with the thought that he might never quite be good enough to beat you ā he just wants to have fun trying. Look at how far heās come!
Kieranās still just a kid, and seeing him already learn how to grow from his mistakes and face up to his lingering issues and be just so emotionally healthy about things now is such a promising sign for wherever heās going to end up in future. I love that the epilogue and these postgame clubroom scenes put so much effort into showing us this about Kieran now, reassuring us that he really is going to be okay. I truly could not be more proud of or happy for my boy.
more dlc sketches. the high school experience of instantly clicking with someone and then immediately having the most devastatingly lukewarm falling out over the course of 1 field trip
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