GGT Kcalb and Etihw in a Slay the Princess AU!! Would this count as Mogeko March if I didn't really participate?? (I didn't even look at this year's prompts lmao)
More rambles under the cut (Spoilers for both StP and TGG backstories(?))
So I have been turning these two over in the shower for a few days.
I was very, VERY torn on whether to put Etihw or GGT!Kcalb as the princess. On the surface level, many things suggests Etihw be the Princess and Kcalb be the Dangerous Crow Boy Whose Job is to Destroy Princesses.
The Princess' color (shade?) palette is light with gray accents, while the MC is a crow-like creature. This directly parallels Etihw and Kcalb's color schemes, with the addition of alluding to Kcalb's crow / raven theming
The Princess is also a blank slate. Like Ethiw, she doesn't have any awareness of the outside world. Her whole world is the basement that she spent her whole life in, just like Ethiw's worldview being limited to their world.
The Princess appearing as a beautiful damsel, yet unbothered by violence and quite willing to turn to it if it means furthering her goals. Similarly, Etihw's post-war design reads as non-threatening. The most threatening feature on Etihw's warverse design is also her crown, the rest of her silhouette is quite rounded, giving her a more reserved impression. Yet, the fact that they let a war escalate to the point of near-extinction on both sides means that they are not above using violence as a means of achieving a personal goal.
There are also points that can be made applying to both Kcalb and Etihw being the princess.
Through the branches of the routes, the forms and personality of the princess are shaped by the actions of the MC, the Long Quiet. Though this isn't quite direct with Etihw, it is alluded that a lot of her actions are driven by reacting or mirroring Kcalb. They're afraid of him, thus he is sealed away. He takes many lives of her subjects, so they ordered the death of his in turn. In a similar vein, we don't know anything about Kcalb before the war, before he is hardened by hardships and tempered by violence. It's very much possible he has a completely different personality, forced into a hardened shell to protect himself, and in turn finds it difficult to express himself and scares people in a way pre-war Kcalb possibly did not. Whoever he was back then, it was lost to the consequence of Etihw's actions and could no longer be retrived.
The form of the Princess is so because the Long Quiet wanted her to be. Quoting the Narrator, "Maybe she needed to be beautiful. Important. Above you, but on a level you could still approach. A herald for things to come." Both of them are important and a herald for things to come. The only thing that shifts it toward Etihw is that they're a god, so technically they're 'above' Kcalb, yet still in a position where he can challenge them.
Ultimately, I settled on Kcalb being the princess instead of Etihw. This is due to Kcalb embodying the core aspects of the Princess more.
The Princess is trapped in the basement. This directly parallels Kcalb's imprisonment underground for eons (yes, I'm keeping that as canon), and in turn, many aspects of their characters align. Notably, the pain, agony, and isolation they had to endure against their will, the perception that their captor despises them, and, most importantly, the lengths they will go through just to get out along with desperation and any deterioration to their sanity involved to get to that point.
The Princess has a goal. This is the main thing that makes me choose Kcalb instead of Etihw. Through the entire warverse and TGG timelines, Etihw doesn't have a goal. Anything that they do are either reactive to circumstance or done on a whim. They don't feel strongly toward any achievement -- one could argue that the whole reason they let the war went on as long as it did is due to indifference. Warverse Kcalb, however, is defined by his goal. Vengence. Anything and everything he does, from getting out of his prison, to waging war, to sacrifice everything he has, to the numerous casualties from his wrath, all of it is to serve his singular goal. One could argue it was what kept him alive, all those eternities until the end. Just like the princess, who kept trying and trying and trying, no matter what it takes.
Every reason that the Princess has to oppose the Long Quiet is usually understandable, and by contrast, the Long Quiet's reason for killing the Princess is vague, a mystery until the very last moments. This is the second main thing that made me chose Kcalb. Devils in DSPverse have a concrete reason to oppose their godly counterpart, however the motives of the gods themselves to oppose the devils are either very shallow or a mystery. Liliya broke Rosaliya's heart for reasons impliled to be due to his pride, Fumus abuses Satanick for his own enjoyment and twisted love, Siralos casted Ivlis away due to his pride being attacked from being questioned (until we get confirmation of why Siralos actually did it, this stays canon), Elux ordered Reficul's execution because ????? which is pretty telling that it's not a good reason, and Etihw sealed Kcalb away because of her weariness to him. The last one is definitely not enough to justify the amount of psychological trauma it caused Kcalb. This imbalanced position of power is vital for the whole start of StP, and to take that away is to take out the nuance of the game itself.
The Princess is revealed by the Narrator that she is the Shifting Mound. Quoting him, "She is [...], the Ebb and Flow, the Capacity to Change. She is Transformation, or most of it. [...] she becomes that what others perceive her to be." The Shifting Mound also says at one point that "To destroy is merely to reshape. To remold." In the end, the narrator also keeps reminding us that the Princess contains death and that "Once [The Princess] is gone, everything will get to exist exactly as they are. No more fear, no more howling chaos. Just life, forever." From this, the Princess has heavy ties with destruction, death, and change. None of this aligns with Etihw, as they represent life, restoration, and maybe even stagnation. Kcalb brought change to an otherwise uneventful world, told knowledge to the blank pages of Etihw's concept of the outside world, wrought havoc to the point nothing can ever be the same again. He is chaos, yet his presence bring meaning. After all, ridding the world of evil is not the same as saving it.
Last but not least, Fem Kcalb is underappreciated and I want people to see her more than just a tsundere who likes chocolate cake OvO
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