thegingerblog

ginger | she/her | 18

[imagine-loki]

Imagine living at Avengers Tower where Loki also lives. After the election, you talk about packing your bags and leaving the country. At night Loki appears next to your bed, asking you to stay.

[tess-mercer]

no post has changed me more than this one. every time i get drunk at a bar i need to physically restrain myself from talking about it

[noname-human-being]

I suggest getting angrier about misogyny.

[noname-human-being]

"at least be nice about-" no. Girl. Kill him over it. We're done. It's been centuries of this bullshit since time immemorial and he hasn't learned. Obliterate him.

[txttletale]

i say this a lot, but it's always really striking how many people assume that like, criticism necessarily comes from a place of moral outrage and personal vitriol, and that therefore when i make a comment about something's political positions i'm "fighting a fight" against it. i literally just enjoy thinking about art and verbalizing those thoughts is useful in organizing and refining them

[smilepebble]

hi so here's my big oersted & alethea analysis/alternate reading

(this post contains spoilers for the whole game + some discussion regarding a fictional suicide.)

i have this kinda specific vision of oersted and alethea's relationship that i don't fully think is actually what we're supposed to be getting from canon but like. just come along with me here in this reading...

the defining nature of oersted and alethea's relationship is, of course, that it's an arranged marriage. the only reason they are wed is because the king has decreed that the winner of the tournament will be wed to his daughter. in this sense, alethea is nothing more than a tournament prize, and i think she's very much aware of it.

but what else can she be? she's a princess, raised not to be a person, but to be a symbol of a kingdom and a political bargaining chip. and metatextually, her role is the damsel in distress, the prize for the player at the end of the game.

but wouldn't it be nice, to be something other than a prize or a pawn?

in the scene on the balcony she speaks, multiple times, about her devotion to oersted, saying that she is his. that she... belongs to him, really. because what else can she be? and i think says this to convince herself just as much as she's convincing oersted. shes trying to force herself to fall in love with him. because maybe if she can fall in love, and if someone can love her for the person she is, then she won't feel trapped in her role anymore.

oersted... well, we don't get much insight to his thoughts about this (or much of anything) before everything goes to shit. but he seems pretty happy with this situation. it probably feels like he's earned this. like hes won. and-- once again getting into the metatextual analysis of the middle ages chapter-- oersted is used to play around with our idea of the "player character". his obsession with winning comes from us, the player, because... well, what else is the player supposed to do other than win the game?

oersted is also very much obsessed with alethea, or rather, the idea of alethea in his mind. during the middle ages chapter he believes that if he can just save alethea then everything will be alright: he'll no longer be branded a traitor, and he'll have fulfilled his role as the hero. saving alethea is the "win condition" here. it's what oersted is made to do.

i think it's also very notable that alethea is the one who's shown the most outward affection towards oersted. although it was forced, it still had an incredible impact on him. look at the way he responds to kindness from the protags in the ending: he's desperate for it, clings to it like a lifeline! because he's the player character; he's supposed to be loved, supposed to be believed in. therefore, playing his role in this story is supposed to benefit him, if he can just win.

but then alethea kills herself. she does so for different reasons in canon, but imagine this for me: she's been waiting, waiting, waiting for oersted to come save her. but during this time she can't help but wonder... what does oersted see when he looks at her? does he see her? or does he just see a prize, a finished game, the symbol of a good ending?

and then someone finally comes to save her and... it's streibough. its here that her forced perception of her and oersted's relationship falls apart. streibough isn't the prince, isn't the hero, isn't obligated to save her... but he saved her anyway. so, maybe streibough is truly devoted to her. and maybe oersted's actions were just for his own merit.

unfortunately for her, the truth isn't that pretty. finally, oersted makes it to the archons roost and confronts streibough. alethea is just out of view for this confrontation, but certainly within earshot, and when she hears everything that streibough says, she realizes that... oh. this is just another contest. once again, shes just a prize in a game between these two men. its all she can be in this story. she cannot escape it. she cannot be a person so long as this role hangs over her head.

therefore, the only thing she can do to be a real person is to take her own life, and remove her status as a prize.

it's a very sad ending for alethea. she lives a short life unable to escape her archetypical box-- not because she never tries to escape, but because the male cast keeps pushing her back into that role. i don't believe oersted and streibough actively mean to do this, but that's not relevant. the end result is the same.

after oersted becomes odio, his already distorted perception of alethea becomes nigh unrecognizable. even after he forgets his and his friends names, alethea remains a fixation in his mind. she, in his mind, has become a saint and an arbiter of justice (see: saint alethea (attack) in the purity of odio fight, and the line "for justice, she demands it..." when fighting oersted in the bad ending). he idolizes her, worships her, but by doing so, he dehumanizes her. he's turned her into a symbol: the exact thing alethea did not want to be. what is this feeling, oersted? is this what love is?

and of course, alethea's horrified by this! when reading alethea's mind in the dominion of hate, she begs for the protagonists to "end this horror".

and in a literal sense, she's talking about oersted's reign as odio, but metatextually... perhaps she's realized, that the only way to escape a story's role is to escape the story itself. and the only way to end the story is to save oersted.

that's pretty much the extent of my thoughts! i think the dynamic between oersted and alethea is a fascinating one, since it's built solely on societal and archetypical expectations, but crashes and burns because of that expectation.

like i said at the beginning, i don't think this is the intended reading. frankly, i think this game is way too misogynistic to intentionally explore alethea to this degree. perhaps you could joke that live a live is so misogynistic that it made this interpretation possible by complete accident, but that's neither here nor there.

to be clear, me calling oersted and streibough's actions misogynistic isn't me demonizing them or calling them irredeemable. rather, i think that it's an interesting character flaw to explore, especially since live a live is a story about stories. it's a great way to explore how this bias affects how we treat female fictional characters. additionally, i believe that the character flaws of the middle ages cast are especially important, as it's through everyone's refusal to acknowledge the flaws within themselves and the people around them that everything goes horribly wrong in the first place. i have more thoughts on this specifically but i think ill save them for another post.

quick shoutout to my friend henry (@/thepeacockshallstrut) who co-authored this reading. thank you for being insane about jrpgs with me bestie

anyway. in conclusion:

[franthescrivener]

Watching someone play Live A Live and my head is full of thoughts about Alethea. I mean Oersted is mega ultra sauced but you have to consider that she was given to him literally as a trophy, she had no say in it, she doesn't know if he loves her or if he flat out sees her as a prize, and even if he does love her what does it matter? It's so easy, you know. You just win a woman and she has to sacrifice her life and her body to you. Now here's this other guy who doesn't have it so easily but his love is clear even if his methods are unsound and he's willing to do so much just to be with her, instead of merely win her, but here comes Mr. Winner with his sword and he wins again and she has to submit wholly to that uncertain future. She doesn't have a choice with what to do with her life or her body.

Unless!

[limbomitosis1]

If anything Toby’s interviews have enlightened me it’s that their expys are so hilariously jarring

And they’ll make the best duo on Halloween

[gingerheed]

remember that one time toby fox casually compared kris deltarune to oersted live a live? i do. it has haunted me ever since.

[cow-inthe-closet]

friend whos always planning everything: hey guys lets do something this week!! when are you all available?

friend whos always available: i can do whenever

friend whos constantly busy: im sorry i have work and then school and then the labyrinth and then more work :( i can do tuesday at 3:00 am for five minutes tho

friend with the randomly generated sleep schedule: (no response)

friend who went missing in the woods behind their house 12 years ago and hasn't been heard from since: (no response)

friend whos really into genshin impact: does anyone want to play genshin impact

[solemnlynerdyjourney]

I’m not “media illiterate” for wanting important character development to be shown on screen, whether verbally or visually.

I’m not “media illiterate” for wanting the lore that was introduced to be actually developed, regardless of the fact that the show is “character-based.”

I’m not “media illiterate” for wanting more than ONE character of the cast to be focused on.

I’m not “media illiterate” for calling out wasted potential

[gingerheed]

ut/dr fans writing sans undertale for some reason:

[patheticguy43]

[gingerheed]

this image is the essence of both King and Flowery's characters

[homeric-hymnist]

you may have noticed that my story is disorganized and thematically incoherent and my plot structure is weaker by the verse. this is commentary on the chaos of mortal existence under the yoke of the immortal gods

[loveridden1999]

problematic sudoku solving skills gap

[featuringmarkhoppus]

[metanarrates]

getting out my Stop Posting flyswatter for social media creators once more

[gingerheed]

thank fuck.

[gingerheed]

kris dreemurr is the lebron james of unrequited relationships.