New Reynes: City Of Sin

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

[shadow-games-and-cards]

Something that The Shadow Games does that I love, is having abilities play a role of symbolism in partnerships and enemies.

One of the most obvious is Enne, Lola and Levi. Enne is a decendent of the former ruling class, the Mizers, and possesses their ability of volt-making. Levi directly informs us that his family talent of orb-making meant they used to work closely with Mizers to make the nation’s currency. Blood-gazers, like Lola, were frequently used by Mizers to root out people who had unsavory talents to enforce their rule.

Blood-gazers and Orb-makers helped Mizers protect and expand their power, and when the revolution came for the Mizers, most Blood-gazers and Orb-makers seem to have gone with them.

Levi is Enne’s first and closest ally, and Lola is the first to swear loyalty to her. Their powers aligning with the people on top durring the former rule is entirely coincidental in-story, but offers an interesting perspective for the reader to examine.

[shadow-games-and-cards]

I just realized the symbolism of having Jac and Charles Torren go toe-to-toe in their final fight in King of Fools. 

Jac's split talent is being able to manipulate pain (and is indicative of one of his parents being a Dorner, making his full name Jac Dorner Mardlin) but because it's a split talent, Jac can only take away someone's pain by choosing to carry it for himself. 

Inversely, we have this Torren. And Sophia revealed that her family often twists the rules (the luck talent being manipulated, allowing the Torrens to reap the benefits of it, while they still indulge in morally wrong actions) which is what we see Charles do. And we see him apply a similar philosophy to his split talent, which is also from a Dorner - just like Jac's. But unlike Jac, Charles' talent allows him to inflict pain on others that he has felt, so he tortures himself so he can cause them pain. 

Jac and Charles both feel pain while using their split talents, but while Jac's pain comes from him helping others, Charles takes on additional and unnecessary pain to cause harm. So Jac and Charles are foils, both with the same power on paper (Split Dorners), but entirely different ways of using it.

And then there's the additional fact that Sophia and Jac use their power in the "correct" ways, doing good deeds and taking on others' pain, in order to reap the results, Charles uses the Torren and Dorner talents in twisted ways, manipulating the input, so he gets the desired result, despite not deserving it.

Overall, the Sophia and Jac vs Torrens Plotline in KOF was really good, and this comparison of how the main heros and villian of that plotline use their (extremely similar) abilities so differently is brilliant, I love it.

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If there was one complaint I had - and this isn't even a complaint, I like how it the current power assignment shows the story's overall themes, and I wouldn't sacrifice it - but Jac's Dorner power vs Charles' is a really obvious "good guy gets healing powers and bad guy gets pain-causing powers". 

I wonder what the story would be like if it were the other way around. Jac's a good person at heart, and I can't see Charles taking on pain when it doesn't benefit him, so I doubt they would use them as much. But that could be a really cool moment. Jac, suddenly falling in a fight, about to lose, so he does the only thing he can, and projects his pain onto his opponent who caused it. It would also show us/remind us that no matter how nice he is, Jac is still a gang member from the North Side, and he will never lose that part of himself.