In defense of Rage Hearts
Okay. This post is exactly the reason I actually even made this blog. And that's because I've seen a multitude of people saying Nova Imperator should be Raven's canon route. I will preface this by saying I haven't played Raven very far and Furious Blade route is the only one I'm even somewhat decent with, so my analysis is based on what I can gather from Raven's various wiki pages. But based on my analysis, that's because on the surface Nova Imperator seems to be the most stable of the three. He decides to use his arm as a tool and he's described as being a cool headed tactician. And on top of that he actively decides not to lose himself to his trauma. And those are very good things. The problem comes in... three parts??? I've identified.
First off, since this is the simpler part of the problem, he is willing to sacrifice himself for victory. He is willing to throw himself away if it means the goals of the El Search Party will be achieved. He's willing to sacrifice "his own body to deal more damage to the enemy". That is incredibly self destructive and a good look at his mental state. Sure. He's a cool headed tactician. But it's because he's not worried about dying. If his death would mean the other members of the search party were okay then he would do it in a heartbeat. And that seems okay to us because of the narratives we're given throughout fiction of someone that is that self sacrificing being praised as a hero. But it's not our willingness to die that signifies the strength of our will or the strength of our bonds. It's our willingness to fight so that we can live to keep them intact. And once you look at Raven with that in mind, it becomes clear that Nova Imperator... doesn't actually have a lot to live for. He's willing to die to protect them because if he dies protecting them then he won't have to watch more people he cares about die.
Second, Nova Imperator views the things that happened in his past as mistakes. But, based what I've managed to gather on his backstory, the things that happened were either completely outside of his control, or because of decisions he made with the knowledge he had AT THE TIME. Of course they look like mistakes now that he knows the full situation (hindsight is always 20/20 after all), but he didn't know then. He made the best decisions he could with what he knew at the time, so everything that went wrong WASN'T HIS FAULT. The things that happened in the past were not mistakes but Nova Imperator still views them as such. He hasn't come to accept that he did the best he could with what he had at the time.
The third part of the problem is honestly the most complicated. And part of it is a trend I noticed with the various routes I personally would classify as dark. Two trends actually. The first trend is a tendency for self destruction, which I detailed for Raven specifically in the first part of this analysis. The second is a fixation on some point in the past (that often leads directly to the self destruction but that's an analysis for another day). For Diabolic Esper it's obvious. Even for a character like Crimson Avenger or Battle Seraph it's pretty obvious. But for Nova Imperator it really isn't. So much so, I didn't initially classify him as a dark job path. But the wiki page quote for Weapon Taker really kinda... was the kick off for this analysis.
"I will remain the Raven that I was to begin with. As long as I am alive, the Crow Mercinaries will never die out; I am back and I will show you the Crow Mercinaries restored to its former glory. For them... I will once again dawn the uniform of the Crow Mercinaries..."
That sounds really nice doesn't it? Like that sounds amazing. The problem with that is he isn't the Raven he was before. He CAN'T be. Something as traumatic as what he went through changes people. Whether we want it to or not, whether we can accept it or not, trauma WILL change us. Raven, despite being a fictional character is no different and the narrative shows us that. But Nova Imperator route Raven refuses to allow those changes.
This is where my defense of Rage Hearts comes in. Because, after analyzing the canon paths for each character I've noticed a trend with them as well. The canon paths are the most stable and, for those characters with past trauma, the ones on their way to recovery. Whether they're on the road to starting it or on the road to achieving it depends on the character. Yes. Rage Hearts is an angry man. Yes. He feeds his arm with hatred and a desire for revenge and all of those ugly ugly dark emotions. Yes. That is not comfortable to witness. BUT, as someone who has witnessed many a recovery from trauma in my family, and being someone dealing with my own, those ugly ugly dark emotions? They need to be felt and they need to be expressed and dealt with and worked through. THAT is often the first step to recovery. By the time he reaches Rage Hearts, according to his wiki, he has accepted his arm not just as a tool, as something for him to use, but as a part of his body just as much as his flesh and blood arm is. And it's when he does that that the power of the arm finally comes under his control. If we wanna talk metaphors here, its when Raven accepts his arm that HE calms down. Yeah, it takes Raven five years to do it but all things considered, I'd say that wasn't that long a time span at all. And it's very important to me that the character placed into a father like role by the story of Elsword, is one that is on his own road to recovery.
