Re-reading LB1 and by God, it was a hell of an opener to the Cosmos in the Lostbelt saga. The premise of a world where "might makes right" superseded every other part of humanity is so brilliantly laid out.
It starts with the very story of the Lostbelt: a world where humanity had no choice but to become beasts. Leave each other to fend for themselves, kill each other without much thought, even eat their own. Nothing could be too barbaric, there was no place too low to stoop, because at the end of the day, survival comes first, and so they lived by abandoning everything else they had.
That theme of abandoning everything in order to live is also displayed through the Lostbelt's Crypter, Kadoc. The story first mentions Kadoc as someone kind, if not somewhat self-hating, a product of living as an average mage with too much to prove to others. Come his actual apparition in the story and he is showcased as the pettiest, most abrasive and arrogant guy around, but if you pay attention, you'll realize that it's his self-hatred dominating everything else about him. Kadoc died once without being able to prove anything and it pushed him over the edge; he discarded all other aspects of his personality (except in front of Anastasia, who reminds him to find a better way to live), favoring the cold ruthlessness that befits mages.
The narrative takes an interesting turn with the accompanying character, Patxi. He is Yaga born and bred; lived his entire life in that cruel frozen wasteland of a world in the only way the Yaga could. But, at the end of the day, he was different from the status quo. He ended up nurturing what the world perceived as weakness, always keeping his mother in his heart, which other Yaga pointed out as stupidity on his part. He harbored a kindness that was ill-fitted to his own world, but allowed him to know of another through his encounter with Chaldea.
The overlapping themes of "might makes right", "abandonment of weakness" and "transformation into monsters" can be seen in the Servants accompanying the journey: a Germanic warrior of old, a gunslinger of the Wild West, a swordswoman of the turbulent Sengoku period, a pianist accused by the world of a crime he didn't commit, a Greek huntress that can transform into the monster she slayed, a royal who was slaughtered without being able to do anything, the terrifying emperor of a merciless land, the tragic monster of the labyrinth. Even Avicebron and his antics in previous works might fit.
And most beautiful of all is the conclusion this story brings, and the hook into the next ones: the Master of Chaldea's realization of what they must do to take back their world. This Lostbelt and its Yaga, as cruel and cold and merciless as they are, are still a world and its people. But it must all vanish.
In the end, is it worth to fight for a lost world by sacrificing an existing one? The answer is nebulous at best, with many different opinions, but Ritsuka stuck to one thanks to Patxi, the Yaga who knew both cruelty and kindness. The years pass and it's still one of the most memorable scenes in the history of this game: Patxi, holding Ritsuka by their collar, refusing to forgive Ritsuka for forsaking the possibility of a different, better world. A world he'd like to live in, even if it's impossible in the end.
Bottom line, I love LB1.
