So, I would like to ask your opinion / analysis of Constantine from Greedfall. When I played the game, my gosh, he was my golden boy, my sweet prince - and I was devastated with the ending. Gave it a lot of thought - and I have this aftertaste that when DS bonds with their cousin, they lose themselves. Their dreams, wishes, bonds with others - all for Constantine's desires. All we do in the game is follow his desires, as well. We do not say no to him until the very end-terminally. What think u?
Ayyyy another Greedfall fan in the wild! There are dozens of us, dozens I say!
Oh friend, I share your love for Constantin. Poor @arlathahn can testify that I can write volumes about the complexities of his character in general and his relationship with de Sardet in particular. (They’re so delightfully strange and codependent in their dealings, and seemingly with a limited understanding of just how weird their lives actually are, because they’re so far removed from “normal” by virtue of their rank and birth.) I tend to agree with you about the ending (that’s the bad ending choice for a reason! for multiple reasons, even!) but I think I actually disagree with the line, “all we do in the game is follow his desires.” On the surface of it, yes: most of the main plots up until his turn are done at his request/on his behalf, partially for gameplay reasons (going to report back to Constantin allows for quest breakpoints in that would be more complex to trigger otherwise) but also because that’s somewhat the point of the narrative. I don’t think it’s about subordinating de Sardet’s agency to Constantin’s, though, and I’ll explain why.
Did you know that Constantin is actually a year older than de Sardet? I didn’t, not until I saw the Word of God from one of the devs on twitter, because everything about their dynamic screamed responsible elder/irresponsible younger to me. I find it fascinating that it’s actually the other way around, and honestly, to me it’s almost better that way. The first things you learn about Constantin, more or less in order, is that he a) has a reputation for being irresponsible, b) is precisely the sort of idiot to start a bar fight with a bunch of lower-city toughs, c) is used to de Sardet bailing him out of his jams, and d) he’s the family disappointment. That last is sort of the driving motivation for his character, and it’s all the more fascinating because he’s the heir to the throne. He’s not only de Sardet’s elder cousin, he’s also their liege! By all rights and social mores he should have been the leader between the two of them, but from the very beginning, the game goes out of the way to show that it’s very much the other way around - and also that that’s not how it’s supposed to be.
I think one of the most telling interactions on this front is the very first time you report to Constantin in New Serene, after you meet Siora. De Sardet suggests attempting to broker a peace treaty, and Constantin seizes on it gratefully, proclaiming, “I would be completely lost without you.” He wants to be a good governor, a good prince, a good man, but he’s still trying to figure out how to go about it, and in the meantime he’s doing what he’s always done: looking to his cousin for guidance.
The great thing about Constantin is that in almost any other story he would be the protagonist. You know: the lovable goof who should have outgrown childish antics years ago, who has to grow up and find his way and learn to trust in his own decisions. And though de Sardet is the protagonist, for the first couple acts of the game it looks like that’s what they’re doing with Constantin’s narrative. There’s a whole other essay to be written about the final act of the game and Constantin’s somewhat abrupt turn to villain, but the genius of it is that it takes a character in the middle of a classic coming-of-age journey and jabs a fuckin’ poisoned blade through his heart right before he could achieve it. Now that’s how you do a god damn tragedy, folks!
And the thing is, I actually totally agree with you that de Sardet taking Constantin’s offer at the end is a total loss of self - but that just makes it more tragic, not less, if it happens after weeks/months (however long the first half of the game takes) of Constantin finally ceasing to lean on them so heavily, of straightening up and standing on his own at long last. I mean, personally speaking I never got the sense that de Sardet felt subordinated to Constantin; if anything, I thought they actually seemed sort of relieved at the prospect of no longer having to play wise elder and being able to enter into the partnership of friends and equals that was always denied them. And then, of course, he gets the malichor, and what follows is an abrupt and tragic reversion to type: Constantin in trouble, and de Sardet has to save him, and everything else does get subordinated to that. Which means that your ending choice is either:
give up on your friends, your values, and the entire rest of your life in order to follow your cousin as you’ve always done, sacrificing not only your independence but your entire sense of self forever, or,
keep everything else, and kill the person you love most in the world, who’s also the one person you’ve built your entire life around protecting.
Which is both fucked-up and tragic, no matter what you choose. That’s why it hits so hard: because they made it a choice in the first place. If they’d just scripted out the “good” ending, it would have still hurt like a motherfucker... But they make the player participate in the decision, and that makes it, as you said, devastating.
Tragedy, man. You gotta hand it to the writers: they really knew how to twist that knife, in the best possible way.
