#redmeta

[rednightmare18]

It's not even about the vindication of calling a ship, okay. It's that the supposedly anti woke studio wrote about 3 million words of medieval fiction centering the relationship of the two main characters who are in most ways (or in all ways if you follow the obvious canon momentum of the story) meant for each other, as counterparts who help each other survive the great travails of their lives and who challenge/complete the other to become fuller, braver, kinder people. It's so clear these two people are soulmates, platonically or romantically, something observed consistently by the world around them and by themselves.

Except their society (feudalism, Catholicism) dictates that they are intended to be completely incompatible by nature and divine law. Not just for the obvious fact they are both men, but they are separated by what is arguably an even steeper chasm of social class. Their existence even as friends utterly spites, interrupts, and threatens feudal order right down to its theological and philosophical roots. They should not see each other as human and yet.

It's the fact that they do. The fact that the entire story has been about this--that these two protagonists fit together, undeniably, and grow to love each other fiercely (a love that deepens superbly from their knee-jerk playful puppy-friend-love in kcd1 to something selfless and mature by the end of kcd2). And they do so despite the immense opposition by their world, their social circles, their faith, and indeed their fandom.

And yes, it really does fucking matter that all of this culminates into a deep onscreen romantic love (if you get out of the way and allow it to) between two fandom-beloved male main characters (not just side characters rammed in for an optional gay romance but THE main characters of the duology; the "you" as in the player character and your erstwhile dick-jokes bro you have perhaps grudgingly at first been invited as the audience to love) in a historical fiction story that has been wrongly touted by the worst of our contemporaries as the holy grail of cultural conservatism.

Holy shit. Warhorse -- y'all. I'm sorry I doubted you. So few game writers understand how love works and indeed how people work, let alone translate it so well onto the screen.

Calling this an "optional romance" is not technically incorrect, I suppose, because it's true you can opt out and choose to remain platonic friends. But this language feels like a disservice, as if Henry & Hans's romance is a typical RPG wham-bam fanservice makeout with a minor fan fave character who never interacts meaningfully with the player again. Or as if it's a Bioware-style "give this NPC the right gift and do their side quest and you get to see a jankly ugly-bumpin' montage" situation.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is so very much not that. The "main, optional" romance scene in question is just one consummation event of two people who have been growing up and falling in love in front of us over the course of some 200-300 (or god knows how many) hours. The fact these protagonists openly love each other is very much not optional.

This is, sincerely, groundbreaking storytelling in this medium and this genre. How fucking cool that we all got to see it now.

[rednightmare18]

Truly the most frustrating thing about Warhorse writing women is that when they want to do it, truly want to do it (versus when they feel obligated to write in "romantic interest no. x"), they can do a genuinely fucking excellent job -- just as excellent as any major male character.

Spoiler-filled essay below...

IMO, the failure to adhere to this basic writing rule -- character first, romance later -- is why other game studios almost universally fail to write genuinely humanlike romance. They are overly focused on player romance choice and the romancability of characters, and so these romances never feel satisfying and authentic; that's because, before a single line is written, the characters in question are already relegated to the role of existing to be romanced. This waters down even the most interesting concepts (see, for me: Rosa Ruthard; many BG3 companions; BioWare's full history). They might be interesting, compelling even, but they simply don't exist meaningfully in the narrative beyond how they facilitate the main character's own arc and how the main character "fixes" them.

Though she is not romanceable by design, I think here of Johanka as the premium example of an outstanding character who exists beyond the player character even as she's embroiling him in jobs and to-dos...

Johanka

Like her or not, this character is brilliantly complicated and flawed and genuinely herself, entirely without concern for fan service or filling any sort of relationship role. She is written specifically to NOT be of romantic or sexual interest to Henry, though it isn't because she's not sexually desirable. She's just a friend.

Johanka works so well because she exists in her world of Sasau completely without Henry, and so her relationship with him feels as authentic as only a relationship between old village friends who grew up together can. She has her own ambitions, her own missteps, and she processes the trauma of Skalitz in a completely different way than he does.

Yes, we must operate within the game framework of quests -- but Henry is not the instrument or architect of her arc. She is. In a remarkable way for her world. And what she wants, even irrationally, is never dismissed by the story, even if Henry (and the player) both sort of know she's fixated on Matthias not out of true love but because he represents a piece of Old Johanka that hasn't been destroyed by fire. And she can get it! Or she can be destroyed by fire.

Hans Capon

From the male character side, I think here of Hans, who was also not conceptualized to fill the role of a romantic interest. Whether or not you believe Vávra's claim he got the idea of mainlining a Hans love story from fanfic post-KCD1 and "forced" the studio to canonize it, it's clear Hans was written to above all be himself as a character, unapologetically and often in celebrant conflict with Henry, and only from there the romantic love grows. (One of my criticisms of KCD2 in fact is how Warhorse seems almost afraid to let Hans challenge Henry with the loving and jubilant violence he once did for fear of fans disliking him. But for this criticism to exist, that characterization height had to be reached, and it was and more.)

Of course Hans is bigger than a romance side quest (though it's wildly disingenuous to call the Hansmance that) and of course he is bigger than Henry's arc. Romanced or not, Henry's life is about and is shaped in every way by Hans, not the other way around.

I don't think I need to expound on why Hans works as a character, to be honest. The proof is in the pudding. He's Warhorse's It Girl, our big The Guy of KCD, and for good fucking reason.

Theresa

But Theresa, oh man, she gets the best of both worlds. The finest thing about Theresa's arc is that her story, her immediate world, and her interior self are so much bigger than her trauma.

She's bigger than her romantic involvement with Henry, too... who has always had a bit of a crush on her even before we met him, and in a way that has never really been relevant to her until the big tragedy. In fact, he was only relevant to her in the old days because BIANCA was relevant to her above all else (except for perhaps her little brother)! Henry was barely more than a joke between two lifelong girlfriends, a boyfriend tangent, hardly at the center of these two women's lives or relationship. I love this! God, I never see it! I never see it!!!

Whether romanced or not, Henry later becomes a piece of Theresa's life story, in as much as she allows. But he is far from the biggest part, and the narrative makes sure you are aware of this, as does Theresa herself. It makes you feel silly for thinking otherwise. Please. "What kind of husband would you be?"

The trauma Theresa survives, including but not limited to sexual violence, is only part of her story and who she is. It changes her, yes; she can't erase it; it's there now and always will be. But it isn't all of her. She can still live a life and do things, even if her outlook is not the same anymore. She can still have new experiences. She can care for new dogs. She can still have sex. Why is this, this simple having a life, so rare for "traumatized" female characters in media, especially games?

Why does Warhorse so rarely want to do this kind of deep character work with women characters when they so clearly can, and so well?

Exhilarating. Belittling. Frustrating.

[rednightmare18]

One of the huge, character-arc-central things that new KCD2 fans who don't play KCD1 may miss has to do with the way Hans & Henry's relationship has evolved over time. I worry that new players to the second game may mistake their relationship as one where Henry has been brought up to serve as Hans's squire from a young age, and they've been companions forever, but haven't quite managed to figure out how to overcome their class difference in order to truly connect as friends. That's not true--it's not at all the way things are between them--and it's VITAL that it isn't.

Three big reasons:

Playing KCD1 and understanding how Hans & Henry meet is critical to understanding how Hans has changed and is continuing to change because of his relationship with Henry. The Hans we meet at the start of KCD1 is a very different person from the Hans we meet at the start of KCD2 (and again very different from the Hans we leave at the end of it). Believe it or not, KCD2 Hans is "calm Hans." KCD1 introduces Hans as a much more aggressive, competitive, spazzy, violent and buckwild person. Frankly, a lonely person clawing for attention, usually negative. There's a reason for this: Han's elevated position means he has never had a real friend who speaks to him and views him as an equal. Then Henry is dropped into his lap under an incredibly unique set of circumstances, emotional and logistical, that enable this lowly blacksmith to briefly overcome feudal mentality and treat Hans like a person. This changes everything for Hans from this point onward, which is why he bonds so intensely and so swiftly to Henry, who is the sole reason Hans calms the fuck down into the person we meet at the start of KCD2. Henry is much, much more important to Hans than "my loyal bodyguard." He is his sole friend, and perhaps the only one he will ever be able to have. Hans and Henry both know this very well. If you miss KCD1, you may well miss this crucial context. (You'll also be partially left in the dark as to why Henry genuinely likes Hans back, who came into his life and provided disruption, anger, joy, and distraction from a time of otherwise personality-consuming, overwhelming grief.)

The "divorce" is really clearly not contextualized properly for new players who missed KCD1. Hans's little blow up at Henry is kind of painful to watch, but if you played KCD1, you'll know that it also shows a really beautiful step of character development for Hans and is a sign of a strengthening relationship... not an actual friend breakup, narrowly avoided. Hans spends most of KCD1 terrified to disagree with Henry. Any time Henry pushes him even a little, Hans will crumble, instantly, folding his personality and backing off in clear fear he's about to lose his One Friend. That KCD2 shows us a calmer Hans who IS NOT scared that fighting (nastily!) with Henry will destroy their friendship is huge. This, crucially, is why Hans and Henry both continue to look for each other and speak about their quest in "we" terms, even as Hans keeps dramatically yelling at Henry to stop following him. It's why Hans instantly jumps to his defense and can't hold back his cheers for him; it's why Henry immediately starts looking for him and worries deeply about the trouble he's getting into. What might seem like a series of inconsistencies or "hints" that they really might like each other is really beautifully consistent with everything we've seen. If you know this context, then you'll know as you watch it unfold that "The divorce" isn't and was never supposed to be understood as a real divorce. It's the progression of their relationship to a place where they can fight with each other when they're upset, openly and pettily, and both still remain certain that there is no future in which they don't continue to move through the world together. Even when they're both pissed off at each other. Warhorse tried to provide some catch-up context here, both with Henry's scolding of Hans ("I know we both know you don't mean that.") in the socks and with Hans's persistent references to "we' and "us" every time you run into him post-breakup. They also clearly tried to frame it as funnily as possible, right down to their bickering making crowds uncomfortable and inspiring the catchpole to "you're-better-off-without-him" comfort Henry. But I feel a lot of it is still lost if the player is not able to appreciate how being able to fight like this, as messy and petulant as they are, is not a threat of divorce they bounce back from. It's a sign of the strength of their friendship versus the way it was in KCD1. It wasn't a divorce. Hans was never, as he confirms at the poacher's camp and the wedding, going to leave Henry behind. It was exactly as it was framed: a lover's tiff. They were never going to really break up. While attentive players will probably pick up on this, it's a much richer and more enjoyable experience knowing the full background in KCD1.

Absolutely essential to understand that Hans is never really threatening to pull rank on Henry with his language of "peasant" and "blacksmith," even when they disagree about when Henry should and shouldn't interfere in noble business. What might appear to a new player to be genuine class tension between them and a muddled set of interpersonal boundaries is simply how they play and taunt and provoke each other, something firmly resolved and established in KCD1. There's still class tension, certainly, but it does not exist between them in quite this way, but as a divergence in worldviews and the frustration of the conflict their differences bring into the world. "Watch your tone, peasant" is, plainly put, a flirt. So is Hans's pseudo-contemptuous "blacksmith." So is "peasant" and "my lord" and "your lordship." In private, those distinctions have no real teeth behind them - it is just how they play.

Love KCD2? Want to love it even more? Play KCD1, jank and all. Be there for the start of the story. You will have an even better time in the sequel the next time you play.

[rednightmare18]

arthur is rude to that one sex worker because the guys are fucking around as they oughtn't be and he actively wants the source of their distraction to go away. that is how he operates through the entire game: deliberate, utilitarian intimidation and strategic unpleasantness to achieve a goal. it is an early game commentary on arthur meant to position him as a big dog that barks. it is not a commentary on his views about women which are clarified many times afterward. you guys realize that right

[rednightmare18]

on henry & the guard dog symbol

I know I am parodying myself at this point with how often I soapbox "you really need to play/watch kcd1 if you'd like to fully understand kcd2, especially henry & hans" but one element I really think bears repeating:

Henry's isn't a "guard dog" (if that is indeed the argument as to what he is) because it is his socially appointed role and dog ("knight") must guard master (lord).

Henry is a guard dog because he loves Hans intimately, personally - and he is the victim of a crushing and recent personal tragedy that killed everyone he loved.

[KCD2 SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT]

For me, this is why the guard dog trope so often hits wrong.

Not because there's no grounding in the narrative -- in fact, I'd argue elements of the guard dog symbol are canon, especially where Henry/Erik parallels are concerned -- but because the interpretation often swings toward "Henry the guard dog, embracing his given feudal role as Hans's tool of war, a hound of mindless brute physicality to be used by his lord as he sees fit."

This feels so wrong to me because it just isn't how things are or have ever been between them, not from the first time they met. And Henry's trauma-ignited outright refusal to intellectually or emotionally step into his appointed role is what caused Hans to take interest in him in the first place, and is in fact the big trigger event as to why they became each other's primary person; critically, Henry treats Hans as a person and not a role, which is what Hans has long needed, and this occurs in spite of social propriety and very much in spite of any titles and jobs assigned to both of them.

Fundamentally: Henry the Guard Dog isn't meant to be understood as a love-besotted Henry mindlessly embracing his role as some sort of lesser human pet guarding his social or biological superior. It is the plight of a wrecked young man desperately -- protectively when necessary -- clutching onto the one person who emotionally feels like family to him now in the wake of his first family being obliterated.

Relegating this key aspect of their relationship to "feral war dog on a chain go bark bark for master, good puppy" (as many NPCs do in the game to insult Henry because they are on the outside of this relationship looking in!) feels like a disservice to the themes of Hans & Henry (romantic or in general) and of KCD itself: love (not merit) overcomes appointed status, love (not power) erodes artificial socioeconomic division.

[rednightmare18]

I will write a post at some point about how fucking fantastic all of it is, but in case anybody missed this motif or how HUGE and revolutionary this romance is:

A few years ago (sorry sorry) I published a few chapters of a Kingdom Come Deliverance longfic called Fortune Favors the Bold. It went on (SORRY) lengthy hiatus due to general writer sluggishness and some twists in my life, but the idea was that the "boldness" theme would explicitly shake out to Henry firmly deciding to move on with life, to seek joy and thereby open himself to further grief after his incredible canon loss at Skalitz (and a fic-based incident of nearly losing Hans during a nasty separation period). It all culminated in a scene where Henry & Hans, whom I chose to depict as already romantically entangled (if somewhat ambiguously) in kcd1, finally exchange difficult verbal I-love-yous, far more difficult for Henry due to the above.

None of this big scene made it out of WIP. I'm explaining it now, before it is published, to express my amazement and gobsmacked appreciation at what Warhorse set up in kcd1.

Hans's final words in kcd1 and first in kcd2 are the "audentes fortuna iuvat," which is said so much between he and Henry through the latter that it begins to chafe the audience. Boldness in the face of overwhelming odds will yield reward and a future worthwhile.

This is the verbal indicator and tone-setter for their entire relationship arc. It is about them, specifically, growing into who they will become in life and with each other.

"Fortune favors the brave," the motto of the two lead characters and kcd2 itself, is in every way about the kiss scene and whether or not buckwild firebrand Hans, the primary mouthpiece of this motto, will feel loved enough to do the bravest thing he's ever done. It is about the culmination of embracing this mentality and the natural resolution, for good or ill, of the dynamics between these two people from the start. It is in many ways why it is so critical the cutscene deliberately breaks the kiss to show enough of Hans's face to reveal his astonished smile; bravery leads to triumph, even if it risks ruin, as in the story of the starcrossed knights he has only just shared with Henry.

It was all lovingly planted there, in kcd1. It was there so well that I picked up on it, somehow, years and years ago, even though I was joking meanly about how "Warhorse would never have the guts to really do it, it's just me reaching, they don't understand what they set up."

They did understand.

"Audentes" is overused, yes. But of course it is. It is their I love you.

And it is the tagline of the entire game.

Hooooooly shit. Audentes fortuna iuvat, Warhorse. Damn!!!!

[rednightmare18]

I will never shut up about how Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the most tenderly written game served to the most loutish horde of jackasses. I think it is possibly one of the greatest pieces of popular fiction made about feudalism in recent history, even if it's not always the most historically accurate.

And that's because the whole damn thing is about the profound, authority-enforced inhumanity that self-propels feudal order... but this time, it's written from the perspective of, for lack of better word, "humanity undermines, and humanity wins."

Love wins, if you want to be cheeky.

This was originally meant to be a reply to @feelinungry's excellent post on the subject, but it outgrew itself and got super bloated, so I'm plopping it in its own post to not be obnoxious...

KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

And the reason all this about humanity and love is so important to the core of the story, to the very backbone of the narrative (even beyond the plot), is that it exists in opposition and to the impairment of the feudal system. Kingdom Come: Deliverance means to teach us, by way of deeply dramatic plots following individuals, how feudalism works and why it worked the way it did. And why and how that system fails.

The vehicle by which the game does this is by showing us, over and over, how the stratification of feudal class is eroded and sometimes outright dissolved (either in general, as with Henry and Hans, or when it matters most, as with Radzig and Henry) by plain and simple love.

Feudalism, like most class-stratified systems, relies upon 1. dehumanization of those beneath one's appointed status; 2. fealty (mock-love) to those above one's status, their title-appointer class; and 3. the maintenance of a deep separation between these artificially bestowed statuses, as enforced by church (as in word of clergy, not word of god) & state (legal rules and law). Those words and laws existed to propel the system by divide-and-maintain (of the workforce populace, placing it firmly below the next class in line, etc.) in the service of unify-and-profit (for the ruling class).

Sigismund & his invading army are wholly separated and adherent to the feudal theory, even if they have flouted codes of warfare & inheritance; they are presented to us as the main dehumanizing force of the story world, a wave of Order that indiscriminately burns opposition flat rather than an individual leading a royal coup, a cyclical destruction that paves the way for the next flavor of rule to continue the feudal system ad infinitum. They're thoroughly separated from the story even when they are burning down a village in front of our eyes and generally move as one, with Markvart occasionally stepping out of that mass of Feudalism and its antihuman nature to give it a face. They're more a force of nature than an individual as far as the narrative goes.

And we are meant to understand that in sharp contrast to the "close" story, the cast we get to know and watch as they attempt to answer this force of nature. And the second we see these characters get close enough to each other, by raw proximity, to poke a pin into the wineskin of feudal order as dictated to them by authority, it bleeds--everywhere. Not in the sense of ruination but in the sense that a tiny wedge of empathy cracks open the dam and leads, yep, to rehumanization--and love, the most human driving force there is.

And that changes everything, for everyone. Not just internally, as with a character's personal development arc (i.e., Hans learning why his duties, which he resented and viewed as an impingement on his freedom when dictated to him by authority, are incredibly important for real people who experience pain) but externally as well (as @feelinungry so elegantly points out in the original post).

Over and over, at every stage of the story, it's the rehumanization of and by these decision-makers (at a family level, at a community level, at a regional level, at a national level) that cracks the feudal cycle, even if in very small ways. Hans really brings this back home in a petri dish in late game, after the siege, when he complains to Henry about the noble's code (letting Istvan go) potentially leading to pain and disaster for the common people Istvan's machinations are likely to harm in the future. He chafes--and we chafe, and so does Radzig, and so does Divish--against feudal stratification because he has learned a general empathy through loving an individual, and that has in turn reshaped the way he sees the world.

And that's exactly why and when feudalism begins to fail, and why it thrashed itself the way it did, from the enforcement of sexual mores (though this wasn't exactly like it is in movies) and gender law to terror upon its own populations.

And it's the crucial understanding I think we begin to forget after being exposed to so much Hollywoodification of history, where the oppression always exists for cruelty's sake alone rather than in active and deliberate service to a political construct.

And I think it's why we've "lost the plot" so horribly when it comes to understanding that people in history were still people, not monolithic one-mind entities (as the feudal system demanded they be). And why we somehow forgot that such people fall in love, in all kinds of love, in a way that has never given a damn about authority. And that this in turn undermines supposedly supreme authority, even divine authority, and will always continue to do so, as long as people are people.

This is what it always comes back to. Always. From Henry's parents and their mysterious bond with Radzig informing the protagonist's journey from "the past"--to Henry & Hans falling into stupidly fierce soulmatehood with each other in the present--from Istvan & Erik's destructive fuck-the-world romantic love on the "enemy" side--to Divish's humbling, humanizing realization that he loves Stephanie in some way, he really does, despite the chasm of age/gender enforced upon them by their adherence to feudal order that doomed their romantic love to failure.

People will always love each other, even when the world orders them not to, even when faced with death and worse. People will always, given proximity and shared experiences, learn to see each other as human again. KCD reminds us of that. It's why the "slow" storyline exists and why it works.

And that is why this game is so fucking fantastic, and why the genpop fandom has utterly failed it.

[rednightmare18]

I think ultimately what I'm getting at here is that most of the KCD duology is built upon and around the core truth that Henry is just a guy.

He's just some guy who the world happened to. He doesn't wind up in his unique situation because he is inherently remarkable but because of his own violent cocktail of the highs, lows, and randoms of life -- luck, personality, grit, tragedy, nepotism. So are we all, mostly.

He isn't pulled into these semi-grand events because a high skill level and natural sense loyalty have made him into the perfect candidate to serve as Hans's squire, and Hans is not drawn to him for any of these reasons either. On the contrary, he has developed his skills and has become loyal (to Hans himself, critically, not some general intangible ideal of loyalty) because he is Hans's squire -- because Hans likes him, Henry, for no other reason than because of the person he happens to be.

He is not successful and courageous (in fact he has to work very hard at courage, consciously, over time) because he is Radzig's son and somehow imbued with these traits through the quality of his blood; being Radzig's son drags him into an unexpected position of favoritism that forces him to either develop or flounder, building out his character this way or that.

This is one of the huge statements about worth and class and social stigmata that KCD is trying to make. 90/100 times, they do a superb job. But there are gameified moments, especially in KCD2, where the script deprioritizes that narrative truth in order to fulfill the average gamer's expectations of how an RPG is supposed to work. And those moments really stick out like a sore thumb to folks who came to KCD2 having played KCD1, precisely because of how well the narrative is otherwise crafted -- and how well Henry is developed, body and mind -- over the course of two games.

Above all else, this, I think, is why it is necessary to play KCD1 to fully appreciate Kingdom Come as a work of art and to understand what it is attempting to say about the world and about people, through history and in any present moment.