Love for the female characters

[Kalise]

-Snip-

I think the major difference between Yotsuyu and Fordola is that, for the most part, Fordola signed up for the crap she got.

Like, Yotsuyu is a real monster. Literally the first time we see her she tries to get a guy to kill his own parents for her amusement. She's clearly sign posted as evil. But upon delving into her past, we get to know that she was made this way by how she was treated. She was basically considered to have the same worth as dirt in how she was raised. No-one cared about her for even a second. As such, she learned to treat other people like dirt since, well, that's all she knew.

The reversion into Tsuyu is basically her getting to live out a childhood where she could actually be a child. Where someone could, for once in her entire life, care about her. Treating her like an actual human being.

Meanwhile, Fordola... She basically got tired of the crap she got from the Imperials (Like every other non-Garlean race...), especially with the taunts she got because of her father working for the Imperials and decided to sign up and try and prove herself.

Not knowing that, Garleans don't give a crap about non-Garleans and even then, a single failure can get even high ranking Garleans exiled/executed because weakness is not tolerated.

So when the time came to try an experimental augmentation, she was easy to chose because if it went wrong, no-one would care. Then when all of her friends were killed by the Imperials, she realized that shockingly they never gave a crap about her or her people and never will.

Now she's all mopey because she sold her soul to the devil and betrayed her own and has nothing to show for it and realizes she never would. She did all the horrible things because she thought that it might get her people a better life than being "Savages" that are seen as less than human (Err... Garlean?)

Like, literally, she had the choice to go and fight for the Resistance. She took the "Easy" path and tried to make a name for herself within the Empire at the cost of the very people she was fighting for. She's now realizing just how much she messed up with that decision and is now being crushed by the guilt of all the horrible things she's done with no light at the end of the tunnel to justify it.

To top it off... The very people whom she hurt the most, have forgiven her. How is she supposed to get what she feels she deserves, if the people whom she was fighting against give her another chance not only after achieving the very thing she set out to do (Despite her efforts to stop them in pursuit of her own path to the same end), but also allowing her to atone as a Hero? Like, immediately she was given trust and put in a position to choose to be a hero despite all the things she had done. Despite her feeling as though she was beyond redemption.

So yeah... It's hard to feel quite as teary eyed with Fordola, because she wasn't really forced into being evil. She chose it as she thought it was the best decision to make.

However, she's also right on the precipice of a major redemption arc if she gets more exposure in the post-Lakshmi story. One where she, begrudgingly, starts to become a hero. Well, as far as is possible, given that the people detest her. Meanwhile she'd also have to struggle with the fact that she doesn't want to just act as though all the horrible things she did had no consequence, she doesn't want to "Atone" for them by doing nice things and considering them balanced out. She'll want to carry her guilt with her for the rest of her life, even if she becomes heroic and people start to actually like her and forgive her.

Maybe at some point she could actually go on to learn to forgive herself. Due to all the support she gets from those she wronged, as well as Lyse, the WoL and M'Naago etc. Where she'd just break down into tears at the idea that, she isn't condemned because of what she's done. She isn't a monster. She no longer has to carry this massive guilt around with her. She's found a place where she's actually respected as an EQUAL (Especially if she grows to admire people like the WoL/Lyse for how they treat other people, including turncoat Imperials such as the Populares)

[Edax]

I think the major difference between Yotsuyu and Fordola is that, for the most part, Fordola signed up for the crap she got.

Like, Yotsuyu is a real monster. Literally the first time we see her she tries to get a guy to kill his own parents for her amusement. She's clearly sign posted as evil. But upon delving into her past, we get to know that she was made this way by how she was treated. She was basically considered to have the same worth as dirt in how she was raised. No-one cared about her for even a second. As such, she learned to treat other people like dirt since, well, that's all she knew.

The reversion into Tsuyu is basically her getting to live out a childhood where she could actually be a child. Where someone could, for once in her entire life, care about her. Treating her like an actual human being.

Meanwhile, Fordola... She basically got tired of the crap she got from the Imperials (Like every other non-Garlean race...), especially with the taunts she got because of her father working for the Imperials and decided to sign up and try and prove herself.

Not knowing that, Garleans don't give a crap about non-Garleans and even then, a single failure can get even high ranking Garleans exiled/executed because weakness is not tolerated.

So when the time came to try an experimental augmentation, she was easy to chose because if it went wrong, no-one would care. Then when all of her friends were killed by the Imperials, she realized that shockingly they never gave a crap about her or her people and never will.

Now she's all mopey because she sold her soul to the devil and betrayed her own and has nothing to show for it and realizes she never would. She did all the horrible things because she thought that it might get her people a better life than being "Savages" that are seen as less than human (Err... Garlean?)

Like, literally, she had the choice to go and fight for the Resistance. She took the "Easy" path and tried to make a name for herself within the Empire at the cost of the very people she was fighting for. She's now realizing just how much she messed up with that decision and is now being crushed by the guilt of all the horrible things she's done with no light at the end of the tunnel to justify it.

To top it off... The very people whom she hurt the most, have forgiven her. How is she supposed to get what she feels she deserves, if the people whom she was fighting against give her another chance not only after achieving the very thing she set out to do (Despite her efforts to stop them in pursuit of her own path to the same end), but also allowing her to atone as a Hero? Like, immediately she was given trust and put in a position to choose to be a hero despite all the things she had done. Despite her feeling as though she was beyond redemption.

So yeah... It's hard to feel quite as teary eyed with Fordola, because she wasn't really forced into being evil. She chose it as she thought it was the best decision to make.

However, she's also right on the precipice of a major redemption arc if she gets more exposure in the post-Lakshmi story. One where she, begrudgingly, starts to become a hero. Well, as far as is possible, given that the people detest her. Meanwhile she'd also have to struggle with the fact that she doesn't want to just act as though all the horrible things she did had no consequence, she doesn't want to "Atone" for them by doing nice things and considering them balanced out. She'll want to carry her guilt with her for the rest of her life, even if she becomes heroic and people start to actually like her and forgive her.

Maybe at some point she could actually go on to learn to forgive herself. Due to all the support she gets from those she wronged, as well as Lyse, the WoL and M'Naago etc. Where she'd just break down into tears at the idea that, she isn't condemned because of what she's done. She isn't a monster. She no longer has to carry this massive guilt around with her. She's found a place where she's actually respected as an EQUAL (Especially if she grows to admire people like the WoL/Lyse for how they treat other people, including turncoat Imperials such as the Populares)

It's also really strange that Fordola has shown how much she's willing to sacrifice for the Empire, and yet the Empire end up caring more about Viceroy Yotsuyu, who doesn't even care about the Empire slightly. Fordola fought her way up through adversity and the Empire didn't care. Yotsuyu never had much control with her life and was sold into prostitution and became the Viceroy for the Empire? The problem with these stories is that they contradict with each other. Yotsuyu never chose redemption, never tried to actively fix her mistakes and instead had sympanty imposed on her via brain damage and Imperial interige. Fordola decisions are entirely understandable in the context of no one caring for her, but against how Yotsuyu was treated by the Empire it makes no sense. It's very strange. Why treat a Doman citizen as an Imperial and not an Imperial citizen willing to fight for the Empire?

One moment the Empire goes to great lengths to save their collaborators, the next they're watching them get stoned in the street with disinterest and basically let a riot ensue.

[Burningskull]

It's also really strange that Fordola has shown how much she's willing to sacrifice for the Empire, and yet the Empire end up caring more about Viceroy Yotsuyu, who doesn't even care about the Empire slightly. Fordola fought her way up through adversity and the Empire didn't care. Yotsuyu never had much control with her life and was sold into prostitution and became the Viceroy for the Empire? The problem with these stories is that they contradict with each other. Yotsuyu never chose redemption, never tried to actively fix her mistakes and instead had sympanty imposed on her via brain damage and Imperial interige. Fordola decisions are entirely understandable in the context of no one caring for her, but against how Yotsuyu was treated by the Empire it makes no sense. It's very strange. Why treat a Doman citizen as an Imperial and not an Imperial citizen willing to fight for the Empire?

One moment the Empire goes to great lengths to save their collaborators, the next they're watching them get stoned in the street with disinterest and basically let a riot ensue.

I felt sorry for Fordola to, just not as much as Yotsuyu. Please not that I did not feel sorry for Yotsuyu because of her "childlike" state at the end but for what was done to her. The same for Fordola. Her father was killed by her own people cause her family tried to make the best of what happened to them and their country and the other Ala Mhigan's couldn't accept that. To top it off the Garleans that her family was trying to get along with just let her father die. So she grows up later and wants to make everyone respect her and fear her as punishment for what happened to her. Then she gets granted the echo and is being punished for what she did because she is made to feel everything that her victims had to fell through the resonant. At the same time she choose what to become tho. And I guess you could say Yotsuyu choose what to become as well... but I think the choices were very unequal to them. Yotsuyu's choice was to stay a prostitute or imperials trophy wife or work with Zeno's and rise through the ranks of the Empire. Fordala's choice was to either work to better her nation / free her nation through the resistance or join the Garleans to try and make the Garleans respect people outside their race.

[Gemina]

It's very strange. Why treat a Doman citizen as an Imperial and not an Imperial citizen willing to fight for the Empire?

It's because Fordola isn't an imperial citizen, she is Ala Mhigan so she would never rise through the ranks of the Garlean empire no matter what she did. When Zenos took her under his wing, she caught a lot of flack for being his hussy and pet, and to Zenos she was just a low risk test subject. Anything and everything that would happen to her, nobody would care. It was only a matter of how many she can cut down before she herself receives a fatal blow. The ironic thing, is that the low risk that WAS involved with her, the empire ends up paying for. She doesn't die, is eventually captured, gives valuable information to the resistance, and even aids in bringing down an Eikon. Everything that could go wrong by infusing her with an artificial echo does go wrong for the empire. Through the echo, she even comes to learn that the WoL is a giant ball of PTSD and comes to respect him/her.