Quote Originally Posted by Loggos View Post
But I just don't think "kid Erenville always cried and begged his mum to take him with her/not leave him alone whenever she would go away for a prolonged period of time" or his words à la "you always decide everything by yourself and then leave (and I have to deal with the results)" are very charming.
I think it's reasonable that this kind of behaviour (esp. during his childhood) caused him quite a bit of recurring pain.
I don't mean to say he should hate his mum but she also shouldn't be treated as this person with superior wisdom that is 100% right and Erenville as the irrational one who is always wrong, and that him following her words and path will automatically be the best thing for him.
He can love her and forgive her and still recognise that he is his own person with his own ideas, desires and dreams and they might not be the exact same things that were fulfilling for his mother.
I managed to find transcripts of the japanese text for MSQ, since I was curious if localisation changed anything with how characters were presented. Some characters have a different feel to their personalities from how they speak in the JP version imo, so I just wondered what differences i'd find, if any.

Honestly i just came out feeling even more sad since the line you brought up about him being left while his mum went off on adventures had 1 small difference in japanese:
EN: "Oh, how you would cry and beg her to take you along. It must've been hard on you."
JP:「あの頃のエレネッシパ、寂しくて泣いちゃったり、一緒に連れていけって必死にせがんだり……　大変だったよねえ？」
"Back then Erene'shpya was so lonely he would cry, and frantically beg (his mother) to let him go with (her).... It was really tough on you wasn't it?"

On the one hand I'm glad there is more confirmation that its not just some headcannon, because the game never elaborates on the relationship between them/no one comments on it I was starting to think I was just crazy and cooking up stuff. But on the other hand, now I'm just very sad ;__;

BTW the conclusion to his arc still felt rushed when I read through the JP text, so its not an issue with localisation specifically, but the way some things are worded felt like they had a bit more flavour in JP at least. If they had more of a build-up to that end moment, maybe I would be more inclined to believe him changing his whole life's purpose. But it feels like whiplash the way they ended up handling it.

Maybe post-MSQ will elaborate on the specifics of living memory and make it feel less riddled with holes, but I'm not optimistic. Hard to retroactively make something like that feel better.