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[leene_chan]

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I'm just about to do the last dungeon in Tales of Graces f...after I do as many side quests as I can manage. I've enjoyed the game immensely up until this point. Gameplay-wise, that is. The basic idea for the story is dramatic enough with some genuinely cool moments, but the classic Tales stupidity almost wrecks it in parts. There are characters who act like morons and then there are characters who don't act like morons, but allow the moronic characters to ruin scenes with their pig-headedness, flawed logic and idiocy. Honestly, I don't understand why some people have a problem with the AsbelxCheria pairing. In my opinion, they're both assholes and deserve each other. They deserve to die together. They deserve to be tied together and burned at the stake.

Everyone else is just a victim. XD

Like, what the hell right does Asbel have to tell Hubert that he ought to feel gratitude towards his criminal of an adoptive father--because he had high expectations of him and might have been nice to him occasionally when he was a child? You'd think that after finding out what kind of family the Ozwells were Asbel would have been horrified that his younger brother got adopted out to freaks who kidnap people for use as blackmail, stab themselves on the street when they don't get their way and try to overthrow the government every other week. I guess that in Asbel's eyes, a strong but unhappy person has no right to be resentful, because they have the power to Protect the people they care about. Never mind that Hubert's adoptive father has made attempts on his life before, and Reimon...well...yeah. Reimon.

According to Cheria, who is a tsundere towards Asbel but wants nothing else but to be his housefrau, Sophie needs to understand that when Asbel yells at and demeans her for insisting on carrying out the mission she was programmed to complete he's just really, really sad at the prospect of losing her. Men aren't good at sharing their feelings. If one of their loved ones is staring down a terrible fate, they just do whatever they can to make their last remaining moments on earth a living hell, because they wanted to protect them! Don't you dare tell them they can't! No man wants to be protected by a woman! Women who are stronger than men and insist on protecting them are denying them of their rights as men!

And then Cheria turns it around and blames Sophie. She tells Sophie that she and Asbel are just the same. Neither of them know how to show their emotions.

Um...Sophie has a hard time showing emotion because she's an artificial life form. Asbel rages at people when he's sad because he's a dick.

I can imagine Cheria telling her daughters that they need to do x, y and z to please their husbands because women are born to take care of men and compensate for their character flaws. At least Cheria can get a narcissistic high about being called an "angel" by complete strangers.

I don't care how much crack would be involved in pairing Asbel with one of the male characters (because they do bait us fangirls a lot). Asbel's a dick, and I would say I'd like to see him die alone. But I'd rather he take Cheria with him. The two of them want to create a paradise for themselves by smothering people's negative emotions. It's no wonder Richard decided to become a gargoyle and try to destroy the world.

My favorite WTF scene in the early game is when Asbel ruminates on how bad it would have been if he hadn't left the knight academy in the nick of time to take his father's position. If he had stayed, he might have been forced to help assassinate Richard! No, dude, that's when you desert the army and warn your friend that your superiors are trying to kill him. You might spend the rest of the game as an outlaw with a price on your head, but at least you don't have to tell your friend, "Gee golly, am I glad I didn't have to try to kill you with the others!"