welcome to robin's gougar gave

in the scene on the balcony she speaks, multiple times, about her devotion to oersted, saying that she is his. that she... belongs to him, really. because what else can she be? and i think says this to convince herself just as much as she's convincing oersted. shes trying to force herself to fall in love with him. because maybe if she can fall in love, and if someone can love her for the person she is, then she won't feel trapped in her role anymore.

oersted... well, we don't get much insight to his thoughts about this (or much of anything) before everything goes to shit. but he seems pretty happy with this situation. it probably feels like he's earned this. like hes won. and-- once again getting into the metatextual analysis of the middle ages chapter-- oersted is used to play around with our idea of the "player character". his obsession with winning comes from us, the player, because... well, what else is the player supposed to do other than win the game?

oersted is also very much obsessed with alethea, or rather, the idea of alethea in his mind. during the middle ages chapter he believes that if he can just save alethea then everything will be alright: he'll no longer be branded a traitor, and he'll have fulfilled his role as the hero. saving alethea is the "win condition" here. it's what oersted is made to do.

i think it's also very notable that alethea is the one who's shown the most outward affection towards oersted. although it was forced, it still had an incredible impact on him. look at the way he responds to kindness from the protags in the ending: he's desperate for it, clings to it like a lifeline! because he's the player character; he's supposed to be loved, supposed to be believed in. therefore, playing his role in this story is supposed to benefit him, if he can just win.

but then alethea kills herself. she does so for different reasons in canon, but imagine this for me: she's been waiting, waiting, waiting for oersted to come save her. but during this time she can't help but wonder... what does oersted see when he looks at her? does he see her? or does he just see a prize, a finished game, the symbol of a good ending?

and then someone finally comes to save her and... it's streibough. its here that her forced perception of her and oersted's relationship falls apart. streibough isn't the prince, isn't the hero, isn't obligated to save her... but he saved her anyway. so, maybe streibough is truly devoted to her. and maybe oersted's actions were just for his own merit.

unfortunately for her, the truth isn't that pretty. finally, oersted makes it to the archons roost and confronts streibough. alethea is just out of view for this confrontation, but certainly within earshot, and when she hears everything that streibough says, she realizes that... oh. this is just another contest. once again, shes just a prize in a game between these two men. its all she can be in this story. she cannot escape it. she cannot be a person so long as this role hangs over her head.

therefore, the only thing she can do to be a real person is to take her own life, and remove her status as a prize.

it's a very sad ending for alethea. she lives a short life unable to escape her archetypical box-- not because she never tries to escape, but because the male cast keeps pushing her back into that role. i don't believe oersted and streibough actively mean to do this, but that's not relevant. the end result is the same.

after oersted becomes odio, his already distorted perception of alethea becomes nigh unrecognizable. even after he forgets his and his friends names, alethea remains a fixation in his mind. she, in his mind, has become a saint and an arbiter of justice (see: saint alethea (attack) in the purity of odio fight, and the line "for justice, she demands it..." when fighting oersted in the bad ending). he idolizes her, worships her, but by doing so, he dehumanizes her. he's turned her into a symbol: the exact thing alethea did not want to be. what is this feeling, oersted? is this what love is?

and of course, alethea's horrified by this! when reading alethea's mind in the dominion of hate, she begs for the protagonists to "end this horror".

and in a literal sense, she's talking about oersted's reign as odio, but metatextually... perhaps she's realized, that the only way to escape a story's role is to escape the story itself. and the only way to end the story is to save oersted.

that's pretty much the extent of my thoughts! i think the dynamic between oersted and alethea is a fascinating one, since it's built solely on societal and archetypical expectations, but crashes and burns because of that expectation.

like i said at the beginning, i don't think this is the intended reading. frankly, i think this game is way too misogynistic to intentionally explore alethea to this degree. perhaps you could joke that live a live is so misogynistic that it made this interpretation possible by complete accident, but that's neither here nor there.

to be clear, me calling oersted and streibough's actions misogynistic isn't me demonizing them or calling them irredeemable. rather, i think that it's an interesting character flaw to explore, especially since live a live is a story about stories. it's a great way to explore how this bias affects how we treat female fictional characters. additionally, i believe that the character flaws of the middle ages cast are especially important, as it's through everyone's refusal to acknowledge the flaws within themselves and the people around them that everything goes horribly wrong in the first place. i have more thoughts on this specifically but i think ill save them for another post.

quick shoutout to my friend henry (@/thepeacockshallstrut) who co-authored this reading. thank you for being insane about jrpgs with me bestie

anyway. in conclusion:

Inspired by this observation by a friend: