all the sad tales

Every time any form of interaction between Aventurine and the IPC gets brought up in the game, I just grit my teeth now, because it inevitably revives the (literally) years-long debate: "Aventurine never wanted to join the IPC!" "Aventurine is a slave and has to stay in the IPC or they'll kill him!" "Aventurine was going to be executed for breaking his cornerstone!" "Aventurine hates the IPC!"

Saveeeee meeeee pleaseeeee.

I just don't know how the game can continually drop stuff like this:

This is, in fact, Jade telling Aventurine he can quit the IPC. At least 40% of this fanbase owed Jade an apology yesterday.

Yet the fandom can still struggle so much to understand that Aventurine is not the faultless victim that people seem to so dearly want him to be.

We not only now have in-game confirmation that Aventurine's after Oswaldo Schneider, but we even have confirmation that the entire Strategic Investment Department is after Oswaldo Schneider, which means that Topaz, Jade, and the other Stonehearts, are, in fact, Aventurine's genuine allies. He's not "using" the IPC to achieve his personal vendetta without his coworkers' knowledge--his personal vendetta is a standing Strategic Investment Department agenda item. They are all drinking the Hateraid together.

Aventurine's exactly where he (thinks) he needs to be right now.

Accumulating power through his employment with the IPC is not only what Aventurine originally wanted long ago when he got himself caught for the desert scheme--it's exactly what he wants right now, because everything in the Strategic Investment Department's plans aligns perfectly to his individual goals. Aventurine bet he'd get a promotion following Penacony because he wanted one. (Were we really out here thinking that the guy who always wins his bets would bet on something he didn't want? 😭)

Furthermore, this new SP description confirms that Aventurine was never at risk of execution for breaking his cornerstone. I still have no idea why people ran away with that idea when both Aventurine and the Myriad Celestia video itself confirm the only actual punishment on the table was losing his power:

Butttttt even if execution was an option they were putting on the scales, Aventurine already knew the outcome of the decision before the votes were ever cast. Aventurine wasn't in any danger, even from the start, because he already knew Diamond would decide in his favor:

Just as Aventurine said all the way back in 2.1, Diamond is explicitly a "ends justify the means" kind of person, and he acted exactly as Aventurine predicted, granting him a reward for his stunt in Penacony rather than any form of punishment. Aventurine knows the people he's working with. He knows the system and can play it like a fiddle. He's not Aventurine of STRATAGEMS for no reason, come onnnnn people. In this high-stakes game called life, the IPC is Aventurine's "hotel on Broadway," providing him everything he needs--it's extremely unlikely he'll be leaving them any time soon.

And this just continues to confound and frustrate people when it comes to talking about his character. Over and over again, it's "Aventurine isn't like the IPC; he wouldn't do the kinds of things they stand for!" or "He's only there to get revenge; he hates everything they do and doesn't support their colonizer land-grabs at all!"

But he has.

His primary role is in serving the Ten Stonehearts' "asset liquidation" function--that is, overthrowing anyone who fails to comply with the IPC's plans. He has murdered people specifically for the IPC; it's right there in his character story! D;

We had an entire subplot in Penacony about the noble struggle of the native Penaconians who gave their literal lives to free their planet from the tyranny of the IPC--and Aventurine went in and deliberately took that freedom away again. He has never expressed even the slightest regret for rewinding the clock on the centuries-long revolution that Hanunue and Mikhail died for. He effectively did to Penacony exactly what was done to his own planet and then got rewarded for it.

Aventurine is every bit as much of an IPC lapdog as any other member of the Ten Stonehearts--even less empathetic than some (Pearl, at least)--and has never claimed to be anything else.

In fact, the game goes out of its way to try to hammer this home by often refusing to let the Trailblazer respond to Aventurine in anything but a vaguely standoffish manner, repeatedly calling him out for being with the IPC--despite Trailblazer managing to befriend everyone else and be perfectly cordial with former enemies like Sunday, Skott, and Topaz. The game drills it into our heads constantly that, at least until my boy Sugilite Diamond drops, Aventurine is the IPC poster boy.

And people just can't stomach that, so they keep inventing this alternative version of him who is more sympathetic, less responsible for his own actions, who never meant to join the IPC, or who has no choice in his morally questionable schemes against others. It's big bad Jade's fault. It's fate's fault. It's anyone but Aventurine's fault.

But that's just... not the point of this character...

From the very beginning, all the way back to his days in the desert, one of the central aspects of Aventurine's character is the need to survive, because he carries the legacy and hopes of not only his entire clan but also specifically of his mother and sister, who died to preserve his life and believed that he would bring their people prosperity one day. Even if "their people" is now only him, the struggle to not end up squandering what his family bled and died for has haunted Aventurine's narrative from the time he was tiny.

Despite how much he has personally wavered--even clearly wanting to give up--Aventurine's story is, at its core, about living on no matter the cost. And the truth is that sometimes "the cost" of Aventurine's survival is other people's lives. More than 30 people went into the death maze when Aventurine was a slave, and only Aventurine came out, because when push comes to shove, he has to endure. Even while hoping it will happen, he can't allow himself to die a meaningless death or simply fade into obscurity. He's got to do his family proud.

First that meant getting into the IPC to try to bring them resources and aid. And then, failing that, now it (at least partially) means capitalizing on the convenient goal of the Strategic Investment Department to get one up on Oswaldo Schneider. It means doing everything he can to amass more wealth, more power, and more authority to fortify his own position. And it might even mean stabbing people in the back, if that truly becomes the only option.

(I'm actually inclined to think that Aventurine is rather more loyal than he paints himself and is unlikely to stab anyone in the back if he could absolutely avoid it, but if there was truly no other way to keep going...)

Of course, it's impossible to really judge Aventurine for any of this!

Everyone wants to survive, everyone does everything in their power to preserve themselves when things get ugly. The intention of gaining wealth and power to help family and allies is a noble quest. Revenge on a bad person is usually treated as justified in fiction, so going after Oswaldo is viewed very positively by the players.

But where is the line?

At what moment does one's desire for power, wealth, material comforts, and even revenge exceed the realm of nobility and become greed? Can gold gained by evil means ever be truly clean? If you're seeking riches for a good reason but still trampling over the less fortunate to get them, can your "good reason" ever really be justified?

In your quest to survive, to thrive, to be avenged, what--and who--are you willing to sacrifice?

That's the point of this character.

Aventurine has always been a walking contradiction: The victim who now helps victimize others, the colonized who now helps colonize, the eternal winner who has lost everything, with pockets full of money but with nothing worth cherishing, wanting to die and yet clinging to life.

He entire role in the story is to present us with a nuanced picture of the IPC's impact on the HSR universe:

Unlike Topaz whose conscience is still (mostly) clear (perhaps only by sheer force of will at this point), Aventurine is fully aware that the IPC is evil. He's not under any illusion that they're actually a force of good for the universe. He doesn't buy the "We help poor planets that can't help themselves" propaganda in the slightest, and he's made it clear that he doesn't actually approve of the methods some of his own coworkers (namely Opal) will stoop to. He thinks the IPC are pretty shitty people, and doesn't reserve that opinion just for Oswaldo Schneider.

But he also contributes to the system knowing it is fundamentally evil.

He willingly joined the organization that contributed to his sister's death. He willingly helps undermine planets' freedoms the same way his own was oppressed. While people continue to struggle to survive across the universe, Aventurine takes the "meaningless" wealth he's amassed and blows it on million dollar perfume and pink diamonds.

He lives the polar opposite life he had in his childhood: Now he has otherworldly strength, now he has riches, now he has every comfort imaginable, now he has a pseudo-mother figure and a pseudo-sister figure, so he's never alone... Now he is needed, now he is successful, now his blessing serves its purpose and actually helps him advance, now he can pursue a goal of getting justice for his people again...

Everything Aventurine currently aiming for, he can get from the IPC. So why wouldn't he be there willingly?

(Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying Aventurine likes the IPC. He's never claimed to be genuinely loyal to them, never seemed like he particularly enjoys his job, and even in the recent description of the SP talks about having to "force a smile" for the camera. He's not under any illusions that the IPC is the coolest, bestest, greatest company to work for ever. But he stays because, in his mind, the benefits outweigh the small, small cost of his morals. Maybe he thinks he already lost those long ago, so there's no morals left for him to lose anyway.)

It's not actually a healthy situation. The IPC is probably one of the worst possible places in the universe for him to be. They definitely contributed to his genuine desire for suicide in Penacony, and the cognitive dissonance that working for the same company that left your family to die would bring with it would be staggering.

But being a "bad victim" is the point. Being willing to bed down with the bad guys for personal gain is the point. We're supposed to recognize Aventurine's willingness (which is not the same thing as eagerness) to stain his own hands, and even as we sympathize with his motives--protecting himself, treasuring the legacy of his family by valuing his own life more, seizing Oswaldo Schneider's power and influence--we should recognize that the situation is not so easily labelled black and white, that the Strategic Investment Department being better than the Marketing Development Department doesn't make them good people--that having noble intentions does not always confirm the ends will justify the means.

I'm not sure how many more times the devs have to stamp "I-P-C" on Aventurine's forehead before people will start to finally entertain the idea that he's not a "hapless prisoner who would surely never do bad things to other people if the meanies weren't forcing him to." He's not a good person or a bad person, he's just A person--one who has helped the Trailblaze but also one who has done and will keep doing terrible things if that's what it takes to ensure his own survival and success.

In terms of other treats from the event, look! Aventurine is comfortable sharing space with Boothill and (later) Archer:

I've written before about how the devs normally position Aventurine's character further away from others during conversations and cutscenes, but it seems that he's a little more in his comfort zone now than he was in his first visits to Penacony. It's not just anyone that Aventurine is willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with--it says a lot that he was willing to put aside the space bubble here!

(This is also funny because Boothill in particular is the opposite of Aventurine, in that he's almost always positioned RIGHT NEXT to the people he's talking to--the space bubble is kind of nonexistent--but it still looks hilariously out of place to see him standing so close to Aventurine because Aventurine doesn't normally stand with anyone lol.)

Also: Boothill making a reference to xenophobia while the two indigenous characters from colonized worlds are on the screen? Wow, one of the members of the writing team actually remembered and cared enough to make note.

In fact, I thought whoever handled the writing for this questline in general did a much better job than the HSR writers normally do with characters' pasts affecting their current behaviors. Aventurine's consistent discomfort with the Master-Servant dynamic was excellent to see.

"Dead class structures"--my goodness, the word "master" showed up and the Proletariat just jumped straight out of Aventurine. A very good note for those interested in his characterization.

And speaking of characterization, Archer and Aventurine's dynamic was a definite high-point for the collab questline. I don't even know anything about Archer but his chemistry with Aventurine was great--mostly because it was actually just Ratio/Aventurine with a stand-in because the devs are allergic to giving Dr. Ratio screentime nowadays lol.

Aventurine's type is clearly "strapping, competent, reliable men who will lightly bully me into becoming a better version of myself."

We even got the "Trust me and my plan so we can trick everyone and beat our enemy." The fact that Archer was able to catch on with just one sentence from Aventurine was great, and the fact that he was even worse than Ratio at acting was pretty funny ngl. (Well, at least he put less effort into it!)

Archer and Ratio even have the same complaints:

Ratiorine fandom, I am politely requesting 5956760 fanfics of Ratio's eye twitching at some random new man showing up and folding Aventurine's laundry without asking and then just "poof" disappearing lol. Thank youuu~~

And pointing out some other fun snippets:

Aventurine being a horror movie buff was not on my bingo card, but it's an interesting tidbit to add to his characterization. Understandably difficult to spook someone who has beaten people to death with his bare hands to survive the Hunger Games. You know he's the person who watches the gory slasher flicks and is just devouring the popcorn while everyone else is getting grossed out.

Also interesting to note that Aventurine, the "give me two of everything at the highest-end luxury shops in Penacony" guy also apparently still shops at "interstellar junk markets." You can take the community bazaar out of the nomad but you can't take the nomad out of the community bazaar, apparently.

I want to know what dev managed to get this past the censors!! 😂

And Aventurine's tininess... I know the devs writing this quest were Aventurine fans; I know it.

This moment in general:

When are we getting our Bonnie and Clyde/Aventurine-Boothill western shootout with Oswaldo Schneider, Hoyo, when?

And, despite the tone of Aventurine's text messages post-Penacony sounding very much "I want to be friends" with the Trailblazer, it seems that, canonically, Aventurine hasn't made much headway in actually becoming Trailblazer's friend. Trailblazer's reactions to Aventurine were pretty :T through the event, and Aventurine's first claim is that maybe Trailblazer wouldn't even want to come out to meet with him. This is why Jade sent you to the Penacony Daycare Holy Grail War to make better friends, Aventurine. You gotta work a little harder at it, my dude.

Finally, I really appreciated this event taking the time to acknowledge that Aventurine is actually extremely smart and adaptable, capable of keeping a cool head under pressure, figuring out the enemy's strategy, immediately developing a plan to solve the problem, and executing it flawlessly.

And even more so than just painting Aventurine as a smart cookie who can see through others' ploys, I love that the reason Aventurine was able to see the ploy wasn't because of his status as a movie buff... It was because of his interest in business.

Aventurine can be a fake idgafer about his work all he wants, but when it comes right down to it, he was so interested in Grady's marketing strategies and business acumen that he went through the entire archive of Grady's works and learned the full history and tactics of this completely no-name director from a totally foreign planet. He's being unironic when he calls himself a "fan" of Grady's--not of Grady's terrible films, but of Grady's ability to achieve success.

My boy isn't just smart, he's still building his portfolio of tricks to get ahead in life.

Repeatedly, Archer asks whether Aventurine doesn't want to be a "hero of justice" sometimes, to which Aventurine never really fully responds. Yet in the team's time of greatest need in this quest, Aventurine was the actual "hero" of the moment--not using noble tactics, but by being true to exactly who he is: the shrewd schemer whose knowledge of underhanded methods and the cutthroat world of commerce can be applied even to righteous causes.

Aventurine's character in this event was, in essence, a perfect microcosm of the IPC's role in the game's overall story. Their methods might be less than ideal, their perspectives on right and wrong might be skewed at a 90 degree angle--but when push comes to shove, you're really going to need someone who isn't worried about getting their hands a little dirty, someone with the know-how to scheme their way out of the pitfalls, so long as they--deep, deep down--(mostly) have their heart in the right place.