Quite Contrary

Tess tries to run from the past, to reject it and to not think about it - to bury her old self with her family and friends.

She's not just brave because it's her nature. She's "not afraid of anything anymore" because she, a person who has lost everything that mattered to her, is no longer afraid to die.

Henry is her complete opposite here. He becomes unrecognizable to his former self because, thanks to nepotism and gender, he's able to start an entirely new lifestyle in a way denied to Theresa... which may at first glance appear to be what Henry wants.

But it's not! Again and again, we see that everything Henry does is about wanting to go back, to cling to home, to try and salvage the scraps of his old self. He wants so badly to be truly unafraid, like Theresa is, but despite everything, he doesn't have the maturity to understand that fearing death isn't cowardice and lack of fear isn't bravery: it is pure tragedy. It means you have nothing left to lose.

It means you are Theresa.

Theresa, who despite being annihilated by the slaughter of her old self and loved ones, WAS NOT HAPPY (!) in that old life. She wasn't happy taking care of men, something she started doing far too young after her mother's death. She never wanted to get married, to be a wife, to raise children (she tells Jane as much; it's not just Feyfar; she wants nothing to do with boys; she's so young and already sick of laundry and cooking and cleaning and caring). She wanted the freedom to be herself, to have her own desires, to chase fun, to dance with her girl friends, to have more than the earliest hour of morning to herself.

Henry merely thought he wasn't happy, and for such a childish reason: he was bored of peace and comfort and being doted on by his family and his sweetheart. He knows now his mistake and that he can't take it back. But his former happiness also cannot be destroyed, even though it is no longer accessible to him, because he was so babied and undeniably loved and spoiled and undeservingly adored.

Not so with Theresa.

Of course she doesn't want to marry Henry.

Of course she laughs at him when he so casually suggests it.

Henry truly loves her, in his way, and she has much tenderness and a sort of sad love for him too. But no matter how damaged he is, he's still got a big piece of that good-natured oaf from Skalitz inside him. And so he thinks she's still the Theresa he knew all these years, partially because it helps him feel closer to a home that doesn't exist. He doesn't understand, no matter how many times or how many ways she tells him, that Theresa of Skalitz is gone or what she's lost.

And, whether or not Tess & Henry's sort-of-romance remains alive or (as KCD1's ending seems to suggest) kindly loosens and lets go, there is a part of Henry -- the old Henry, before the fire -- that Hans Capon, no matter how madly he loves him, can never truly know, understand, or touch. Theresa can. In no small part because that piece of her has been destroyed.

It's just so honest and worthwhile and real.

One of the things I deeply appreciate about the script is that it doesn't talk down to the player. If you don't actively think about the storytelling while you play -- if you don't watch for foils, parallels, symbols, motifs, read character expressions and pay attention to the content of the conversations as well as the emotional delivery -- you'll miss half the meat and meaning and message of the writing. That's a rarity these days; even "writing-based" games tend to spoon-feed players embarrassingly facile stories, childish depictions of trauma, and insultingly thinly-developed character arcs (ahem, rhymes with Why-o-Bear).

And sure, you can shut your brain off or come in with bad faith blinders on and steamroller through KCD's main quest, walking away having had a coherent if mediocre medieval video game experience. But you'll miss Theresa's apples scattering on the ground at the moment the daily life she ambivalently but carefully tended to is torn asunder. You'll miss how Henry's speech tics mirror his mother's word-for-word in delivery and in text. You'll miss that Hans presents himself as a swaggering hunter but is consistently visually associated with a hounded, hunted stag. You'll miss how Henry and Hans's relationship so doggedly parallels what we know of Martin and Radzig's, and to a lesser extent Istvan and Erik's. You'll miss that certain characters' clothing matches or contrasts in color schemes (another enormous medieval obsession). You'll miss how the sacking of Skalitz is what enables village bullies Matthew and Fritz to descend into real villainy, and how Henry gradually gains the sense of self to step outside Matthew's sphere of toxic influence. You'll miss that Radzig speaks honestly to Henry through metaphors and riddles and wordplay since he's far too awkward to speak to him openly. You'll miss that after forming a friendship with a peasant, responsibility-avoider Hans develops a new concern for how his actions affect everyday people, meanwhile layabout loafer Henry develops a sense of accountability to society at large. You'll miss that Theresa is almost always pictured nearby water (rain or rivers or puddles) just as Hans is associated with the forest and Henry is so often cinematically staged facing hills (and usually among flowers). You'll miss the journal entries, some of which are genuinely heartbreaking in the simplicity and earnestness of their longing, and in their hopes for better things ahead.

Some portions of the narrative are so well-crafted in this regard that the weaker portions/writers really stand out. That's the downside of writing in teams, but oh man, with an arty storytelling approach like KCD's, you can fucking tell when someone's writing skill wasn't up to snuff (ahem, Lady Tone-Deafany)... or when the team just wasn't in love with a character or a subplot enough to flesh out the symbolism.

But I'm getting away from my point now and starting to ramble, so I'll rein myself back in.

I edit books, so my storytelling field is a bit different. But by my metrics, the most successful novels—the ones that manage to both perform commercially and offer something of genuine artistic, emotional merit to audiences—do it like KCD does it. The basic narrative must be simple enough for casual readers to understand at a foundational level. But for readers who relish the experience of deep reading—who come equipped with thoughtfulness, a real desire to appreciate storytelling (at context and subtext levels), and the ability to critically & emotionally engage with multiple character arcs at once—there's so much more than the surface.