#aifread

And now I’ve done a digital redraw of that and present it today.

Dear Kaiara,

Twice since I last wrote have I wound up in the medbay. Once for numerous stab and bite wounds from horrible creatures in a Nymian ruin and once for what should have been a simple gunshot wound. The first time everything was fine with Faol casting a powerful heal on me and Katalin ensuring I was ok. The second time...

I may have caused at least a part of the problem. A’kaia was the only medic around and Aifread was hurt bad. So I figured how hard could it be to remove one bullet. Bad plan. I made it worse. Then Faol showed up and healed the wound over it. I thought that was a bad thing but she said it was fine. I was content with that until A’kata came at me with a knife. The bullet was being removed. I don’t remember much after that, A’kaia must have used a sleep spell, but I’m better now. And I got candy!

I must admit, the medbay isn’t the same anymore. It’s more... clinical. It doesn’t have the same comforting feel without...

A’kaia is wonderful and she tries her best to make things still feel normal, like the person healing you actually cares. I haven’t had Remus yet, maybe he’s good too but...

I miss them. Even with all the noise of a still full airship, I can’t help but feel the emptiness they left behind.

You know what I realized though?

Both Aifread and Mayvin deal with similar fates. Both old dudes that you hear about/meet pretty early in the game, but have to kill them off near the end. But here’s the thing: I actually felt really bad about killing Aifread. With Mayvin, everything just came out too damn sudden and I felt that issue of show-don’t-tell with trying to feel upset about his death.

And you could argue “But you don’t actually meet Aifread until the end! So it’s another case of show-don’t-tell!!” but I would actually argue against that.

Yes, you don’t really meet Aifread until near the end of the game. Yes, a lot of people like Eizen and the crew of the Van Elitia just talk about him. 

HOWEVER

There were fruits to Aifread’s labor in the end. You can believe how awesome and good of a dude Aifread was because Eizen and the Van Elitia crew exist and live by the creeds they have. Eizen deals with the Reaper’s Curse kicking his ass constantly, yet he ultimately decided to live with it after getting to know Aifread. We wouldn’t have the Eizen we know in Tales of Berseria if not for Aifread. The crew of the Van Elitia would not be so damn dedicated without having had a leader like Aifread. You can believe everything all of these people say about Aifread because of their accomplishments and how they’re the people they are.

With Mayvin, there’s nothing like that. There’s not really anything to show for who he is and why we should care about him and feel bad for him dying other than that he drops a shitton of exposition. He’s just a plot device that came out of left field with little else to him.