#ffxiii2

ROUND 2 — Match 90 of 138

Mia Winters (Resident Evil)

Problematic because: "Half the fandom goes “poor Ethan’s wife :(” and the other half goes “ma’am why were you secretly transporting a child-shaped bioweapon for a crime syndicate.” She worked for The Connections, an organisation that creates/sells bioweapons, acted as Eveline’s handler/caretaker, and lied to Ethan by pretending it was basically a normal “babysitting job” instead of “I am escorting a mind-control mold child on a tanker.” Eveline escaping is what leads to the ship disaster, the Baker family being infected, Dulvey turning into a horror show, and Ethan getting dragged into all of it years later. She’s also not fully honest with Ethan afterward. Village reveals Mia knew Ethan had died and become a Mold Creature after the Baker incident, and she didn’t tell him the full truth before they built a life and had Rose. To be fair, Mia is also a victim of Eveline’s control, Miranda’s kidnapping, and the whole bioweapon mess, she isn’t just cackling in a lab coat. But she still hid huge, life-altering things from her husband, and her “old job” helped create the nightmare that ruined multiple families." Propaganda: 1. "She made terrible choices before RE7, clearly. Working for the Connections is already a massive red flag, and lying to Ethan about it makes everything worse. But once Eveline gets loose, Mia is also trapped inside the disaster she helped transport. She’s infected, controlled, locked away, used as part of Eveline’s fake family, and still has enough of herself left to warn Ethan to stay away. I like her because she complicates Ethan’s whole “normal guy looking for his wife” story. The person he’s trying to save is also one of the reasons this happened. That doesn’t mean she deserved what happened to her, and it doesn’t make her love for Ethan fake. It just means she has this ugly, under-discussed layer where she’s both victim and participant, and honestly Resident Evil could’ve done even more with that." 2. "i feel bad for her!! because once everything goes wrong she is not exactly having a great time either. she gets infected, controlled, locked up, loses years of her life, and then later miranda steals her entire face and family. mia did some deeply questionable things, but she also gets put through the resident evil misery blender for them. i don’t need her to be innocent. i just wish the games cared more about how insane her situation actually is." 3. "People can argue about her forever. Was she a victim? yes. Did she lie about working for the bioweapon mafia? Also yes. Should Ethan have asked more questions about the babysitting job? Probably, but to be fair, who guesses that."

vs. Alyssa Zaidelle (Final Fantasy XIII-2)

Problematic because: "She works for the Academy as Hope’s assistant, helps Serah and Noel with all the time-travel/paradox stuff, and for most of the game she seems like one of the helpful normal people in a story full of gods, monsters, and doomed timelines. Then it turns out she’s only alive because of a paradox. In the corrected timeline, she died during the Purge years earlier, so if Serah and Noel actually fix time properly, Alyssa disappears and never existed. Instead of telling them that, she takes a trapped artefact from Caius and gives it to them, which throws them into his trap and separates them in nightmare/dream-world situations. It’s understandable that she doesn’t want to be erased from existence, obviously, but she still betrays people who trusted her and risks wrecking the whole mission to save herself." Propaganda: 1. "“Fixing the timeline” sounds heroic until you remember that some people only exist because the timeline broke. Alyssa is scared, ambitious, clever, friendly, and very good at acting like everything is fine. She’s not some cackling traitor - she’s a woman who found out the universe considers her a mistake and chose self-preservation. I can’t exactly blame her for being terrified." 2. "honestly? i get it. if someone told me “hey, if these two protagonists finish saving history, you will stop existing and everyone will forget you,” i also might become difficult" 3. "Yes, the artefact is a betrayal, and yes, it puts them in danger. But I don’t think it comes from cruelty. It comes from fear, and from the very human instinct to want your own life to matter. I like Alyssa because she turns the time-travel plot into something personal and unfair. Fixing history sounds noble until you’re standing in front of someone history decided to erase." 4. "alyssa did betray them, but also like. what was she supposed to do, smile politely and accept being deleted from reality? she’s not an evil mastermind, she’s a girl who survived something she was “supposed” to die in and then found out the protagonists saving the world might undo her entire existence. i would also be a little unwell about that. i like her because her fear feels so understandable. she’s helpful for most of the game, she clearly cares about hope and the academy, and then the timeline basically corners her. was it okay to do what she did? no. do i understand why self-preservation won out when the alternative was vanishing forever? absolutely."

Round 2, Match 215 — Richard Wellington (Ace Attorney) vs Paddra Nsu Yeul (Final Fantasy XIII-2)

I finally had enough to buy it and the store wasn’t given me damn errors. It’s so pretty!