I've never seen a more evil coded character, she's carrying a tree sized sniper rifle, wearing black armor and has a glowing red eye, and despite that, one of the key aspects of her characters is that she was another victim of Patrizion's decades-long established racism. If I had a nickle...

Regardless of her actions, she was another person unjustifiably wronged. MT-5 Before:

Patrizion even recognizes that he failed her, failed to help her master her temper, failed to support her marriage, failed to defend her. Instead of any amount of understanding or respect, Patrizion attacks her, banishes her, recounts this all and still is not willing to apologize or empathize.

I would spit on it too, I would refuse it too.

MT-10 Before:

Patrizion could have made any difference to her, helped her in any way, and because he chose not to because of his all-important 'higher calling,' she's back to settle the score.

Even now as she lines him up in her sights, all he cares about is 'redeeming her' without putting forward anything on his own end. He simply executes the law, not caring about anyone that gets churned up in the process. He has nothing to say about her completely legitimate issues.

Aurela instead of being a relatively shallow portrayal of 'evil' people that have 'bad morals,' is written as someone who was neglected, mentored by someone who thought themselves infallible. Whether or not she's culpable to her crimes is barely covered compared to the fact that Patrizion didn't do anything to try and avert her path before they were committed. That him and Laterano utterly failed her.

I think, the biggest thing you have to consider if you're thinking Patrizion, is that he's absurdly aware of how he looks like. He's a natural at playing movie villains, he connects with Fia by being antagonistic. He literally changed his fucking image song thrice until it's Still the Same. That's the first part.

The second part is that he's basically doing like three things in the Masses' Travels. He's either trying to get people together, trying to not do anything, or trying to get people to shoot him. He clearly loved choice. He's a respecter of choice. He chose to be a Gun-Knight, with all the baggage involved, and he'll damn himself over the choices that he took in his youth to now. It has to mean something in the end.

I feel like, as much as you could judge him by his actions, and see him as someone who had their face surgically removed in favor of being a Holy Blender 24/7, and this is a sort of truth, it's not him truly. That he still has a heart beating in him, because if he were truly a true knight, he wouldn't personally exile Gia, wouldn't try to offer Aurela a redemption, wouldn't adopt and teach Fia. He could've been his vows and oath in truth, but he's tragically way too human for any of that.

🕊 The Masses' Travels 🕊

Spoilers for The Masses' Travels below

Letters to tombstones It doesn't have to be this way!

Even when the world says "You're moving backwards" I'll stay frozen here for a while

It doesn't mean things have changed (It doesn't mean things have changed) [x3] It doesn't mean things have changed And I guess it doesn't mean things have changed When you're changing The world rearranging I still feel the same, ye-e-e-ah

There's this almost manic, chant-y quality to it on a re-listen, as if--by just repeating it enough times--it'll come true. Which is very in tune with the way Patrizion acted in the dream, of course. This idea that it's not too late, they can still be happy, they can just move on from the rift that formed between them, nothing has to change, we can just be the way we used to be, we can all be together right here in heaven.

He doesn't have to change. Nothing has to change. Why can't you just be happy. Why would you reject paradise? What gives you the right?

It's radio music, it's disco, it makes you want to sing along. It's joyous and bubbly and oh so very superficial--and it's... well, it's Laterano, really, when it comes down to it, isn't it?

Cradling the past, last time we're together Moments between move too fast. Smiling through the years, tears This is my brave face, Loneliness, don't you come around!

This anthem--of what could otherwise easily be interpreted as strength, a man unwilling to compromise himself for a society that has changed so far as to reject the same virtues that have been so integral in the construction of Patrizion's own identity as a knight and member of the church--becomes nothing more than a tragedy, centering a stubborn, lonely old cop who cannot possibly imagine a world different from the one that made him who he is.

Oh, I won't be left alone I'll open up my home They'll come back someday

And I don't want this to just be a "dunk on Miksaparato" post, there's already plenty enough of those around if you look for them, because I do really love the way he is written. He's genuinely very compelling in his flaws and awfulness and the way he is real in a way few other of Arknights' characters manage to be. He's a product of a culture that rewards and nourishes the exact mindset and behavior that has destroyed nearly every meaningful relationship in Patrizion's life.

Nearly.

The letters don't mean, letters don't mean a thing I've got my twilight tears They changed when she came near It's gonna be my year

Fiammetta exists. Fiammetta who goes out of her way to bring him movies whenever she's back, Fiammetta who still talks to him despite everything, Fiammetta who wants to be part of his life

Fiammetta who should by all rights inherit his patron firearm, though the only world where he could envision himself strong enough go through with it was, of course, never real to begin with. She's not Sankta, and will never be Sankta.

It's remarkable to go back to Fiammetta's currently-singular Operator Record, "Paradisus", and read her conversation with Patrizion. Because Patrizion reads her so well you wouldn't think the Sankta had any significant difficulties speaking with non-Sankta. It's no different than any other conversation between a woman and her 'grandfather'.

When Patrizion reminisces about Fia's past training mishaps, he certainly understood the meaning of her tears. When he teases her to the point of barking at him, he recognizes her anger. He's glad to see her angry because he recognized she was being too subdued and morose.

Patrizion says she's lying about the reasons why she's still chaining herself to Mostima, and observes she's not even enjoying her life. That she is actively suffering.

And she explicitly admits that he's right about all of that.

She tries to offer an explanation for her reasons, but in the end she gives up and agrees with what he said.

Fiammetta doesn't convince him to respect her decision through logic or reasons. She convinces him of her sincerity by boldly, casually calling his bluff about issuing an order to make her stay in Laterano. "You won't. You're you, after all."

And that's that. He accepts that discussion is over.

But he doesn't rely on his halo to convey how he feels. He uses his words to spill his guts, lamenting how bored and tired and lonely and forgetful he's becoming. "It feels terrible to be old."

In a way, he's still trying to convince her to stay, to keep an old man company. But it also comes across to me as an admission of defeat. Since he couldn't be the reasonable authority figure who sets her straight, he at least wants to come clean about being the fallible, mortal man who misses his granddaughter. He wants to connect with her at least this little bit, before she leaves again.

I like the sentiment that it's never too late to change; an important keystone everywhere, but that may be the only positive note of the song, if it exists at all.

If he pushed everyone away through the extensive racism and embracing of a flawed system, becoming miserable, then choosing happiness should mean growing, and recognizing that you were the problem.

But it 'doesn't mean things have changed.' Is this saying that it was so easy to chill the prejudice, effortless to become happier if you can just actually do it?

I can't help the feeling that his 'happiness,' in the context of this next stanza, is just rejecting the change, digging his heels in.

After another relationship-ending disaster, instead of exploring and processing his feelings, analyzing the reason for them, he'll choose to smile. But that smile still feels the same, that smile doesn't mean things have changed or repaired the broken relationship. These lyrics are positively sung, but ring so hollow.

It almost seems like a desperate chant, that all of his disillusioned friends will realize that the system works, and that he was right to choose it over them.

That the letters he hasn't sent, (example from his fourth archive file), ones he wrote while seriously considering that he might be a problem, are labeled as meaningless instead of potentially being a catalyst for the most significant change in his life.

Instead of being the cheerful song that his tone suggests, it seems as though it's him deciding that his stubbornness will indeed be the right choice. A stupid, racist old man convincing himself that he can still be happy even as everyone leaves him. That things will get better next year, even as the years roll on and on.

I've been also tuned by my recent media consumption to try and argue for romance even if there's nothing there, so here's a forgery to enable that sort of thing. 1. Columbia *exists*.

Around the time of Patrizion's knighting, Columbia practically declared its independence, dreamt on an ethos of equality, of the pioneers coming together and doing away with their predecessors. Importantly, the fact that a lot of the people there are miners, and so, Infected, means they get their place in Columbia's cultural myth, not getting other'd as hard as anywhere else. 2. Paganini is unreliable when it comes to Patrizion. If A Firearm Technician's Night is reliable, then Paganini's last accounting of Gia was when she boarded her exile ship (Patrizion's there too). He didn't see what happens afterwards, and I will consider his specific line of her being casted into the wilderness as something he practically conjured out of Patrizion's perceived betrayal for over 70 years.

3. Patrizion, for whatever reason, loves Wrankwood.