@rampantbicycle I completed Hanako’s path last night. I didn’t sleep well last night (which isn’t related to KS so much as stress), so I apologize for not collecting my thoughts a little better. There are spoilers here, in case anyone hasn’t seen this stuff and doesn’t want to be spoiled.

The biggest reason I found the end of the game so enjoyable (and the biggest surprise) is that I thought the main character was a scumbag a lot of the time, and the end of the game actually provides a peripeteia that I was not expecting. There is some Aristotle level plot construction going on here, and I can’t help but think back to the reversal in Hanako’s path at which the main character realizes he’s infantilizing Hanako and finally realizes that he’s being an asshole, because I had gotten a little worried that the main character was going to save the day and somehow undo years of trauma by just being there for her (or worse, I worried, he would undo it solely by sleeping with her). I think he saw himself as stoic, but he really just came off as an uncaring, unthinking dick. It was amazing when he admitted that he was being terrible, because even though I found a lot of his actions unsympathetic, I don’t think he was a bad guy, just kind of naive and ineffectual. (He’s obviously not the same type of misogynist as Kenji, for instance, but I think there is definitely an aloof hyper-masculinity there.*)

*A good example of this, for me, is when he makes a point to look down Lilly’s shirt because she’s blind and knows that she won’t notice. He does, however, completely forget the fact that Hanako, the woman that’s supposed to be close with is right there, so he not only leers at a blind woman, which is really uncomfortable, but he also does it in the presence of Hanako, not noticing or caring that she’s there. I think this scene is endemic of a lot of their interactions.

Because, one of the interesting things about Hanako’s path is that you spend very little time alone with her, as most of your interactions are mediated through Lilly, so I think it’s really telling that your character would even entertain the notion of not listening to her with regards to how best to approach Hanako. There’s a real sense of “but I want to fix her….” there that I’m sure is at least one part naivete and another part deflection. After all, if he can “fix” Hanako and her issues, then he can also “fix” his own just as easily, particularly since he doesn’t carry nearly as much emotional baggage as she does. I also feel as if the two are related in his mind, i.e. fixing her will also fix him. And, as we all (hopefully) know, shit doesn’t work that way. Relying on another person for your own happiness is an incredibly unfair thing to do for that person.

As the narrative progresses, in fact, we see just how little the main character learns until very close to the end. He frequently refers to Hanako as acting like “a caged animal,” which is not only an offensive description but also largely incorrect and suggests that his sense of interaction is more fractured than he suspects until the final act. We’re meant to see his issues as largely physical via his accelerated heartrate, but there is obviously an emotional component as well that I wasn’t expecting to be brought up. (Perhaps I’m underestimating the writers. I’ll ask this though: how many of us weren’t underestimating this game going in to it?)

Sorry for the awful structure here. I need a nap.