this is the seventh devlog from a series of posts regarding different topics related to talisman of dawn's process. if you have any questions or suggestions of topics, you can say in the comments! thank you. i hope you enjoy this one too.

WARNING: they might have spoilers so be aware!!!

sher and the lovable monster

empathy for the antagonist?...

I HAVE A MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM

these days i remembered that i showed the first finished draft of talisman of dawn to an irl friend. she never played the game, though -- she only read the script and saw some art assets. there were many things she said that stuck with me in a funny way. she's a conservative and religious person, and that might had influenced a lot on her opinions, which made them hilarious to me (and confirmed that i was in the right path).

the one that stuck me the most was that she read the ending scene and said "sher was too harsh with her father." (it was the "BY MAZDA, LET ME LIVE" moment) and i laughed out loud. yeah sher was. that's exactly how it should have been, and as you may know, i didn't change the script.

i watched "little miss sunshine" some weeks ago and reading the comments on letterboxd made me remember that comment again and many others. the shock my friend had reading the narration saying "sex" explicitly (even if it wasn't anything inherently sexual) or reading mudhik talk about how men are supposed to behave like wolves made me really happy. because that's exactly the intention. all of that is there to shock you. the first one is for the purists that think sex is a shameful word and act (been there). the second is to make you think "what the hell?". to make you furrow your brows and feel disgusted. because that IS what you should be thinking when you hear that in real life. because that IS what people say in real life, but in much more subtle ways. all that andrew tate talk? elon musk tweets? it's all about this. it should make you cringe, because it is cringe.

but at the same time, mudhik isn't completely hateable. it is also on purpose. i didn't make him a bad father or an abusive authority. rather, he's very meek if you consider shariar's family. he is funny, and that is the only way i could write him. he is pathetic, ridiculous, pitiful in many ways. i'm sure you could feel some sort of authority over him -- "i'm so much better than this guy, i would never believe in shit like this". maybe you even laughed at his insane commentary or way of thinking. i know i did.

the problem is. mudhik is still in charge most of the story. he is pitiful, but he's still the ganzabara, the treasurer, the counselor, the patriarch, the one that has the final say in sher's life and in shariar's behavior. he has a responsibility as an someone in a position of authority and i think that we tend to forget about that. we (saying this as a brazilian) make memes of fucked up people because "it's better to laugh than to cry" then never do shit. never rebel. only complain. only say "it's all going to get worse", "we can't do anything", "these guys will always win". fuck, we even say "they're there because they are competent, we have no right to say anything". i think that logic repeats itself in the argument: "sher shouldn't be so harsh on her father". even if he spent the whole story pushing her into a fucking marriage and to have kids and saying shit about her clothes and appearance. she has no right to YELL for him to leave her alone even if she spent her WHOLE LIFE in silence? that's fucked up.

mudhik never did something obviously terrible to sherazade -- he never used violence, he never threatened her. but does that mean he never pushed her into doing things she never wanted? does that make his selective hearing a good thing? does that make him harmless? no. he still bears responsibility over his own choices. even if he's "lovable", he is still harmful. and i think that, to many people, that is a complicated nuance. "he's not so bad, you shouldn't treat him harshly!!" like victims are supposed to always be the bigger person. let me tell you something: they don't. sher needed to SCREAM to finally set a boundary with her father, and that's okay. he will survive a single shout. but sherazade wouldn't survive trying to reason with him for the billionth time, get it? because that's what she tried before, and that's how she got engaged against her will. it never really worked.

i'm not saying we should explode buildings or kill people. but there are so many things that we could change if we complained to the right people. if we pressured them. if we looked for others that are trying to make a change, if we joined them, hell, if we at least supported them, followed them. if we knew we have voice, if we weren't so scared of being seen as "out of the norm"... the hell is the norm, anyway? living a shitty life and letting others make it worse? great norm we have.

we don't need to make a revolution. sher didn't make one. but we must yell at least once without pitying the ones that forced us into uncomfortable situations. you don't need to kill god -- you just need to stop praying.

CHOICES, CHOICES...

back to the "funny but problematic" characterization of mudhik: why did i make him that way?

well first: i wouldn't have survived writing this story otherwise LMAO. i could make it through because i wrote it as absurd as it sounds to me. i made him funny to make it easier to deal with. to make the story a little lighter (i don't know if that worked, since all people that played said that it was a hard experience).

second: because it was realistic. i know that in real life there are many abusive people that are absolutely evil and have no redeeming traits (or if they have, they're tainted by their rotten soul), but that's not the majority. most people we hear saying insane shit like mudhik are "close" to us -- coworkers, relatives, people you meet on courses. we hear patriarchy and misogyny as jokes all the time. on the internet, they're praised and criticized all at the same time. and again, mudhik was based in a family member of mine -- which is also someone that likes to take everything as a joke. 

i guess we live in a world where people are good and bad -- all at the same time. we shouldn't believe a person can only do good, neither the opposite, but rather be accepting to the fact that we all can make mistakes, and that we can call people out for that. sometimes politely, sometimes harshly. and that's okay. and life will still go on. as it always does.

WRAPPING UP...

i guess that's it. this is the last devlog i have planned, and after this i hope to start working on fixing patches for my other vns. i hope you liked reading all of these ramblings. i had more to talk about than i anticipated, but i'm happy. it's nice to let it all out, for once.

thanks for reading. hope you have a good day or night, and see you around!