Disclaimer: Suikoden 4 belongs to Konami. Which is a credit to me, really, that I'm not responsible for some of those characters.
Joking of course. This hero probably had the thinnest personality of them all (I mean, it's hard for silent heroes to vary so much, but this guy was just creepy looking and weird), so it's hard for me to say if I kept him in-character or out-of-character. Basically I felt Hero forgiving Snowe, even though I hated that him, was a powerful scene because upon like, not killing him, Hero unknowingly saves his own life. Also, when I played through the game again I kind of noticed Snowe wasn't really such a tool after all: The impression I got was while everyone around him was being persuaded into trying their hardest, he was being told he didn't need to work for anything and that everything he did get was because of his father's money. Which is why I call him a "Lost Boy." Oh, the symbolism.
I love the breeze here, love the ways it tickles the ends of my hair against my ears and makes my arms and legs feel weightless. I love the way I can look down my ship's bow and see the ocean reflecting in my eyes among the life bred forth in seawaters.
This is our kingdom, men, gentle to us but harsh to our enemies. She protects us and carries us across her length to lands that I once only dreamed of seeing. There is nothing wholly akin to that feeling when I set my two feet on the docks of an earth many oceans over, when my men push and shout in their ways that bring a brief smile to my face over supper and beer. Being human, we face so many dualities that fall in on themselves: we are limited in a limitless world; our potential ends only when our consent allows it to, but when we expect only an absolute greatness from ourselves we have a right to be disappointed. From a young age we are presented with these two options, to live in the heights of worth or the dregs of banality, to go on pushing forward or forever holding back.
I did love Razril. It would be outright lying to say she wavers far from my thoughts even now. The very mention of the city's name melts my heart something supple, soft as satin, and I long for the simpler days when I was unaware that potential was more than just a word I could hardly pronounce. I suppose it must have been said a dozen times in my presence since I was getting on in my teenage years; each act done to my satisfaction brought me praise I had no idea a nameless servant was capable of receiving. It was a thing easy to drink and settled inside of my muscle as I pushed myself everyday, waiting and hoping that someone would notice me and perhaps take my hand in theirs and shake it. But it wasn't potential that kept me going, nor was I reaching for the far-off slants of glowing limelight; it was more than words and praise. No, a higher force I didn't have the capacity to realize was holding my sword so high. It was a foreboding destiny that filled me with every glance of a fellow knight, every kind word said. Because with every word I was that much closer to the rune, to the war, to the sea.
I think I always saw Snowe as sort of a Lost Boy; one who had life handed to him on a plate but didn't want to sample it. From a young age, the poor, the minorities, the women, the ones with odds against them, all of us who made up the Knights of Razril, were told of how our parents came here and struggled to give us this chance at greatness. That we had no limits; logic and reason and gravity wept in our presence if we chose to be exalted. This is what our commanders, our teachers, our betters in every way told us with every calculated swing of the sword. That because we came from nothing and we brought all odds to their knees, we had to push ourselves and forget however briefly about limitations.
But when the commanders, the teachers, the betters in every way came to Snowe, their only words for him were, "You have had every advantage in your life; you have wealth and a good name in your hand; be quiet and be thankful for all you have." He was a fledgling strangled at the nest's edge. He was a potential left unexamined as we all were pushed off our branches, fluttering timidly there before him and then taking off without a backwards glance.
It wouldn't be conceited of me to say he was jealous in some ways. Never throughout his childhood had he thought money could be a burden, but for his training he seemed to think he had been born into his best and there was no up or down for him to travel on. And when he finally was ready to leave, it was too late; the distance to catch up was too much for a Lost Boy to come in on. We, his friends and comrades, moved right out from under him. Even I in the end was pushed away by him, and in a number of ways I am thankful he had. I do not want to be like Snowe.
He doesn't want me to be like him, either.
And though this rune is a silent reminder of my own limits and my numbered days enjoying this blue-green ocean that carries on inside me even when my eyes close, I am not afraid of dying. I know some piece of me will live on, be it my name or otherwise, and I will live on this earth longer than any immortal coward. My destiny does not end on my last breath; my body is no more than a vessel for a greater purpose. Why should I fear dying when so many die everyday, nameless and with an unexplored life? I am not too godly to be above anger—no, not by any means. I am too human to hold any sort of grudge when Miss Kika holds her sword to his neck and forces his head back with her fist-full of dirty, dredlocked hair that was once a clean and pale shade of blond.
What do you think? she asks me, casually.
Upon my reply I now hold two lives in my hand: His and my own. Snowe seems to writhe inside the rags he wears, but he is too damp and broken to say anything worth noting.
Let him stand, I say. He has come this far, after all.