xenogears
@xenogears

found myself listening to the vesperia soundtrack and getting extremely emotional about the way the game portrays karol and the kind of relationship he and yuri have with each other throughout the game. there are a lot of fun character dynamics in the tales games, but it's this one between a freakass too-laid-back vigilante and an incredibly annoying hyperanxious kid that hits the hardest for me


right from the moment you're introduced to karol, he's set up to be an annoying character. a literal 12 year old who is terrified of everything despite trying to project a veneer of bravery and heroism. his voice is shrill and squeaky, he has all the wrong things to say, he speaks up when he really shouldn't, he thinks it's cool to name things like "Super Awesome Hyper Protectors of Justice" and shit like that. he is extremely 12 years old

any other game, even other tales games, would pretty much immediately turn karol into a comic relief character. and it's not like vesperia doesn't do this, either! a lot of the early interactions with karol portray him as a bumbling idiot coward, the butt of every joke for a good hour or two of the game. and to be fair, it's fucking funny

but what sets karol apart from so many other kinds of characters like this is that behind his extreme cowardice and pride is a kid who genuinely knows what he's talking about. he's smart! he's really fucking smart! you wanna know how to track down that eggbear? that's literally how he's introduced. he's the way you find the eggbear. you wanna know more about how guilds operate in relation to the empire? karol will rattle off every relevant detail and then some. just about every time the early game party has questions about anything in the world, it's karol who comes to the rescue

a lot of the issues people have with karol as a character come from their refusal to accept that they're talking about a fucking twelve year old. yeah, he's annoying. you ever met a 12 year old who was too excited about like fucking roblox or something?

besides cowardice and knowledgeability, i'd say karol's other defining trait is ambition. he's very driven by grandiose ideas unbefitting a child. you know, like 12 year olds do. he wants to kill the big scary monster that he quivers at the mere mention of. he wants to impress nan and get back into the hunting blades by killing giant monsters he can't possibly handle. he wants to create and run his own guild!

the other thing that helps to set karol apart is in how yuri, the main character of vesperia, interacts with him

like i said before, other games would treat karol as little more than a joke. maybe he gets some short redemption arc or something to endear him to fans, but it wouldn't be particularly meaningful. with that in mind, one might expect yuri to use karol as a punchline, calling him names or calling his ideas ridiculous, and especially not being down for karol's naming conventions. yuri is such a teaser with everyone else, surely karol will get it worst of all?

nope!

yuri will occasionally make jokes at karol, and will tease him a bit for his cowardice when they first meet, but very quickly he shifts into a role of supporting karol, almost like a big brother or supportive relative or something. he's never mean to him in ways that leave lasting impressions. any time karol has these ideas far bigger than he could ever contain, yuri doesn't even offer a single word of discouragement. he wants to hear more about it. he encourages karol. he offers to help him. he always has his back.

when karol first pitches the idea of starting a guild, yuri shows absolutely no resistance. he supports karol, joins his guild, and insists that karol be the boss. he gives karol absolutely no pushback about naming their guild The Super Ultra Courageous Braves, a name that no other character in the party can seem to take seriously. yuri doesn't care. he knows what it's like to be on your own with nobody but yourself to support you, and he does not want that reality for karol

genuinely, once you play through this game with the realization that yuri is doing everything he can to support karol's growth into the kind of kid who can 1v1 a boss when the entire rest of the party is down, their relationship hits way harder than anything else in the game

and hey, let's talk about baitojoh, the boss you have to fight with just karol (initially)

my first time through the game i fucking hated this part. i didn't like playing as karol, i mostly thought he was the annoying comic relief character, and i didn't know how to play as him. admittedly, i don't think i was wrong to hate this part. it's supposed to serve as a climactic defining character moment for karol but if you don't know how to play as karol you just get your fucking ass kicked

but, in context of the story, this moment does in fact fucking rule. karol never takes on anything alone up until this point unless you're a freak doing a challenge run where you kill all the other party members. and as you might've caught earlier in reference to naming the guild, the other party members don't have the same kind of faith in karol that yuri does. they are mostly supportive, but are also the first to speak up (or if you're rita, smack him) when he says something childish or inappropriate

yuri doesn't.

he's the one person who always has karol's back. and it's this moment that proves he was right to do it, it's this section that shows the kind of person karol can be with the love and support he was never going to get from nan, tison, and the rest of the hunting blades. all they ever did was put him down

yuri didn't.

and now he's alive solely because of this incredibly annoying 12 year old kid.

it's genuinely incredible the kind of relationship they managed to build between yuri and karol without watering it down with a ton of scenes where he's just getting made fun of. like, again, i'm not gonna pretend they don't tease karol, but it's not malicious. it's not telling him he can't do it. it's not calling him stupid (unless you're rita but like who does she not call stupid) (also she's 15 and emo it's okay)

i love this stupid fucking kid so much


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