On Eyvel: Better Off...

[Interdimensional Observer]

Dead?

I asked myself this question when looking at a minimalist Thracia 776 run. From a gameplay perspective, Eyvel is hardly useful when she rejoins at the very end of Thracia 776. And having joined in with others on questioning the value of Ninian's deus ex machina, I decided to look at Eyvel in the same light. Does her being turned into stone, giving Leif and others the hope she can be returned to them, and then ultimately being brought back to life, have any real value to it beyond making things end happily? What really would have changed if Veld (or Birdo Berdo if you prefer that) instead of petrifying her, used Jormungandr or Fenrir or some other dark tome and killed her on the spot?

Any instance of "they took Eyvel!" in the plot could be replaced with "they killed Eyvel!" and a revenge motive would have been maintained with just as much strength. Also, Eyvel's petrification is not a one-time instance, even though that's all we get of it. It is stated the Loptyr Cult has a whole collection of statues, including some made during the Belhalla cookout. And what could be more detrimental to the great tragedy than to have the possibility that every PC who stayed behind/couldn't escape the rancorous picnic was petrified and not actually killed? 

On the other hand, by killing Eyvel we lose a lot of good dialogue from 24x- but it's mostly Eyvel worship, though good and appropriately sentimental. Yet, a flashback scene Leif, Nanna, Marita and the rest of the Fiana crew share in a moment of reminiscing and flashback about their shared mother figure could have worked almost as well in showing their love and history with her (set it after C12- a reward for having brought everyone back together after the Manster schism). We also lose, with no way to work around it, the Galzus-Eyvel conversation, which is decent, but I don't think its anything we'd be truly remiss over. And we'd lose the convo where Finn states Eyvel is Brigid, but I'll agree with critics that this adds little to Eyvel, detracts from Belhalla's tragedy, and introduces with zero explanation a new dragon contract thing called a Gesh- a deus ex machina.

 

Having provided the inquiry and offered some of my own analysis on the matter, I open things to the comments of others. In short- would killing Eyvel outright have been better than petrifying her?

Edited June 9, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Slumber]

A good portion of what keeps Leif going after his string of disasters in the early to mid-game is the hope that he can bring Eyvel back. Leif already had a burning bloodlust prior to Eyvel's stoning. So while you can say it's so things wrap up nice and neatly(Things really don't wrap up neatly with Leif even when he liberates Leonster/Manster. Plenty of his allies, like Dorias, are still dead.), it does give Leif some motivation when he really has none in that first chunk of game beyond wanting to rip Raydrik to shreds and free Manster.

There's also Mareeta's motivation for joining the war, which is also to bring Eyvel back.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Slumber

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

17 hours ago, Slumber said:

A good portion of what keeps Leif going after his string of disasters in the early to mid-game is the hope that he can bring Eyvel back. Leif already had a burning bloodlust prior to Eyvel's stoning.

Exactly. Quan and Ethlyn are dead. Lachesis is MIA. At the beginning of the game Leif thinks that his pretend-sister Selphina and everyone who supported them in Alster is dead, plus he lost track of his BFF and ALSO believes his real big sister is dead. Adding Eyvel's corpse to the pile doesn't really do anything other than permanently deep-six a mature, competent, and esteemed female character (already not the most common thing) to give the hero extra grief when he's already wallowing in it. 

I agree that Behalla's impact is somewhat weakened when you count up the number of Gen1 characters who actually escaped the inferno but I don't see fridging Eyvel as a good counterbalance to it.