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So, yeah. First time I cry during my second playthrough of Suikoden 2 and it has to be because the dragon pup is adorable. I'm pathetic. :D
Covering the essential parts of the mythology: The Dragon Knights are a clan the same way a Gypsy tribe is a clan. An essential rite of passage is that each kid bonds with a dragon. The dragons are in our world through the influence of the True Dragon Rune, possessed by the leader of the Dragon Knights, and they are hatched in the dragon caves where the children are also raised. If a child doesn't bond with a dragon by age six, he or she never will and has to leave the tribe (I'm assuming his or her parents come too, or he or she is adopted by an ally clan -- I'm not really sure how that works, the game isn't specific). Maybe it's rare for a child not to bond with a dragon, though. If anything ever happens to a Dragon Knight's dragon, the knight must also leave the clan, at least until he or she finds a new dragon.
So. When we first meet Futch in Suikoden I, he is the Dragon Knight assigned to carry your party to Leknaat's island. He's a smart-mouthed kid who brats off to Ted and threatens to throw someone off the saddle. His dragon's name is Black. Later on, Futch goes to the evil emperor's hanging garden to get a plant which is the second element in the cure for the sleeping curse that the enemy had cast over all the dragons. The bad guy shoots Futch out of the sky. He's found unconscious. When he wakes, you have to tell him that the third element in the cure for the sleeping curse was a dragon's liver, which came from Futch's dragon Black, since Black was already dead when your party found him in the woods. That's where the game leaves it in Suikoden I. Futch leaves with one of your party members, Humphrey, and you assume that he's searching for a new dragon so he can return to the Dragon Knights.
Futch's story picks up midway through Suikoden II when you discover him in a little village south of the Matilda Knights. Futch has a conversation with a kid from the village. The kid is super excited to learn that Futch grew up in a Dragon's Cave and might someday fly in the skies again. Futch eventually promises the kid that if he gets a new dragon, the first person he'll give a ride to will be the kid.
The first time I saw that scene, I just thought it was touching. But knowing what I know of the end of the story now, I could catch Futch's reluctance, his long pauses, his hesitancy to really promise anything. Because -- Futch never wanted a new dragon. He let everyone around him believe that was what he was looking for, but Black was his best friend and that was it, in his eyes. I didn't get the impression that Futch didn't want to return to the Dragon Knights. He did -- just not at the cost of bonding with a strange dragon.
You find this out at the head of a mountain where the kid runs when Futch goes to rescue him. There is a wild dragon egg at the top of the mountain -- something that's not supposed to exist, but does happen from time to time. Everyone tells Futch to go take the dragon, that this is what he's been looking for all this time. Futch confesses that Black was it for him. Humphrey raises his sword to destroy the dragon. You and your whole party are horrified -- how could Humphrey do such a thing? Humphrey explains that if the dragon pup doesn't have a mother or a Dragon Knight to care for it, it'll probably die young, and even if it survived, it'd be a monster that a human knight would have to slay. Either Futch takes care of it or Humphrey kills it. And of course, the pup chooses that moment to hatch, and it is the CUTEST THING EVER, and really, Futch is left with only one choice.
The thing that made me lose it is, Humphrey explains quietly that having a new dragon isn't a betrayal of Black's memory. At the same time, Futch isn't really listening -- he approaches the pup and says "it's okay, come here." He names the little dragon "Bright."
The idea of betrayal is the thing that made me think of the Xena connection, although the two aren't quite parallel. Xena has to "move on" from her past or she won't be able to function. Plain and simple. But usually in day to day life, we speak of letting go of the evil we've done as if -- and I guess it is -- forgiven and wiped out. Usually. But Xena had killed a whole lot of people. That's not something she could or should just let go. We spoke on the boards of how, for pure survival's sake, Xena had to think of the person who did all that evil as a separate person. But at the same time she couldn't forget those she had killed; that would be disrespectful to their memories. So it became a very complicated dance, the tension between Xena recognizing the good she could do in the present moment and avoiding betraying the memories of those she had harmed irreparably.
Covering the essential parts of the mythology: The Dragon Knights are a clan the same way a Gypsy tribe is a clan. An essential rite of passage is that each kid bonds with a dragon. The dragons are in our world through the influence of the True Dragon Rune, possessed by the leader of the Dragon Knights, and they are hatched in the dragon caves where the children are also raised. If a child doesn't bond with a dragon by age six, he or she never will and has to leave the tribe (I'm assuming his or her parents come too, or he or she is adopted by an ally clan -- I'm not really sure how that works, the game isn't specific). Maybe it's rare for a child not to bond with a dragon, though. If anything ever happens to a Dragon Knight's dragon, the knight must also leave the clan, at least until he or she finds a new dragon.
So. When we first meet Futch in Suikoden I, he is the Dragon Knight assigned to carry your party to Leknaat's island. He's a smart-mouthed kid who brats off to Ted and threatens to throw someone off the saddle. His dragon's name is Black. Later on, Futch goes to the evil emperor's hanging garden to get a plant which is the second element in the cure for the sleeping curse that the enemy had cast over all the dragons. The bad guy shoots Futch out of the sky. He's found unconscious. When he wakes, you have to tell him that the third element in the cure for the sleeping curse was a dragon's liver, which came from Futch's dragon Black, since Black was already dead when your party found him in the woods. That's where the game leaves it in Suikoden I. Futch leaves with one of your party members, Humphrey, and you assume that he's searching for a new dragon so he can return to the Dragon Knights.
Futch's story picks up midway through Suikoden II when you discover him in a little village south of the Matilda Knights. Futch has a conversation with a kid from the village. The kid is super excited to learn that Futch grew up in a Dragon's Cave and might someday fly in the skies again. Futch eventually promises the kid that if he gets a new dragon, the first person he'll give a ride to will be the kid.
The first time I saw that scene, I just thought it was touching. But knowing what I know of the end of the story now, I could catch Futch's reluctance, his long pauses, his hesitancy to really promise anything. Because -- Futch never wanted a new dragon. He let everyone around him believe that was what he was looking for, but Black was his best friend and that was it, in his eyes. I didn't get the impression that Futch didn't want to return to the Dragon Knights. He did -- just not at the cost of bonding with a strange dragon.
You find this out at the head of a mountain where the kid runs when Futch goes to rescue him. There is a wild dragon egg at the top of the mountain -- something that's not supposed to exist, but does happen from time to time. Everyone tells Futch to go take the dragon, that this is what he's been looking for all this time. Futch confesses that Black was it for him. Humphrey raises his sword to destroy the dragon. You and your whole party are horrified -- how could Humphrey do such a thing? Humphrey explains that if the dragon pup doesn't have a mother or a Dragon Knight to care for it, it'll probably die young, and even if it survived, it'd be a monster that a human knight would have to slay. Either Futch takes care of it or Humphrey kills it. And of course, the pup chooses that moment to hatch, and it is the CUTEST THING EVER, and really, Futch is left with only one choice.
The thing that made me lose it is, Humphrey explains quietly that having a new dragon isn't a betrayal of Black's memory. At the same time, Futch isn't really listening -- he approaches the pup and says "it's okay, come here." He names the little dragon "Bright."
The idea of betrayal is the thing that made me think of the Xena connection, although the two aren't quite parallel. Xena has to "move on" from her past or she won't be able to function. Plain and simple. But usually in day to day life, we speak of letting go of the evil we've done as if -- and I guess it is -- forgiven and wiped out. Usually. But Xena had killed a whole lot of people. That's not something she could or should just let go. We spoke on the boards of how, for pure survival's sake, Xena had to think of the person who did all that evil as a separate person. But at the same time she couldn't forget those she had killed; that would be disrespectful to their memories. So it became a very complicated dance, the tension between Xena recognizing the good she could do in the present moment and avoiding betraying the memories of those she had harmed irreparably.
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