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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
the-smashor
hikarisora101

Gunvolt’s treatment in cannon bothers me to an unreal degree aka I’m get to rant about this series because I’ve never seen a series treat it’s mc worse

Spoilers for literally the whole franchise

I’ve had some time to think about it and calm down since gv3’s story and come to terms with it and something never sat right with me. And then it hit me. Gunvolt is the most punished character in the series and there is no good justification for it.

Drama tracks pre asg1

The things we learn about gv in the drama tracks are depressing. For reference, I recommend you watch the translations provided on slider’s YouTube channel, since they’ll be my main source for this section.

From what we can tell in the tracks that gv’s childhood pre quill is for lack of better words, absolutely crap. He was one of the subjects of the gv project, and only two that were successful, the other being Asimov. As far as we know he never had a name or at least was never referred to as such only being called subject 78.

As far as we know (because gv cannon likes raising more questions than answers and you have to DIG to hell and back just to find some answers) Gv’s time in sumeragi was miserable until quill decided to make a surprise adoption.

Asg1: and now things get worse

Then asg1 happens and we meet Joule, the other most punished character . Things go well for the pair until the end of the game. There are two ending, the Asimov kills gv and we move to the ix timeline and the gv lives but now Joule lives in his head ending.

The ending where he lives end in the simplest of terms is Gv killing what his basically his father and basically has to leave his friends behind with out a word and now has Joule living in his head. There’s not much of a happy ending here, bittersweet at most but hey at least he gets to live.

Asg2: everyone say hello to Quinn and Xiao

In one of the drama tracks where Gv meets Quinn, Gv and Joule are not having the best time. Joule’s not having a great time considering that y’know she’s basically a ghost and gunvolt himself isn’t having it any better. Now is how he treats Joule here great?

No

However, keep in mind that he’s only a year older than she is and feels like he failed her and has to deal with quill and sumeragi being after him. Not to mention he killed his foster father in an act of revenge. So yeah everything kinda sucks.

Then Quinn happens and she fills the role the of the anchor to Gv’s mental state in a sense in that in order for him to get better he has to come to terms with what happens and let Joule go.

And that partially happens through Michiru (I can’t spell her eng name for some reason) since no matter who you play, Gv ultimately makes the choice to let her go. And it’s for the better because an argument can be made that Joule staying around in her current state isn’t healthy in the slightest. Not helping that before the prayer fight, he internalizes what happened as failure, that there was a failure on his part. Even though, he really didn’t have much control over Joule’s powers getting snatched and Copen wasn’t really helping matters much either.

By contrast Gv never seems to talk about what happened in the previous game, never even referring to Asimov by name only calling him “mentor”. Not helped by him having nightmares about his near-death experience and as far as we know is more content with just leaving it in the past. Which is fine but I wish it would have been brought up at some point.

Honestly, it feels kinda weird that we never get any sort of interaction with Joule that has him or Joule take a moment to talk about what happened. Neither of them talk about their experiences with sumeragi, or the whole Asimov situation. It also doesn’t seem like he ever got closer in that case and I don’t feel like he ever did.

Asg3: the reason this post exists

Now we get to asg3 which is the reason why I made this post, because it’s kinda frustrating in every way.

First we learn that gunvolt’s powers went out of control. One of the conversations have him point out that it could be due to the AB spirits. However due to this he ended up hurting Quinn, afterwards he turned himself in to sumeragi.

Now gv3 does make it a point to say that sumeragi isn’t that bad which is a problem due to all of the child experimentation. Gunvolt himself also makes it a point to bring up that the scientists don’t represent the whole of sumeragi, which while fair kinda feels weird because those scientists were part of a whole project that probably had the company’s ok.

Now gunvolt has been a dragon for decades, which is the story’s justification for abandoning every other plot line

Now we get to a frustrating part in the story which is the duo refights. The problem isn’t that it can be interpreted that they’re a personified version of his guilt. The problem is that because their so late in the story that it feels like the neither the story or characters really press on it. Which sucks because Gv never seems to get closer with Quinn.

Skipping to the end because Asimov and Nova deserve their own posts. Gunvolt’s story ends with him being turned into a baby and going … somewhere.

Now why is this all an issue?

The core of the issue stems from the fact that most of these events happen nearly every time we see him. Every time he gains something he’s forced to lose it. The only times he wasn’t was when he let Joule go.

Copen in the IX timeline at least gets to be able to have some sort of stability and despite having to kill his twin sister at least gains something in the same respect. Compare this to gv where it’s gut punch, gain something, then it’s gone. Gunvolt becoming a villain wouldn’t have been better either.

His story is doesn’t feel fun to go through it feels unreasonably depressing. His story could’ve been better if you just let him be happy for longer than the start or the end of a game.

the-smashor

A few things.

1. Sumeragi is by no means considered “Good” in GV3. It’s absolutely called out for it’s bullfuckery. But, it’s also noted to be a massive conglomerate, and most of it’s employees are unaware of it’s true nature. It’s outright stated that the ATEMS squad probably would have become victims of human experimentation if it wasn’t for Kirin. The idea is less that it’s good, and more that it’s something that needs to be fixed because destroying it would do more harm than good. GV went to Sumeragi because they were literally the only thing he knew of that could stop him from hurting more people. QUILL would try to weaponize him, Copen was missing, Sumeragi was the closest thing to trustworthy he had access to.

2. GV does have happiness, though. His happiness comes during the games themselves. It’s not like GV1 and 2 take place in just one night, it’s weeks or even months. And Gunvolt 3 is almost certainly months. He appreciates the little happy moments with the people he cares about. Being the best big brother he can to Joule, living part of a mundane life with Quinn, telling old war stories to the Dragon Saviors... Gunvolt lives his best life whenever he can, no matter how brief the happy times.

3. Gunvolt 3′s good ending isn’t the worst it’s been for GV, and while you didn’t do this I’m sick and fucking tired of hearing people say the bad ending was better. Sure, he has to leave behind the people he cares about, but it also means he can’t hurt them anymore. He’s no longer a ticking time bomb. And while it’s sad he has to leave Kirin and the Dragon Saviors behind, he knows they’ll carry on his ultimate goal. And while his ending isn’t great... it’s still comforting to him.

hikarisora101

Honestly you do bring up good points. The little moments of good matter and that sumeragi as a whole might not know about the bullshittery that happens there .I do agree that the bad ending isn’t a better alternative.

h0rsemn
h0rsemn

Preamble

I originally intended for this to be a response to a different post however my thoughts just wound up going to how much I dislike ASG3's story for being one of the worst conclusions I've ever waited an unreasonably long time for. So yeah let's just get into it.

Early Game: The introduction to the problems

ASG3 is... An ending to a trilogy. I wish I could leave it at that but I have things to say about this game's story. Firstly the themes surrounding GV the theme of GV's arc is that of living guilt and learning to move on past that and I think this theme is set up rather well because at the literal end of the intro stage GV just got out of being Godzilla (kinda, he's a dog now) and we with he have found out that GV's time as Godzilla+ Sumeragi stealing his electricity to power all of Japan has led to dragon aids floating in the air and turning everyone into dragons. So GVs eternal guilt complex is at least set up rather well it's just not explored as deeply as I'd hoped, the early game (GV and Kirin sealing up the victims of Dragon aids) is fine we get a whole montage of GV contemplating that this whole mess is his fault and Kirin telling him no that's whatever it's's good setup the problem almost instantly starts at the mid-game (Atems pull up) and almost instantly the guilt complex loses focus which you could consider fair since GV's guilt complex seems to have come from the dragons fucking shit up but as the late game reveals that is not at all the case.

Late game: The problems

Starting straight with the true nature of GV'S guilt complex it is the manifestation of his every failure from falling to save Joule in the first game all the way until now. Now that's a lot to unpack but we are at the near end of this game and good lord we are far too late to unpack it at this point and it shows. For starters we only delve into this in full *during the duo boss fights and nowhere else* but even then even then at the absolute most it vaguely brings shit up just vaguely and GV can't even say anything about it the poor bastard, Kirin has to come in and save him from the ghosts of Christmas past while at the same time saying that the ghosts may have a point so it doesn't do anything in the end. Even worse is that the absolute *most* that occurs is the game framing GV as a thoughtless murder hobo and not elaborating at all. Once all is said and done GV's inner monologue right after his him still doubting every action he has ever taken so that whole segment is just frankly rather pointless AND THEN THE ENDING MAKES IT EXTRA POINTLESS

The ending: Peak Garbage

Gunvolt 3's ending is to put it frankly PEAK GARBAGE, half those problems are Morbus and how he just pulls up out of nowhere and is too goddamn powerful for there to be a final boss that could possibly top him in terms of stakes and the other half is very sadly how they handle Gunvolt. To start he's been possessed by Morb and Kirin has to fight him leading to one of two possible endings the bad and true endings. The bad ending it's just GV killing himself and Kirin crying about it that's about it and the true ending is Morbvolt getting all sealed up, Morb telling GV that he's gonna nuke the planet to death and that the only thing he can do is turn himself into a baby about it and so he does that. The bad ending is fine I guess I don't have any real thoughts about it other than it at least being a culmination of GV's guilt complex that he's been dealing with the whole game (have fun with those implications). The true ending on the other hand is the worst thing ever and it's not because GV being a baby now makes no sense or is stupid and contrived(it is rather contrived tbf), it makes perfect sense despite Morb pulling up from out of nowhere and that make it worse because BABYVOLT IS A CULMINATION OF ***NOTHING*** IF THEY JUST HAD GUNVOLT KILL HIMSELF AND LEFT IT AT THAT THE GAMES STORY WOULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN MEDIOCRE BUT NO THEY HAD TO WRITE ONE OF THE WORST CONCLUSIONS OF ALL TIME THAT CAME FROM FUCKING NOWHERE, JUST BEFORE GUNVOLT BECOMES BABY HE CONTEMPLATES "man if only I could redo my whole life" WHICH BRO HAS NEVER ONCE THOUGHT ABOUT IN HIS WHOLE LIFE AND IT INDIRECTLY AND GOES AGAINST THE THEME OF LEARNING TO LIVE WITH AND MOVING FORWARD WITH LIFE PAST YOUR GUILT HOMIE DIDN'T LEARN SHIT ABOUT LIVING WITH REGRETS OR MOVING ON FROM THEM HE JUST TURNED INTO A BABY ABOUT IT AND LEFT WITH ZERO ELABORATION NONE, NADDA, NULL. HE'S A BABY NOW LIVE WITH IT, ON YEAH BTW ENJOY YOUR NEW PROTAG BYE.

you cooked with this chief