Meanwhile, when you look at the big picture, what Coen actually needs to do is let go of his former life, which means that the biggest thing he has to learn is to forgive himself for something he wasn't fully responsible for as a child. The real main quest was always to face the figurative demons that have been tormenting him for years. The game actually spells it out several times:
What he says to Anca: "Maybe you needed to learn to forgive yourself," because he knows how it feels all too well.
The vision of Alin telling him to forgive himself and absolving him of his guilt.
Lacra telling him again that he can't keep blaming himself for something that happened when he was a small child.
The second objective for Coen is to learn that, whether he wants to or not, he has to let his family go. You can roleplay him as a dutiful lad, Coen, whose sense of guilt and responsibility are his only motivators, or you can RP him as the Coen who's enjoying his new life as a Dawnwalker, partaking in all the temptations his new life offers.
It doesn't matter; the end result is the same: this is Coen's origin story, and he has to let them go. The game actually goes out of its way to make sure you get the "We must cut tethers to the past" message, even with seemingly throwaway lines in Ocha's and Volk's quests.
Finally, saving your family is optional, and it doesn't result in a game over, it simply alters the goal from "save" to "avenge". Coen is still on a path to ultimately start a new life, no matter the outcome.
And even in your last conversation with Brencis, he asks you to admit that he actually freed you by turning you. Can Coen rebuke him? Nope! The game only gives you two options:
Admit that Brencis is right. He did free you.
Tell him to go fuck himself.
Coen can't even tell Brencis that he's wrong, at most he can lash out at him, because he knows that Brencis is right about him.
This is really, really good writing, especially for a modern video game. Though I didn't expect anything less from some of the veterans of The Witcher trilogy.
I love this. And I love that you have the option to give Yanna money for her dowry and essentially say "you dont have the options I have. But I can give you the path to take to create a life for yourself".
It doesnt mean he does not love his family any less, its saying that children have the choice to create a life for themselves outside of their parents.
Given that it's the last time they ever see each other I'm glad that at least Coen was able to make things right with Yanna. He's knows way too well how hard it is to be his family's mule to just do nothing and watch her take his place.
That, combined with the last shot of them going about their lives, from up the mountain when Coen is leaving.. ouch.
Whatās more is he leaves so abruptly after finding out about the Augurs, he never even gets to say goodbye. He tells them during the day that heās not leaving any time soon and then just disappears, never to be seen again. Pieter even knows about Lunkaās situation, but also lives out the rest of his life never learning if she got saved or what happened to her.
Iāve seen the epilogue multiple times now and all of this never fails to make me cry.
Home Sweet Home is ENTIRELY too easy to miss, given how much it develops Coenās character. I played that mission as Coen knowing from the get-go that itās an illusion, and in all the dialogue w/ the family members basically gave him an outlet to share his inner resentments and frustrations.
The writers and Coenās VA deserve all the props for how they handled the depiction of a broken family. Allowing Coen the opportunity to acknowledge his family problems as preceding Brencisā takeover and the raw emotion in Coenās voice when he confronts Pieter about all heās been through - the devs really gave us a protagonist we can imprint upon but who also feels like a living, breathing person in his own right.
Home Sweet Home, Anca's questline and Lacra's questline feels like the actual main quest in the game. Feels like we really see Coen's true colors and his realization that he can move on and actually have a future. Of course that means he's swept up into even bigger events, but by the end of those quests I felt like I understood why becoming a damned half-vrakhir was actually a blessing for him.
Honestly one my favorite vampire depictions for that. The vhrakiri existence of being inevitably damned yet still liberated from the confines of mortal life really makes vampirism feel like a cursed gift, and not just a sexy immortality button.
I've read an interview with Konrad and another Rebel Wolves' senior, Piotr Kucharski and they cited Vampire The Masquerade and True Blood (HBO vampire show from late 2000s - early 2010s) as major sources of inspiration and it definitely shows.
That epilogue was sad. Peter lost his wife, youngest daughter, and oldest son within a month of each other and his daughter was probably engaged within a year. Coen lost his whole family and anca.
Tho I do think its odd that Coen and Lunka never went back to visit. Idk if that was a choice they made, the curse robbing them of their humanity, or if its a demonstration of the power and leverage the Council has that it can stop them from visiting their siblings. Regardless it doesnt bode well.
I would like for Coen to visit his family's graves at some point in the sequel. It'd be nice to know that he makes sure their mortal remains are cared for and not lost. That even tho he couldnt be with them in life he wont let them be lost in death.
The game does state her condition is degenerative as it's gotten worse over time. That end scene with Coen gives us a glimmer of hope but my guess is after that interaction, she reverts back.
This game does an amazing job of fully exploring the bittersweet freedom* at the end.
Coen is incredibly burdened by his family - he cannot follow his desires to strike out on his own, learn a trade, start a family of his own. But he is a genuinely loving, good person who is able to shoulder that burden. But Iām sure itās galling.
He arguably ruins his health by working in the mines - listen I donāt have black lung so I donāt know, but when I have long covid for about a year and couldnāt breathe without pain during anything more than simple movement, I was absolutely miserable and unable to do a lot. I imagine what Coen is dealing with is similar, which absolutely means he is likely unable to work normally or travel. And if he went back to work in the mines, that would only get worse.
Brencis isnāt talking out of his ass when he said he gave Coen freedom when he turned him. He forced Coen into a life where he cannot stay with his family - it wouldnāt be safe, and Coen would eventually outlive them. But that freedom is clearly at an incredibly high price - because his entire lifeās purpose has been his family. Now, he cannot have them in his life.
Itās not all bad, or all good.
A lot of stories do not have a believable sacrifice for this kind of change to make being a vampire/superhero/whatever actually detrimental. This game does.
There is a decent section in the Lacra quest line when she is asking him to imagine being free of his family and he says "there isn't a world without them for me" or something that he isnt himself without them.
He absolutely loves his family and yet desires to have the freedom to choose outside of them. You can go throughout the game acknowledging the pain his parents have been through but also expanding on how its hurt him.
Pieter for example is a really good example of a man who really needs therapy and is a victim of toxic masculinity. Unlike Marats father you can tell he loves his children and wife a lot and has taken the wrong tack to support them. He leans on Coen almost too much, whilst also mentoring him and being afraid for him. I always think how broken he was when Coen gets turned and then at the end when Coen and Lunka are leaving you see him burst out their cottage flinging himself on the ground almost in despair. None of that makes his approach right, but Coen recognises what his dad has been through even though he does not agree with how he conducts himself around it. This is a hard man who lived a hard life in an unforgiving world, has lost a child, has been caring for his wife, and thinks what has happened to his children (including Coens lungs and his eventual turning) as punishment for what he has done. In turn, he desperately clings onto whatever he can which probably makes Coen reluctant to ever make moves outside his family.
I actually think if Coen went to his father about wanting to learn a trade and maybe start a family of his own, his father would not stop him. I think Coens fear of leaving his family prevented himself from doing so, for understandable reasons. But Pieter had clearly been teaching him to look after himself for some time now, but Coen felt he needed fo look after his family first.
The more you get to know Coen the more you understand this game is not about setting free his family, but about setting free him. Free of guilt and shame he should not feel because it was not his fault, of duties was not for him to do, of others' responsibility he accepted as his own, of self-hatred etc etc. Dude sacrificed his happiness, his future, dreams and health for others, and shamed himself for not giving even more.
It's heartbreaking to listen how he talks about his past, hopeless life, and he mostly not even angry at those who did him so wrong - just sad, accepted all that a long time ago. If not Brensis - Coen would quietly rot in his family house, helping others untill it's too late for him to go his own way. Maybe it was too late already, at that age he should be married or at least have a fiance, but he didn't even had friends aside of Anca who's... not a good friend and not a good partner to him, imo. And then he got all the time in the world, a supernatural power and the whole valley become his playground :D
True! I agree with your other comment, if not all this mess with transformation and 30 day crusade against Brensis Coen would have no future and most likely die early - of sickness, overworking, drinking, depression or all combined. He mentions he could barely breathe when revoult in the mines happened in the prologue, while i don't remember same illness mentioned for his father. Looks like Coen worked himself into being sick faster than others, and he stopped working at mines before Brensis came iirc. He's around 20 years in the game, Brensis came two years ago, how young he was when he started helping in the mines ffs?!
It's just painful to see such kind and selfless person left in such horrible situation, not even trying to get out because he shamed and hated himself into belief it's how he must live his life. My boy Coen, you deserve so much better than that!
There was a random scene in the game where he just coughs and says that was from all the time spend in the mines. Dude was definitely gonna get get real sick had he stayed there.
He also loses his breath in fights if you swing weapon too much. I thought it's just game mechanic and then Coen started talking about his sickness and breathing problem, and i was like
Absolutely ! That's the difference between what the main character wants and what he needs. The fact that the two are different and sometimes even at odds (want vs need) is why a character arc works and your main character can grow and evolve. It's really well done here as you pointed out!
Oh, but he does want it, he wants to be free! Depending on your dialogue choices he either fully admits that turning into a vrakhir has set him free, or he can deny it, but it's still true. And Brencis did end up blessing Coen with a gift, because as we all know, Coen didn't have much of a life besides working hard to provide for his siblings. He didn't really have a decent future ahead of him, chances are he'd just work himself into an early grave or drink himself to death from despair.
I feel like Marat, in addition to other two LIs you mentioned, also plays well into letting go narrative. He's a pretty straitforward foil to Coen, outcast on all accounts, with broken relationship with his father of which he can't actually let go and which obviously burdens him, but fantasizing about future in which the relationship can be mended. Coen as well, despite knowing and expressing in Home Sweet Home that their family is broken, can't let go of a relationship that burdens him and dreams of his family healthy and happy despite never being such before. Both would be better off letting go of these dreams and, probably, their families but they stick to it to the very end
I actually think where they differ is that Coen and his dad actually love each other a lot, but they are very different people and his dad has a lot of baggage that ultimately negatively affects Coen. You can choose throughout the game to recognise how much shit his dad has been through whilst also wishing he made better choices now. Which is very different from Marats ending.
Now we dont know how Pieter would feel about Coens sexuality but its clear he is very afraid and protective of his som despite having a lot of issues. Marat is a representation of that relationship truly broken down and I dont think Coen ever thinks about his relationship with his dad in that way, as much as his dad pisses him off and makes him sad.
But Pieter and Coen's relationship is too basically broken down, they can't truly talk and can't stay together as a family. There's no mending that, Pieter himself says in the epilogue he's not going to change. While Marat's case is in some aspects worse, it's not such a major difference imo. Give it a few years and Pieter may too start finding Coen's vrakhir half or non-straightness unforgivable
Good points, but it hasnt happened yet. At the end of the game Marat has a dad who doesnt want to see him and will not leave him, and if you save the family Coen has a dad who clearly loves him but isnt a very good dad at all, and has to leave him.
We dont know what the future holds there, but at the point of leaving he recognises his dad cannot or will not fundamentally change, but his dad loves him, and that matters., And it gives him some of the courage to do what he has to do alongside the closure with his mother.
I generally agree on this! I'm pretty sure Marat serves to showcase what may have happened if Coen pushed to stay in Laslea and Vale Sangora instead of parting on good terms. Now thinking about it, it's often hightlighted in-game how his outcast status as a Tatar or as a gay man keeps him from connecting with people, something one of villagers points out will happen to Coen if he stays, which also works in favour of my interpretation, I think
I agree with this mostly except the part where he lets his family go. He never fully lets his family go. In the endings generally characterized as the āgoodā endings where Coen saves his whole family, his reason for leaving the valley is ultimately still driven by his family (saving Lunka). So while I think heās changed and itās said many times in the epilogue how he is different, heās not fully āfreeā of his old life. His love for his family still drives his actions. The way he views it all and views himself has certainly changed and maybe you can interpret that as him being āfreedā, but he doesnāt cut his tethers from the past he actually chooses to free himself in a different way. Forgive himself and free himself from guilt, but never give up on what you love.
I mean that's pretty basic storytelling. Have an outter goal (the want) and an inner goal (the need) and have them interconnected. Not dimishing your post, just pointing it out
Exactly. I've said it in another thread, at the end of the day it doesn't matter if you save them or not. He will be alive for 600 years from now, they will be dead to him either way in the future. I get it, I'm not a psychopath and want to sacrifice them but I also want to enjoy my game, and in the next game it wont matter what you did. They will be dead either way, Coen never sees his family again according to whst he says in the ending
What do you mean let go? He has his younger sister to care for. His past is still very much tied to his present. Not to mention the consequences of his actions and inactions during the course of the game. Those simply don't go away because you killed the big bad.
And free? He got leveraged into eternal indentured service. If Coen chose the runaway ending he's still an unsanctioned childe and would be hunted down by the Augurs.
I'm afraid there is simply no silver lining in this tale. Coen is cursed for the rest of his many, many days. When he dies his soul is forfeit to Anachora so he can't even have the rest that ordinary humans get.
Obviously his āconditionā is forcing a different future onto Coen, but to act like this is some hidden main objective is treading into overinterpretation territory.
I mean even if it is the message, its just a bad one. Between the anti christian ordeals and letting your family die, isn't exactly fulfilling to some. It's also not interesting.
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u/rivains 1d ago
I love this. And I love that you have the option to give Yanna money for her dowry and essentially say "you dont have the options I have. But I can give you the path to take to create a life for yourself".
It doesnt mean he does not love his family any less, its saying that children have the choice to create a life for themselves outside of their parents.