Rewrite - Lucia Konohana Route & Character Discussion

[quote=“daysofsummer, post:59, topic:1977, full:true”]
Glad there is a topic about this.

Comfortably Rewrite’s best portion to me. I felt it struck the best balance between romance & other sorts of drama - unlike Akane’s route, which is great but in which the main girl appears too little in my opinion (and Akane has always been my favorite, she’s one my top waifus haha). Lucia’s route has that perfect mix of sweetness and heaviness, it makes her character much more touching and lovable. When I started Rewrite I didn’t like her so much, but playing her route I was charmed. It features some of the most memorable scenes of any Key game if you ask me, especially that scene one the rooftop!! I played that one over & over again because it was just so glorious and timeless.[/quote]

This, Lucia Route is my most favorite route in the game as well. I believe that you nailed it, the thing that makes Lucia Route the most facsinating is its balances. The romance aspect between Kotarou kun and Lucia is taken care of, Lucia’s tsundere lovey dovey and their romantic date and kiss, the action aspect is taken care of in the fights between Lucia and Shizuru, and Lucia and Kotarou, the interaction between the heroines aspect is taken care of between the eating parfait between Chihaya and Lucia and their fight,(which I believe is a very emotional scene) and Chihaya also appears here, and the Gaia Guardian aspect taken care off with the scenes about Guardian and its Catholic bent. Also, there is also that scene with Lucia being best meido ~. There’s also horror, and uh, lewdness (Not, not really).

I believe that Lucia Route is the most-written and the most balanced route in all of Rewrite, since it seems to not lack in anything and is well-balanced in all of its elements.

Regarding Lucia, she’s a classic tsundere, turning from the Iron Fist of Justice to kawaii moe character. It’s quite obvious in the Common Route that she’s like that, she shows her more cute and embarassing aspects from time to time, then goes to tsundere mode again. I notice it in Lucia Route in the scene with Kotarou in the bus and her meido scene that she’s like that.

Dunno, but whatever their workflow is, they sure ensure that all of their characters look cute and attractive. Key Visual Arts characters always have this distinct and unique personality, identity, artstyle and appearance to them, whoever the studio adapts the visual novel or whoever author wrote the visual novel in the 1st place, starting from Kanon, Air and Clannad to Rewrite, Angel Beats! and Charlotte. Maybe it’s because the same people designed them?

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I’m pretty sure they give the artist (Hinoue/Na-Ga) a description of what the character is like (a vague explanation), then they draw the character, then they tweak it if the writer wants them to look different (as in hair length or ornament and so on). I’m pretty sure the story is created while they’re drawing the characters and then they might change the characters after reading the whole script. I mean, look at Shizuru’s original concept. I’m pretty sure that they just told Hinoue “Shizuru is a girl in the public morals committee and is OP as heck!” So she drew that Misae San-looking girl for Shizuru’s original concept. Then of course, the route itself would not fit that look, so Hinoue changed it (most likely after reading part of it or the whole thing). Same thing with Shiina from Angel Beats! She has a tendency to say “This is all so stupid” and likes toy puppies. Her original concept was a boy. Most likely because of her background. I’m pretty sure they just told Na-Ga the background to the character and not the character’s personality.

But anyways. Lucia’s route was beautiful :slight_smile: The ending was… Long… Everything else was great. Unlike the other Rewrite routes, this one kept you engaged in the mystery that was happening. By far, one of the best heroine routes of the game. (My favorite route is still Shizuru’s).

Lucia’s route was actually one of my least favorites in Rewrite, the main reason being that the unreliable narration is something that makes sense in Ryukishi’s other works (Higurashi and Umineko), but not here. IMO the mystery was immediately rendered uninteresting when the reveal happened because the entire thing was poorly built, with 0 plot threads behind the inaccurate narration.

This made me have a bit of distaste for the entire first half of Lucia’s route. And then towards the end Kotarou decides to pick up the idiot ball and roll with it for…quite a while. This was honestly one of the cringiest parts in the entirety of Rewrite, to the point where I felt like I wanted to stab my eyes out while reading it.

Couple that with the fact that Lucia is my second least favorite heroine in Rewrite (with my least favorite being Chihaya), and her route just didn’t do it for me.

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Not really. At least, this is not the way it should be. Character designers are advised: character first, design later. Just giving a basic notion would probably result in a pretty poor character design, thus a lot should be known about a character before designing it. Character design is meant to be informative about the character, it can convey lots of things from basic personal traits to even backstory to some degree. So the best choice is to have the character fully developed before designing it, so that the designers can have a full grasp on the concept of said character.

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I noticed that there are a lot of subtle hints dropped throughout the common route about Lucia’s past. Not big things, like the can scene, just small references here and there. Single lines that you would expect are there to fill space or provide humor is you didn’t know better.

When Kotarou tries to feed her the jalapeno and Kotori suggests trading, Lucia denies this saying “The seasoning is far from typical.” Makes sense for someone without a sense of taste. She also, at several points, tells Kotarou to die, fertilize plants, and reduce CO2. The entire game has clear environmental themes but this really makes sense coming from Lucia, who is even more environmentally conscious than most.

Also, Yoshino knew that Lucia had a troubled past that she was hiding, no? That really adds more meaning to these two lines from him when Kotarou is talking about revealing what is under her gloves:
“D-damn iiiiit… don’t you dare remember this… forget it. forgeeeeeeeet iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…”
“Stop it Tennouji, everyone has wounds that must never be reopened… leave her be…”

I’m sure there are plenty more hints I am missing about her too.

I liked Rewrite’s writing before, but this is really another level of detail and quality. It’s a really good incentive to pay attention to motifs and tiny character details in future routes, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of the VN.

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For the K.E.Y.:

It may not be my favorite route in Rewrite, but Lucia’s route is one of the first routes I think of when the topic arises. Lucia’s character and personal struggles are relatable to me in hindsight, particularly in terms of how rigid and strict she acts around others. Much of her anger stems from the fact that she can’t experience the joys of interacting with the world around her. Her route tackles this problem in an unconventional but respectable way, never once betraying her humanity in the process of making the route romance-focused.

I empathize with Lucia a lot in this route, particularly how she’s cursed with abilities she never wanted in the first place. It draws a nice parallel with how it’s difficult for me to express emotion with the same range as others. Okay, maybe it’s not as crippling a problem as I make it seem, but who in the world has the same kind of abilities Lucia has? I feel sorely misunderstood from how others interpret my feelings and actions externally, just as Lucia feels the same even though she tries to do what she feels is right. If anything, her route made me feel a lot more for her than any other character in the VN (yes, even Shizuru).

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Please, our detective blatantly hides information from us. The audience never gets to hear about the old couple having their windows broken, so we just have to sit around and wait for Kotarou to solve it.

It’s not the solving of the mystery I’m after, it’s the shocking factor of finding out it was Lucia all along that I am after

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I also like Lucia’s voice, like a girl just knew what love =))

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I need to reread this route later if I want to put my overall thoughts to this (all I can say is that this isn’t a favorite, but it’s definitely a darn good story), but what I noticed is that the popularity of this route has so much to do with how it fulfills the readers’ expectations so well. I think a lot of people went into this route expecting a lot of Lucia and a lot of romance, and no matter how wildly the narrative changed (from mystery-horror to full-blown romance to idk what to even call it), it never ever let go of Lucia and her relationship with Kotarou. More than the rest of the routes in Rewrite, Lucia route succeeded in being about its starring heroine.

Though I had a different set of expectations when I first read the VN, so I wasn’t really as disappointed as others regarding the romance in other routes.

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I really liked the route. It put Lucia on the number one spot for my favourite character. I liked how the story flows from the common route to her route as it was different from the other routes. I also really liked how the ending song fits the character so well and that date scene was probably the best thing ever. :slight_smile:

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ahem

When I read Rewrite, I fully expected Shizuru to be my final favorite, even when I already knew about Kagari. Shizuru was a nice cute girl and that fit perfectly with my tastes. But then I read Lucia’s route, and all my expectations were thrown to the ground and smashed into pieces.

Lucia’s is, by far, the best route in Rewrite. Although I don’t really like comparing them, since different writers and all, it’s safe to say it’s by far my favorite. The mystery, the tension, the suspense. The romance, the inner conflicts. I am not much of a crying guy, but when I read the chapel scene, I could only try to hold back my tears, and I failed at doing that. It was beautiful, and I completely fell in love with her. The sunflower field, too. All those painful moments, and the happy moments too, everything was great.

The route itself has many flaws, and that I admit easily. The entire class reunion plot felt a bit dragged, and while it did serve its purpose, I feel like it could have been shortened a bit. But even with the flaws I see, I can’t help but rate it a 10/10 route. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me fall in love.

As for the character herself? Well, I’m one of the weirdos who unironically have a waifu, and Lucia is the one for me. I never felt so much emotion before I read her route, to the point where I legitimately fell in love. I’ve always been a fan of the “classical tsundere” character type, and while her physical characteristics aren’t exactly what I usually enjoy, I still fell in love because of who she is. Not Asahi Haruka, not Konohana Lucia, just her. She really makes my days brighter.

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Alright, this seems to be a contentious route with many fans of Rewrite, (not so much here but I have seen a LOT of uh… aggressivediscussion on the topic) and I have to say it has felt… the most different of the routes so far. The difference in tone and pacing between this and Shizuru and Kotori’s routes was palpable, and I honestly really appreciated that.

My favourite parts? Once again, I gotta go with the romance. Rewrite somehow has managed to hit me with not one, but TWO routes that made me fall completely in love with the heroine. And romance is like, the lowest thing on my list of things to get excited about. That scene with the city stretched beneath them as all of Lucia’s dreams came true was just… the most perfect thing. It was so instinctive, and passionate and just UGH i wanted to make those two stay together in that moment forever <3

I also really enjoyed the fight scenes! Ryukishi creates a feeling of momentum that seems out of this world, and even throws in (to quote my notes here) “revolvers that fire as fast as submachineguns but also are shotguns, held gangsta style for maximum effect.” That entire scene leaping across the four or so floors of the shopping mall was just… i loved it so much. And then Kotarou EATS A SWORD WITH HIS BLOOD. Brilliant. I think this is definitely a case of ‘so ludicrous it’s amazing’, ladies and gentleman.

I’m still trying to figure out where I lie on the scale of “Lucia did it it’s all her selfish fault!” to “Brainwashing and trauma absolve her of all responsibility!” But I do want to say i was super excited to watch that plotline unfold, the sheer scale of the toxin outbreak was insane and the CG with Lucia standing in front of the field of sunflowers, watching them slowly wilt until the background was just a barren wasteland, was heartbreaking in an epic sort of way. If there’s one thing I really appreciate about Ryukishi’s writing here it’s how far he’s willing to push his characters, whether you agree with Lucia’s actions or not she was undeniably ‘human’.

One teeny tiny nitpick, Kotarou is an idiot. I don’t think much more needs to be said but poor communication is definitely a theme that has cropped up in Ryukishi’s works before, but there are usually explanations. In this route there is very little reason other than “how can we extend Lucia’s search for purpose past the chapel scene?” Honestly I wonder if they couldn’t have just had Kotarou adapt to her poison when she explodes like a nuke rather than earlier, so he’s not holding onto it for quite as long. i dunno, worth a thought. At the end of the day I think it’s pretty clear that Ryukishi is having a lot of fun with this route, as opposed to posing his usual philosophical questions in express detail. Which is fine mind you, those are the moments when the route shines.

Also we get Lucia maido, perhaps the greatest costume change to ever come from the grand and perverse mind of Ryukishi-sama himself! <3

I take back all criticism. Best route. 10/10 :yahaha:

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Let’s talk about Konohana Lucia and the idea of morality and responsibility. I consider Lucia route Lucia to be not only the weakest link in Rewrite but additionally the worst part of a Key game. I should explain and preface that Konohana Lucia in all parts of the story outside of her own route is one of my favorite characters. Specifically in Shizuru and Chihaya the character represents the story’s themes beautifully. The “graduation” in Shizuru is one of my favorite parts of said routes and her small roll in Chihaya’s route goes far to solidify the ideas of friendship and belonging that Rewrite excels at preaching at its best. Even in the Rewrite anime, Lucia is fantastic, going so far as to sacrifice herself and her roll in Guardian for the occult club in a death match against Tenma, Tenji, and Midou.

All of this goes to say that Lucia is a good character in concept. Rewrite suffers from a lack of thematic focus, but in terms of friendship which is its core tenant Lucia excels as a person. This all falls apart when placed in the context of her own route, however.

Luica is a weakling. her character in Route Lucia demonstrates an unwillingness to change and a fear to trust others. Ryukishi makes some confounding choices in how he delivers the story’s message and expounds upon the conflict. The route starts with a seemingly well paced romance between Lucia and Kotarou, invoking similar themes of being outcasted and the desire for closeness as seen in characters like Misuzu. This romance, unfortunately, is ultimately undermined later in the route. The problem with Lucia manifests in how her development, when put to the test, is ineffective. Lucia does not grow as a result of coming to know Kotarou, but rather shows regression in the face of conflict. When Brenda returns, Lucia’s old weaknesses return, she does not face her problems with the newfound strength of the present, but rather the weakness of her past.

Lucia is weak. She is a character who has suffered tremendously in her short time on this earth, but she does not rise above this weakness; she gives into it. What results is that Lucia does not show how being with the occult club and Kotarou in particular helped her grow, but show that she is still weak and feeble, inevitably killing hundreds of thousands of people.

This alone is not enough to condemn the character. Sin and fault are a good part of character writing. Some of my favorite characters are those wracked with sin, see Beatrice or Sayuri. These are characters who suffer from great weakness, but that weakness is in service of their arc. These two grow past their flaws and it is in that that the characters are able to show their strength. Lucia does not have any of this. She is a weak character, but one who does not grow out of her weakness or face responsibility for the weight of her sins.

After committing the massacre Lucia is not held at fault. She is considered by those around her a victim of a difficult scenario and a tragedy–no one looking at her flaws or attributing responsibility. Kotarou and crew are quick to look at the world around Lucia and forget that, regardless of circumstances, it is her who pulled the trigger. Never once does anyone try and see just where the cross of responsibility falls.

And this is where the route falls apart for me. Lucia is responsible for her actions. Lucia is responsible for her weakness. The cross of responsibility is one that we all must carry. But this does not happen. Lucia is tragic, yes, she is a character that I can empathize with. But that is where the line is drawn. I do not sympathize with this killer who will not live up to her weakness. Lucia is a character who cries and pleads for a lighter load instead of asking for broader shoulders to bear the pain. Life is not fair. We live in a world in which some people suffer with social pressures or anxieties that make their function more difficult. But even so it is the responsibility of the weak to rise above their weakness. It is the duty of the broken to work harder and overcome. Is it easy? Is it fair? No it is not, but that’s life.

Lucia is the victim of abuse, a character who has major traumas and a desire for meaning and closeness that she never got to have. But when that which she yearned for is dangled in front of her Lucia does not grow. She simply falls back on her weakness and does something she can never take back. There is no reasonable guilt, no reasonable responsibility, and no reasonable punishment, Lucia, the girl who longed for friendship more than anything, destroys the home she found and tries to kill the people who carved that home out for her.

This is not the Lucia I am friends with. This is not the girl who called Kotarou her friend in Shizuru’s route, the girl who longed for the simple days of the occult club in Chihaya’s route, the girl who would give her very life so that her friends might live on for another day.

“What did you expect Bread?”

I hear you ask. Did I want Lucia to die for taking the lives of thousands? Well, sure. But more than anything I wanted responsibility. I wanted Lucia to suffer the due for her actions. Everyone’s actions are their own. I am responsible for the person I have become, just as you are and just as Lucia has. Even if we suffer from an unfair world around us, what we choose to do with our lives is always and only our own fault.

I love Rewrite. It’s unfocused and sometimes is directed a little stilted. I would never say that it’s my favorite of the key works, but routes like Chihaya are some of the best even so. But on this route Ryukishi dropped the ball. The messages are told contrary to themselves and the lack of responsibility kills me.

I love Lucia. I love the girl who loves her friends and longs for a place in this world. This spoiled child is not Lucia. This girl is not my friend.

Stay golden,
-Bread.

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I have returned to this land hardened and weary to spit analytical fire upon anyone who would do Konohana Lucia any measure of responsibility-based injustice. You are absolutely right that she is weak. But we must look at why she is this way. Yes, she doesn’t rise above that weakness. She makes progress on rising above it, as she becomes friends with the Occult Club and falls in love with Kotarou. But that progress is constantly pulled out from underneath her.

She is constantly traumatized by literally killing everything she touches, and when she finally has people and a significant other to accept her, the past she was making progress rising above comes back to haunt her. Her insecurities, which she had manage to keep for the most part buried away, were brought back to the surface with the cruel words of the scientists, and then the one person who could ruin it all showed up again, Brenda.

Brenda had spent all of Lucia’s childhood being the only influence in her life. So Lucia, now in this vulnerable state, is of course going to be keen to listen to her. And sure, part of her feels it’s wrong. And you can say she’s not rising above her weakness here. And you’re right. But it’s precisely because she’s in such a broken, desperate and easily vulnerable state of mind. Most reasonable, rational people would have difficulty staying true to themselves in a situation like this.

Brenda also explicitly states, and I know you hate this, that she is given a serum that’ll impair Lucia’s judgment and “make her believe whatever we want her to believe.” So when she goes and kills all those people, she believes it’s what she’s meant to do. And you can’t put that on her. She was literally forced to believe that. If she hadn’t been forced to believe it was supposed to happen, she wouldn’t have done it.

And when she betrays Kotarou and Chihaya and Shizuru and all them, while it’s not provable, she is almost certainly still under the effect of the impaired judgment. A serum that magnifies her poison radius to take out an entire city is definitely going to impair her judgment more than a tiny bit. Not to mention Ryukishi’s style of writing makes a plot like this ridiculously hindered. He loves the typical VN tropes such as letting a problem continue to escalate instead of just having Chihaya tell Kotarou what Lucia needs to hear instead of just hinting at it in the middle of a genocidal life or death battle but nah whatever.

And I know you, Bread Boy, have the personal belief that someone is wholly responsible for their actions no matter what. You believe that despite the fact that Lucia was deceived, manipulated and essentially forced to commit these atrocities, that she is still responsible for the majority if not all of what happened simply because she is the one who “pulled the trigger” so to speak is absolutely ridiculous. She’s not blameless by any means, as indeed, her weakness is what allowed her to be so easily manipulated. But she was only in that state of weakness because of circumstances out of her control. You can’t blame her for that. That’s not okay. That’s almost entirely just incorrect, it’s as close to incorrect as you can get about a belief.

But where I’ll absolutely meet you is that even though I don’t believe she’s wholly responsible for what happened, she deserves a lot more than isolation with the love of her life, occasional visits from friends and literally everything she could possibly need for a happy comfortable life as “punishment”. She at LEAST deserves a slap on the wrist and a bop on the nose.

Konohana Lucia absolutely did some horrible things. But it’s not entirely her fault. It’s not even mostly her fault.

May this injustice never continue so long as I draw breath.

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After rereading through Lucia’s route, I realize it’s my least favorite Ryukishi work, period. Regardless of the morality surrounding Lucia, the fact that this morality is murky and nebulous in the first place proves that the writing has been backed into a corner. There are many mistakes that Ryukishi himself has done correctly in the past, it boggles my mind.

First, I’ll tackle the mystery. Two major problems I have here - first, the use of unreliable narrator. This is something that Ryukishi has done very well in his past stories, particularly in WTC. There, the narrator following this device was actually unsure of what’s going on. Here, the narration outright lies to the reader, having a POV shift to Lucia as she wonders how Don’t wake me appeared on the paper, when she clearly wrote it there. This is an erroneous mystery, as Kotarou presents this at the church scene and she does not deny it. Secondly, her poison power is mentioned here and there in other routes, but her vibration-type power is not, at all. There is a severe lack of foreshadowing in this route, and it’s crazy as once again, Ryukishi does this just wonderfully in Higurashi and Umineko. Finally, even with those errors, the mystery is still very easy to solve. Using Knox will lead the reader to the correct answer very fast.

The church scene itself is the saving grace of this story, and I wish the route ended there, for I am not a fan of what comes afterward. It does a lot more for Kotarou’s character than Lucia, as I will get into. Him becoming a quote machine with lines like “I’ve accepted your world, Konohana Lucia,” are very good.

My biggest problem with this route is Lucia herself, and the way she is written. One of my biggest pet peeves in stories are when characters are expected to be sympathized with by having bad things happen to them, usually in their backstory. Lucia is an example of that. She doesn’t do anything to gain my sympathy, I’m just expected to because of what happened to her. It’s never what happened to a character that matters to me, it’s what they do despite all of that that shows their strength and gives me more to like about them. Kotori does this, and that’s why I love her. At the end of the story, I can’t care about her, because she’s given me no real reason to.

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So it’s never easy to know what happened during production because they do not want us to, but the perfect visual book interview has a couple loose statements about Lucia’s route.

  • Tanaka talks about a time when the heroines were just a design and a short character summary, and they just picked whichever they wanted to work on. Ryuukishi interjects that he was brought on after that. When the setting details had been written out more, they wanted another Guardian heroine. By his wording(かなり後) it seems like a decent amount of time had passed, but there’s no way to specify.
  • When Ryuukishi started writing, they only had parts of the Kotori and Chihaya routes written. For an unspecified scheduling reason, he had to finish quickly. Because Shizuru wasn’t written, he expanded on Guardian’s setting himself.
  • It seems he was also concerned with balancing Key’s history and his own writing style, but the idea was that any problems could be changed later in production.
  • Lucia’s route was the first route finished and was apparently not edited very much.

It’s impossible to say whose decisions were involved in this, but given the end result I don’t think it’s unfair to say Lucia’s route probably needed a second draft after more routes had been written.

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I find it very interesting the more that i dig into the production of Rewrite, I still have Chihaya and Akane’s routes to go (and then Moon and Terra) but I’m certainly under the impression that the… writers were not all on the same page, in fact there were a few posted notes sent with bullet points for the setting, and then the writers were all locked in secure isolation until Rewrite was released (obviously with voice acted lines being recorded by way of the air vent adjacent to each of them). I really would love to see this story remade with a more cohesive vision, maybe a Rewrite 2.0? I dunno, could be fun :stuck_out_tongue:

So my… kinda problem with this argument is that neither side is satisfactory, either we’re arguing for a character with the worst moral compass imaginable, OR we’re arguing that the character had zero agency, thereby depriving them of their role in the story. If we argue that Lucia is not responsible for her actions, then she literally is just the ‘nuclear bomb’ we’re told she is by the scientists who attend to her during the story, and honestly I find that to be an even worse option. I get it, she’s got a sad backstory, and got all drugged up with ‘Drug X’ but that basically cuts her out of the equation and doesn’t grant her any respect as a character. I actually think that believing she has an amoral compass is more compelling than excusing her as being manipulated by others.

The problem is that this would lead to a bad end for Lucia, and we can’t have that in Rewrite. Oh no no no. We have to get our amoral heroine to the end to have our ‘bittersweet’ ending, when honestly I would have been more satisfied with her going full villain, showing her downfall. Maybe if Ryukishi had gone back to redo the latter quarter or so of the novel he might have changed it to be a more tragic end for Lucia, but as it stands I’m a little disappointed after some reflection (although sword-eating blood is still rad). It’s a writing problem, and I hope to see Lucia being a little less awful going forward :yahaha:

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I disagree. Within Lucia’s route, the girl’s character changes from one who simply followed the path of mediocrity in an uninspired way, to becoming someone who is conflicted about purpose and meaning. Ultimately this, due to a multitude of factors, ends in what could be considered a bad way… But no doubt she evolved as a person.

Sure she’d never had to make a decision before so she messed up. Sure she was drugged, and indoctrinated, and surrounded by idiots… Sure she killed a bunch of people, but who cares? That was never the focus of the route to me. It was hardly even something to focus on.
To me the thing that makes Lucia route good is the questioning of self and the certainty (and sometimes uncertainty) about what Lucia wants. It’s not about what Lucia wants as a Guardian member. It’s not about what Lucia wants as Shizuru’s friend. It’s about what Lucia wants for herself… And we don’t really get that anywhere else in Rewrite.
It may not be an evolution in the eyes of some, but to me, watching Lucia become this person who can admit that she herself exists and that she has desires (despite her upbringing and everything she knows) is very heartwarming and entertaining. Comparatively she’s so empty and uninteresting in every other route… A trashy “Hi I’m an incredibly shouty girl and I sometimes protect this one character for reasons very lightly described.” That version of Lucia sucks.

Honestly the worst thing about Lucia route is the people surrounding Lucia. They’re all incredibly stupid, and it reflects very badly on the core progression.

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You see my guy, we get the question of what Lucia wants as a person in the Shizuru and Chihaya routes as well, but in the context of those two we get that conflict through the eyes of a stronger Lucia. Lucia is a character that has always been defined by her desire for normalcy and human closeness and we can see in the Tonokawa routes that Lucia had a strong desire to maintain the occult club, even hinting that she would some day return to the new occult club formed at the end of Chihaya’s route. In these instances Lucia has a goal and takes actions to address it. This drive is no where to be seen in her own route though and that’s where it all breaks down for me.

Instead of fighting for her friendships as she does in other routes she abandons them and then kills thousands of innocent people. I fully understand that Lucia is the victim of abuse and circumstance, but it was ultimately Lucia’s decision to take Brenda’s hand, to cling to her bad habits, and it is Lucia who is responsible for Lucia’s actions.

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