In case I haven’t made it obvious enough, I absolutely love Lucia. As such, I felt it neccessary to post something on this topic. I wish that I would have had another chance to read through her route another time before Kazamatsuri closes, but with school and work, I’m not sure that I would have been able to it. However, I remember a pretty good chunk of it, so I feel confident in my thoughts, feelings and everything else I’m going to say. In case I get some information wrong, feel free to correct me.
To start, I’d like to say that I like that her route doesn’t begin with the aftermath of Inoue’s disappearance and the revelation that Lucia and Shizuru are Guardians and that Chihaya and Akane are Gaians. Honestly, when you have to go through the same long scene four times, this is pretty refreshing. You could argue that I could just use the skip button after the first time, but that just takes the fun out of visual novels for me. That part is also very long, so that doesn’t help. (Side note: the build up to the baseball game in Little Busters doesn’t bother me as much because I feel it’s much shorter, there are more options that came make the journey to the game different from other playthroughs that don’t affect the route you’re trying to get to, i.e. the haunted school scene, and it ends with an actual game, rather than more redundant reading). Plus, I really like the story of how Kotarou and the rest of the club (minus Akane) try to get Lucia and Chihaya to make up. I especially found it funny when, after the parfait shop workers spiced up the parfait, Kotarou got Chihaya to power on and continue eating and suffering while Lucia continued eating with a big, adorable smile.
Next, I’d like to talk about the Haruka Asahi part. When I was reading this part for the first time, I actually fell for it (I haven’t read any of Ryukishi07’s other works, which apperantly really on unreliable narrators alot, but I plan on changing that soon). After it’s revealed that she and Lucia are the same person, it does kind of feel out of left field. The scene where Lucia is talking to Haruka in her room does feel too much like part of a different story than what we got. You could argue that, given all the trauma and experimentation Lucia has gone through, it’s some form of schizophrenia, but I wish we could have gotten a few more hints about what was actually going on. Besides that, the photocopier part still confuses me. I still don’t understand the part about how more text appeared after Lucia grabbed the extra paper.
I love Maid Lucia and the date scene. Yup.
My biggest gripe with this route is Kotarou’s stupidity. Throughout the whole scene were Lucia was saying she has no purpose because she’s just living poison, and he just kept going on about how they can get medicine to help her, even though that really didn’t help the first time, and just didn’t tell her how much he loves hers, I was just shaking my head in frustration. Even though I just said that I love the date scene, when Kotarou said “I’m only going to say this once: I love you,” I was like, “Wait, that doesn’t seem right.” Everyone has already expressed this opinion, but I still felt the need to say it myself.
Finally, I’d like to talk about my thoughts on why Lucia is a somewhat controversial Key heroine. After she ended up killing thousands of people during her rampage, she was left unpunished. Many people who have posted here say that she should be punished. What do I have do say? I don’t want her to be punished, but I understand why some people do. What I DON’T understand is why when punishment is brought up, Brenda McFarden isn’t mentioned. I mean, I think that people who say that Lucia should be punished also believe Brenda should, as she was the one who sent Lucia on her murder spree. From what I remember, it’s revealed near the end of the route that someone was paying her for Kazamatsuri to be poisoned. This alone makes her more deserving of punishment, compared to Lucia who was suffering from the psychological trauma of everyone and everything dying around her by just being near her since she was a child (Brenda was ALSO responsible for that). On top of that, even if Lucia had refused to go out and kill thousands on her own, those thousands still would have still died, as I remember it being stated that Brenda had a backup plan to remove Lucia’s nervous system and use it as a weapon. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, even though Lucia did end thousands of innocent lives, she really isn’t entirely to blame, and I’m going to stand by that.
Those are basically my thoughts on this route. One more thing to note is that, even though the writer, Ryukishi07, is apparently a highly praised artist, this isn’t really considered one of his better works. Like I said, haven’t played Umineko or Higurashi yet, so I really don’t have much to compare to. But even if I did get around to reading his other works, I don’t think the experience would match to this route. I guess I’ve gotten attached to Lucia, seeing how she, and Rewrite as a whole, had an effect on me. I mentioned on the podcast that me and the Buff Busters recorded for the Winter Festival about how Rewrite inspired me to start my own recycling habits. A lot of it came from Lucia, and I hope that I can continue to recycle for years to come.
With all that being said, Lucia will always be my best girl.
Maid Party cosplayer!
