VN Talk: My Vow to My Liege - Part 3: Goujian

Even though Yiguang is the poster boy of My Vow to My Liege, I feel like the game may have been created with Goujian in mind as his route is the longest out of all of them.

I had a difficult time with Goujian's route, not because of the being on opposite sides thing (star-crossed lovers from feuding nations is all right with me), but because both he and Fuchai keep running hot and cold throughout the entire run. In the beginning of Goujian's route, when he's trying to figure out whether Fuchai actually trusts him, it was understandable, but as it wore on, I kept wanting them to make up their minds whether they loved or hated each other, and one or the other or both would keep bouncing between love, hate, and more rarely ambivalence (that wouldn't last).

I suppose, being a romance game, the answer is ultimately yes, even in the bad ending, but it's a long conflicting road with a fair bit of mood whiplash. The changing feelings are more understandable when prompted by something, but sometimes they aren't, so it's frustrating when they won't commit.

Like other routes, Goujian's story diverges following the naval battle with the Kingdom of Qi, during which Ng's supply ships were attacked. Given that the ships were traveling through a hidden route through the river tributaries that few knew about, there had to be a mole on the Ng side of the battle. If the player has gone through any other route first, it's pretty obvious that the mole is Goujian, but Fuchai at this point in time is still fully trusting of him. She and Goujian just swore a hundred years of friendship between their kingdoms and she released him to go back to his people.

Following the battle Goujian is prickly with her because it's obvious there was a mole, and he's the most glaring suspect. She says she trusts him, but he finds that difficult to believe given the circumstances, and when he pushes her to swear that she does not suspect him, she refuses on account of him acting so defensive.

What can be difficult to see, particularly in the early chapters of his route, is that Goujian has been getting mixed signals from Fuchai for a long time and his anger is nothing recent. We know they met before he realized that she was actually the king of Ng, which is why they use the affectionate nicknames Ahyu and Ahjiu, but we don't get the circumstances until his route when Fuchai enters the Spiritual Realm and lives out a mirror version of his circumstances, where Ng is defeated and Fuchai is the one enslaved.

This lets us see how Goujian came to care about the one person in Ng who was kind to him, while also feeling betrayed upon learning that his "friend" was also the king holding him prisoner and demanding his people pay tribute. While Goujian did not know who Fuchai was at first, it was impossible for Fuchai to not have known Goujian's identity, making the sincerity of her friendship suspect. Unfortunately for Goujian, he'd already started crushing on her by then, which made him extremely conflicted and understandably upset, leading him to forging an alliance with the Dragon God and his followers.

This revelation comes very late in his route though, leaving his behavior bewildering for most of it. He betrays Fuchai at the naval battle, but then he's mushy with her on the road to war with the Kingdom of Qi. A short while later he betrays her again at the conference with the Kingdom of Jin by ripping open her clothes to expose her chest and gender to the other kings, and then he's… sorry about it (or not, depending on choices made).

From Goujian's point of view I understand why he backstabbed Fuchai at the conference. He swore his revenge would not come without Fuchai suffering the ultimate humiliation, and his action, aside from being devastatingly personal, theoretically put the entire Kingdom of Ng on the backfoot. Being her lover at the time probably helped wedge the knife in, and I'm fine with that if Goujian's decided that his commitment is to his revenge, but being apologetic while exposing her didn't work for me. He can't have it both ways.

I'm less surprised that Fuchai's feelings bounce around after his second betrayal, but she seems surprisingly forgiving of it. Even in the bad ending when she's reconciled herself to the fact that they're enemies, it feels more like she's lamenting that their relationship can never be because they're the kings of two nations at war rather than because he placed his desire for revenge over her.

The good ending also felt a little… easy, considering what Goujian has done. Despite what happened at the conference, Ng having an openly female king turns out to be a non-issue and Fuchai gets to marry Goujian. I don't know exactly how that leaves things in his home nation of Yue, but Wu Zixu makes it clear that Goujian is marrying into Fuchai's family, and not the other way around. Goujian is a little put out, but that didn't bother me. If nothing else, I'm glad Fuchai didn't step down and/or run off with him.

But this made the conference chapter very irritating to me. Literally the only reason it exists is for that scene where Goujian humiliates Fuchai, because it doesn't appear on other routes, and has no bearing on the remaining story beats, not even the Goujian specific endings. It doesn't even bother to show the reactions of the other kings before putting Fuchai back on a boat for her capital, further cementing the fact everything about the conference was irrelevant except for Goujian.

I think if not for the conference scene, and if Fuchai had just been a little more suspicious of him, I would have liked Goujian's route better, but I just can't forgive him.