This doesn't mean that I disliked Paschalia, but he's a difficult character to get a feel for on the common route. He's described as being almost ethereal, and that's as apt a description as any. He's soft spoken and non-confrontational. He seems kind, but in practice rarely volunteers to do anything helpful. (The other guys will even mention he didn't help them set up their tents.) He's kind of like pretty wallpaper that happens to be able to do some magic.
We know from the prologue that Paschalia's flowing appearance and blue hair show that he's bonded with a powerful water spirit since the stronger the spirit the greater the mark they make on the person who forms a contract with them, but he seems reluctant to use water magic and wants to find another powerful water mage. But none of that is brought up again unless the player selects him during town events, so if you're not already aiming for Paschalia, he's left something of a gentle enigma.
Now, this is a relatively recent release so be aware there will be spoilers after the break.
I feel like I didn't start to see Paschalia as a character until the end of Ion's route when he suggests Jinnea tattoo the ring's brand on his forehead during their group branding session. It was like "Wow, Paschalia made a joke at Jinnea's expense!" Granted Jinnea makes himself an easy target, but normally it's someone else who takes the shot.
Doing his events make it easier to see Paschalia as a person since he and Tifalia bond over whether they feel up to the level of their more accomplished companions. Paschalia is from a rural village so he's a little naive and unused to the big city. Despite being bonded with a powerful water spirit, he sees himself as very ordinary, and because of this Tifalia can relate, having been a waitress at a very ordinary restaurant up until the day she signed up.
But we don't really get his backstory until after his route starts, and for pretty good reason. Paschalia is hiding it.
So yeah, Paschalia's secret is that he has a fatal illness, which was not hard for me to figure out given that he appears to be convalescing in his hometown when he writes letters in Zafora and Ion's endings, but could come as a shock for someone who plays his route first.
And surprisingly, given Radiant Tale's hit or miss sense of continuity, there's actually a good reason it's only revealed on Paschalia's route and not the others. He works with Colivus on his magic skills, and Colivus is nervous about actually performing, which is line with his personality, so when he screws up and summons ice shards instead of snowflakes in the middle of a performance it's not pulled out of nowhere. Paschalia intervenes, but it takes so much water magic to protect his fellow performers and the entire audience, that he passes out shortly thereafter and symptoms of his disease begin to appear.
In a nutshell, Paschalia has a congenital disease that causes his body to expel more water than it can take in, leading to cracks in his skin, paralyzation in the limbs, and eventually death. People afflicted do not normally survive to adulthood. Paschalia did, but that didn't mean he was in good shape. The water spirits he'd befriended were concerned about losing him, and pleaded with an older spirit to help him, which she did. She meant to form a proper contract with him, but in his weakened state he couldn't actually fulfill his part of the pledge, so instead she synchronized with him, using her own mana to keep his body running.
However, while she's merged with him, she can't refresh her mana, so she will eventually die unless she undoes the synchronization, and when that happens, Paschalia will die. The reason he avoided using magic at first was because he was trying to spare Vita's mana, but eventually he was having so much fun going on an adventure with CIRCUS, a feat he never could have done with his illness, that he started to care less about finding a solution to his illness and just enjoying the time he had left.
Which, to me, was a perfectly fine outlook for a terminally ill person to have.
But, this is a romance game, so Tifalia develops feelings for Paschalia and finds the fact he doesn't want to think about the future off-putting. While I didn't mind her putting her foot down and dragging Ion out of his mental prison in Ion's route, I found her invasion intrusive in Pascalia's route. His illness was obviously something he wasn't comfortable sharing, and a major factor in not reciprocating any affection from Tifalia.
I can understand why she would feel shut out, and want him to fight harder for his life, but at the same time, it's not her fight. She's not his wife or even his girlfriend yet, and I don't like how the game flashes over previous things Paschalia has said so Tifalia can read into his previous dialogue, conclude he doesn't really want to die, and then rub her interpretation all over the place while he's unconscious.
Well, duh. I never thought he wanted to, but reconciling himself to death is not the same as wanting to.
I know she's a teenager who has never been in love before, and Pascalia has never been in love either, but geez, give the man some space! Is it any surprise he plays unconscious when he first starts waking up after being restored at Vita's spring? It's fine that everyone encourages him to look for another solution, it's fine that they worked on one without him, but it felt like everyone was hurrying him along to fit the pace they wanted rather than what he wanted.
When they get to Oriens in hope that wearing the Lacrima Earrings left behind by the Great Spirit Leve will sustain both him and Vita, Tifalia gets very needy and sad about Pascalia being unwilling to plan a future with her. And the thing is, they don't know if the earring plan will work. Pascalia knows this, and he also knows that wearing the earrings will halt his aging, creating the opposite problem of his friends and family dying while he remains eternal. It's a lot to digest! It would have been nice if he could have said, "Hey, Tifalia, I need some time to figure out if this solution works" and then she could just respect that and chill.
It all works out in the end, and of course they end up making the Leve Vows as telegraphed in the common route, even though I think that was awfully tasteless of Leve to sneak it in there as a condition for Pascalia's survival.
Being a Great Spirit, it's unsurprising that even the fragment of the original Leve that remains behind in the Lacrima Earrings has something to say about what is an appropriate use of her artifact. And it's not surprising that she could heal someone affiliated with a water-based illness, but as a spirit it's unsurprising that she can be capricious and cruel.
Understanding that Tifalia is willing to risk her life for Pascalia she imprisons her beneath the sea and gives Pascalia until sunset to find her or the magic that she gives them to breathe underwater will fail. Despite the fact that this is terrible because if Pascalia fails Tifalia will die, the CIRCUS team just sends him on his way with their good wishes and then turns the whole thing into a performance (so they can end the route with a show like all the others). They let everyone in the city know two of their members are challenging Leve and ask for everyone to send them encouragement, which they do in the form of a newly bloomed Flora. Even Leve gets into it, using a curtain of magic to broadcast the finale to everyone in the city.
But even though it's happy and the celebration music is playing, I had absolutely no doubt that if Pascalia failed, Leve would let them die, which made it really hard to get into the same mood. The reason people in the city stopped doing Leve Vows was because of the punishment if the couple fell out of love. She would turn her blessing into a curse.
When Pascalia finally does make it to Tifalia, Leve makes it clear she plans to bless them, which will heal Pascalia, after she hears them promise to each other. You as Tifalia have the opportunity to realize that Leve is requesting that they do the Leve Vows as a condition for Pascalia's survival, but obviously the romantic option is not to question it and just go with it. I guess I'm not very romantic, but I think knowing in the back of your mind that a powerful spirit is going to wreck you if you fall out of love, would make for a terrible environment for love to thrive.
While not the final thing I want to bring up, I did want to touch on the twin charms that Pascalia and Tifalia use to find each other underwater. Initially Pascalia buys her one in the common route and she buys one for him in return after his route starts. They're intended to be used in pairs as they discover from Liyan, with the charms filling with color depending on their feelings.
Now, you'd think that the charm Pascalia gave Tifalia would reflect his feelings, so she would know how he thinks of her, but that's actually not how it works. The charm shows the wearer how they feel about their partner. Which is like… what the hell? It's like saying "Hey, I'm giving you this gift that will show you how much you care about me every time you look at it." What kind of partner gift exchange is that?
And the only reason it works in this ass-backwards way is so when Pascalia finally comes to terms with his feelings for Tifalia, his charm glows and points the way to her. But because this is so non-intuitive I didn't realize what was happening in earlier scenes when they were separated and staring sadly at their charms. I thought Tifalia didn't want to look at it because she was afraid it would show Pascalia didn't care about her. What was she afraid of then? That she didn't care about him as much as she wanted?
I was hoping after Ion's route I'd be free of this nonsensical plot stuff, but no such luck.
I did manage to enjoy the ending a bit despite my grousing. The rest of CIRCUS accidentally chattering into an open mic and Radie acting like he was giving away his daughter was pretty hilarious. But it seems further proof to me that Radiant Tale is more good character writing than good plot writing.
This leaves me at the door to Radie's route and we'll tackle the furball next week!
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