We cap off a month of Disgaea by looking at the fourth, but not the last game in the series, Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten.
Image taken from gamefaqs.com, by user leonia19.
The story is as follows: In the Netherworld, the souls of sinners are placed into penguin suits and are forced into an arduous life of slave labor. These penguins, named Prinnies, have to first follow the instructions of their Prinny Instructor, who teaches them the basics of Prinny life. In Hades, the name of the Prinny Instructor is Valvatorrez, Val for short, who approaches his job with much gusto. Val, a former demon Tyrant who inspired pure terror in the Human World, is but a shadow of his former self. His man servant, Fenrich the werewolf, awaits the day his Lord will return to his former glory.
One day, as he's finished training a new batch of Prinnies, a wormhole opens up, sucking up the little penguins away! Sensing foul play, Val vows to reclaim the Prinnies. He eventually finds them, about to be destroyed by Emizel, son of the Netherworld President, and Axel, wared of Hades! After a tough fight, Val defeats the two, sending them away, with Emizel vowing revenge.
All is not well, however, when it is discovered that a 14 year old girl is leading the Prinnies in a revolt against the Netherworld conditions! The girl, Fuka Katsumatsuri, refuses to acknowledge the fact that she deserves to be a Prinny, and considers her working conditions to be unfair (20 hour workdays with no pay, no breaks, and a one fish bonus twice a year) Val stops her, and Fuka starts believing she's in fact dreaming, a delusion she never really breaks away from.
Angered at his defeat, Emizel goes to the depths of Hades and pulls out the "ultimate" weapon: the (alleged) Final Boss, Desco! Val defeats Desco, but for some odd reason, the creature keeps calling Fuka "Big Sis". Fuka, however, refuses to acknowledge the little horror as her sister, dismissing the little one as a figment of her dream. Val asks Emizel about the plot to eliminate Prinnies, and learns the truth: the Corrupterment (I admit, I laughed at this name) has declared a State of Emergency, due to the high influx of souls of sinners that are heading towards the Netherworld, far surpassing their maximum capacity, to the point that most new souls are given a Prinny styled hat and jacket because there simply aren't enough Prinny suits for them. Also, the Netherworld government has declared Emizel, the President's own son, to be dead.
Humiliated, Emizel temporarily joins forces with Val towards the Information Bureau to sort out the misinformation. However, they find that it's impossible: the Corrupterment's word is final. Outraged, Val vows to overthrow the President himself, along with his allies: Fuka, Emizel, Fenrich, and Desco. However, a complication arises: an Angel has been stealing funds from the Netherworld!
Val and his crew, the Hades Party, track down the angel and discover that the Angel is stealing funds by direct order of the Archangel of Celestia. The angel, Artina, used to be Val's lover from his Tyrant days, who never showed him any fear. Val vowed never to drink human blood again until she was scared of him (since he is a demon and it's his job to scare humans), so the loss of his strength can be attributed indirectly to her. Artina reveals the reason she's stealing funds: Celestia is in dire need of funds because humans no longer believe in God. No heaven to aspire to, no hell to avoid, humans are becoming a bigger threat to the Universe than ever before, growing more hubristic by the day.
Figuring the reason for this is that the President was no longer allowing demons to enter the human world, Val and company head to the Blight House (Har de har har, NIS) to overthrow the President of the Netherworld. After an arduous battle, Val defeats President Hugo, but learns an awful truth: humans have developed technology that can destroy demons, and for that, Hugo could no longer send demons to frighten humans. Because of this, humans no longer fear demons, and by extension, no longer require the help of Angels to help them. Furthermore, since humans no longer fear demons, then that means demons no longer gain Fear Energy, which they need to survive. President Hugo, then, had to strike a deal with Judge Nemo, a human, in order to survive: a few demon bodies for a little Fear Energy. Val, seeing this as a disgrace to demons everywhere, vows to strike fear into the hearts of humans once more.
Val and company travel to the Human World where they encounter Genjuro, Fuka's father. It is revealed that Judge Nemo had been supplying Genjuro with demon bodies so he could experiment and create the ultimate weapon: Des X, the living Super Weapon and True Final Boss. Angered, Fuka and Desco demand what Genjuro's deal was, and he reveals that all he did was for his daughter, who wished to take over the world. But Des X, envious towards Fuka, killed her, so she could have Genjuro's love all to itself. With Val's help, Fuka defeats Des X, accepts Desco as her true little sister, and somewhat reconciles with her father. However, it turns out that Nemo has bigger ideas: destroy all of mankind!
Nemo has set the Moon to crash unto the Earth! Val and company head to the Moon in hopes of finding the mechanism that's moving it, to stop the Moon from crashing down. With the help of the Archangel, Flonne (in what has to be one of the best guest appearances ever in the history of gaming outside Kingdom Hearts) and her giant mecha, the Hades Party stops the Moon from destroying the Earth!
With one last trick up his sleeve, Nemo unveils his greatest trump card: Fear the Great, a ticking time bomb made by God Himself that absorbs the negativity of all mankind, and once it's full, detonates, destroying everything. Nemo also reveals his motivation: he was a wounded soldier whom Artina, a human medic from an enemy nation, helped heal. Because she helped an enemy combatant, Artina was sentenced to death. Angered at the injustice, Nemo swore to eliminate all mankind. Tired of war and destruction, Nemo acts as judge for all humanity, and has sentenced us all to death. But Val will have none of it! He goes towards Fear the Great itself, destroys the bomb, and has Emizel reap the judge's soul, so the man can go to Hades and work for penitence as a Prinny!
What can be said about Disgaea 4? Maybe I can say that, in my opinion, it's the absolute best game in the franchise, but how can I back up that claim?
First off, there's the story. It's more than just standard RPG fare (heroic heroes defeat evil villains from destroying the world using mystic artifacts that are beyond reach of normal humans), there's actually a lot of meat in this story. There's a lot of themes that are explored here, but first let's look at the story elements the game uses.
The Prinnies are a race of human souls put into penguin suits in order to atone for their sins. Once they atone and the Red Moon rises, they can reincarnate in the Human World. This is a story element that was outright ignored last game, and was barely touched upon in Disgaea 2. In Disgaea 4, however, the lore of Prinnies is expanded more: they need to be instructed by a Prinny Instructor. Furthermore, it is entirely possible for there to be more human souls than Prinny Suits; in which case the human souls are simply given Prinny themed clothing and are then treated like a regular Prinny. If the demon Overlord feels the need to, they can destroy existing Prinnies, take their suits, and give them to the new human souls. Disgaea 4 is the first game in the series to actually use Prinnies as a plot element in the story, whereas the last two games treated Prinnies either as flunkies, or barely mentioned them at all.
This is also the first game in the franchise since the original game to actually develop the lore of the entire franchise in regards to the Afterlife. In the original, we got the notion that Heaven and Hell were real, demons and angels were real, God was real, and the souls of sinners could be cleansed of their sins and reincarnate, but not before going through hell (pun intended). Disgaea 4 reveals that demons and angels serve a higher purpose: they keep humanity in line. Demons terrorize humans, use fear to keep them in the path of the straight and narrow. Angels provide humans hope in times of despair, serving as a counter to the demons: fear gives way to hope, and through this, man steps away from the path of sin and towards the path of righteousness. When I think about it, I find this to be a very, very optimistic view of Divinity, because there's no true evil except the evil we keep within, and even that can be conquered. The game then explores, but not that deeply, just what happens when mankind has neither a Hell to avoid or a Heaven to aspire to.
Of course, being an agnostic myself, I found it troubling as well to suggest that the source of morality is a combination of fear and hope: we're good to avoid demons and to be helped by angels. Is the game making a statement on religion and faith? I'd think...it subtly is.
They say "Character is what you are in the dark", which means that who we truly are, how good we are, is measured when there's no promise of a reward and no fear of punishment. When we have no Heaven and Hell to guide us, can we still be good? I would like to believe that yeah, we can still be good, but is the game saying otherwise? No. The game isn't saying that good is born from fear of Hell and the promise of Heaven, and the game shows us this by making Valvatorrez unambiguously good. Val is a demon, but he's a demon with a strong moral code. He never breaks a promise, brings no needless harm to others, never lies, and goes above and beyond for his friends and loved ones. He's a man whose anger is righteous because it is directed at injustice. Does he drive the Prinnies like slaves? Well of course, that's his JOB! Did he strike fear into the hearts of humans? Well yeah, because that was his JOB. At worst, at his absolute worst, Val was a Punch Clock Villain, a person who was only evil because their job demanded it. Part of what makes his journey so fascinating is just how far he's willing to go for others: he takes Emizel, a young, entitled man under his wing just to see him grow from a rascal to someone who could stand on his own, rather than ride the coattails of his father. He goes above and beyond to help Fuka, first by rescuing her from several monsters even after she attacked him, and later by promising to take her to the President when she stated her desire to change the Netherworld laws. He acts as a surrogate father to her and Desco, giving them discipline when it's needed, and guidance. He treats Fenrich like a comrade, not a servant, which is a far cry from the likes of Laharl and Mao, who took a while to even treat their allies as anything other than peons.
And this is the important part: Val has no reason to be good. He's a demon, so heaven is off the table for him. What does Val have to gain from acting like he does? Nothing. That's the point. A subtle theme between all four Disgaeas is the question of good, and only Disgaea 1 brings it as close to the spotlight as Disgaea 4 does. throughout the series, demons demonstrate a self serving attitude: they have no problems stealing, attacking, killing other demons, etc. But when the chips are down, they are not truly evil, they merely call themselves evil. Demons condemn rape, as seen in Makai Kingdom, another NIS game that takes place in the same universe as Disgaea. Demons condemn using others for their own purpose, as seen in Disgaea 3. Some demons even condemn slavery, as seen in Disgaea 2, when Rozalin showed disgust at Etna's treatment of the Prinnies. Demons don't do good for the sake of heaven, they do good for its own sake. And that's what Val's character can ultimately be said to be: he's good to be good, nothing less. He does it for no greater reason than to respect himself, to do good for others. But why? Because the one time he didn't fulfill a promise, he lost the woman he loved. Val promised Artina he'd protect her, and because he didn't take the promise seriously, she was killed. From then on, Val fought to keep his promises.
By presenting the character of Val, the game states that good comes from within, from our desire to help others. Maybe that desire is driven by loyalty (like Fenrich) or maybe it's driven by guilt (like Val), but it's from a desire to help others where good comes from. And evil? It's born from a desire to harm others.
Nemo was once a regular man, but in his anger and sorrow at losing the best person he had ever met, he sought to destroy all mankind. His anger led to hatred, and his hatred led to his plan to destroy all mankind. Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to evil. But is evil born of hate? Well, no. At least that's not what the game says. The game implies that evil is born from an absence of good, and what that means is that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather, its absence. The game, therefore, implies that humanity is, by its nature, evil, because good is something that has to be consciously done. When people have no fear of hell, they give in to their basest desires: to kill and to steal. Can we honestly fault Nemo for wishing to destroy the world, considering just levels humanity sinks into without a guiding hand?
And the game establishes that yeah, we CAN fault Nemo for wanting to destroy the world. Who is Nemo to act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner? He is no one, merely one man, with one perspective. Yes he is a man who has suffered the hate of mankind, who has seen first hand just how low we can sink. It is very easy to sink into misanthropy when all you see is the evil of mankind. I am reminded of a piece of graffiti found in one of the Nazi camps, written by one of their prisoners: "If there is a God, he'll have to bed my forgiveness." But I am also reminded of a quote by Dr Martin Luther King: "Darkness can not drive darkness away, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive hate away, only love can do that." And in the end, not only is that what Disgaea 4 proves, that only love can defeat evil, but it's also the underlying theme of the entire Disgaea franchise: when faced with absolute darkness, the smallest light can drive it away.
No evil is great enough to destroy love. The four loves (Phillia, Eros, Storge, and Agape) can conquer any evil. Our strength comes not from hate, but from love. Ultimately, it could be said that good comes from love: it is love that keeps demons from becoming monsters, it is love that saves the lost, and it is love that guides the greatest heroes. Disgaea 4 showed all four loves strongly: Eros is demonstrated between Val and Artina, Storge between Fuka and Desco, Phillia between all six characters, and Agape in Artina specifically. In the end, Disgaea 4 is simply the absolute representation of what the Disgaea series is all about: the power of love. It is for this that I consider it the best in the franchise.
Thank you for joining me on this Month of Disgaea. May 2015 bring you all joy.
Val and his crew, the Hades Party, track down the angel and discover that the Angel is stealing funds by direct order of the Archangel of Celestia. The angel, Artina, used to be Val's lover from his Tyrant days, who never showed him any fear. Val vowed never to drink human blood again until she was scared of him (since he is a demon and it's his job to scare humans), so the loss of his strength can be attributed indirectly to her. Artina reveals the reason she's stealing funds: Celestia is in dire need of funds because humans no longer believe in God. No heaven to aspire to, no hell to avoid, humans are becoming a bigger threat to the Universe than ever before, growing more hubristic by the day.
Figuring the reason for this is that the President was no longer allowing demons to enter the human world, Val and company head to the Blight House (Har de har har, NIS) to overthrow the President of the Netherworld. After an arduous battle, Val defeats President Hugo, but learns an awful truth: humans have developed technology that can destroy demons, and for that, Hugo could no longer send demons to frighten humans. Because of this, humans no longer fear demons, and by extension, no longer require the help of Angels to help them. Furthermore, since humans no longer fear demons, then that means demons no longer gain Fear Energy, which they need to survive. President Hugo, then, had to strike a deal with Judge Nemo, a human, in order to survive: a few demon bodies for a little Fear Energy. Val, seeing this as a disgrace to demons everywhere, vows to strike fear into the hearts of humans once more.
Val and company travel to the Human World where they encounter Genjuro, Fuka's father. It is revealed that Judge Nemo had been supplying Genjuro with demon bodies so he could experiment and create the ultimate weapon: Des X, the living Super Weapon and True Final Boss. Angered, Fuka and Desco demand what Genjuro's deal was, and he reveals that all he did was for his daughter, who wished to take over the world. But Des X, envious towards Fuka, killed her, so she could have Genjuro's love all to itself. With Val's help, Fuka defeats Des X, accepts Desco as her true little sister, and somewhat reconciles with her father. However, it turns out that Nemo has bigger ideas: destroy all of mankind!
Nemo has set the Moon to crash unto the Earth! Val and company head to the Moon in hopes of finding the mechanism that's moving it, to stop the Moon from crashing down. With the help of the Archangel, Flonne (in what has to be one of the best guest appearances ever in the history of gaming outside Kingdom Hearts) and her giant mecha, the Hades Party stops the Moon from destroying the Earth!
With one last trick up his sleeve, Nemo unveils his greatest trump card: Fear the Great, a ticking time bomb made by God Himself that absorbs the negativity of all mankind, and once it's full, detonates, destroying everything. Nemo also reveals his motivation: he was a wounded soldier whom Artina, a human medic from an enemy nation, helped heal. Because she helped an enemy combatant, Artina was sentenced to death. Angered at the injustice, Nemo swore to eliminate all mankind. Tired of war and destruction, Nemo acts as judge for all humanity, and has sentenced us all to death. But Val will have none of it! He goes towards Fear the Great itself, destroys the bomb, and has Emizel reap the judge's soul, so the man can go to Hades and work for penitence as a Prinny!
What can be said about Disgaea 4? Maybe I can say that, in my opinion, it's the absolute best game in the franchise, but how can I back up that claim?
First off, there's the story. It's more than just standard RPG fare (heroic heroes defeat evil villains from destroying the world using mystic artifacts that are beyond reach of normal humans), there's actually a lot of meat in this story. There's a lot of themes that are explored here, but first let's look at the story elements the game uses.
The Prinnies are a race of human souls put into penguin suits in order to atone for their sins. Once they atone and the Red Moon rises, they can reincarnate in the Human World. This is a story element that was outright ignored last game, and was barely touched upon in Disgaea 2. In Disgaea 4, however, the lore of Prinnies is expanded more: they need to be instructed by a Prinny Instructor. Furthermore, it is entirely possible for there to be more human souls than Prinny Suits; in which case the human souls are simply given Prinny themed clothing and are then treated like a regular Prinny. If the demon Overlord feels the need to, they can destroy existing Prinnies, take their suits, and give them to the new human souls. Disgaea 4 is the first game in the series to actually use Prinnies as a plot element in the story, whereas the last two games treated Prinnies either as flunkies, or barely mentioned them at all.
This is also the first game in the franchise since the original game to actually develop the lore of the entire franchise in regards to the Afterlife. In the original, we got the notion that Heaven and Hell were real, demons and angels were real, God was real, and the souls of sinners could be cleansed of their sins and reincarnate, but not before going through hell (pun intended). Disgaea 4 reveals that demons and angels serve a higher purpose: they keep humanity in line. Demons terrorize humans, use fear to keep them in the path of the straight and narrow. Angels provide humans hope in times of despair, serving as a counter to the demons: fear gives way to hope, and through this, man steps away from the path of sin and towards the path of righteousness. When I think about it, I find this to be a very, very optimistic view of Divinity, because there's no true evil except the evil we keep within, and even that can be conquered. The game then explores, but not that deeply, just what happens when mankind has neither a Hell to avoid or a Heaven to aspire to.
Of course, being an agnostic myself, I found it troubling as well to suggest that the source of morality is a combination of fear and hope: we're good to avoid demons and to be helped by angels. Is the game making a statement on religion and faith? I'd think...it subtly is.
They say "Character is what you are in the dark", which means that who we truly are, how good we are, is measured when there's no promise of a reward and no fear of punishment. When we have no Heaven and Hell to guide us, can we still be good? I would like to believe that yeah, we can still be good, but is the game saying otherwise? No. The game isn't saying that good is born from fear of Hell and the promise of Heaven, and the game shows us this by making Valvatorrez unambiguously good. Val is a demon, but he's a demon with a strong moral code. He never breaks a promise, brings no needless harm to others, never lies, and goes above and beyond for his friends and loved ones. He's a man whose anger is righteous because it is directed at injustice. Does he drive the Prinnies like slaves? Well of course, that's his JOB! Did he strike fear into the hearts of humans? Well yeah, because that was his JOB. At worst, at his absolute worst, Val was a Punch Clock Villain, a person who was only evil because their job demanded it. Part of what makes his journey so fascinating is just how far he's willing to go for others: he takes Emizel, a young, entitled man under his wing just to see him grow from a rascal to someone who could stand on his own, rather than ride the coattails of his father. He goes above and beyond to help Fuka, first by rescuing her from several monsters even after she attacked him, and later by promising to take her to the President when she stated her desire to change the Netherworld laws. He acts as a surrogate father to her and Desco, giving them discipline when it's needed, and guidance. He treats Fenrich like a comrade, not a servant, which is a far cry from the likes of Laharl and Mao, who took a while to even treat their allies as anything other than peons.
And this is the important part: Val has no reason to be good. He's a demon, so heaven is off the table for him. What does Val have to gain from acting like he does? Nothing. That's the point. A subtle theme between all four Disgaeas is the question of good, and only Disgaea 1 brings it as close to the spotlight as Disgaea 4 does. throughout the series, demons demonstrate a self serving attitude: they have no problems stealing, attacking, killing other demons, etc. But when the chips are down, they are not truly evil, they merely call themselves evil. Demons condemn rape, as seen in Makai Kingdom, another NIS game that takes place in the same universe as Disgaea. Demons condemn using others for their own purpose, as seen in Disgaea 3. Some demons even condemn slavery, as seen in Disgaea 2, when Rozalin showed disgust at Etna's treatment of the Prinnies. Demons don't do good for the sake of heaven, they do good for its own sake. And that's what Val's character can ultimately be said to be: he's good to be good, nothing less. He does it for no greater reason than to respect himself, to do good for others. But why? Because the one time he didn't fulfill a promise, he lost the woman he loved. Val promised Artina he'd protect her, and because he didn't take the promise seriously, she was killed. From then on, Val fought to keep his promises.
By presenting the character of Val, the game states that good comes from within, from our desire to help others. Maybe that desire is driven by loyalty (like Fenrich) or maybe it's driven by guilt (like Val), but it's from a desire to help others where good comes from. And evil? It's born from a desire to harm others.
Nemo was once a regular man, but in his anger and sorrow at losing the best person he had ever met, he sought to destroy all mankind. His anger led to hatred, and his hatred led to his plan to destroy all mankind. Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to evil. But is evil born of hate? Well, no. At least that's not what the game says. The game implies that evil is born from an absence of good, and what that means is that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather, its absence. The game, therefore, implies that humanity is, by its nature, evil, because good is something that has to be consciously done. When people have no fear of hell, they give in to their basest desires: to kill and to steal. Can we honestly fault Nemo for wishing to destroy the world, considering just levels humanity sinks into without a guiding hand?
And the game establishes that yeah, we CAN fault Nemo for wanting to destroy the world. Who is Nemo to act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner? He is no one, merely one man, with one perspective. Yes he is a man who has suffered the hate of mankind, who has seen first hand just how low we can sink. It is very easy to sink into misanthropy when all you see is the evil of mankind. I am reminded of a piece of graffiti found in one of the Nazi camps, written by one of their prisoners: "If there is a God, he'll have to bed my forgiveness." But I am also reminded of a quote by Dr Martin Luther King: "Darkness can not drive darkness away, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive hate away, only love can do that." And in the end, not only is that what Disgaea 4 proves, that only love can defeat evil, but it's also the underlying theme of the entire Disgaea franchise: when faced with absolute darkness, the smallest light can drive it away.
No evil is great enough to destroy love. The four loves (Phillia, Eros, Storge, and Agape) can conquer any evil. Our strength comes not from hate, but from love. Ultimately, it could be said that good comes from love: it is love that keeps demons from becoming monsters, it is love that saves the lost, and it is love that guides the greatest heroes. Disgaea 4 showed all four loves strongly: Eros is demonstrated between Val and Artina, Storge between Fuka and Desco, Phillia between all six characters, and Agape in Artina specifically. In the end, Disgaea 4 is simply the absolute representation of what the Disgaea series is all about: the power of love. It is for this that I consider it the best in the franchise.
Thank you for joining me on this Month of Disgaea. May 2015 bring you all joy.
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