(SPOILER) Gautham is one of the most relatable "villains" to me

[Chocos Ramabotti]

You see, he was the game designer of CrossWorlds an game which already features pretty odd choices for an MMO, which are generally designed to please the broadest possible demographic (since they are an high risk, high reward investment)

There are several hints inside NPC interaction in the game that lead to the belief, that the game was already made more player-friendly over the course of time. For example once VPR's were an ressource, quicktraveling wasn't always possible, you can turn off player sense to temperature and so on.

Also CrossWorlds has an high emphasis on instanced solo content, of course since this is a single-player game this makes sense to us as a player, but its also contexualized several times in the game, how annoying this is to people like emily who only want to play the content together with other people.

Gautham who is in fact the blue avatar, comes along pretty snobbish, narccistic and arrogant, but a later twist reveals that he is only LARPING (Live Action roleplaying) to the player, giving the impression to an almost infeasible threat.

He seems to be obsessed with testing the player in all sorts of activities, CrossWorld in fact is full of such things that always test the players skills to a certain degree, even the most insignifant seeming sidequests. This is contrary to the usual MMO design where the activities are just busywork to keep you on playing and relaxing in the game. Sure even modern MMORPG's have trials but there are as optional as possible and rarely you have to prove yourself alone, you can always rely on someone who ich much more competent than you in playing the game.

In his dialouge tidbits during the ascension of the vermilion tower and his final dialouge you can clearly see how fed up Gautham is with all of this. Sure he is the game designer, but he doesn't has fully control which ideas will become implemented in CrossWorlds (you never fight "The Creator" in the game) this is still for higher-ups to decide which also are dependend on players feedback.
This means Gautham always had to restrict himself in creative freedom regarding the form of challenges he is allowed to present to the player.
Seeing how a game you made, you love is slowly turning into an casual thempark mmo, into tedious routine where it only counts to repeat the same boring tasks over and over again was clearly gruesome for his psyche.

With Lea finally he saw a chance to craft this ultimate experience he always seeked for, this means his motivation were differing from the motivations of sidwell from start up, all he cared for was creating the ultimate player challenge, fair, but still extremely tasking. The game of this dreams that was always denied for him. At several ocassions you can see that he never wanted lea to fail, I mean she even fails one time, but he didn't annhilated her, leaving her always wiggle room to escape.

I believe he wanted to see her grow so that at the final point she was able to succesfully clear the ultimate game challenge which wasn't allowed to be in CrossWorlds. After that was fulfilled he had no reason longer to move on.

You see as someone who is frustrated with modern MMO's who loved the high risk old school approach and who is generally more into older single-player action games /RPG's
Seeing the decline of games likes WoW, who are no longer the same game they were from stat up.

I can kinda understand his frustration, of course it became too much of an obsession for him, but I think it presents an interesting take what the lack of creative freedom over a longer span of time can cause to an eccentric persona.

I read a lot of players were kinda disappointed with the motivation of the villain, but I think this small nuance of Gauthams personality, which is a bit disguised as a critic to modern MMO-design approach (at least I see it slightly as that) pretty much leads to an satisfying conclusion in some kinda way I feel bad for this guy and all the pressure that was tasked on him dealing with sidwells business.

He always seemed like a villain but in the end all he cared for was giving us utmost pleasure by unlocking our true potential having a great challenging experience. In the end we can't deny we had a lot of fun.
Or at least if you are so into puzzles as I am. :P

[Merim]

I feel Gautham is more of anti villain. He only did what he had to do. At first he sided with Shizuka against Sidwell, but then he starts behaving differently. He sided with Sidwell but at the same time he doesnt. Same goes with Shizuka, and Shizuka notice how strange he acted which encourages her brother Satoshi to just not tell him because of it. They thought he sided Sidwell, and it looks that way too.

But at the final dungeon in the main game, Sidwell intends to not give others a chance to reach him while Gautham, as The Designer, doesnt allow it despite working for him. Because its HIS domain and only HE makes the rules, not Sidwell. So, he wishes to challenge Lea fairly and if she wins, she allows to have access. He had already snapped since the very beginning and when Lea defeated her, made him not only snapped out of what happened, but also looked totally broken to the point he committed suicide.

Gautham is much more of a victim than Shizuka, Satoshi, and pretty much everyone. Sidwell abused him hard just to get what he wanted. Sidwell is more of a villain than Gautham, despite his well mannered nature in the end which he intends to act like he didnt do it. Truth be told, he didnt expect the outcome to happen, but he could have prevented if he didnt do what he had to do for his own selfish goal.

According to his dialogues in the final dungeon, he only simply seeks "The Ultimate Experience", which turns out thats his own goal. Not Sidwell's.

[R3DSH1RTS]

Originally posted by Merim:

I feel Gautham is more of anti villain. He only did what he had to do. At first he sided with Shizuka against Sidwell, but then he starts behaving differently. He sided with Sidwell but at the same time he doesnt. Same goes with Shizuka, and Shizuka notice how strange he acted which encourages her brother Satoshi to just not tell him because of it. They thought he sided Sidwell, and it looks that way too.

AKA. he's more confusing than the "Bouncer" modifier.

[Merim]

Originally posted by R3DSH1RTS:

Originally posted by Merim:

I feel Gautham is more of anti villain. He only did what he had to do. At first he sided with Shizuka against Sidwell, but then he starts behaving differently. He sided with Sidwell but at the same time he doesnt. Same goes with Shizuka, and Shizuka notice how strange he acted which encourages her brother Satoshi to just not tell him because of it. They thought he sided Sidwell, and it looks that way too.

AKA. he's more confusing than the "Bouncer" modifier.

Bingo, but in the end before his demise. He has always been on their side and only wanted to test Lea if she's worthy of it. Sidwell cant do anything to Gautham because its HIS domain. So HE is allowed to make the call. He used that opportunity to face Lea and even was nice enough to make a deal. He followed his end of the promise after his defeat. You can also tell after his defeat, he finally starts talking normal too.