Yuri Lowell: Why you might relate to him more as an adult than you would as a teen.

[rumynoir]

I doubt I’m the first one to say this, and I don’t think I’ll be the last:

If I played Tales of Vesperia when I was a teenager, I don’t think I would’ve connected to Yuri Lowell as much as I do now. In fact, I see more of my teenage self in Rita Mordio, which personally, is extremely frustrating knowing that I was so much like her when I was younger. ...Yes, that heavily, heavily includes the exhausting tsundere behavior that is so deeply rooted into her personality. If I could kick 15-year old me in the ass for being an utter brat, I would do it in a heartbeat.

...I digress.

Unlike most RPG-protags, Yuri is an adult. Most of his growing is already over and done with. He doesn’t have to learn about the meaning of birth like Luke fon Fabre. We’re seeing Yuri right in the middle of an existential crisis. He’s the type of character you’re going to see in yourself after you’ve lived a little. And by live, I don’t mean absorbing politcal, activism bullshit on twitter or social media. I mean gone out and got slapped around a bit by Real/Offline Life.

But before I get into that, we need to look at Yuri a bit closer:

A common complaint you’ll see about Yuri Lowell is that he doesn’t do much growing in his debut game. Haters will go as far to say that he’s so “flawless” he’s borderline “Mary Sue”.

If you don’t know what that means, a “Mary Sue” is an oversaturated word that people have started to apply to characters they hate without doing any critical thinking as to why that character may be popular, thus losing its core definition over the years. In actuality, a Mary Sue is just a (usually female) character that lacks flaws and everyone’s tripping over their own feet just to kiss her ass.

While Yuri doesn’t have deep character development like aforementioned Luke (Abyss), he’s not lacking in flaws to the point where he can do no wrong. Yuri does stuff in-game and gets rightfully called out, and despite his snarky personality, he’s got a few cracks in the reflection that you’d be completely forgiven for forgetting.

The beginning cutscene of Vesperia ends with Yuri looking out at Zaphias with an apathetic look on his face. It’s only when you’ve played a bit deeper into Vesperia do you realize that Yuri’s made a habit of just watching life roll by since he quit the knights, while his friend Flynn is slowly climbing the ranks.

Something you need to understand about Yuri is that he’s constantly comparing himself to Flynn. He says to Sodia in Act 3 that Flynn is “the perfect knight” which is why he feels that he doesn’t deserve to stand next to him. At that point in the game though, Yuri’s hands are already bloodied, so let’s rewind a bit.

Immediately after Yuri’s daydreaming is interrupted, Ted barges into his room to alert him about the asshole that fucked up the lower quarter’s plumbing. Yuri, not one to turn a blind eye to trouble, goes to help... but not after getting in a quip about the knights: “Isn’t it the knights job to handle this?” or something along those lines.

Ted points out that the knights are basically useless... except for Flynn. In fact, Flynn is the only knight who will go out of his way to help the lower quarter.

How does Yuri respond?

When you first play this game, you probably won’t think anything of this line. In fact, most of the bits that point towards Yuri’s shitty self-esteem requires a Replay Bonus. And even then, if you’re already going into the game thinking “Yuri’s just a cool guy”, you’re still going to miss it. At that point, I don’t know what to tell you.

The problem with Yuri’s line of thinking is that whenever Flynn pops up, he’s constantly, constantly using Flynn to put himself down. If Flynn knew how much Yuri was beating himself up, he’d probably be mortified... and angry.

You have the scene where Yuri, Karol, Rita, and Estelle all look out at the sea. A lot of people (myself included) will go “lol Yuri thinking about his bf” when Yuri goes “So, this is what he sees.” But the truth is, Yuri’s thinking of how Flynn is always a step ahead. How Flynn’s done so much already when Yuri’s just wasting his time sitting in the lower quarter.

Anyone who’s struggled with getting their foot in the door (for a job) or just seeing their friends move on while you’re stuck in place, can relate heavily, strongly to Yuri in these moments. Yuri has no idea what to do now that the “dream” he started with Flynn ended up not being what he was expecting. At all.

How many times in life have you done something where you thought This Is It, only for it to not work out? You find yourself back at Square One, you fall into a depression, and honestly? It really sucks.

Meanwhile, you see your friends living their lives, you see your family making leaps and bounds, but it still feels like you’re not getting anywhere. You start forgetting to count the small victories and close yourself off to those you love. Your vision just gets narrower and narrower until you can’t see anything around you.

When I first played Vesperia and saw Yuri’s struggle, it was almost like I had an epiphany. This is me, I thought. And while I’m not nearly as cool and awesome as Yuri, I was in a spot where I had done something that I thought was my Purpose in life, only for it to be the exact opposite. I spent a good year or two floundering about not knowing what I could do with life. Seeing Yuri struggle with this hit a chord. It was almost depressing LOL.

It doesn’t help that in-universe, Yuri’s actions are constantly being overwritten in favor of Flynn. It’s like that group project where you do all the work, but your buddy gets all the credit. Only in Flynn’s case, he doesn’t want the credit while your buddy is like “fuck no, I did all this.”

Just take a look at some of the things the people say when Flynn returns the Aque Blastia:

This is slightly averted in the PS3/Remaster where Flynn was there when Yuri got back the blastia core, but in the original version, Flynn had no part in kicking Barbos’ ass. I think what makes this worse is that one of the people heaping praise on Flynn is Ted (screencap posted above). In fact, if you go into Flynn’s room, you can easily tell who Ted seems to favor... (no screencap, sorry).

I honestly feel horrible for Yuri here. I’ve been in a position where I’ve been compared to a friend when I’m literally standing right fucking there. It’s not as motivating as you think it is. Not all of us are fueled by spite.

Yuri continuously shrugs off Flynn’s attempts at getting him the credit he deserves, so some of you may go, “Well, Yuri doesn’t want the praise.” But that’s not the point here. The point is that it does weight on Yuri, but just not in the way most of us would think. Yuri doesn’t want credit because he doesn’t think he deserves it. He thinks that because he’s killed, he’s no better than a criminal. He’s doing the dirty work just so he can push his best friend up the ranks so he can make the change that Terca Lumireis desperately needs.

You could say that since Yuri couldn’t make it as a knight, he doesn’t feel he has any right to take credit for the changes that people will notice. He found something he can do that can help without stepping into the spotlight. And he’s satisfied with it. To even quote what he says to Flynn: “There are places in each of us that the other can’t reach.” Flynn doesn’t have to understand why Yuri won’t take the credit, but he needs to accept that Yuri’s going to do things his way whether Flynn likes it or not.

I find it horribly ironic that in the beginning, his friends (esp Karol) see him as this strong, level-headed guy who’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it’s not until you reach the midway point where they start to see through Yuri’s cover, and Yuri starts self-consciously opening up to them. The scene in the Quoi Woods after Yuri rushes off to save Estelle alone is so important to Yuri’s growth. It’s at that point where he realizes he’s not alone and that what he was looking for was right there all alone. You’ll even notice his Victory Quotes start changing from “I” to “we”.

His friends learn that Yuri’s not flawless and that even he has his weaknesses. But despite that, they still accept him for who he is, and don’t try to change him or force him to do something he doesn’t want to.

One complaint I do see and one that I share in, is that Yuri is more of a satellite character to other characters’ development. He doesn’t seem to grow nearly as much as Karol or even Raven. Instead, he helps them get to where they need to be, and to get them to open their eyes and really start to grow. Contrary, he at least gets better treatment/development than let’s say Judith, who’s entire backstory is confined to light novels that are most likely never going to be localized. I’d argue that Yuri’s “arc” at least gets some closure compared to Estelle, who doesn’t seem to grow at all after Alexei kidnaps her.

The problem with Yuri as a protagonist is the way he grows. With Vesperia’s story constantly switching around, you lose track of where they were going with Yuri. You can tell that the game was supposed to focus more on politics and light vs. dark, which would’ve been ideal to really get to know Yuri the same way we get to know Luke in Abyss. But oh no, we gotta stop a bishonen from sacrificing the human race in the name of his furry boyfriend just so he can defeat a giant, astral worm-thing that’s Vesperia’s equivalent of global warming. But worse.

Yuri’s growth isn’t “nonexistent”. It’s just not as visible as the others. You could argue he gets screwed over by his own story. Hell, even Flynn gets a cutscene where he mulls over the duality of justice in the remaster. A lot of Yuri’s stuff is so “read between the lines/read the tiny font” that it’s no surprise Vesperia haters will cite Yuri’s characterization as a reason why “Vesperia sucks.”

But, I think if you’re an adult who’s struggled through the real world, who’s put everything you had into something you thought would work only for it to blow up in your face, you’re going to understand Yuri better than someone who hasn’t experienced that (yet). Doesn’t mean you’ll like him. In fact, I have a friend who is exactly like Flynn, and that’s exactly why they dislike him. Because they find Flynn so relatable. So if you see yourself in Yuri, you may be turned off to him as a character.

Despite this, Yuri is beloved for a reason whether it’s his ikeman-status, his personality, or just because he’s so different from your typical RPG protag. For me, it’s because of how realistic he is as a person. His struggles aren’t tied to some cliche revenge plot or finding his true love (which is either [REDACTED] or [REDACTED]).

In a way, Yuri is a bit similar to Luke in that they both try to discover something about themselves. While Luke’s is finding out why he was born/his purpose, Yuri’s is learning that there’s still more for him out there despite his initial goals crumbling to ash.

Tales of Vesperia does incredible with the Found Family genre, and the chemistry is there from start to finish, unlike some other games that are praised for their “Found Family”. It’s not just a Found Family for the other characters like Karol, Estelle, Raven, and Judith... It’s for Yuri too. Yuri, who didn’t know what he was supposed to do, finds out where he belongs by the end of the game. And I think for any adult who’s still struggling to see where they fit in life will eventually have the same realization as Yuri. It may not be as quick, but from what it looks like, it wasn’t exactly fast for Yuri either (LOL).

While I say Abyss is my favorite (and it is, story/worldbuilding-wise), I think Vesperia’s message speaks out to me more. My gripe about Vesperia is how buried and strangled its set-up gets with the introduction of Act 3 (i.e: the Adephagos). But it’s the characters and how they bounce off one another that really grabs my attention and refuses to let go.

So yeah, Yuri may be “overrated.” It may be exhausting to see his 80th alt in Asteria (not like waifus get 50 million alts in other gacha), but I think if you take away what the game shows on a surface level, you may find something. And I firmly stand by the fact that you're more likely to relate to Yuri when you're older than if you're still a fairly young adult or even a teenager.