Octopath Traveler 2 - Throne Chapter 4

To bring Throne's story to an end, we must go to where everything began, just in more ways than she anticipated. Using the keys she obtained, she is able to find the ruins of a city that serves as the birthing ground for the core of the Blacksnakes. As she makes her way through the remnants, she learns what the Blacksnakes are, and in meeting their true leader, there are a couple clues dropped about the bigger picture, but they may be more subtle than I realized.

As for the boss fight, I can barely hold back anymore, and you can see that we shredded him immediately. It wasn't until he summoned his other pawn that we ran into a little difficulty and once we got through that, we finished the boss off. The good news is that I can't go completely crazy with power until we do Temenos's story. The bad news is that we are running out of other things to do first...

As for the narrative, I had to take this one apart. I believe if you follow the Mother storyline, it actually does tell a decent tale. Throne is supposed to be cold and aloof, doing whatever it takes, and she gets demolished and does change her way of living. The suicide by drink is one of the things that shocks her as she was expecting things to play out differently and began to drive home the consequences of her actions. When Mother is killed in front of Mira, she doesn't kill Mira, but instead accepts the girl may one day look for revenge. Then when we fight Claude, we bring the whole nightmare to a close so that no one else has to suffer. Throne gets out of the underworld, and in doing so, she may have saved a lot of the others that were being bred and groomed for various roles with her. Therion may be a fan favorite, but from this angle alone, I think Throne does have the superior story.

As for the father route, we get to see more about Throne's birth and upbringing, but it just doesn't fit into the narrative beyond the flashbacks it offers. He is more of an enabling force trapping her in the lifestyle she is currently in, and in order to get out, she must literally do it over his dead body. Sadly, that is the extent of what his character has to offer in the big picture, and he may have been okay for a single boss, but not for how they build him up. It does also make his first chapter where you have to wipe out the competition a little meaningless as it is the opposite direction of where Throne is going.