Discussion topic for Gabriel Kaburaya. Feel free to discuss the entirety of Rose Guns Days without [spoiler] tags, but please tag references to outside works, providing adequate context in parenthesis. This topic will contain massive spoilers, so if you have not finished reading Rose Guns Days yourself proceed with caution.
Reading soggy’s post on Season 2 made me realize that RGD actually handles plot armor in a quite interesting manner. For the first three seasons, none of the major characters actually die, not counting Wang whose role is relegated to antagonist-of-the-week. For a while it almost feels like Ryukishi doesn’t have the balls to kill off his characters.
But then Gabriel appears. There’s something that sets him apart from all of RGD’s antagonists that came before him. To put it simply, he’s frightening. He gives off the aura that the plot armor the other characters have been shown to have is about to fall apart. Despite the fact that yet again not many major characters die through his plan (although some do), something breaks when he enters the scene. That little bubble of safety you’ve built up over all these seasons just pops. Rather fascinating how Ryukishi managed to pull that off.
He feels like a more in your face version of johan liebert from monster which is something that I really love about his character.
By far one of the most jaw dropping and difficult to read scene in any of ryukishi’s works was yuuji’s death and seeing that of troll smile of his was pretty memorible.
To be honest I would have rather have had him see a more flashy death at the battle of the graveyard but oh well it probably wouldn’t have been that realistic.
I both love and have issues with Gabriel as a character. One the one hand, he made for a terrifying protagonist, and the venom in his every word was palatable. His corruption of Richard amongst other things was rather captivating. I also honestly did not expect Yuuji’s death and that moment was particularly chilling.
That said, I felt like Gabriel at times felt less like a character and more of a force of nature. His motivations for doing what he did felt like it was tacked on after the fact almost and sometimes I felt his actions didn’t correspond to his motivations all that well. Then again, it has been a while since I read RGD so I could be missing something here.
I 100% prefer Caleb as both a character and a villain as he had many defining character traits and motivations. Gabriel just hated mafia members and that’s it, no questions asked.
Say what you might, but he has the best character theme in the series.
I once showed this to a friend and asked her what kind of character she imagines to this music. “It’s like the instruments keep getting faster and faster and none of the others are capable of keeping up with the story. There are brief moments where you feel safe and then, bam! This character strikes and there is nothing you can do about it, he’s everywhere and unstoppable.”
Pretty much on point. Gabriel’s machinations are rather unpredictable at certain points.
I would agree that he is a force of nature, but I don’t believe that makes him a lesser villain than any of the other antagonists. I read him as using his backstory to justify pre-existing psychopathic tendencies- While Caleb is an amazing character, I feel Gabriel is far more memorable just in how much damage he causes. It’s scary because it’s possible- is it reasonable, does it make sense, those questions don’t matter so much as what he does and what he’s capable of. I think his unpredictable nature makes him even more threatening and nightmarish than any of 07th Expansion’s other villains, who usually have very detailed and intricate backstories. Unlike the WTC villains whose backstories inform their worldview, and thus their actions, Gabriel is fueled by pure bloodlust and hate for the mafia. His intentions themselves aren’t sensible.
I agree that yeah Gabriel is one of the scariest threats in 07th expansion and he serves as a great force that really play well into developing other characters and the plot to great heights. The problem is that it doesn’t make Gabriel himself a particularly interesting character.
Gabriel is such a simple character but sometimes simple works better than complex. If you could understand him as a person, he wouldn’t be frightening. And I believe frigheting was the point of his character.
Had a conversation with a friend called Gabriel today.
‘Hey you know I played a game where the villain is called Gabriel’
‘Oh so what did this guy do?’
‘Kill a third of the cast’
‘Oh…’