User blog:DeltaHorizon020/PE Proposal: Dominique Baldwin

Been a while since I EPd a PE baddies since Illega right? Well, let's see what I can do

What's The Work
Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night is a 2019 video game directed by Castlevania producer, Koji Igarashi, that is essentially a successful kickstarter game. Now? A little bit of an interesting trivia: The game is the progenitor of a subtype action-adventure genre known as Metroidvania which is a genre containing some gameplay concepts that we seen in Metroid or Castlevania.

Anyways, if you ask me, yes...You could argue that this game is a bit of a spiritual successor of Castlevania given the one who produced the game and all. But what's the story like? Well...Here's the story courtesy of its TV Tropes page:

"In the medieval times, there is a well-known Guild called The Alchemist Guild that used to be the most influential around the world because of their mastery of the arcane and divine magic. However, as the time went by and the world goes into its modernization, the Guild's power then becomes threatened and they ended up become much more materialistic. In order to gain more influence once again, the Guild itself created people known as The Shardbinders who are essentially humans that got infected by a crystal that possessed a huge demonic power and if the Shardbinders are sacrificed, some people are essentially opened the Gates of Hell. Despite the Guild itself are able to suppress the legions of hell, thousands of innocents live were lost. Of all the Shardbinders, there are only two people survived the rituals: Gebel and Miriam. Ten years later after the rituals, Miriam awakens to find demons loose upon the world once again, with all signs pointing to a mysterious castle summoned by none other than Gebel. Determined to discover Gebel's motives and put an end to his schemes, Miriam and Johannes set out to Gebel's castle... "

Oh yeah, bonus note that you could try to listening to Touhou music from ZUN when playing this game. (Recommended to listen Eirin's theme History of the Moon Gensokyo Millenium, Reisen's theme and Eiki Shiki Yamaxanadu theme for great experience)

Now, Gebel doesn't count in the slightest because well... He truly has a tragic past and being controlled by other being known as Gremory. However, today I'm going to discuss the villain who can match the PE criteria as for now despite being seen as a benevolent girl at first...

Say hello to Dominique Baldwin everyone!!! My new waifu of this year.

Who Is She/What Has She Done
Now, Dominique Baldwin here is an exorcist who works for the church and essentially looks like Adrian Andrews from Ace Attorney (Which makes things better because Adrian Andrews is my waifu from there). Now, when I saw her at first, I always think that she used to be a benevolent nun from the Church who tries to help Miriam in her journey on defeating Gebel.

And that's true, she helps Miriam by selling a demonic shards towards her so that Miriam won't get overpowered by the power of the demons. Yeah, unsurprisingly however, since I knew that she turned bad from the get-go even before Bloodstained got released? It was all an act and the reason why she did this is because she wants to corrupt Miriam and make her the new lord of Gebel's castle while the Greater Scope Villain of the game, Gremory, can use her power to summon the Demon King Bael.

Now why? Why she's become so much evil after the reveal despite you could argue she was a good girl back then?

Well, here's the thing about Dominique: When she was 15, her parents were killed by the Demons and because of this, Dominique lost any faith from him and decides to summon any demons to slaughter innocent people to spite God. As a result, after Gebel died, Dominique lets herself to fuse with the demonic crystals and using her Exorcist skills to prevent herself from being consumed to gain more power.

Oh right! She also manipulates Zangetsu to do her bidding and uses him to kill the atoning Alchemist, Alfred, so that he won't intervene with her plans. After confronted by Miriam, Dominique then tries to summon Bael and fuses herself with him so that she could bring him to the mortal realm. Fortunately, Miriam manages to defeat Dominique and Bael. Ending both the Demonic Alchemist and Bael once and for all... Get it? Demonic Alchemist? Okay.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
Now, Dominique herself has an excuse: Having her parents lost during the demon invasion thanks to the greedy alchemists who wants to expand their influence once again and this result on her losing her faith to god and that he could die for what she cared.

Unfortunately however, that excuse doesn't holds up... Why? Because when Alfred told the story about her excuse, Dominique refutes that arguments and reveals her Social Darwinistic philosophy and doesn't care if people were sacrificed so that she can get more power. The game doesn't treated her as sympathetic a la Herrscher of the Void (Thanks Prime) and the closest moments of her mitigating factor is that she had a kind moment with a 12 year old girl named Ann and having a cute scene with Miriam and a photograph sub plot. But that's just Bait the Dog at its finest and nevermind the fact that she wants to destroy the humanity and that would include Ann. Uncaring if she died because why not?

The only thing you could argue that she has a nice design and she looks like Adrian Andrews but nah :3

Heinous Standard
Absolutely passes it. Yes, we don't see the attack of the Demon Invasion. But there are several results of it such as the survivors who told Miriam about how horrific the demon invasion and then there's several mission about avenging characters who died during the invasion and gather keepsakes so that Miriam could bury those who don't survive it. So yeah, that's an established pattern right there

Oh yeah, the alchemists are just awful but Dominique? Is the worst of them all. Gremory is the only character that could outmatch her.

Final Verdict
Keep her! I truly considered her to be my new waifu as for now for several reasons and her pic is my current TV Tropes and Discord profile pic here's how she looks in the game:

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ritualofthenight/images/6/64/RotN_Dominique.png/revision/latest?cb=20190622065613

Pretty right? I will make her page soon enough and here's a song for y'all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pofs6SJqUK8