Introduction

In the late Northern Wei dynasty, blades of steel and fleeting visions swept across the boundless desert. In that narrow fissure between heaven and earth, the text‑adventure game Ignited in Cavern quietly raised its curtain. It tells not merely of a bizarre murder case, nor merely a few strands of family blood and tears interwoven with love and hatred; rather, it resembles a somber mirror, one that starkly illuminates how the destinies of individuals are twisted and devoured under a feudal patriarchy. Beginning at the intersection of gender and power, this paper delves into how Ignited in Cavern, through a narrative seemingly soaked in blood and dust, interprets the Othering of women and reveals the violent core behind reproductive politics. Through the theoretical lenses of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, and others, we will examine how the game others women, how reproductive politics turns into violence, and how gender roles, wedged between performance and identity, veer toward madness or awakening.

Synopsis of the Game

In the late Northern Wei, a mysterious rumor circulated through the small town of Dunhuang: it was said that an ancient statue left from the ruins could bestow supreme blessings upon any supplicant. The woman general A’nu and the Han youth Chu Qingqing were ordered to travel there and investigate, yet in the sand‑swept border town they witnessed an eerie beginning—the caravan that had guarded the statue now lay dead in the streets, their causes inexplicable, while fear and rumor spread through the town like a plague. Was it vengeful spirits at work, or something else? Burdened by their own unbearable pasts, A’nu and Chu Qingqing must both search for the truth and repeatedly look back beneath the shadow of fate.

Seemingly delicate and taciturn, Chu Qingqing’s upbringing had long planted a seed of distortion gnawing at his bones: craving affection since childhood yet always denied, he poured all emotion into a forbidden love for his brother‑in‑law and, lured by the spirit housed in the statue, embarked upon a blood‑soaked path of sacrifice. The successive murders of pregnant women and the blood‑soaked rituals all stemmed from his extreme obsession with “whether he could have an heir belonging to himself and his brother‑in‑law.” Elsewhere, the steppe‑born woman general A’nu was equally awe‑inspiring and chilling: famed for bloodlust in youth, rumored to have ended her groom’s life on their wedding night, she bore the epithet “God of War.” This defiant lone wolf scorned worldly propriety, yet under Dunhuang’s desolate night she was gradually forced to confront her deep yearning for kinship and love.

When desire and conscience converged on this remote frontier, what arrived was an even more dreadful judgment: the statue’s eerie power drew Chu Qingqing step by step toward ruin and forced A’nu to choose between morality and personal feeling. In the end, raging flame devoured resentment and attachment, and countless fates turned to ash and scattered beneath the sky. Chu Qingqing’s futile dream collapsed in an instant; A’nu, clasping her solitary courage, stepped onto the vast wilderness, burying all blood and tears. Against this backdrop where fantasy and human relations overlap, Ignited in Cavern reached its destined curtain call—it revealed not only conflicts and sacrifices beneath desert smoke and spectral shadows, but also the manifold fetters and distortions that patriarchal systems impose upon women, upon desire, and upon reproduction. This fictional world is like a ruthless scalpel slicing open the covert oppression of the “second sex.”

Patriarchy and the “Second Sex”: The Othering of Women

The story of Ignited in Cavern is set in the feudal society of late Northern Wei, a domestic fantasy drama saturated with patriarchal myth. In this patriarchal society, women are positioned as the Other, and their value is often dependent on men and bloodlines. Simone de Beauvoir notes in The Second Sex, “He is the Subject, he is the Absolute — she is the Other.” In Ignited in Cavern, female characters chiefly appear as the Other of male desire, functionalized and stripped of their subjectivity. This arrangement precisely reflects de Beauvoir’s mechanism: “One is not born a woman; one becomes one.” For example, in Chu Qingqing’s route, the nine sacrificed pregnant women are never even named—they are nameless offerings on the altar of male desire. This extreme treatment shows how patriarchal structure erases female individuality, degrading them into mere instruments for male aims. Likewise, Chu Qingqing’s biological sister is nearly reduced to a “pregnancy tool” in the plot: her sole meaning seems to be providing a vessel for her husband’s and brother’s bloodline. These women are not independent persons but Othered beings serving someone else’s narrative needs.

Even the major female characters suffer such Othering. In A’nu’s arc, her sister‑in‑law Lady Aluhuan, an aristocratic woman, has her identity and worth bound entirely to the roles of “wife” and “mother.” The only way she seeks power is through bearing a child and thus becoming a mother to secure her status. Within patriarchal values, women are disciplined to define themselves by family and reproduction—that is, by male bloodlines. She can attain meaning only in relation to her male clan—as someone’s wife, someone’s mother—while she cannot be regarded as an autonomous individual. As de Beauvoir says, women are seen as “lacking” and need to complete themselves through the male Other—precisely the vivid condition of female Otherness in Ignited in Cavern.

The game subtly discloses the repression arising from Othering. In Chu Qingqing’s route, players are long guided to stand within the male protagonist’s perspective, empathizing with his hidden yet twisted desires while almost forgetting the women he harms. The pain of women is screened out of sight, which itself is an embodiment of patriarchal narrative marginalizing women. The experiences and feelings of female characters are treated as secondary relative to the male protagonist—even if the cost is nine pregnancies lost, it seems they can be “brushed over” in one stroke of narrative. This storytelling choice undoubtedly echoes the condition of women as the “second sex” under patriarchy: their suffering and voices are drowned in the male grand narrative and passion, becoming mere background noise. It is precisely this faint yet pervasive silence that forms the game’s indictment and reflection on the Othered plight of women.

Patriarchal Violence and Reproductive Politics: Blood Sacrifice and Tragedy of Motherhood

In Ignited in Cavern, reproduction is the central motif that runs throughout, and the various storylines revolving around it all reveal the violent nature and controlling impulse of the patriarchal system. Feminism has long pointed out that patriarchy maintains rule by controlling women’s bodies and reproductive capacities; such control often manifests in hidden or naked violence. The game presents this nakedly before the players’ eyes: to satisfy male craving for “bloodline continuation,” there emerges a chain of tragedies sacrificing pregnant women. Tempted by the spirit inhabiting the statue, Chu Qingqing murders nine innocent pregnant women with his own hands as offerings to share a child with his beloved brother‑in‑law. This brutal yet symbolically real storyline dramatizes reproductive politics at its extreme: men obtain female bodies and lives to fulfill desire, even resorting to intolerable violence. As some players sarcastically remark, “The price of creation is slaughtering women… utterly absurd.” In patriarchal myth, the power of creation is seized by men, yet the sacrifice offered is female flesh. This inhuman design exposes patriarchy’s deep violence: male desire for power and heritage is fulfilled at the cost of women’s lives.

The critique of reproductive politics does not stop at male violence seizing women’s reproductive capacity; it also portrays the tragic predicament of women trapped in patriarchal reproductive oppression. In A’nu’s arc, the story of her sister‑in‑law Lady Aluhuan is a painful “tragedy of motherhood.” As the legitimate wife of a great household, Lady Aluhuan’s status and value hinge on whether she can bear a son. She regards motherhood as the only path to grasping power and security in her feudal family, sinking day by day into this fixation. Fate thwarts her: she never conceives, and her husband (A’nu’s brother) marries concubines for heirs. The concubines bear him children, while Lady Aluhuan loses both spousal affection and family prestige. The collapse of her reproductive capacity obliterates the power base she once relied on, leading her to despair and madness, and ultimately to a tragic death. Her ending symbolizes the collapse of the myth of “matriarchal right”—within the patriarchal frame, a woman who tries to gain power via motherhood can only meet destruction. Patriarchy never grants genuine autonomy; the illusory myth of “matriarchal right” cannot withstand harsh reality: once a woman’s reproductive value fails, abandonment is her only fate. As Gayle Rubin’s research The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex shows, patriarchal society commodifies women through marriage and kinship; the reproductive politics in both A’nu’s and Chu Qingqing’s routes indicts this mechanism—motherhood should not be a woman’s sole value, and the extreme acts of mothers in the game further expose this malady.

It is worth noting that patriarchal control of women’s reproduction is not limited to the family; it is sanctified by religion and myth to legitimize seizing female bodies. The recurring images of the stone deity and the spirit in Ignited in Cavern are such patriarchal power devices. The legendary statue that can “grant blessings” is said to realize human wishes, yet it demands a bloody price—men offer pregnant women’s lives in exchange for “grace.” The statue appears supernatural, but it metaphorically represents patriarchy’s supreme reproductive authority: it wraps men’s desire for lineage in ritual, cloaking horrifying violence in sanctity. By sacrificing to the stone deity, men seem to obtain legitimate authorization to control the conception and termination of life. This storyline mercilessly exposes how patriarchy exploits religious myth to sustain its violence: female reproductive organs become offerings to satisfy male desire, while what is desecrated are women’s lives and wombs.

In sum, through these extreme and metaphor‑rich plot elements, the game conducts a profound critique of patriarchal reproductive politics. Whether the souls of nine pregnant women or Lady Aluhuan’s sorrow at failing to bear a child, all show how deeply women suffer control and harm around reproduction under patriarchy. Ignited in Cavern tears open the violence hidden in history and family: what patriarchy calls procreation and love often masks domination and plunder of women’s bodies.

Gender performativity: Roles Between Violence and Identity

Judith Butler’s gender theory suggests that gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts. In Ignited in Cavern, the protagonists of the two storylines—Chu Qingqing and A’nu—are trapped in the conflict between gender performativity and self‑identity. Their respective experiences can be analyzed through “gender performativity”: under patriarchal scripts imposed on identity, characters either submit or resist, and every step is accompanied by the shadow of violence.

Chu Qingqing’s character embodies the distorted performance of masculine roles under patriarchal expectations. Although male, he loves his brother‑in‑law (another man, Zou Rong), and this taboo love puts him in a quandary regarding gender roles. Patriarchal heteronormativity does not allow him to love a man as “wife” or “mother,” yet his yearning for a “shared‑blood child” is akin to a maternal fantasy—traditionally a female role in heterosexual marriage. To satisfy this illusion, he embarks on a deranged path, attempting through occult ritual to let two men “give birth” to a child. This can be seen as an extreme counter‑performance of traditional gender roles: Chu Qingqing, as a man, obsessively plays the “mother” function. Yet this transgression brings no salvation, only extreme violence (the killing of pregnant women). He is trapped in patriarchal discourse with no exit: as an obedient older brother, he suppresses his homosexual desire; trying to play a female reproductive role, he can only realize it in grotesque form. As Butler stresses, “gender is not a pre‑existing identity but a constantly repeated performance,” and Chu Qingqing’s attempt to “perform” female reproduction is an extreme satire on traditional scripts, revealing society’s rigid demands on gender identity. Ultimately, he can be neither true husband nor father, nor achieve satisfaction as “mother”; only in hallucinations does he converse with the spirit, letting himself be manipulated by an ever more absurd drama. Notably, he also performs another layer of obedience: in daily relations, Chu Qingqing habitually pleases others and hides himself. “Some things he truly wants, but if no one asks he never acts; some things he loathes, yet if others request he complies.” This self‑sacrificing obedience is exactly the patriarchal script for “normatively masculine subjects”; he performs it by rote, avoiding confrontation with genuine needs. His tragedy lies in never escaping predetermined gender scripts: obediently acting the “good man” in others’ eyes while madly performing patriarchal myths of a “creator,” losing his true self and plunging into violence.

In sharp contrast, A’nu plays a role traditionally ascribed to men within a female body. As a woman general of Northern Wei, she shows surpassing strength from childhood: “killing a hunting dog bare‑handed at four, playing a groom to death on her wedding night,” making her almost legendary, the “God of War.” This is a feminine rendition of masculine martial prowess: A’nu, as a woman, plays the heroic, fearless, warrior, shattering patriarchal scripts of female docility. In gender performativity terms, she performs a “masculinized” self. She does not suppress desire, reveling in bodily pleasure and battle’s thrill, ignoring patriarchal decorum. Yet, as Butler notes, any rebellion against gender discipline brings social pressure and identity conflict. Though fierce, A’nu is not devoid of inner struggle: she still yearns for love and connection, but the object of her affection is her sister‑in‑law. A’nu’s deep love for Lady Aluhuan is doubly taboo (same‑sex and incest). When she attempts to express it, she abandons usual forthrightness, showing rare shyness and caution. Saying “I love you” with the respectful “you,” her tone is as restrained as a knight pledging to a queen. This respectful yet suppressed confession shows A’nu re‑performing a socially accepted female submissive image in the face of love—she is no longer a wild beast but a courteous junior. Thus, while fearless in battle, she is fettered by ethical roles in forbidden love: on one side blazing desire, on the other Lady Aluhuan’s moral identity as “elder.”

Lady Aluhuan’s response to A’nu embodies the other face of gender performativity: as an elder woman, she cannot accept A’nu’s transgressive love and retreats into a maternal role. She repeatedly uses elderly kindness and morality to dissolve A’nu’s confession, placing A’nu as a “junior” to be guided. Asking, “Do you wish to be my child?” she tries to re‑frame A’nu’s love within a socially acceptable “maternal love.” She insists on playing the moral mother, using ethical affection to refuse taboo desire. Thus, both women in this hidden romance are constrained by their gender roles: A’nu cannot openly become Lady Aluhuan’s lover, only a respectful younger; Lady Aluhuan cannot respond as a woman, only hiding in motherhood to evade inner turmoil. Their performances lead to shared pain: A’nu, invincible in force, is helpless in emotion; Lady Aluhuan spirals toward madness in the tug‑of‑war between reason and feeling. Gender performativity scripts forge identity tragedies; deviation invites violence—from others or self, whether external blood or internal heartbreak.

In sum, through the extreme yet mutually reflecting characters Chu Qingqing and A’nu, Ignited in Cavern shows the performativity and fragility of gender identity. Whether a man attempting “motherhood” or a woman acting “God of War,” heavy costs ensue. When roles struggle between violence and identity, we witness the cruel constraints of gender norms on individuals in patriarchy: any overstep invites violent punishment; only by tearing off the mask might one glimpse a sliver of true self.

Female Body, Desire, and Motherhood as Metaphor

Ignited in Cavern employs an almost anatomical allegory to weave female body, desire, and reproduction into a complex network of metaphors. In this net, every female character’s body and desire belong not solely to herself but bear the double meaning of patriarchal myth and rebellious narrative. From nine pregnant corpses to Lady Aluhuan’s fixation on mother and child, the game uses extreme story settings to reveal how patriarchal fantasies about “love” and “procreation” are built on violence, while probing the cracks and possibilities women may find therein.

First, the tragedy of the “nine pregnant women” is the clearest reproductive‑political metaphor. Pregnant women—bearers of life—should symbolize love, hope, and future, yet here they are slaughtered as sacrifices, their flesh the price of male desire. This inversion metaphor shows the dark myth of patriarchal “love”: a man wants a child for love, yet destroys multiple women bearing life. The fruit of love is irrigated with others’ blood and tears; such love departs from its origin, degenerating into a violent structure. As players belatedly realize: Chu Qingqing “acts in the name of love, then tells players love does not exist”—once truth emerges, we see the natal frenzy in love’s name was illusion, love merely a glittering cloak for desire. The game thus questions the patriarchal myth of love: when love is tied to lineage, equated with possessing another’s capacity to reproduce, “love” is no longer true love but a cage devouring women. The nine pregnant women’s souls ask: Is this truly love, or a hunt in love’s name?

Second, Lady Aluhuan’s obsession with motherhood is another metaphor. She represents the traditional patriarchal value of the “mother” role’s supremacy and sacrifice. In feudal family, bearing heirs is women’s sole path to dignity; motherhood is haloed. The game deconstructs this image: Lady Aluhuan sees motherhood as life’s meaning, yet her maternal desire drives her to madness and destruction. This irony signals: patriarchal myth exalts “motherly love” as a woman’s highest virtue while shackling her with golden chains. Lady Aluhuan kneels daily praying for pregnancy, yet this pious fixation destroys her. When hope dies, her “merciful mother” persona collapses, even seeking illusory bonds by ethical coercion (asking A’nu to be her “child”). Her death symbolizes the shattering of the “myth of matriarchal right”—a woman’s attempt to gain power via motherhood proves mirage. The game shows: when motherhood is a woman’s only value, the role itself devours her. At her death, maternal authority crumbles, exposing patriarchy’s myth of motherly love—great mother becomes pitiful victim, her sacrifices never saved her.

Beyond reproduction and motherhood, relationships of desire among women challenge patriarchal norms. The ambiguous, unnameable bond between A’nu and Lady Aluhuan excavates and subverts the repression of women’s desire in patriarchy. Traditional ethics forbid their love—seen as incest or perverse. Through their interaction, the game presents an unusual tableau of “women’s love”: A’nu’s knight‑like devotion and sisterly sympathy merge. This complex desire breaks patriarchal stereotypes of women’s emotion, showing female desire’s power. Yet reality forces it into maternal ethics, twisting love into elder care; both cannot confront feelings. The metaphor reveals female desire’s suffocation: two women in love retreat to roles (mother/child) for legitimacy, burying true passion beneath ethics. The fire never dies—A’nu still burns, Lady Aluhuan wavers. This undercurrent of female desire is silent resistance to patriarchal discipline: though not breaking free, players witness female subject desire surging underground.

The game’s treatment of mother figures as functional also carries strong political satire. Mothers are not stereotypical saints but endowed with extreme, conflicting power: some mothers bear children then kill them—Chu Qingqing’s mother reportedly took her offspring away in regret; even after death her will haunts. Some mothers (Lady Aluhuan) crave children but fail and are harmed by others’ offspring. Others (Chu Qingqing’s sister) lose infants early—dream shattered. This array displays mothers’ power to create and destroy: “A mother who births you can also kill you, granting life yet able to reclaim it.” In patriarchal myth, mothers are celebrated as life’s source and selfless love, yet the game tears off this veil, revealing suppressed rage and sorrow. Mothers forced into functions either rebel—like Chu Qingqing’s mother reclaiming life in regret, the patriarchy‑feared “mother kills child” tragedy; or become martyrs—Lady Aluhuan going mad and dying for failed function. Either way, motherhood’s dark side is exposed: motherly love can morph into devouring love, mothers not merely saints but critics of injustice.

Through these layered metaphors, the game guides players to reassess naturalized patriarchal notions of “love” and “life.” When blood‑streaked altars echo buried corpses in a mother’s garden, we grasp: under patriarchal myth, the exalted “love” is a sugar‑coated violence structure. Conjugal love demands women risk life; maternal love drives women mad; even sisterly love (women’s friendship/desire) is strangled by norms. The game’s extreme story shows: When love loses respect for equality and subjectivity, becoming a tool of patriarchal possession and reproduction, it ceases to be pure love, becoming a power contest and sacrificial myth. When women’s bodies are mythologized as vessels and desire suppressed in morality’s name, “love” turns into a mountain crushing women. As Chu Qingqing’s line reveals: perhaps love itself is an illusion—an empty shadow built on others’ pain. Only by seeing this can true awakening and resistance begin.

Madness and Awakening: Feminine Rebellion in Gender Writing

Ignited in Cavern boldly depicts a series of nearly deranged female figures who resist with violence or collapse in despair. Through their madness and awakening, the author constructs a radical rebellious gender narrative, seeking a new route through cracks in patriarchal myth. A’nu and Lady Aluhuan, this aunt‑and‑sister pair, are its core: one battles fate in berserk valor, the other reveals truth through lunatic descent. Their tales are both thrilling and heartbreaking, forming a dual judgment on patriarchal norms.

Let us begin with A’nu. She appears almost as a “madwoman”: bloodlust in youth, killing her groom on their wedding night, invincible in war—all exceed imagination of a woman. Yet this near‑uncontrolled violence is active rebellion against patriarchy. A’nu refuses any subservience: she is not a docile bride, nor a lamb to slaughter. She regains bodily sovereignty through madness—no one dare force her to marry or bear children; her blade wins her the standing of a “free person” beyond rules. Her “madness” is an exaggerated allegory: by forging a woman ungoverned and feared by men, the author subverts the traditional docile feminine image. A’nu embodies radical revolt: destroyer of oppressive order and seeker of new. Her battlefield cries of “love” or “power” evoke epic shock—announcing the birth of a Valkyrie who will not submit to patriarchy. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick notes in Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, rigid gender and desire borders label any transgression “madness,” which reflects the pathological tendency towards non-heterosexual or transgressive behavior in the context of literature and society. A’nu’s fierce rebellion counters this binary, her “madness” not only challenges patriarchal taboo but deeply indicts social oppression.

By contrast, Lady Aluhuan’s madness is restrained and tragic. She wields no sword, yet her inner twists rival battlefield carnage. In long despair over lost children, her mind crumbles; fixation pulls her to the edge of the surreal: she believes in spirits, curses, perhaps joins strange rites (hints of a deer‑headed mask meeting A’nu, like an out‑of‑body soul). With gentle façade, she hides blazing insanity. Her madness is desperate protest forced by patriarchy. She obediently played good wife and daughter‑in‑law, gaining nothing. Only the phantom hope of bearing a child remains; when shattered, she resists fate in self‑harm labeled “lunacy.” She clings to being “mother,” dragging loving A’nu into delusion, treating her as “child.” Though irrational, it is laden with meaning: a woman, cornered, sends a final protest against patriarchal rules. Unable to be real mother, she crafts a fantasy, weaving ethics and blood into a cocoon—self‑deception to outsiders, but her last salvation. Her death may signal a kind of awakening: realizing all effort was futile, she is but a patriarchal pawn. In that era, her personal awakening is powerless, ending only in tragedy.

Of note, A’nu’s route offers multiple endings, each corresponding to choices on her “awakening” path. Endings hinge on her final stance on “love”: one sees her insist love exists and willingly become its slave; another sees her perceive love’s falsity, recognizing only power, choosing to serve it. This is her ideological awakening: after excruciating events, her faith in patriarchal “love” wavers. If she rejects love, embracing power, she has pierced the myth and rebuilds value through strength—deeper rebellion and awakening. Rejecting enslavement to love (often family or men), choosing her own power: she awakes from patriarchal myth, becoming a true iconoclast. Alternatively, she may still believe in love, yet her love (for her sister‑in‑law) defies patriarchal expectation, thus still living female desire’s power. Either way, A’nu’s spirit remains rebellious: she dares to be mad and lucid, to love and hate, expanding the frontier of female possibility and composing a radical war chant.

Through these mad yet awakened women, Ignited in Cavern conducts a bold gender‑writing experiment: not depicting obedient “good women” but highlighting transgressive “bad” or “mad” women. Historically, literature labels rebellious women as mad; the game wields “madness” as narrative weapon: letting women speak unspeakable truths and perform taboo deeds. Women’s madness becomes a language of resistance: A’nu’s berserker image questions male monopoly on violence; Lady Aluhuan’s derangement unmasks patriarchal manipulation. Meanwhile, their awakening sharpens defiance with clear thought: they are not aimlessly mad but glean insight and make choices—whether a last‑second epiphany or one unlocked by the player, these awakenings empower them. The author uses this “madness + awakening” duet to build an unprecedented radical gender narrative, calling for rebellion and transcendence of patriarchy.

Of course, such radical writing is not flawless. While celebrating female revolt, the work harbors implicit issues worthy of reflection.

The Shroud of Patriarchal Narrative: Male Perspective and Female Suffering

Despite Ignited in Cavern’s attempt at a radical gender narrative, at certain levels it still fails to shake off patriarchal storytelling’s ruts. The most striking problem is that the male protagonist’s perspective invisibly screens off and buries women’s suffering, so that while the game condemns patriarchal violence it almost reenacts a neglect of women. This paradox warns that even an anti‑patriarchal theme may dull its edge if it employs patriarchal gaze, even causing new injustice.

As noted earlier, the greatest controversy in Chu Qingqing’s route is that the deaths of nine pregnant women are down‑played; players, immersed in his viewpoint, focus on his inner pain and unattainable love. By contrast, the extreme violence against innocent women scarcely becomes a narrative focal point, often glossed in a few sentences. When climax arrives, many players realize the male lead committed monstrous crime; yet even then, their primary feeling is shock and complex sympathy for him, not grief for nine lives. This is not their coldness but the narrative’s deliberate guidance. One comment sharpens: “The author is clever; the pregnant women’s deaths are casual strokes, and players experience the male lead’s feelings. For him, sacrificing pregnant women might be trivial, so players sharing his perspective forget it.” Laura Mulvey’s research shows the “male gaze” reduces women to visual objects; in the game, the concealed pain of women embodies patriarchal gaze—male view marginalizes female suffering. The game lets us “see” via male eyes so women’s pain naturally fades—not visceral to men, players glide past. This “cleverness” is not innovation but patriarchal routine: writing men as universal experience. Women’s ordeals are ignored or down‑played, male emotions amplified. Chu Qingqing’s route follows this pattern, so many missed the intended critique, even misconstruing it. Some nickname the male route a “BL tortures women” piece—depicting male‑male romance using women’s torment for spectacle. When female suffering is too obscure, a work may be misread as catering to unhealthy thrills, not critiquing patriarchy.

This male perspective’s occlusion of female suffering is a hidden danger in Ignited in Cavern. It can weaken the thesis and raise moral unease: nine horrific deaths barely ripple, lacking narrative space or condemnation. The treatment re‑buries victims: patriarchy erased their lives; the story erases their presence. Feminists stress “we must face the violence women suffer”; seeing is resistance’s start. Yet players once “cannot see” this violence, thus cannot question it—most focus on Chu Qingqing’s tragedy, ignoring deeper female tragedy. A comment asks: “Even viewers with gender awareness might unconsciously miss structural injustice behind these scenes. In a male‑dominated narrative, who truly sees women’s plight?” The dilemma: the story must have a man recite this pathology to show patriarchal absurdity; but deep immersion repeats patriarchal bias.

Still, the author tries compensation in A’nu’s arc, almost free of male gaze, centering a woman’s perspective. Here, women’s desire, anger, and agency stand vivid; many players feel A’nu’s line is cathartic revenge. Perhaps intentionally, a powerful female‑centered narrative offsets the male viewpoint imbalance. Hidden issues resurface—Lady Aluhuan’s death, truths, interlocking schemes—and gain fuller exposition. Viewing through A’nu’s eyes clarifies patriarchy’s absurdity: she sees her sister‑in‑law die for men and children, smashes the stone statue—symbol of desire’s power (if chosen). These actions correct male line bias. Thus, the dual structure balances perspective: one line hides women’s pain, the other lets women speak. Yet many players play only one line, missing the balance, leading to claims of “inconsistency.” How to rebel while caring for readers, how to expose cruelty without narrative pitfalls—these are questions the game leaves us. It also reminds creators: in overturning old narratives, beware old gazes sprouting anew.

Passes a Gap in Flight, Like a Spark in the Dark, or a Dream of Moonbeam

As a fantasy tragedy steeped in late Northern Wei’s bleakness, Ignited in Cavern unfurls a relentless dissection and critique of patriarchy and its myths amid blood and flames. Through layers of analysis—patriarchal system, female Othering, reproductive ethics, and gender politics—the game offers a harsh yet thought‑provoking proposition: when love is imprisoned within patriarchal myth, it ceases to be pure love and may evolve into a violent structure; to break this structure, only marginal madness and rebellion can suffice.

Those shocking scenes—the nine pregnant women whose names are forgotten, their bodies silent offerings on the altar of male desire; Lady Aluhuan’s near‑mad obsession with “mother” identity dragging her into destruction—keep knocking at us. They force us to ponder: when lineage obsession overrides all, when women’s existence is reduced to reproduction, how much distortion and cost hide behind familial warmth? Chu Qingqing’s crimes in love’s name make us doubt whether love nourished by blood was self‑deception from the start. A’nu’s blazing yet desperate affection, shackled by ethics, turns into a blade, wounding herself and possibly severing the last sliver of tenderness. Her story seems to say: even mighty rebels, breaking rules, may fall into deeper loneliness and confusion.

We see characters performing, struggling, even going extreme within preset gender scripts. Chu Qingqing attempts a forbidden role and is consumed by desire’s flame; A’nu crashes against convention in feral posture, yet wavers on the edge of love and hate. Their madness and awakening, their swaying between violence and identity, are no longer mere personal tragedies but silent indictments of that era and its rules. The patriarchal myths of “love,” “motherhood,” “family” shatter amid the statue’s cold gaze and battlefield blood, exposing an inner violent structure.

Ignited in Cavern offers a sharp, mournful answer. The nine cold corpses, Lady Aluhuan’s tears—they proclaim the myth’s collapse: patriarchal love is but the alias of power desire, underlain by a network woven of blood and tears. When the dust settles, players may feel: The cavern’s stone and lingering ghost‑fire have burnt the patriarchal love myth to cinders, illuminating the long‑silenced truth of the second sex buried beneath the ruins.

When flames fade and dust settles under desert moonlight, only ashes and faint embers remain. Cracks in the stone seem to hide residual heat, signaling patriarchal dreams’ demise and women’s truth’s emergence. The cavern has split; the spark, though small, lets us glimpse, amid the ashes of burnt‑out dreams, the roots of women’s distorted destinies.