I am deeply disappointed that you never get to see the river god himself.
As far as I can tell, this is a pure yuri story.
And the river god has nothing to do with anything, beyond being symbol of duty.
I do not understand why you must either accept or reject someone you know nothing about, instead of taking a wait-and-see attitude.
(Obviously after fighting to the bitter end to flee, because...that's just what I'd do. But mostly out of spite, since there is no telling if I'd like him or not.)
Even IF you choose to go through with everything you STILL don't get to see him.
And the ONLY reason you're allowed to go through with it is duty, for some bizarre reason.
Why not allow it because you consider it a better option than what your village and family offer?
Why not opt to wait and see what he's like before running?
The worst that can happen if you refuse at the treshold is that you die and be rejected.
And either die or become immortal in ghost form. (probably)
Which is quite frankly still better than the alternative.
And maybe you'll like him. Who knows?
I wish there was more choices for that.
(And I also kinda kept hoping that if he was someone you would like, then you could do your best to be a good wife, and see if you could convince him to wipe out the entire village that sold you off to begin with. ^_^ )
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Objectively this game is well-written with beautiful artwork.
And I DO appreciate you have the choice to fight till the very end, and possibly doom every idiot who tried to force you into this.
But I feel a little bit cheated that you never get to actually meet the mentioned river-god.