Replaying The Way

A moderated forum to discuss topics surrounding the Way series

Moderators: Porter, EmperorJeramyu, Telephalsion

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby EmperorJeramyu » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:30 pm

Debacle wrote:At the end of the intro of episode 1, the camera stays over a giant - compared to Rhue's size - skull formation under the stream.
I never figured out how does it relate to anything in the game, might be just a random 'cool' detail.

Yeah, I think Lun was just showing off his Bryce 3D skills.

Debacle wrote:It's hard to tell how much Traziun knows about what is going on with Rhue or at least that he has a Shadow Sword. Out of nowhere he seems really interested in Rhue and right after Rhue mentioning Serena, he asks "So, where did you get this fine sword?". Although there are hints he could know, most of the dialogue sells him as clueless as everyone else about the situation.

Maybe Traziun figured out Rhue had a shadow sword (the series kind of goes back and forth on whether or not properly attuned characters can "sense" a shadow sword), but I never got the impression he ever got "really interested in Rhue". Traziun for the most part seemed focused on his own goals and helped Rhue out because he's a nice guy, and it's nice to have at least one friend on The Way. His entering of Rhue in the tournament in Lide just struck him as trying to help the obviously clueless Rhue gain a bit more survivability. If you consider the entire series, he's basically the only true friend Rhue had all along.

Debacle wrote:What is Scatha's part on the Night Reaper issue? She's after the sword or after Cetsa?

Yeah, this is one of the bigger unexplained character relations. Some of Cetsa and Kygar's dialogue hints that she's been a problem for them previously, so it may be the latter. How or why is unknown. Maybe she was just trying to keep the shadow sword out of their possession. On the other hand, I always interpreted the first we see of her in E3 (trying to get directions from a monster) as searching for the shadow sword. Either for herself, or for Jopaga's research.

Debacle wrote:Another thing that wasn't very clear for me was who killed that guys you find after plunge against Rosmar.
You find the bodies, then you think it was the PS. Soon after, you find someone tried to bury the bodies but had to run, so it wasn't the PS.
Then you find Gaius fell on a bridge trap by someone else, but he could be lying and we know Gaius kill criminals he senses.
Then we find a bunch of Blue Scarves, which would explain everything else if someone later didn't comment on how the Blue Scarves don't kill people, they just beat wanderers up and rob stuff.

Eh? Cetsa claims she only used violence as a "last resort", but A) she was almost certainly lying (she's constantly reviled as a mass murderer), and B) the Blue Scarves are called "murderous" from the very first scene of E1 onward. I never thought there was any doubt they did all those shenanigans at the start of E2. I don't recall any comment where the Blue Scarves as a whole are said to not kill people. It's categorically untrue anyway, considering they launched an unprovoked frontal assault on a fortified settlement (Turnway), and there's no way to defend that as not having an almost certain chance of involving plenty of murder.

Debacle wrote:Lastly, Gaius very old and not accurate map at Marna dialogue sort of sells the idea that The Way is a loop and has been being traveled many times (enough for geographical change).

I suppose that could be one possible implications, but clearly not one that any wanderers have ever picked up on. I imagine to them, someone could've conceivably mapped out the area and sold the map to someone else for a high price. It would certainly explain its rarity, at any case. Maps of stretches may be rare, but they're still something that's known to exist, and if an old map is all it took to deduce the way is a loop, you'd think more people would've figured it out. Granted unless Tetzel has total control over the possession of all maps on The Way, you'd think someone who'd been passed down a map through the generations would be in for a surprise eventually.

The real proof the way is a loop comes from Estrana being on top of Janwen, and Rhue having a memory of the "End" of The Way. Though now that I think about it, as much as Sacrifa and other characters babble about "The Truth" of End of The Way, nobody ever outright says it's a loop. Probably intentional by Lun, but still curious.
"Unfortunately, the dragon only speaks in Napalm, a curious ancient language that you don't really need to speak to understand."
User avatar
EmperorJeramyu
Blana Sera
 
Posts: 2277
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:38 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Debacle » Fri Jan 11, 2013 4:29 pm

Maybe Traziun figured out Rhue had a shadow sword (the series kind of goes back and forth on whether or not properly attuned characters can "sense" a shadow sword), but I never got the impression he ever got "really interested in Rhue". Traziun for the most part seemed focused on his own goals and helped Rhue out because he's a nice guy, and it's nice to have at least one friend on The Way. His entering of Rhue in the tournament in Lide just struck him as trying to help the obviously clueless Rhue gain a bit more survivability. If you consider the entire series, he's basically the only true friend Rhue had all along.


We know that Kalmar can sense Night Reaper, so if that's a ability for shadow swords in general, we could assume at least he has taught this ability to his 'perfect blade' Gaius.
About being 'really interested', yeah, probably he was just waiting for the first person to cross his path to convince to go along with him to the caves instead of the regular path. At that point, Rhue was pretty much a weakling and given how Traziun puts survival above all else (Gaius and Alan on the caves), in that situation one would think Rhue would be only a pushover. But I guess it's better than nothing - and furthers the plot.

Eh? Cetsa claims she only used violence as a "last resort", but A) she was almost certainly lying (she's constantly reviled as a mass murderer), and B) the Blue Scarves are called "murderous" from the very first scene of E1 onward. I never thought there was any doubt they did all those shenanigans at the start of E2. I don't recall any comment where the Blue Scarves as a whole are said to not kill people. It's categorically untrue anyway, considering they launched an unprovoked frontal assault on a fortified settlement (Turnway), and there's no way to defend that as not having an almost certain chance of involving plenty of murder.


You are right, I went back and found the line that caused this confusion - it mentions regular bandits. I probably instantly associated that to the Blue Scarves without really thinking about it.

MAN: This is nice... Anything to get my mind off that killer that is running loose.
You've heard about that?
MAN: Of course, I'd wager that everyone in here's heard about the recent massacres. We've always had various bandit fists around, but...
But?
MAN: This is different. Bandits don't usually kill people
Then this is one of those unusual cases.
MAN: I don't think so. The dead bodies that were found had not been looted.
What?
MAN: Yea, it's weird. Items that bandits usually take were left untouched.
MAN: I've also heard that young children are often left untouched.
I don't get it... What else would motivate someone to kill random people?
Are we even sure this murderer is human?
MAN: The victims all died from sword blows and only humans use swords..
This makes no sense. Could this be killing, simply for the sake of killing?
It can't be... Could anyone be that sick?
I remember something very similiar to this happening a long time ago.
[...]

I suppose that could be one possible implications, but clearly not one that any wanderers have ever picked up on. I imagine to them, someone could've conceivably mapped out the area and sold the map to someone else for a high price. It would certainly explain its rarity, at any case. Maps of stretches may be rare, but they're still something that's known to exist, and if an old map is all it took to deduce the way is a loop, you'd think more people would've figured it out. Granted unless Tetzel has total control over the possession of all maps on The Way, you'd think someone who'd been passed down a map through the generations would be in for a surprise eventually.

The real proof the way is a loop comes from Estrana being on top of Janwen, and Rhue having a memory of the "End" of The Way. Though now that I think about it, as much as Sacrifa and other characters babble about "The Truth" of End of The Way, nobody ever outright says it's a loop. Probably intentional by Lun, but still curious.


I didn't mean as the absolute proof, but more of a hint left by Lun.
The utility of maps depends much on how long a stretch is 'available' for travel. In a world where everyone keeps moving ahead, a map would be useful only once and if you wanted to sell it, you would have to travel backwards. Unless you get far ahead of enough people and make a business of copying and selling the map, as soon as you're out of said stretch, the map is garbage.
Again, we don't know how long a stretch is available, but for a map to be old, it needs to have been made by a Forerunner and the current owner be far behind in The Way or - the more simple answer - been made in a previous iteration of The Way loop.
For Gaius, who is trusted by Kalmar, who doesn't age and probably Tetzel either, wouldn't be hard to get a map.

Sage Of The Wise wrote:It has to be a manifestation in some cases at least. Best example: It breaks him out of jail in EP5. Rhue likely didn't break himself out of jail, but his sword was just sitting outside the cell. I've considered that maybe the PS has gotten more freedom over time. Maybe just as a slow process, maybe because of the Jopaga incident specifically. If not the case, it certainly starts taking more overt action by the end of the series.


I don't know, Gaius implies Rhue is the Phantom Slasher. And it's not uncommon for Rhue to feel possessed or not remembering stuff well or even doing extraordinary power feats (the whole Aubuta scene and the 'flying' ending)
I still think it's weird that Rhue only sees the PS when he is alone and given the strange powers the sword has, anything could be possible.
Debacle
Plyn
 
Posts: 36
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 9:01 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Sage Of The Wise » Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:20 am

Well then you have to consider, at the end of EP2, did Rhue turn into the PS, go kill all the guards leading up to the canyon, impale his sword in a guy, then go back into his holding tent and wait for someone to 'free' him?

On a completely separate note I read a book recently called Warbreaker, which involved a very shadow sword like sword. First off it was called Nightblood, which is a shadow sword name if I ever heard one. But basically in that universe whenever anything is done with magic it has to be through commands, and this sword was the first time anyone ever figured out how to imbue an object with sentience so they really didn't know what they were doing. So when they created it they gave it the command 'destroy evil' thinking that would be a pretty good idea. Turns out the sword, being a suddenly sentient piece of metal, has no real sense of right and wrong and just kinda has to guess at what evil would be. It doesn't go well.
And the Lord said unto John, "Come forth and receive eternal life." But John came fifth and won a toaster.
User avatar
Sage Of The Wise
S3 Deralyn
 
Posts: 3300
Joined: Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:30 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby EmperorJeramyu » Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:15 pm

Sage Of The Wise wrote:Well then you have to consider, at the end of EP2, did Rhue turn into the PS, go kill all the guards leading up to the canyon, impale his sword in a guy, then go back into his holding tent and wait for someone to 'free' him?

That, and I think above all else the scene in E5 where the PS literally puts the sword back into Rhue's sheath was kind of made to prove it's a real physical entity, unless Rhue somehow found his own sword, gave it to himself, and the spontaneously passed out.
"Unfortunately, the dragon only speaks in Napalm, a curious ancient language that you don't really need to speak to understand."
User avatar
EmperorJeramyu
Blana Sera
 
Posts: 2277
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:38 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Debacle » Sat Jan 12, 2013 2:34 pm

In my memories I had that the impaled guy was just a remnant of the ones killed by Rhue when he was sent to prison.

As I'm going forward through the game, I see how you are right: the scene when Rhue battles the Night Reaper's shadow down in the Pits makes your point obvious (though, yeah, in my fuzzy memories that scene had a possessed Traziun instead).

By the way, based on the exploding/vanishing scene after you win that plunge, you would think the sword's "shadow aura" was defeated for good,
but at Ep.5 Kalmar mentions feeling Night Reaper's evil. I wonder if this killer spree is a particular trait of the PS sword or NR was suppressed somehow.

For anyone who thought the bloody mists weren't real:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMYFY8vxnD4
Debacle
Plyn
 
Posts: 36
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 9:01 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby ThePuzzleMan » Wed Jan 16, 2013 12:56 pm

Shit.....can't believe i'm founding myself back at this forum...i never been active in the community, had registered after i finished episode 6 but never discussed the game much due to my poor english at the time (not that it's good nowadays, so sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes and confusing semantics) but the series through the years has always been stuck at my mind.

I think i finished the game about 5 or 6 years ago, don't have a clue as how i found it since i never been active in the rm2k comm,i remember playing Legion Saga and some porrly done brazilian rm2k games (yes, i'm brazilian) , was 16-17 years old by the time and a RPG junkie. Even now, the world created by Lun still fascinates me and is one of the few gaming experience that i found unique throughout my brief life till now...

I didn't spend as nearly much time analyzing the themes, plot, characters connections,etc. as some of you as i can see from the posts above, so it might a obvious question:

The "Rhue" persona never existed right? I mean it was, i don't know if is technically correct to say, an "alter ego" created by Jeruh to hide from his past and as a defense mecanism, it never was a physical being as per se...so wasn't it risky to the PS that as Rhue meets people from Jeruh's past in his quest, he somewhat remembers everything like Jeruh does in EP6? "By the fires of Janwen!I am Jeruh!" something like that he says......or the PS control over him is so powerful tha he need's a bigger catharsis for that matter?

Don't know if someone will reply to this, as i can see the board is quite dead nowadays....
ThePuzzleMan
Wanderer
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 9:19 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby EmperorJeramyu » Wed Jan 16, 2013 7:13 pm

ThePuzzleMan wrote:The "Rhue" persona never existed right? I mean it was, i don't know if is technically correct to say, an "alter ego" created by Jeruh to hide from his past and as a defense mecanism, it never was a physical being as per se...so wasn't it risky to the PS that as Rhue meets people from Jeruh's past in his quest, he somewhat remembers everything like Jeruh does in EP6? "By the fires of Janwen!I am Jeruh!" something like that he says......or the PS control over him is so powerful tha he need's a bigger catharsis for that matter?

Well when you put it that way, the "Rhue" persona was literally the BEST choice for the PS to manipulate because most of the characters from its past were, y'know, dead. All of the children sans Midian and Lyrra were dead, Midian died before the PS-Rhue person existed, and Lyrra was in complete denial about the whole thing, though it would've been interesting to see what would've happened if Rhue actually mentioned the names "Serena" or "Landorin" to Lyrra (I'm 99% sure he doesn't). My guess is she probably represses the whole thing so hard it wouldn't matter.

Slade and Scatha couldn't actually prove anything about Rhue's story was false since all they know is a bunch of kids got killed and at least one went missing. They know that Serena is dead, sure, but despite Slade's surprise at hearing Rhue mention someone named Serena (It's probably a little startling when someone blurts out the name of your dead little sister from your traumatic childhood), he probably never put two and two together since a coincidence was more likely. Scatha was probably too smart to mention it once she'd figured it out based on the pendant, since she knew exactly what would happen, given the ridiculous massacre Rhue goes on directly before making Cetsa learn the hard way.

Funnily enough, Jed was probably the biggest threat in terms of being able to poke holes in Rhue's story since he might have a good chance of knowing there wasn't a kid on the stretch named Rhue (Scatha and Slade probably didn't know that much, and even if they did, they'd probably easily accept that Rhue was Jeruh with a name change, and be smart enough to not ask about it), and maybe knew something about Jeruh's feelings for Serena, though he still couldn't invalidate the entire thing (Lyrra never told him any details). Even if he tried, I imagine Rhue would've killed him under slightly different circumstances, like he tried to with Cetsa. Random Theory: Jed and Lyrra were the people the PS was coming to kill at the end of E1.

The Rhue persona is also incredibly useful not because it's just easy for the PS to "manipulate", but because like Lyrra, it also suppresses the truth very strongly. The giant tower behind a super fuck-off force field isn't just a physical obstacle that hides the real Jeruh, but also symbolic for just how deeply he represses the truth of his own existence. It's the same thing that's going on with Lyrra hiding in a magic fantasy kingdom. And yeah, I suppose given the explanation Jopaga gives, the barrier around the tower probably was something put there by the PS, but that's why Rhue is easy to manipulate, since it's very convenient for the PS to only have to hide one memory/aura to make Rhue its perfect host.

Also as Sage mentioned before, the Rhue persona also has a very convenient excuse to be on the move, giving the PS a wide range of people to "judge" or whatever.
"Unfortunately, the dragon only speaks in Napalm, a curious ancient language that you don't really need to speak to understand."
User avatar
EmperorJeramyu
Blana Sera
 
Posts: 2277
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:38 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby ThePuzzleMan » Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:47 am

Hmmmmm..makes sense. Have to replay the series to put everything into order in my head, though i don't think i will....

What is curious to me is that the PS is not choosing Jeruh to be the dominant aura, but an alterego of his...at least this is what i got from playing the game...now if that's true, it wouldn't matter if someone contested Rhue's background and all, he wouldn't know anything because he is not a "whole", just a part of someone's psyque...when you get to Dream Estrana and find Midian, The Girl (assuming she is Serena), nothing happens...even when Jeruh acknowledges his true past, although for a brief time, nothing happens to his alterego...

Anyway, kinda bad we'll never knows the answers to our questions, but as an avid Kubrick, Tarkovisky, Lynch and overall movie's fan, that make's for good storytelling and fascination, Lun created a universe that will be in my mind for a long time, a little masterpiece few people in the world will know...
ThePuzzleMan
Wanderer
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 9:19 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Non-Sequitur » Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:57 am

I come back to check on this forum from time to time and I wish I had done so a little earlier this time.

EmperorJeramyu wrote:And I know there's other people who've more or less had the same timeline in this community as me. Am I completely crazy or does anyone else feel like this? I'm just curious.

I first played The Way when Episode 3 was the latest episode released and was not in any way involved with the community until around the time Episode 4 was released, so as you already knew, I haven't been involved for as long as you have. Of course, I was also a little older than you were when I first came across the series, although I was still in high school. However, I still definitely relate to what you describe. I spent a very large portion of my time playing the games, reading the discussions on the forums, and trying to figure out the various mysteries of the series.

I'm going to try to add my commentary to this thread, but I have a lot less free time than I used to and writing anything always takes me a very long time, so I may be rather slow to respond.

Episode 1 -

You know, I've always been kind of at terms with the fact that a lot of people bash on The Way because Episode 1 is kind of sloppy. Call it Early Installment Weirdness or whatever, but yeeeaahhh... Episode 1 really hasn't aged well. It's kind of buggy, the pacing is kind of all over the place and occasionally nonexistent. But hell, Lun started this right in 2000.

I can certainly understand people being disappointed when they play Episode 1 after they have been reading all the praise for the series, but there are some people that act like it is just completely unplayable. I remember someone on Gaming World talking about how he started playing Episode 1 and stopped because he didn't like it. He was convinced to give it another try so that he could get to the rest of the series, but he said that he just couldn't get through it. I never understood this, because Episode 1 is short and not that difficult.

When I talk about pacing problems, I'm talking about things like Rhue deciding he's going to go meet the race judge and get him wasted enough to somehow possibly randomly be named a replacement for no particular reason.

I don't know why this never occurred to me.

I know Rhue has kind of a reputation as an asshole protagonist, but I never realized just how much of a dick Traziun is. "Oh there's a guy over there who's the helpless prey for a big monster? Well, sucks to be him. But now we know to be on the lookout."


I actually thought this from the very first time I saw that scene. My first impression of Traziun was that he was very selfish and I was expecting there to be more conflicts like this between Rhue and Traziun later on. I always thought it seemed rather out of character for how Traziun behaves for the rest of the series, even the end of Episode 1.

Lyrra surprising Rhue by running out from behind an object in the foreground literally only makes sense from the player's perspective. Maybe I've been playing too many indie games recently, but part of me wants to brush this off as some weird fourth-wall breaking mindscrew, which I think it's not.

I don't think it is either. I think it is just an example of behind the black.


There is a lot more in this thread that I would like to comment on, but like I said, it may be a little while before I get to it.
User avatar
Non-Sequitur
Linkmaster General
 
Posts: 492
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 6:51 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Sephiroth555 » Sat Nov 30, 2013 4:30 am

Wow, I just finished playing The Way again today after so many years since EP6 came out and this topic and everyone's comments just really gave me a lot to think about with this game. After playing a game like this, all I want to do is immerse myself in all it's knowledge so I can understand it better. So I just want to say thanks to everyone for your commentary (espically the Emperor) and here's a little bump for others to read this as well. Without this community, The Way would be missing a large piece in it's puzzle.
User avatar
Sephiroth555
S1 Hilyn
 
Posts: 190
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:22 am
Location: Australia, Victoria, Melbourne

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Non-Sequitur » Wed Dec 11, 2013 9:27 pm

I had intended to continue adding commentary, but a lot of things were keeping me busy at the time and I ended up forgetting about this thread until now.

It's still pretty ridiculous just how many people are shadows at some point. Also Scatha is shadow in broad daylight at one point which is kind of absurd. Again, I'm just going to pretend it was some weird fourth-wall breaking.

It is to a lesser extent, but there are also quite a few different characters that are represented with the same cloaked figure charset.

Again, it took me three tries to win against Nomi just due to sheer luck. The obvious point (and most frequent criticism) is that it's just a game of rock paper scissors, but that's not really what I find to be the problem, more on that in a sec...

I have played Episode 2 many, many times and, like Sage, I have never once lost to Nomi (or Alan). As you say, it is nothing but luck at this point, but it looks like you must have had something highly improbable happen on this playthrough.

When you think about it, Rhue knows a very random variety of information about The Way. He doesn't know what mending is, does know what citadels are called, doesn't know about the upper way, does know about the reaches, somehow doesn't know what the plunge is... etc. I guess it kind of makes sense given his... condition, and yeah there's some audience surrogate stuff going on there too, but meh... more fourth wall fuckery, I claim.

Yes and it has been noted before that he knew that shadow sword can't be destroyed by conventional means even though it had never been mentioned in the series before.

The plunge against Parris is really a doozy.

It has been quite a while since I have played The Way, but I remember this plunge consistently giving me the most difficulty of any in the game and he is absolute hell to beat if you do not prioritize absorbing the plunge related notch items in the Barrucha cave. The winnable plunges before him are against really weak opponents and you have enough chances to absorb enough notch items that the much stronger opponents after him are not a problem. As you mentioned, Lun always kept the players that don't find everything in mind.

Also, this reminded me that the first time I played Episode 2, I was wondering if I was going to face Traziun or Kygar in the finals of the Lide tournament and I thought the tournament would probably be winnable either way.

I never realized just how often the game does the whole "pan to Phantom Slasher close behind" thing. Why do we really need to know it's at the Green Rocks?

I always thought that this was just to keep reminding the player that the Phantom Slasher is always present.

Actually, are headhunters an actual organization, or just a bunch of people with the same occupation that all dress the same? You'd think the uniforms would be a dead giveaway to their targets.

Remember how there were all those theories that were made about the nature of headhunters because of the dialogue with the headhunter in Episode 1 and the headhunter in the Marna Stretch?

The Slade/Patura stuff is still pretty squicky, which I guess is the point.

It also looks like a rather unusual example of a circling monologue.

That being said, it is really freaking hard to last 6 rounds [in the first plunge against Strata]. I think my record is 7, but that was in the beta.

The first time I played Episode 6, I lasted significantly more than six rounds and Strata's hp was low by the time I lost. This made me think that he was very hard, but beatable. I was certainly expecting him to be either really hard or unbeatable after all the build up he was given. I tried again and then had a hard time lasting even six rounds.

Nobody in Dream Estrana ever questions it. People just "somehow ended up here" and continued living. Nobody seems to concerned it's in a perpetual state of rot, or surrounded by a giant red void. Hell, Sacrifa himself was the one who blew up the city and then left. Yet he's back in Dream Estrana, researching. Not researching how he got there, or what the hell is going on, mind you.

Sacrifa still seems to have more awareness and remember more about the events leading up to him coming to Dream Estrana than the other people Rhue encounters there.

While we are on Dream Estrana, what do you think the deal with Slade is here? It is almost like he is there for gameplay purposes only and ignored by the plot. He not only has no lines himself outside of combat, but the other characters seem to acknowledge him as little as possible. Rhue's reaction (or lack thereof) to seeing Slade makes no sense given what happened the last time they met and it makes even less sense that Rhue and his companions would just let him join them without any questions. It all just seems to be handled so differently than other times that characters meet each other in The Way.

Let's get this out the way: Fuck you, The Girl is Serena.

You may be right because I don't know who else it could be, it wouldn't make much sense to keep the name a secret if the name had never been mentioned before since it wouldn't mean anything to us, and it certainly would make some scenes very ironic if she was Serena, but I still just don't understand how she would ever have been absorbed by Rhue's sword. One thing that I find very odd is that Fwacho said he didn't know about The Girl before Episode 6.

Edit:
Serena being in Dream Estrana could be explained if the sword that Jeruh used to commit the Landorin massacre was Rhue's sword. I need to look over the old discussions on this because I seem to remember there being a compelling reason as to why this could not be the case.

Another edit:
Obviously, The Girl had appeared before Episode 6. My point was just that Lun apparently put this character in the game without discussing it with Fwacho.

There are a lot of randomly named characters in E6.

Yes, but there are really a lot of extremely minor characters that are given names throughout the series.
User avatar
Non-Sequitur
Linkmaster General
 
Posts: 492
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 6:51 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Worble » Sun Dec 15, 2013 8:30 pm

Non-Sequitur wrote:While we are on Dream Estrana, what do you think the deal with Slade is here? It is almost like he is there for gameplay purposes only and ignored by the plot. He not only has no lines himself outside of combat, but the other characters seem to acknowledge him as little as possible. Rhue's reaction (or lack thereof) to seeing Slade makes no sense given what happened the last time they met and it makes even less sense that Rhue and his companions would just let him join them without any questions. It all just seems to be handled so differently than other times that characters meet each other in The Way.

I'm fairly sure there was a discussion some years back that Slade has this phantom like presence because he was basically never fully absorbed by the sword. My memory of the games are sketchy at best, so take all of this with a pinch of salt and please shout out any mistakes, but he dies after killing Cetsa right? I believe that most widely accepted hypothesis was that he was either too far away to be absorbed completely at his death or the only parts of him were absorbed after he loses that plunge to Rhue. Indeed his actions after that point are almost like he has lost a part of himself. The Slade we see in Episode 6 Estrana doesn't speak; he pretty much just blindly follows the orders Rhue gives him, like he is often criticised for doing throughout the previous episodes, or very much, his entire life. The Slade we are left with after this part of his personality is 'taken' from him is the one that sits around and actually contemplates the actions he has taken throughout his life fully, before of course coming to the conclusion to end his own life. Then when he kills Cetsa, I'm fairly sure he says "For once I'll do something for myself", or something along those lines? Again showing a side of him we haven't really seen before, as his 'loyal' and 'unthinking' was taken by Rhue and absorbed by the sword during their plunge.
Well that explanation ended up being a little more long winded that I expected, but I didn't actually expect that part about Slade to be so deep before I actually started writing it. Also my articulation and concise wording probably isn't so good
Worble
Wanderer
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2013 8:18 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby EmperorJeramyu » Sun Dec 15, 2013 10:27 pm

Non-Sequitur wrote:
Nobody in Dream Estrana ever questions it. People just "somehow ended up here" and continued living. Nobody seems to concerned it's in a perpetual state of rot, or surrounded by a giant red void. Hell, Sacrifa himself was the one who blew up the city and then left. Yet he's back in Dream Estrana, researching. Not researching how he got there, or what the hell is going on, mind you.

Sacrifa still seems to have more awareness and remember more about the events leading up to him coming to Dream Estrana than the other people Rhue encounters there.

While we are on Dream Estrana, what do you think the deal with Slade is here? It is almost like he is there for gameplay purposes only and ignored by the plot. He not only has no lines himself outside of combat, but the other characters seem to acknowledge him as little as possible. Rhue's reaction (or lack thereof) to seeing Slade makes no sense given what happened the last time they met and it makes even less sense that Rhue and his companions would just let him join them without any questions. It all just seems to be handled so differently than other times that characters meet each other in The Way.

Worble wrote:I'm fairly sure there was a discussion some years back that Slade has this phantom like presence because he was basically never fully absorbed by the sword. My memory of the games are sketchy at best, so take all of this with a pinch of salt and please shout out any mistakes, but he dies after killing Cetsa right? I believe that most widely accepted hypothesis was that he was either too far away to be absorbed completely at his death or the only parts of him were absorbed after he loses that plunge to Rhue. Indeed his actions after that point are almost like he has lost a part of himself. The Slade we see in Episode 6 Estrana doesn't speak; he pretty much just blindly follows the orders Rhue gives him, like he is often criticised for doing throughout the previous episodes, or very much, his entire life. The Slade we are left with after this part of his personality is 'taken' from him is the one that sits around and actually contemplates the actions he has taken throughout his life fully, before of course coming to the conclusion to end his own life. Then when he kills Cetsa, I'm fairly sure he says "For once I'll do something for myself", or something along those lines? Again showing a side of him we haven't really seen before, as his 'loyal' and 'unthinking' was taken by Rhue and absorbed by the sword during their plunge.
Well that explanation ended up being a little more long winded that I expected, but I didn't actually expect that part about Slade to be so deep before I actually started writing it. Also my articulation and concise wording probably isn't so good

That's pretty much my exact theory, yeah.

Non-Sequitur wrote:
Let's get this out the way: Fuck you, The Girl is Serena.

Edit:
Serena being in Dream Estrana could be explained if the sword that Jeruh used to commit the Landorin massacre was Rhue's sword. I need to look over the old discussions on this because I seem to remember there being a compelling reason as to why this could not be the case.

That's the thing though. People had a bunch of reasons that The Girl couldn't be Serena... except they never explained them, or they could never be proven. The big one was that people don't age in Dream Estrana, which while I can see why it would be easy to believe that, there's no solid evidence that it's the case. To me, it's pretty cut and dry. Serena was killed by Jeruh with the Phantom Slasher at the Landorin massacre. This is 100% explicitly shown in the ending.
"Unfortunately, the dragon only speaks in Napalm, a curious ancient language that you don't really need to speak to understand."
User avatar
EmperorJeramyu
Blana Sera
 
Posts: 2277
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:38 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby hero_bash » Tue Dec 17, 2013 10:46 am

Whoa, all these amazing discussions make me want to play the whole game again. With cheating of course, I can never play it without some minor form of cheating.
User avatar
hero_bash
S1 Hilyn
 
Posts: 183
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 2:53 pm

Re: Replaying The Way

Postby Non-Sequitur » Sun Dec 29, 2013 2:44 pm

EmperorJeramyu wrote:
Worble wrote:I'm fairly sure there was a discussion some years back that Slade has this phantom like presence because he was basically never fully absorbed by the sword. My memory of the games are sketchy at best, so take all of this with a pinch of salt and please shout out any mistakes, but he dies after killing Cetsa right? I believe that most widely accepted hypothesis was that he was either too far away to be absorbed completely at his death or the only parts of him were absorbed after he loses that plunge to Rhue. Indeed his actions after that point are almost like he has lost a part of himself. The Slade we see in Episode 6 Estrana doesn't speak; he pretty much just blindly follows the orders Rhue gives him, like he is often criticised for doing throughout the previous episodes, or very much, his entire life. The Slade we are left with after this part of his personality is 'taken' from him is the one that sits around and actually contemplates the actions he has taken throughout his life fully, before of course coming to the conclusion to end his own life. Then when he kills Cetsa, I'm fairly sure he says "For once I'll do something for myself", or something along those lines? Again showing a side of him we haven't really seen before, as his 'loyal' and 'unthinking' was taken by Rhue and absorbed by the sword during their plunge.
Well that explanation ended up being a little more long winded that I expected, but I didn't actually expect that part about Slade to be so deep before I actually started writing it. Also my articulation and concise wording probably isn't so good
That's pretty much my exact theory, yeah.

That gives an explanation for why Slades behaves the way he does, but not why he is ignored so much. It is very likely that this wasn't really supposed to mean anything anyway though.

That's the thing though. People had a bunch of reasons that The Girl couldn't be Serena... except they never explained them, or they could never be proven. The big one was that people don't age in Dream Estrana, which while I can see why it would be easy to believe that, there's no solid evidence that it's the case.

Characters like Kava/Kavax raise some questions, but it all really does seem a whole lot less convincing that I remember it being. Again, one reason I now think you are probably right is that I can't think of any other reason why her name would not be revealed. Even if she was someone with some kind of significance, I don't see why it would matter if she had some name that we have never heard of.

To me, it's pretty cut and dry. Serena was killed by Jeruh with the Phantom Slasher at the Landorin massacre. This is 100% explicitly shown in the ending.

I will need to play through it again or watch the Let's Play, but I don't think the name of the shadow sword Jeruh used was given. I don't even think it was explicitly stated that it was a shadow sword, but everything implies it so strongly that it is very safe to say that it was.
User avatar
Non-Sequitur
Linkmaster General
 
Posts: 492
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 6:51 pm

PreviousNext

Return to Estrana

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests

cron