Part 21: Trilby's Notes, Part 4: Equal Opportunity
Trilby's Notes, Part 4: Equal Opportunity
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Yahtzee realized that, while Abed was an exaggerated absent-minded professor stereotype, he was still a bit too three-dimensional for this series. Now he's basically just Phil again.
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Let's connect some dots.
1. The hotel staff is gradually disappearing.
2. People who are nervous and jittery shift over to a much more evil hotel.
3. This evil hotel is being patrolled by a murderous figure who likes killing people for minor infractions or because he's bored.
4. There are recently-flayed corpses all throughout the dark hotel.
Now, drawing the logical conclusion from these clues is marginally easier than remembering to breathe, and it's a pretty effective thematic element that establishes a credible threat and immediate sense of danger. You may be thinking that a logical and effective explanation seems out of place for the Chzo games, and apparently so did Yahtzee, since he specifically goes out of his way to make this way more complicated than it needs to be. The commentary talks a lot about how the world of magic isn't really evil and instead it's just a normal place where happy people live slightly differently and The Prince is just a serial killer hurting this one area but the corpses are of people who originate from that world where-
Yeah, forget it. All of the dark world corpses being hotel staff is getting added to my reworked canon alongside everybody in 7 Days impersonating someone qualified so they could go into space.
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I love how this game specifically gives Siobhan the most generic Irish name imaginable, then specifically comments on this fact, but still has the use of this name be a vital clue in proving a connection.
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Arbitrary personality changes for everyone! Keep in mind that, in game, Trilby has walked up and down some stairs a bit and stared at objects, probably not taking more than about an hour at most. Over the course of an hour, Siobhan went from a disdainful:
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to a fascinated:
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This scene was a late addition. Originally Siobhan was just going to seduce him, but having this game's female characters fulfill the roles of slut, service industry worker, raped trophy wife, and victim of childbirth wasn't being progressive enough. He compromised by turning "slut" into "raging idiot", possibly in a misguided attempt to make people think he was John Steinbeck.
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In other words, Lenkmann was completely right about all of his concerns and Trilby is cocky without being able to back it up by anything. I would say that Lenkmann is actually somewhat competent, but this will be proven spectacularly incorrect a few updates from now.
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So not only was Trilby's "disguise" entirely nonexistent, it still managed to somehow fool Siobhan, who as of five minutes ago had a huge fascination with the character. She's like a two-year-old who just figured out the trick behind Peek-A-Boo, and this was the more female-friendly version.
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The blood wallpaper relates once again to the arc date that keeps showing up: 28/7, or July 28. The Prince is a simple man whose hobbies include murder, hanging around blocks of wood, and making absolutely sure he doesn't forget what day it is.
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Trilby manages to trip over the hole in the floor and decides that getting back up is for wimps and sensible people. Instead, he reverts to the popular "Back self against wall for protection" strategy.
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Meanwhile, Yahtzee continues to move the feminist movement forward by having her seduce Trilby anyway, disguising it as an entirely heterosexual lapdance with a being of pure evil, and ending the event with some good old domestic violence.
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...Which he immediately uses to justify rifling through her possessions. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be our protagonist. We're supposed to like him.
Yahtzee, never marry.
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Yahtzee's love of lineage always conveniently allows names to stay the same over long stretches of time, like the 400-year stretch in which Abed's descendants continue to have the name Chahal. There are all sorts of reasons this "research" shouldn't work, like Siobhan not taking her family history to a hotel or more than one Omalley having written his name on a box, but coincidences are easy to write.
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I'm pretty sure this harpsichord is haunted and evil. I want you to take steps to ensure it gets split up and spread around as many different parts of the world by as many different handlers as possible. To protect them.
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I'm sorry I'm increasingly condensing the script, but this is where Yahtzee goes completely overboard with reiterating things that we've already heard a dozen times. The harpsichord is made of evil Prince soul wood and someone is about to die. Let's foreshadow that in a novella.
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I'm going to get a better (looping) version of this up when I get around to doing things I say I will. Probably never.
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Wilbur, in case you haven't noticed, is Jack's entirely heterosexual friend who happens to platonically share a bed with him. This sort of relationship shows up throughout the series.
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Just felt I'd give you an idea of the kind of text I've been cutting out, lest you think I'm not doing you all a favor.
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As opposed to providing moral support.
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In the commentary, Yahtzee feebly tries to explain why this happens, besides "I needed a plot", of course. His justification is that the Prince felt he had already caused Jack enough pain, which is somewhat like Bernie Madoff deciding he's made enough money and investing in a local credit union. [/incredibly topical reference].
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Notice that Siobhan is gone. This is definitively intentional this time.
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We get to see this cult in 6 Days. It's basically just a thin Scientology joke.
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Victim 3: Frehorn
1. The third Man who desired judgment was Frehorn, who had bought from those who made luxuries with the wood that was the Prince's Soul, and against whom the Prince brought down the pain of the Soul. The Prince came and struck down the lover of Frehorn, and Frehorn knew the name of the King.
2. And Frehorn said, "I know you now, O Prince who was the Arrogant Man, and I anticipate your wish, and I will devote myself to spreading the teachings you have brought me and the love of our King."
3. And the Prince was satisfied, and Frehorn called all those who would listen and they formed an Order of Blessed Agonies that would work to redeem the follies of the Men of Technology.
Seriously, it actually says "the lover of Frehorn". Some day, Yahtzee should try giving a talk about this series at Sarah Lawrence.
Next time, we collect limbs.
Creator Commentary
So I did some reflecting prior to starting Notes and realised that 5 Days was about a group of strangers having to unite against an unknown evil, while 7 Days was about a group of friends being separated and picked off by the same evil. So I tried to come up with a different overall theme to the characters in Notes. The theme ended up being 'you're the only one who's seeing horrible things while surrounded by people who aren't seeing anything'. That kind of goes away after a while, though.