Part 57: Intermission
IntermissionSo, the note I censored the third sentence of was just a reference to having Phantom Slasher show up during the campfire scene instead.
quote:
The cutscene with Traziun killing Kalmar was originally set in the Inner Sanctum of the Blana Sera temple, but is now moved to the Inner Sanctum of the Black Fortress.
He might mean the throne room but it could also be the weird place Kloe went to be judged in Episode 3.
quote:
The cutscene with Rhue confronting Gaius, and choosing whether to plunge with Strata, was originally going to be the end of the game. Traziun and Strata were involved, as well.
This doesn't make it quite clear, but he means it'd have ended in the cave area where Strata and Rhue Plunge, without ever getting to the Landorin Stretch. I suspect this rather large change was due to both having Traziun and Strata show up during the final confrontation with Gaius was goofy and also a change of plans because he decided he would no longer be making a seventh episode. The conversation between Rhue and Gaius is largely the same, just missing the part about Landorin, but theres some big differences. It also makes Gaius' decision to fix Rhue a lot more abrupt and out of nowhere. Likely because he sensed Rhue kill Lyrra in this case.
code:
Play BGM: WayEndoftheWay [Pan to RHUE catching up with GAIUS, who has his eyes closed.] Note: 6 steps. 7 steps from Gaius. RHUE: Look who it is, my run away tour guide. GAIUS: I never said I'd take you to the End of the Way. I said you could follow me if you could keep up. RHUE: Thanks, now I don't feel so hurt. RHUE: Now if you'll kindly tell me which way the End of the Way is so I can find Tetzel. GAIUS: The End of the Way used to be right here. RHUE: What? GAIUS: You're standing on what used to be the End of the Way. RHUE: I don't have time for this... Where is Tetzel? GAIUS: He fled from here before I arrived. Most likely he's somewhere on the other side of this tunnel. RHUE: Then I guess I'll be on my way. [RHUE starts to leave.] Change Switch: [0197:Others Show up]-ON Set GAIUS: Sorry, but that won't be possible. RHUE: Why is that? GAIUS: I've had to reconsider your existence on the Way. GAIUS: I'm afraid I've realized that you can't be allowed to continue in your current state. RHUE: Current state? What are you talking about?! GAIUS: Just drop your sword and back away. That's all you need to do. RHUE: What?! GAIUS: It's a Shadow Sword. It will destroy you. If you like, you can just hand it over to me. RHUE: ... RHUE: Why would you want it then?! GAIUS: I want to help you, Rhue. RHUE: I don't trust you... How could giving you my sword help anyone? GAIUS: Because I will destroy it. RHUE: Shadow swords can't be destoryed... GAIUS: Trust me Rhue. I'm your friend. Just look at what you did to Lyrra with that awful thing! RHUE: I was defending myself! How do you even know about that?! GAIUS: I sensed it.... I knew it had to be you. RHUE: You're one weird guy... GAIUS: If you mean that I'm not quite like most wanderers, then you're absolutely correct. GAIUS: But under that definition, you're quite weird as well. Please, give the sword to me. RHUE: What are you talking about?! GAIUS: Don't you know who you are? RHUE: I'm Rhue of Landorin! [STRATA enters behind RHUE.] STRATA: You murdered Lyrra! GAIUS: Listen to him Rhue, you're a murderer! Give me your sword and let me help you! RHUE: I'm a murderer? GAIUS: Don't you know? You're the Phantom Slasher! [TRAZIUN enters behind RHUE and above STRATA.] TRAZIUN: There you are... [RHUE and STRATA face TRAZIUN.] Show Picture: 5,ToBeContinued
EggsAisle" post="495731051 posted:
This is a very interesting LP of an interesting game I would have never heard about. Thanks for showing it off!
With that said, I'm throwing in the towel on trying to make sense of what's going on. I'm not sure if it's too many characters and factions, or the writing style leaning so heavily on being ~mysterious and cryptic~, or the character portraits looking kinda samey, or the fact that my brain has been fried from work lately. Or maybe some combination of the above. Whatever the reason, I'm lost.
So we have Rhue, whose motivations consist of finding a girl and... being an asshole for the hell of it, I guess? Alright, fine. There's much more to him, apparently, but he doesn't seem to care. So he just sort of barrels from plot point to plot point like some kind of sociopathic pinball. Alright then.
There's Trazuin, who seems pretty nice and is some kind of ultimate badass. And he has a father who he hates. What is he trying to accomplish? No idea. How does he tie in with the rest of the story? Beats the hell outta me, he just seems to kinda show up and do his thing and then abruptly disappears. Same with Gaius, except even more so, because with Gaius I don't know who he is, what he wants, or even what he's doing most of the time.
We had Slade for a while, who was fairly straightforward: he was a samurai type working for... actually, who was he working for? He was supposed to be some kind of bodyguard, but he was a.) unlucky, and b.) kind of a dick, so nobody liked him. Now he's dead, I think. Did he have a greater role in the story?
Kloe I can at least make sense of. Makes me think she should have been the main character. Lexus was kinda interesting, apparently had a masked vigilante thing going, but now she's dead so welp. Cetsa/Dancing Violet was a pretty unique character, I thought, plus she seemed like she knew something, but then she died too. Well shit. Throw in some stuff about "shadow swords", and nonsensical dream sequences, and this Phantom Slasher thing, and the crazy backstabby politics, and... yeah, I'm lost. I really like the game's setting, from what I understand of it, and I'm intrigued by what's going on; I just can't figure out the rhyme or reason behind any of it, which makes everything really jumbled and confusing. And I'm sure I've missed all sorts of stuff too, it's sort of an 'I don't know what I don't know' situation.
Rhue doesn't care that theres much more to him, because he doesn't realise it. What he does realise is normal to him. He thinks hating mirrors is just natural. He can't understand OTHER people liking to look at themselves, even. Just one example.
Traziun's ultimate personal goals besides revenge are never explicitly spelled out. Revenge on his mothers killer is part of it, but in the opening narration of Episode 2, he makes it sound like... it's just something he intends to do on his way to his real goal of becoming a Foreunner, for the explicit purpose of talking to other Forerunners and discovering the secrets of the Way. Also he's very interested in the rumors of the End of the Way coming up because of the stories that you could attain great power by being the first one to get there.
Slade was a Shadowfoot. An elite lawman for the self-appointed police of the Way and primarily Estrana, the Vigilante Council. You'd remember them as being the alleged tyrant Zedicus, who was Lexus' father, Medmur, who was also the leader of the biggest, nastiest crime org in town, and Patura, who wanted to sleep with strong young men in exchange for favouritism when being selected for the best jobs.
Lexus' identity as Red Zero wasn't a masked vigilante, though. She was a straight out criminal working for Medmurs gang. She even made her place in Medmur's gang by forming her own group of violent thugs, the faux-Blue Scarves.
Some of the stuff is deliberately a bit cryptic, yes. Though I do think a lot of things, I think, were planned to be elaborated on in Episode 7. The Way is technically incomplete. That's just one of the realities of it.
So, a bunch of it is stuff you might not figure out without rereading/replaying and even then you just might not make the right connections. I, and the fans who figured out a lot of this stuff were largely the type of people who replayed the whole series before every episode came out. So three times in my case, and then another few times in the years since.
And even with people like that? There's some things that completely baffle us.
So I'd been thinking of making posts to talk about some of the things that are trickier to figure out and especially posts about the things we only have a few tidbits about pointing to one theory or another.
Like, for instance, it's very probable Gaius is one and the same man as the Harbringer, the executioner The Guided provided to execute Cetsa, and there's evidence for it both in the script and in the games technical side. This is never brought up directly though.
Gaius repels Rhue's attacks without seeming to do anything at all, much the same as the Harbringer did.
Gaius has the ability to see others memory somehow? The Harbringer also somehow knew all about Medmur/Entrego.
And as we saw and Scatha pointed out, Gaius was rather friendly with The Guided in Estrana.
Gaius is implied (Well, it's as blatantly stated as you can get without using Gaius' name in connection to the second Delhara escapee) to be Kalmar (Traziun's father) Perfect Blade, an instrument of perfect justice. Judge, jury and executioner.
On the technical side of things, Gaius has that hooded figure sprite on his sprite sheet. If you remember, the one Blood Lyn Mender we saw had the same sprite. And his event code has a note saying "this is not gaius."
the end