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Just finished Were Love Lies and..


MhicKy

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I feel like murdering a certain red haired woman

Hope we can do that on V13 but I guess we won't solve this problem that easily.. 

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Well... Ruining a person's life is already a pretty nasty action. I'm going to explain in detail, so spoilers. 

 

Spoiler

First, there is the attitude she maintained about the entire ordeal (from Kenneth's point of view): "nothing personal, it's just business."

Like, really, it didn't matter who she did it to, but he happened to fit the bill. It's even made sadder by the kind of person Kenneth used to be: nice, friendly, compassionate, and so on. That detachment also led her to try and push him over the edge (indirectly pushing him to kill himself instead of, I don't know, engineering a heart attack in his sleep). 

There is, of course, the matter of how she intervened in his family for her purposes. 

There also is the fact that upon an attack on Kenneth's house she wasn't responsible for, she waited for survivors to escape and to push them back into the house, dooming Kenneth's actual daughter Nora. 

The whole "I manipulated you from the start" conceit doesn't help her case. 

And, finally, there is what is to me her true sin in this whole affair, the means she used -- mind and memory manipulation. This is a horrific thing to do to a person -- just think about the implications, not from a gamer viewpoint "Oh yay, I can fight my allies in earnest with good plot reasons now", but from the perspective of someone in that universe where such a thing is possible. Living in perpetual paranoia -- has my mind be tampered with? What evidence is there that my life is real? Is there a puppetmaster waiting to drive me to suicide because I've fulfilled my part?

and so on until you truly become mad from justified paranoia. 

(see a lot of fanfiction/sci-fi for actually thought-out implications of mind-alteration) 

 

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1 hour ago, Mindlack said:

Well... Ruining a person's life is already a pretty nasty action. I'm going to explain in detail, so spoilers. 

 

  Hide contents

First, there is the attitude she maintained about the entire ordeal (from Kenneth's point of view): "nothing personal, it's just business."

Like, really, it didn't matter who she did it to, but he happened to fit the bill. It's even made sadder by the kind of person Kenneth used to be: nice, friendly, compassionate, and so on. That detachment also led her to try and push him over the edge (indirectly pushing him to kill himself instead of, I don't know, engineering a heart attack in his sleep). 

There is, of course, the matter of how she intervened in his family for her purposes. 

There also is the fact that upon an attack on Kenneth's house she wasn't responsible for, she waited for survivors to escape and to push them back into the house, dooming Kenneth's actual daughter Nora. 

The whole "I manipulated you from the start" conceit doesn't help her case. 

And, finally, there is what is to me her true sin in this whole affair, the means she used -- mind and memory manipulation. This is a horrific thing to do to a person -- just think about the implications, not from a gamer viewpoint "Oh yay, I can fight my allies in earnest with good plot reasons now", but from the perspective of someone in that universe where such a thing is possible. Living in perpetual paranoia -- has my mind be tampered with? What evidence is there that my life is real? Is there a puppetmaster waiting to drive me to suicide because I've fulfilled my part?

and so on until you truly become mad from justified paranoia. 

(see a lot of fanfiction/sci-fi for actually thought-out implications of mind-alteration) 

 

Pretty much all that, yes..

Spoiler

Kenneth was a good guy just wanting to help people like his father, that's what drove him, he wanted to be help people in need and even tho' he was pure at heart and an amazing person he had to deal with all the bullshit she made him pass through.. Constantly making him feel like his choices didn't matter in the end while mocking him, he was doomed from the start to fail, to have his life ruined, lose everything he had, everyone he loved and fall into deep depression, his story has no happy ending, even in Rejuvenation he dies without being truthful to Aelita and, technically speaking, still has that burden lingering on him and now that bitch is after Aelita too..

I just can't wait to MURDER HER!!
I will not, and I repeat, WILL NOT settle down to anything less than MURDER, she's too dangerous to be left alive and I want her death to be terrible, I want her to suffer, maybe not die but be perpetually stuck on a nightmare dimension where she will be constantly mentally tortured and played with like how she used to always do

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1 hour ago, MhicKy said:

I will not, and I repeat, WILL NOT settle down to anything less than MURDER, she's too dangerous to be left alive and I want her death to be terrible, I want her to suffer, maybe not die but be perpetually stuck on a nightmare dimension where she will be constantly mentally tortured and played with like how she used to always do

 

... 

Well, that's a pretty optimistic worldview. I don't know if I'm willing to condone eternal torture, even to such a foul mockery of a person, but I do agree with you when you say she's too dangerous to be left alive (which somehow no one in the cast seems to understand).

 

... And I'm sure we'll get a somewhat sympathetic backstory and motives for her, which will ruin any celebration of her demise. 

 

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1 hour ago, Mindlack said:

 

... 

Well, that's a pretty optimistic worldview. I don't know if I'm willing to condone eternal torture, even to such a foul mockery of a person, but I do agree with you when you say she's too dangerous to be left alive (which somehow no one in the cast seems to understand).

 

... And I'm sure we'll get a somewhat sympathetic backstory and motives for her, which will ruin any celebration of her demise. 

 

On one hand, using a Beheeyem, a Pokémon I really like... On the other, she's kinda a horrible person... 

 

I'll wait and see to make any decisions.

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4 hours ago, Mindlack said:

Well... Ruining a person's life is already a pretty nasty action. I'm going to explain in detail, so spoilers. 

 

  Hide contents

There also is the fact that upon an attack on Kenneth's house she wasn't responsible for, she waited for survivors to escape and to push them back into the house, dooming Kenneth's actual daughter Nora. 

 

To be honest, the above statement undersells the Red Haired Girl's involvement with that terrible night quite a bit. 

Spoiler

 

-To start with, she made Kenneth believe that Eldest's house was on fire (it wasn't) so that he wouldn't be around to help his family when the real fire started up.

-When he did get back to them (after she personally shoved them off the cliff they were climbing to get away), she twisted things so that Taelia seemed livid that he "abandoned" them when her actual last words were far more loving.

-She later made damn certain he knew exactly how his daughter died, and the terrible implications thereof:

Nora wasn't killed by the fire, or the fall. She was killed by a Yveltal's Devastation attack (from the actual arsonist).

If Devastation manages to kill someone (other than an Interceptor), it completely obliterates their soul.

Nora doesn't get an afterlife.

Nora doesn't get to be reincarnated as a Ghost Type pokemon.

Nora doesn't even get to be chained to the earth as a wandering spirit, or anything else that could potentially have a silver lining.

She's just gone, with nothing left of her to prove that she ever even existed.

 

 

Of course, this one terribly tragic evening would only prove to be the catalyst for her following crimes against Kenneth, including:

Spoiler

 

-Tormenting him with 'vengeful' visions of those he failed to protect (including the folks he met in Gearen at the start of the story, IIRC, since he was unaware that all of them survived that fire) persistently in the next few years, while he was already struggling to lead Sheridan Village and raise the child that arose from his wife's death all on his own, in attempt to drive him to suicide through the overwhelming guilt.

-When he sought spiritual help and consequently decided to try and reconcile with his dickwad brother, she chose to arm the guy with Rift Matter of all things, likely in hopes that it would cause the ensuing battle to kill him.

-In addition to the above dirt dealings behind the scenes, she also made Kenneth see his hometown as being completely engulfed in flames upon setting foot on Four Island (granted, he knew that it was just an illusion at that point, but still, what the fuck lady?)

-Only when Kenneth was in an even worse emotional state than before after failing to keep his brother from getting impaled on a frozen stalagmite and having both his name and freedom stripped away from him when he (literally) fell into Madelis' clutches did red-haired antagonist finally decide to explain everything to the poor, broken man- in front of Taelia's favorite tree, because this woman clearly enjoys the suffering of others so, so much.

 

The whole story's title has a double meaning that becomes painfully clear once you get the true ending. Yes, it's the tale of Sheridan, where a young woman laid in wait for someone who could accept her even with the curse she bore and gladly receive the love she had to give, but it also refers to the fact that everything she and Kenneth had together was based on a lie, a fabrication designed to use them as keys to open the Amethyst Grotto long before the Protectors of Aevium had intended and discard them once that task was finished. Nothing our hero did after the first day in the Region was completely of his own free will, and it ultimately destroyed him and everything he cherished...

 

The saddest part about it all to me is that I think Kenneth would've been able to prove the Red-Haired Girl wrong on her philosophy of everyone having a "bad end" if she hadn't intervened in his life. He likely would've stuck with Tesla and given his all to helping her achieve her life-long goal of opening an orphanage, And boy would he have helped raise the children as if they were his own- he's proven as much with all of the pokemon he rescues within the game proper. He'd have had friends and an organically-grown family, and while he might not have necessarily  been able to leave a lasting legacy this way like he does upon rebuilding Sheridan Village in WLL, he'd still likely have felt fulfilled after helping so many young folk with their lives. Unfortunately, though, Kenneth's happiness also means that Taelia wouldn't have gotten even that much...

 

To be completely honest, it's because of WLL that the end sequence of V12 hit me as hard as it did. It's hard to oversell just how much I panicked the moment I saw that accursed beheeyem on my side of the battlefield- I straight-up had to leave the game for nearly an hour before I regained my composure enough to continue! ...Only find out that said fight has the singularly most vindictive use of the Telepathy Ability I have ever seen. Seriously, Karma'd better catch up to this lady real soonlike… 😓

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12 minutes ago, Tikkit said:

Wait, what was that about the Telepathy Ability? I fought the battle properly, and didn't attack Freya.

Telepathy, it turns out, lets the wielder evade all offensive attacks from its "allies", not just AoEs. As a result, you legitimately can't attack her until Melia and Aelita finally kill the beheeyem without wasting your turn, unless you happen to be using a pokemon with Mold Breaker. This effectively forces you to either play support for her or attack your friends when you don't really want to do either. Yeah...

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38 minutes ago, Autumn Zephyr said:

To be honest, the above statement undersells the Red Haired Girl's involvement with that terrible night quite a bit. 

Full disclosure (I can but answer honesty with honesty): I didn't actually play the game, I just watched playthroughs (just like for Rejuv, I got restless after watching Reborn, I probably wouldn't have been able to control myself after playing Rejuv). So my memories of it are quite fuzzy. Thank you for refreshing it. 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Autumn Zephyr said:

To be completely honest, it's because of WLL that the end sequence of V12 hit me as hard as it did. It's hard to oversell just how much I panicked the moment I saw that accursed beheeyem on my side of the battlefield- I straight-up had to leave the game for nearly an hour before I regained my composure enough to continue!

Seriously, Karma'd better catch up to this lady real soonlike… 😓

Yeah, I think that's more or less intended. And it struck hard, in mode "well, now bad news got real". 

 

Again, when I watched it, it took me a while to realize that something was off in these battles -- like, why were the Pokemon nicknames... familiar? Why were they all shiny? And why Naganadel on the MC's side?  

And then I freaked out so much I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to think of counter-measures, of what Aelita should/could have planned in-story as soon as she got wind of that accursed woman's power, to put her down hard and without any restraint whatsoever the second she met her (and which now the main cast should prepare for as well). 

Worst is, I'm not even done thinking about that. 

Edited by Mindlack
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