okay. Long and angry Abyss post.
Just cleared Achzarut/Akuzelius last night, after the pchat (thanks everybody!) and am now supposed to go to Velkende. This is going to be long, but I want to get it all out so I can actually sleep instead of staying up all night worrying.
I would first like to say that I resent it when games force you to do stupid things you know are stupid and then spend the next few hours lambasting you for it. Hi, this is the player speaking. You know, the one that bought the game and is doing all the work? Why are you punishing me for following your damn directions?
Secondly, I hate it when the enemy you've been fighting for the past twenty hours or so turns out to have been right all along. Ha very ha. It's a cheap narrative trick and it's not fair, either, because the enemy has been fighting dirty while the main characters have been trying to avoid loss of life the whole time. It's a moral principle not to advance just causes with unjust means. It's also stupid, because if they had bothered to properly explain what they were doing instead of kidnapping Ion, cursing Guy, and killing a hundred people on the Tartaros, they might actually have gotten HELP. What a concept!
Thirdly, I am getting really really tired of Japanese culture using my religion as grist for its mill when they don't even know what they're talking about. Kabbala is for understanding our relationship with the Creator and not meant to be studied by immature people (there are restrictions placed on it), Madonna notwithstanding. It bothered me in FF7 (thank you for taking a religious term ('Sefirot') and equating it with murder, Square. No really), and it bothered me in Xenogears/saga, and now hey doody it's bothering me in Abyss. They oversimplify and distort (the tree of the Sefira is a diagram, so they turn it into a real tree. Wow, how creative!) without offering any real insight in return. In fact, all they're doing is name-dropping to sound cooler. Having place names refer to Hebrew concepts means nothing when those concepts are not used for anything other than being cool and foreign-sounding. Achzarut, meaning 'cruelty', is an exception, because its name is an apt descriptor of what goes on there, but the others? Kesedonia comes from 'chesed', meaning charity or kindness, and it's a merchant city. Hahaha. (Not that Judaism holds anything against commerce, unlike other religions. But the meaning is either irrelevant or voluntarily switched here.)
Now for some spoilers.
Last chance to turn back!
No?
Okay then.
Can we not bloody yell at Luke for breaking the rules when you didn't explain them to him in the first place? You all effing know that Luke has never left his house and has never so much as gone to the bathroom without close supervision, and you expect him to be mature when he leaves his house and has political clout and, oh yeah, the equivalent of a nuclear missile in his unsteady hands. It's a miracle he didn't kill anybody sooner. Plus, the only one in the damn game that bothered talking to Luke about his Choushindou was Van. Tear, you didn't think that explaining how that power worked was relevant? And Jade, I KNOW you figured out the Replica thing ages ago. Why didn't you bother mentioning it? Nobody actually sat down and it explained to Luke, so he gets to have it thrown in his face by the person he considers his worst enemy when he's at his very lowest point.
And the HELL with you, Asch. Garbage? Scum?! You kidnap small children and condemn your closest relative (well, he is!) to death without looking at him twice, you taunt him at every opportunity, you try to make him kill Tear, and every time you see him you try to kill him. And then it's Luke's fault for disregarding your advice and believing the one person who's been like a parent to him his whole life. Right.
I can understand why Asch, faced with the person who 'stole' his life and family and position, couldn't resist getting in a few digs at him. I still think it's disgusting.
Another thing that bothers me (I am not going to talk about Van, because I am still white-hot with rage at him) is the way the groups in this game use children to fight. Look at Arietta! You take a child with a lot of issues, you put her in a bondage outfit (I'm still mad about that damn collar), and then you throw her into a full bloody war. OF COURSE she's going to be messed up. (Oh and go to hell again for setting her to attack that port, Asch. You just put blood on a little girl's hands! ISN'T THAT CUTE.)
Lastly, and the thing that angers me the most, is the way people judge Luke as if he were an experienced adult instead of a frightened little boy who just wanted to save the world. Yachiyo had a really good entry on this that I just read last night, so I'll try not to repeat what she said. Listen. The most important thing to Luke is how people think of him. He's always trying to impress other people. Hell, he went all the way to Cheagle Forest just so people wouldn't think he was a thief! And then of course Van, who knows him best, used that to get the idea in Luke's head that if he could just save the people in Achzarut, everyone would love him and actually pay attention to what he said. How should he know that there are no magic heroes in the world!? All he knows are storybooks and that even Jade and Tear and Guy blow stuff up to get things done. He modeled his behavior on them.
And of course he's impatient. Everything in his life has happened either immediately or not at all, and you expect him to sit around and carry blankets when VAN-SENSEI HAS A MISSION FOR HIM OMG?! Hell, he didn't even wait around when Van told him not to go to Coral Castle. The kid needs a leash.
Also, of course he's selfish. All children are born selfish and have to learn, with difficulty, that other people are individuals on a par with them and equally deserving of love and toys. And Luke, who has the mental age of a seven year old and has been spoiled horribly all his life? Yes, he's selfish! I would be too! I was really mad at him on that mountain when he suggested Ion didn't need to come along. But what do you expect of him? Jeez. You don't judge a child on the same level as an adult! Doesn't Anise get away with saying some dreadful things under her breath?
(This also puts the shipping wars, if there are any, in a new light. I can understand now why he thinks Natalia is annoying; she's bossy, smarter than he is, and she has GIRL COOTIES.)
Anyway, what I meant to talk about, and why I marked this entry with FF7 spoilers, is this sequence's similarity with the events in FF7 at the Northern Crater. Cloud is also unsure of who he is (you spend the whole game disentangling his personality from Zack's and from Jenova's influence), has had strange voices taunting him through the whole game, is feeling guilty for the death of the person who's quite conceivably the most important one on the world to him, gets abandoned by his friends (and in RPGs, as in shounen manga, a person's nakama are his family), and in trying to save the world ends up condemning it instead. At least we don't have to see Luke drooling in a wheelchair, because my God, that game scared the hell out of me. Maybe you have to annihilate the main character completely before you can build him up again, but this is too awful.
Er, now I'm confused after that long rant. But yeah, I can't blame Luke for being in denial, either! How are you supposed to process the idea that you just murdered several thousand people!? (Setting aside the fact that the town didn't have nearly so many characters in it...)
I'm so grateful for Mieu. Of all the people around him, the only one to stick by Luke was the butazaru. Aww man *loves Mieu with a helpless adoration*
I would first like to say that I resent it when games force you to do stupid things you know are stupid and then spend the next few hours lambasting you for it. Hi, this is the player speaking. You know, the one that bought the game and is doing all the work? Why are you punishing me for following your damn directions?
Secondly, I hate it when the enemy you've been fighting for the past twenty hours or so turns out to have been right all along. Ha very ha. It's a cheap narrative trick and it's not fair, either, because the enemy has been fighting dirty while the main characters have been trying to avoid loss of life the whole time. It's a moral principle not to advance just causes with unjust means. It's also stupid, because if they had bothered to properly explain what they were doing instead of kidnapping Ion, cursing Guy, and killing a hundred people on the Tartaros, they might actually have gotten HELP. What a concept!
Thirdly, I am getting really really tired of Japanese culture using my religion as grist for its mill when they don't even know what they're talking about. Kabbala is for understanding our relationship with the Creator and not meant to be studied by immature people (there are restrictions placed on it), Madonna notwithstanding. It bothered me in FF7 (thank you for taking a religious term ('Sefirot') and equating it with murder, Square. No really), and it bothered me in Xenogears/saga, and now hey doody it's bothering me in Abyss. They oversimplify and distort (the tree of the Sefira is a diagram, so they turn it into a real tree. Wow, how creative!) without offering any real insight in return. In fact, all they're doing is name-dropping to sound cooler. Having place names refer to Hebrew concepts means nothing when those concepts are not used for anything other than being cool and foreign-sounding. Achzarut, meaning 'cruelty', is an exception, because its name is an apt descriptor of what goes on there, but the others? Kesedonia comes from 'chesed', meaning charity or kindness, and it's a merchant city. Hahaha. (Not that Judaism holds anything against commerce, unlike other religions. But the meaning is either irrelevant or voluntarily switched here.)
Now for some spoilers.
Last chance to turn back!
No?
Okay then.
Can we not bloody yell at Luke for breaking the rules when you didn't explain them to him in the first place? You all effing know that Luke has never left his house and has never so much as gone to the bathroom without close supervision, and you expect him to be mature when he leaves his house and has political clout and, oh yeah, the equivalent of a nuclear missile in his unsteady hands. It's a miracle he didn't kill anybody sooner. Plus, the only one in the damn game that bothered talking to Luke about his Choushindou was Van. Tear, you didn't think that explaining how that power worked was relevant? And Jade, I KNOW you figured out the Replica thing ages ago. Why didn't you bother mentioning it? Nobody actually sat down and it explained to Luke, so he gets to have it thrown in his face by the person he considers his worst enemy when he's at his very lowest point.
And the HELL with you, Asch. Garbage? Scum?! You kidnap small children and condemn your closest relative (well, he is!) to death without looking at him twice, you taunt him at every opportunity, you try to make him kill Tear, and every time you see him you try to kill him. And then it's Luke's fault for disregarding your advice and believing the one person who's been like a parent to him his whole life. Right.
I can understand why Asch, faced with the person who 'stole' his life and family and position, couldn't resist getting in a few digs at him. I still think it's disgusting.
Another thing that bothers me (I am not going to talk about Van, because I am still white-hot with rage at him) is the way the groups in this game use children to fight. Look at Arietta! You take a child with a lot of issues, you put her in a bondage outfit (I'm still mad about that damn collar), and then you throw her into a full bloody war. OF COURSE she's going to be messed up. (Oh and go to hell again for setting her to attack that port, Asch. You just put blood on a little girl's hands! ISN'T THAT CUTE.)
Lastly, and the thing that angers me the most, is the way people judge Luke as if he were an experienced adult instead of a frightened little boy who just wanted to save the world. Yachiyo had a really good entry on this that I just read last night, so I'll try not to repeat what she said. Listen. The most important thing to Luke is how people think of him. He's always trying to impress other people. Hell, he went all the way to Cheagle Forest just so people wouldn't think he was a thief! And then of course Van, who knows him best, used that to get the idea in Luke's head that if he could just save the people in Achzarut, everyone would love him and actually pay attention to what he said. How should he know that there are no magic heroes in the world!? All he knows are storybooks and that even Jade and Tear and Guy blow stuff up to get things done. He modeled his behavior on them.
And of course he's impatient. Everything in his life has happened either immediately or not at all, and you expect him to sit around and carry blankets when VAN-SENSEI HAS A MISSION FOR HIM OMG?! Hell, he didn't even wait around when Van told him not to go to Coral Castle. The kid needs a leash.
Also, of course he's selfish. All children are born selfish and have to learn, with difficulty, that other people are individuals on a par with them and equally deserving of love and toys. And Luke, who has the mental age of a seven year old and has been spoiled horribly all his life? Yes, he's selfish! I would be too! I was really mad at him on that mountain when he suggested Ion didn't need to come along. But what do you expect of him? Jeez. You don't judge a child on the same level as an adult! Doesn't Anise get away with saying some dreadful things under her breath?
(This also puts the shipping wars, if there are any, in a new light. I can understand now why he thinks Natalia is annoying; she's bossy, smarter than he is, and she has GIRL COOTIES.)
Anyway, what I meant to talk about, and why I marked this entry with FF7 spoilers, is this sequence's similarity with the events in FF7 at the Northern Crater. Cloud is also unsure of who he is (you spend the whole game disentangling his personality from Zack's and from Jenova's influence), has had strange voices taunting him through the whole game, is feeling guilty for the death of the person who's quite conceivably the most important one on the world to him, gets abandoned by his friends (and in RPGs, as in shounen manga, a person's nakama are his family), and in trying to save the world ends up condemning it instead. At least we don't have to see Luke drooling in a wheelchair, because my God, that game scared the hell out of me. Maybe you have to annihilate the main character completely before you can build him up again, but this is too awful.
Er, now I'm confused after that long rant. But yeah, I can't blame Luke for being in denial, either! How are you supposed to process the idea that you just murdered several thousand people!? (Setting aside the fact that the town didn't have nearly so many characters in it...)
I'm so grateful for Mieu. Of all the people around him, the only one to stick by Luke was the butazaru. Aww man *loves Mieu with a helpless adoration*