Writer's Block: Riddle me this

[indigozeal]

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Hey, Writer's Block tourists, you can skip this one: I don't get how people can misinterpret the plot of Lunar: The Silver Star so badly. There're a couple NPCs in Marke to explicitly hit the clueless over the head with a two-by-four ("Wow! So Ghaleon'd burned his creme brulee all along!" "If Ghaleon'd burned his creme brulee all along, why was he mad that Althena blew up the kitchen? He must've been known that Dyne'd just put in new countertops!"), there isn't one bit of surprise or shock in that meeting atop Myght's lab, there's always considerable emphasis both pre- and post-revelation on the injustice of being used and tossed aside, not simply killed... To say nothing of the plain bad storytelling involved - it makes no sense for the villain to be acting on misinformation and never once come to terms with his mistake.

TSS had an original conflict and motivation for its villain that fostered nuanced characterization on which the series - the good parts of the series that dealt with the matter - consequently built. It's something of which to be proud, and yet we're choosing to bury it for an idiotic oops-my-bad plotline. I just don't get it.
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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hiya. I feel kind of stupid asking this, but what misinterpretation are you referring to? I've never played this game but have lurked on forums and such, and don't recall seeing anything about this.

Er.

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Oops. That was me, sorry. *sheepish*

Spoilers for anyone else reading, naturally

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Ack, sorry for being late here! I misinterpreted your first post and had a thing typed up explaining who Dyne & Ghaleon were, but I see with your second post's icon that's clearly not needed!

OK, forgive me if I'm summarizing anything you already know: in the Sega CD version, Dyne loses his magic power in stopping a crisis that occurred while Althena was off incarnated as a human (which she does in this version every so often just to live for a while among her "children," so to speak). Ghaleon's motivation is righteous anger at what he perceives as Dyne being exploited and cast aside - he decides that the goddess is unfit to rule if she needs humans to "do her dirty work" and expends her subjects so callously.

As mentioned, the game makes it clear that Ghaleon knows what really happened to Dyne - he was the only one present at the incident that supposedly took Dyne's life; even before the reveal, Ghaleon's dialogue is heavy on Dyne being "cast aside" instead of killed; Ghaleon isn't the least bit surprised to see Dyne alive in the confrontation they have midway through the game; there're two NPCs in a village who directly address the "why's Ghaleon mad if he knew Dyne was alive" issue, etc. The world initially thinks Dyne's dead, though, and Ghaleon plays nominally into that, as he doesn't want anyone seeking Dyne's help once he tips his hand with the whole Magic Emperor thing.

Somewhere along the line, though, a few fans got confused and thought that Ghaleon honestly believed Dyne to be dead. It's kind of hard to see how they came off with this reading if they played through the whole game, though from the people I've talked to who hold this view, the reading seems to hinge on disregarding most of what the game says about the plotline. I was told that the NPC signposts "didn't count" because the NPCs weren't directly involved with the plot (which ignores how NPCs function in a game, but anyway); likewise, Ghaleon and Dyne's behavior toward each other in a situation where they have no reason to lie isn't to be trusted, as, well, Ghaleon and Dyne themselves aren't authorities on what they think, apparently. It's a lot of work and oblivious misreading for a substitute plot - "oops, our villain's entire worldview is a mistake that we aren't going to mention or come to grips with once in our entire talky narrative" - that's kinda dopey.

The Sega CD version is now relatively obscure, though, and a couple of the folks who hold this view are kind of high up in the fandom, so it's gained enough traction to be the predominant interpretation of events, even though there's no dang evidence for it. And it drives me nuts! As you can probably tell with my rambling on! If you haven't run into this reading yet, though, there's still hope; I seem to be hitting every instance.

Re: Spoilers for anyone else reading, naturally

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Oh! Actually, I have come across this before, but only in a couple of fics from ages ago, and after watching an lp and going through the script, sort of shrugged it off. I thought maybe you were talking about Ghaleon not knowing his own past, what with the manga and all, since I remember seeing that, too, though now that I've reread your post again, that's not really what you were saying at all. Eep. I'm not really involved with the fandom, just an obsessed lurker. _{Also never actually played any of the games except Lunar Legend, just watched lets plays and screencap galleries.} Pretty much all I do is lurk on lunar-net's forums.

The...NPCs don't count. What. And Dyne and Ghaleon don't count either. That's...um. _{Actually, it kinda reminds me of the last time I looked up SSH on tvtropes, where a couple of entries mentioned Ghaleon crushing on Althena in the prologue, when all he's been doing is yelling at her.}

Thanks for making this clear. Rambling is fine with me, haha. It's awesome just to find new things written about lunar. Any discussions I find on plot/character interpretations tend to be several years old, and long over.

Re: Spoilers for anyone else reading, naturally

[indigozeal.livejournal.com]

Ha, you're actually one step ahead of me in some respects; I talk about Illbleed and Deadly Premonition when my only experience of them is through Let's Plays. At least they give me something else to discuss, though, besides games I love that're 15-20 years old - which I enjoy doing but, as you noted, am kind of alone-ish in that regard. (I'm not much involved in the larger fandom, either.)

The TV Tropes thing confirms my suspicions that some people are just making up their own story as they go along. I will not be surprised if the fandom up and decides before long that the series is actually a multi-volume restaurant sim.

Re: Spoilers for anyone else reading, naturally

[steelstrings.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, but then you are ahead of me in that you actually do have more games to talk about than a twenty year old series that you only found out about around eight years ago.

Yes. That is exactly it. I know of a couple other fandoms that're like this. Are we even watching/playing the same thing?