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.
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timeasmymeasure
Spoilers for anyone else reading, naturally
Date: 2011-09-28 02:05 am (UTC)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.