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indigozealI've actually never come across this moment in a game itself. I've read about it in series lore. Its implications, however, crystallize some of the problems with Angelique's setting.
Angelique, as you might have gleaned from my posts, is a series of world sim-come-dating games. Its world is painfully candy-sweet and innocuous, set in a magical kingdom at the center of the universe that's home to the nine gods who keep the cosmos in balance. Each god (known as a "Guardian") keeps watch over a certain fundamental element of the universe - Water, Earth, Light, Darkness, what have you.
The gods are chosen from the populace at large. Two catches, though. The first is that you're not a god forever. Guardians eventually lose their divine power, whereupon they have to leave their Mt. Olympus to make way for a fresh replacement. (It's implied they don't get a severance package.) The second is that the Guardians' little pocket-kingdom is cut off from the outside flow of time, which is moving far more quickly than the Guardians experience. In the franchise's early days, one day in Candyland equals one whole year in the outside universe. This was wisely discarded in later works - time flows differently in certain circumstances outside the Sanctuary, but not in accordance with any hard-and-fast rule. Still, the gist of it is that by the time your tenure as a Guardian ends, all your friends and family are going to have been dead for generations.
One of the Guardians, the young and impetuous Zephel, is not a happy camper. He ascended to godhood under particularly bad circumstances.
When I was made a Guardian, it was really sudden, and I was brought here against my will. I ever tell you about it? Y'see, the guy who has Guardian of Steel before me suddenly disappeared. I heard that he lost his power all of a sudden, that they didn't know where he'd gone...I heard lots of stories. But I had my hands full with stuff goin' on in my own life, y'know?! And it was his fault that I ended up a Guardian in the first place...so I was really ANGRY at him!! But, y'know...it must've been tough for him, too. Just before he disappeared, I heard that he was crying and sobbing like a madman, like he'd gone crazy...he must've been a really sensitive guy, I guess. I wonder where he is right now. It makes me worried when I think about it.
There is nothing right about this scenario. Zephel was, in effect, kidnapped. Perhaps there was no other way - this universe apparently becomes unhinged without a functional Guardian at each elemental station - but the franchise seems fairly blase about this kid having been ripped from his mother and father, never to see them again. What sticks in my mind, though, is the image of his predecessor "crying and sobbing...like he'd gone crazy," in utter wide-awake horror and despair. The typical Angelique aesthetic is like this:
...
It's a Barbie-doll universe in which nothing ever goes wrong. (Zephel's monologue above is part of routine dating chit-chat.) The series has tried its best to marginalize this incident subsequently, emphasizing the erstwhile Guardian's "sensitivity" and supposed fragility of mind, as if his reaction to being cut adrift with no resources, no home, no one left that he loves was abnormal.
I follow Angelique for its gentle characters and familial atmosphere, and this incident makes me wonder, really, if I know this cast at all. One day, they love this man like kin, and the next, they've all turned their backs on him, then are supposed to forget and simply hope he turned out all right. Zephel says the former Guardian disappeared; I wonder if he went quietly. Whatever happened, no one seems comfortable with giving Zephel a direct answer about it.
Sometimes, the scariest things aren't boogeymen or ghoulies, invaders from without that pop up in the night, but the horrible realities which people accept unblinkingly. Sure, everyone - even me - tries to sleepwalk through what's supposed to be a transient reminder of a nebulous and faraway concern. But it's hard to block out the cries of one man for whom the alarm went off.
.
Angelique, as you might have gleaned from my posts, is a series of world sim-come-dating games. Its world is painfully candy-sweet and innocuous, set in a magical kingdom at the center of the universe that's home to the nine gods who keep the cosmos in balance. Each god (known as a "Guardian") keeps watch over a certain fundamental element of the universe - Water, Earth, Light, Darkness, what have you.
The gods are chosen from the populace at large. Two catches, though. The first is that you're not a god forever. Guardians eventually lose their divine power, whereupon they have to leave their Mt. Olympus to make way for a fresh replacement. (It's implied they don't get a severance package.) The second is that the Guardians' little pocket-kingdom is cut off from the outside flow of time, which is moving far more quickly than the Guardians experience. In the franchise's early days, one day in Candyland equals one whole year in the outside universe. This was wisely discarded in later works - time flows differently in certain circumstances outside the Sanctuary, but not in accordance with any hard-and-fast rule. Still, the gist of it is that by the time your tenure as a Guardian ends, all your friends and family are going to have been dead for generations.
One of the Guardians, the young and impetuous Zephel, is not a happy camper. He ascended to godhood under particularly bad circumstances.
When I was made a Guardian, it was really sudden, and I was brought here against my will. I ever tell you about it? Y'see, the guy who has Guardian of Steel before me suddenly disappeared. I heard that he lost his power all of a sudden, that they didn't know where he'd gone...I heard lots of stories. But I had my hands full with stuff goin' on in my own life, y'know?! And it was his fault that I ended up a Guardian in the first place...so I was really ANGRY at him!! But, y'know...it must've been tough for him, too. Just before he disappeared, I heard that he was crying and sobbing like a madman, like he'd gone crazy...he must've been a really sensitive guy, I guess. I wonder where he is right now. It makes me worried when I think about it.
There is nothing right about this scenario. Zephel was, in effect, kidnapped. Perhaps there was no other way - this universe apparently becomes unhinged without a functional Guardian at each elemental station - but the franchise seems fairly blase about this kid having been ripped from his mother and father, never to see them again. What sticks in my mind, though, is the image of his predecessor "crying and sobbing...like he'd gone crazy," in utter wide-awake horror and despair. The typical Angelique aesthetic is like this:
...
It's a Barbie-doll universe in which nothing ever goes wrong. (Zephel's monologue above is part of routine dating chit-chat.) The series has tried its best to marginalize this incident subsequently, emphasizing the erstwhile Guardian's "sensitivity" and supposed fragility of mind, as if his reaction to being cut adrift with no resources, no home, no one left that he loves was abnormal.
I follow Angelique for its gentle characters and familial atmosphere, and this incident makes me wonder, really, if I know this cast at all. One day, they love this man like kin, and the next, they've all turned their backs on him, then are supposed to forget and simply hope he turned out all right. Zephel says the former Guardian disappeared; I wonder if he went quietly. Whatever happened, no one seems comfortable with giving Zephel a direct answer about it.
Sometimes, the scariest things aren't boogeymen or ghoulies, invaders from without that pop up in the night, but the horrible realities which people accept unblinkingly. Sure, everyone - even me - tries to sleepwalk through what's supposed to be a transient reminder of a nebulous and faraway concern. But it's hard to block out the cries of one man for whom the alarm went off.
.
