Mobotium
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Posts posted by Mobotium
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The syndrome doesn't represent the message though. What it basically says is "people suffering from a psychosis (or whatever you want to call it) see the world differently from others". If they hadn't been sick, they would have seen everything more or less the same way Mio and Takeshi did. And when you take away the characters suffering from the syndrome, there isn't that much left in the VN to convey the message.
My point about the time spent on side routes is that the VN takes more than 10 hours of your time to tell you close to nothing. The heroines had different delusions from the protagonist. So what?
Spoiler
Well, let me go through the some things in the novel that work to convey this message:The whole idea of gigalomania is to make delusions reality, to take the world you believe to be true and make others see it as real.
The concept of a wrong-sider is someone who is content with low quality information. In the novel they are the average net user, making stupid comments and theories about things they don't understand. In other words, they make the wrong conclusions based on their limited worldview. It ties in directly with the message, and is present is numerous situations in the story.
Itou being confused at his classmates not caring about the murders happening so close to them.
Takuru's classmates sneering at him, but later changing the way they treated him due to their perspective of him also changing and, thus, changing his perspective of them.
Takuru's reaction when he was lied to about his parent's death.
The reaction Takuru had to threads about his sister's death, or when his family's information was posted online, compared to the reactions of the people commenting on those threads.
The whole thing about psychopaths at the end of the common route, how they simply see the world differently.
The entire true route is Serika interpreting what she learns based on what she knows and it shows a big contrast between her worldview and the one the other characters, and the reader, have based on the information they have access to.
Many of these and other possible examples are simple and, perhaps, minor. But they all show how different minds interpret the same thing in different ways based on their own ideas and experiences.
The heroine routes all work to convey this as well:
In Arimura's route the value of truth is put into question. In her world, lies are the greatest sin, and truth is what she desires. She cannot comprehend the value of a white lie, and that ultimately leads to what remained of her family breaking apart. You could argue that she would never have know it was a lie without her powers, but the fact stands that in her mind she would never have accepted it.
Hana's route is a whole other perspective on the world. A fantastical story with monsters, heroes and a final boss to defeat, much like the games and movies she immerses herself in. That is the world she knows best, and the world she retreats to in loneliness and guilt.
Uki lives for others. Her world is filled with kind people who would do no wrong to her or others. It is how she sees others, or rather, how she chooses to see them.
Nono is filled with self-deprecation and doubt. In her mind, Kawahara has always hated the real her, loved the fake her, and in general represents her self hatred. Towards Serika she is jealous, as she treasures her ties with her adopted brother and is jealous of his reliance on Serika. Her idea of Serika is a selfish girl who lives not for Takuru as she claims, but for herself. Which obviously contrasts with her real personality.
All of these routes show us the worlds the heroines desire, and give us a glimpse into the way they see others and how they interpret situations and the world around them. The syndrome is merely a more forced representation of the same idea. Especially when you consider that it is something the patients wished for, wherever knowingly or not.
If this isn't incredibly convoluted for a motive, I don't know what is. If you go this route, you can turn almost everone's deepest wishes into a reason for mass murder. Imagine Takuru was a peace activist and his hero was Mahatma Gandhi. Serika probably would have founded a colonial power and conquered Japan just so Takuru could become the leader of peaceful protests and free his people.
SpoilerI think it's pretty clear cut to be honest. He desired to be special, to stand above others. And what he considered the ultimate resolution of that wish was the plot Serika followed. In a alternate universe where the thing he most desired was to stand up to a oppressive regime, Serika might very well have worked to create a oppressive regime if none existed in the first place. That was her purpose after all.
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10 minutes ago, alpacaman said:
"Everyone creates their own reality" doesn't really work as a message though when the people who create them suffer from a supernatural disease that makes them delusional. It's an interesting concept for a sci-fi story, but not something that lends itself to making some philosphical point. Even if there was a possibility of including some meaningful aesop, having the reader skip for more than one hour through stuff they've already seen to read more or less 10 hours of mediocre side stories isn't the best way to go about it imo.
Also, I get that the VN wants Serika to be seen as a tool, but there is no indication Takuru wished for anything close to what she did. Wanting to make his parents go away was obviously referring to him not wanting to deal with them. If there was any indication in the VN that Takuru had repressed sadistic urges the real-booted Serika was a manifestation of and that he found some degree of satisfaction in the things she did, fine, but he comes of as pretty well adjusted for someone in his circumstances. When he makes his wish he's 12(?) years old and understandably unable to cope with everything going on because of the earthquake and other than that there are no instances where he's taking delight in someone else suffering or something like that beyond a little schadenfreude.
Spoiler
The syndrome is just a representation of the message itself, it's not meant to be the message. The concept at its core is that all people view reality differently based on their experiences, thoughts, senses, etc and so that, ultimately, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Also, the idea of skipping to get to routes is so common in the VN medium in general that I can't understand your point.There are indications. Takuru wished for her to help him do what he wants, and she was created out of that wish. Saying that him wanting his parents to go away meant not having to deal with them is obvious, but how else would a recently created entity that embodies his desires fulfill that wish? If killing his parents ultimately led to his happiness, as it did, it seems like a perfectly reasonable action to take.
He does not take delight in other's suffering. What he does take delight in is in feeling superior to others. And at the peak of this desire are the murders that preceded the earthquake. He idolized the person who turned the case on its head proving he was not the killer as everyone, even the police, tought. His desire is ultimately for recognition. He wants to be known as superior to those around him. And that case symbolizes the ultimate expression of that desire.
So he does not have to enjoy the murders themselves and neither does Serika, the manifestation of his desire. In fact, she makes it clear even in the common route that she found the killings themselves disgusting and sick, but was willing to go through them because the case had to be absurd enough to draw as much attention to itself as possible. All that mattered was that Takuru was interested in the case, that he felt the excitement of it slowly closing in on him, the despair of being marked as the perpetrator and the ultimate feeling of superiority as he proved to all those wrong-siders that he was the only one who had reached the truth.
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1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:
He didnt cause anything though. If we're assigning blame then the chaos head cast is to blame. Havent read that one though. Takeru was a victim just as much as anyone. Well, a lot more of a victim actually. But i guess this is more of a philosophical question really so it can be interpreted differently
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SpoilerYeah, pretty much.
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1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:
Its simply not acceptable. If thought murder was a crime then we'd all be in jail. The unsung hero self sacrificing himself is just a super japanese cliche which i'll never understand. Point is that to my western brain, this vn lead to a ridiculos conclusion. At the end of the day Takeru is innocent, and after all he's been through i did want to see him get a happy end, or at least not a depressing one.
SpoilerAs I said, I can understand your point of view. However, I can also understand the idea of wanting to atone for what you caused. You don't have to accept it but ultimately, he did it because he wanted to. His end is not a depressing one in his eyes. He saved the people he wanted to save, gave a future to the one person who supported him the most all his life, and is being sent to prison of his own will. For him, this is all he wanted, and thus, it is a happy end.
A story does not have to make the reader happy and a happy end does not have to be one the reader desires. Because, as C;C really wants to explain, the world we see is the boundary between reality and lies. Though his mindset may not be one you can accept or understand, that does not make it worthless. It just means he sees reality in a diferent way than you do.
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6 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:
Pretty interesting read about stuff i never realized. That actually makes a lot of sense as i thought that things didnt make a lot of sense sometimes in the routes. Still, at the end they should have pinned the murders on Sukama and pin his murder on either takeru or surika as self defense. After all this crap im not sure they'd even see the inside of a court for it.
SpoilerThat's reasonable. Ultimately it was Takuru wanting to take responsibility for what he had, even if unconsciously, caused and for his own thoughts and beliefs. He seemed to despise the part of him that desired the murders in the first place and that, coupled with his disgust at the person he was while happily following the cases after his sister died, led him to want to atone. It's not necessarily a way of thinking I agree with or would follow, but it seems realistic enough to me.
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Just now, Stormwolf said:
Ohh they might believe he repressed her memories. Thats not a tough pill to swallow in this entire scenario, but what happens if she regains them? I dont think anyone would be stupid enough to take the risk. I think through all the routes that it seemed like Serika did stuff as much for herself as for Takeru. Like i said, she even gave Watui permission to kill him.
Spoiler
Well, the memories thing is a whole different issue though. The memories themselves were only a problem for Serika herself, as knowing you killed people would probably make it harder for someone to have a normal life. The real problem though was the wish involved in her creation, that compelled her to fulfill Takuru's wishes and led to the killings. Erase that and her power and her becoming a psychopath again is impossible. At most she would be a normal girl with memories of another personality killing people.As for the heroine routes, they are a whole different monster. Because Serika is not a real person in them, she's more of a concept. This is because the heroine routes are not "routes" as you would normally think of them in a VN, they are the dreams each heroine shared with Takuru during their synchronised coma. While they never specifically tell you this is the case it is heavily foreshadowed and hinted at. Just a few of the hints:
During Arimura's route, at the very end, Takuru is a "ghost" relating events in the first person. Obvious bullshit if the route is reality.
The personality shifts some characters undergo during the routes. This is most prominent in Nono's route, where Serika and Kawahara are not themselves but rather a mixture of what Nono thinks of them and her own negative emotions of jealousy and self-hate projected onto them.
The fact that only the heroines with a route went into a coma.
Mio talking about the comatose girls, saying they were fighting their own delusions in a dream-like state. Later, she also mentions delusion-synchro, the way gigalomaniacs share their delusions, or in other words their inner worlds, with each other. This makes the way choosing a route works make a lot more sense. By choosing positive delusions towards a certain girl, Takuru's inner world is synchronised with the girl's, leading their shared delusion to diverge.
The endings screen which shows a broken, stained glass for all endings but the true one.
The subtitle of the true route chapter "Life on the right side of reality".
There are other hints but you get the point.
Due to this you can conclude that Serika, and in fact most characters in the heroine routes, is but a representation of what Takuru and the heroines think of her. She tends to act similarly as she did in the common route, manipulating events to fulfill Takuru's deepest wishes, but she is fundamentally different from the Serika in the common route as she is affected by whoever is in control of the synchro.
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1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:
Her memories were sealed away yes, but she still remembered. And i have no doubt in my mind that Kunosato and takeshi would never just let her be based on absolutely no evidence that she won't return to becoming a psycopathic killer again. Her becoming a normal human might be one thing, but there is no way of confirming that and... she has killed a lot of people.
SpoilerIt was confirmed by Takuru himself, the one who created her in the first place and who had the biggest reasons to make sure she was normal. If you are saying they should not believe him for some reason I have no way to argue that I guess, since we are never shown him convincing them. In her changed state she is no longer the person she was and Mio & Co letting her go free, even providing for her needs and giving her a normal life, implies they agree that she's not responsible for what she did and that they believe there is no chance of her being manipulated again.
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1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:
I don't really agree with much of what you say as your opinions seems to just be in line with what happens in the vn. Im just pointing out those bullshit developments that happen. I never expected takeru to be with Serika at the end, but that final scene was silly. And they certainly didnt need to include feelings either. It was out of place for Takeru to suddenly realize at the end that he loves Serika. Just a plot device to make the end more impactful.
And how do you defend them letting the ticking nuclear bomb serika live in peace? Its stupid beyond belief as she might get her memories back at any moment (and what a shock that she did) in which no one could say what might happen.
SpoilerHe did not "realise" he loved her. He said "A man cannot keep clinging to the woman he loves.". That line refers to the Serika he initially created, the one who lived to fulfill his desires and fill the hole his parent's abuse created. If Serika is a representation of his childish desire to be special, to have the world revolve around him, to feel superior to others, that line shows his acceptance of his sins and his resolution to grow up and leave behind those desires.
Serika was no longer a "time bomb" during the true end. She was remade into a normal person, and thus, did not feel compelled to fulfill Takuru's desires. Her memories were sealed away for her own good, so that she might lead a normal, happy life. They were not what was keeping her from relapsing into a psychopath as you seem to be implying.
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A bunch of C;C spoilers follow:
SpoilerWith regards to Takuru pinning himself as the criminal, he feels at fault for the murders and taking the blame for them is his way to atone. Ultimately the murders were done for him, just so he would feel special and superior to others, and he blames himself for wishing that they would continue even as his own loved ones were harmed in the process.
Serika was, through the common route, never really a person. She was a tool to fulfill Takuru's desires, and everything she did was to that end. To blame her for anything that happened is to miss the whole point of the novel imo. She was less a murderer than she was the murder weapon.
They would not be able to be together at the end. The two separating is what enables them to live normal lives. Takuru wants to be apart from her so he is never tempted to repeat his past mistakes, and so she would finally be able to live as her own person.
The whole C;C Syndrome twist ties into most of C;C's main themes. Syndrome patients live in their own fabricated reality, where they can be free of the persecution they are targets of in the real world. In this way, like most of the novel, it functions as a critique on the way people cherry-pick information that suits their viewpoints, and how that same information can be manipulated along with those who rely on it. That's the whole point of Wakui's plan after all, to see how much people would delude themselves into happiness by cherry-picking only what they want to see, ignoring what might cause them stress or lead them to question the world they see as true. Because, ultimately, the world one sees is not the real world. It is shaped by our thoughts, misconceptions, and opinions. That is also the biggest thing to take from the heroine routes.
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Chaos;Child. The moment when you start thinking about what you've read, connecting all the dots and discovering hidden plots behind what you were show stands out and is a amazing experience, rivaled only by Umineko and Subahibi in regards to what I have read. Combined with all it's other qualities it surpasses anything else I've read.
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Seconding onorub's suggestions, though if you're going for Chaos;Child make sure to play Chaos;Head first.
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What are you playing?
in Visual Novel Talk
Posted
Ignorance, motivations, misunderstandings and miscommunications all have a part in this. The fact that such things are expected parts of the average story does not invalidate that they take a bigger role in this particular one. The idea that people see things differently is heavily related to the flow of information in this novel, as exemplified by the concept of wrong-siders and right-siders.The syndrome, at its core, forces a change in perspective in those affected by it and leads them to see and understand reality differently. The same is true of the heroine routes, where their own perspectives change how they see and comprehend reality. Both of these are plot devices to put that same concept into perspective. Ultimately, I agree you can summarize the idea as "people are different". It is a simple and, perhaps, obvious concept, but one that is worth understanding nonetheless especially considering how relevant it is in modern society. The novel then constructs various social criticism based on this idea, combined with concepts like the flow of information, the enlightened generation, the internet in general and mob mentality. To me, this construction is done in a good and meaningful way.
As for your aesop (had to look that up), the idea seems so removed from the rest of the novel that I can only assume it's unintended.