Line #31 Headscratchers/KingsQuest


1	* If the Lord of the Dead has been sitting on his throne, almost completely unmoving, for over a thousand years, why does he have a steed?
2	** Perhaps it was his before he was chained?
3	** As he is Lord of the Dead, in a sense everything there is his.
4	* The mirror was stolen by the sorcerer, the shield by the dwarf, and the chest by the witch. So how did the mirror end up with the dragon, the shield with the leprechauns, and the chest with the giant?
5	** The dragon, the giant, and the rats were guardians set in place by the new possessors of the objects.
6	* If the ferry has been out of order for years ''and'' peppermint isn't grown on the Island of the Crown, how does the pawn shop have peppermints during the game at all? Presuming Shamir Shamazel visited once a day and ate a mint, that dish would be empty in a matter of months; and he's been around since Cassima was a child.
7	** Connected to the above, if no one except the genie can move around freely, why do these people think that thieves from other islands stole their treasures? How would these purported thieves get to and from their victims?
8	** The ferry was still open then. In fact, the ferry was closed (by Abdul's order) due to the fighting that was caused by the thefts.
9	** That and the genie is a shapeshifter. As for the mints? Hassan (the pawnshop owner) is a mysterious figure who is probably sitting on a few secrets of his own. How does get some of that junk into his shop, after all? Perhaps his candy dish was a distraction for the Vizier's spy - if Shamir were too drunk to complete a sentence, how could he report anything about Hassan's doings?
10	*** Hassan DOES have a magic map (or did, until you bought it off of him), and peppermint does grow on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain. He could have used the map, climbed the Cliffs of Logic, picked some peppermint leaves, and... processed them into candy? Uh, nevermind.
11	** The game does comment that the mints are a little stale when you try to eat them. I guess the pawn shop owner simply had a large supply lying around.
12	* On a related note, if Alexander is caught by Saladin in the main castle entrance (in the short path) Sal tells Alex, "You were told to stay away from the castle and leave the islands." Leave the islands?!? But if the islands have no working transportation, and Alex got shipwrecked, what makes Sal think that Alex even ''has'' any way to leave?
13	* This comic brings up a good, albeit minor headscratcher: http://goldsickle.deviantart.com/art/Mini-Game-006-98377735
14	** Maybe the Innkeepers two cronies put it on the wrong side because of their stupidty.
15	** But if they did padlock it on the wrong side, how did they get out?
16	* Now that I think about it, I've always been kind of mildly baffled by the fact that Graham is portrayed as being old-looking in the later games and some of the fan games, with all-grey hair, if not also wrinkles and such. Even allowing for a bit of fudge room, considering the Royal Twins' ages, the fellow's got to be only in his mid-40s by [=KQ6/7=] at most. Especially if you take the hint book novelizations as canon, where he's apparently stated as being ''19'' when he gets crowned. Maybe the events of [=KQ3=] aged him prematurely?
17	** This gets worse if you realize that Alexander was 17 -- about to turn 18 -- in [=KQ3=], and he and Rosella are twins. Rosella is stated to be 20 in [=KQ7=]. That puts only 2 years between [=KQ3=] and [=KQ7=]!
18	** Well, think about it. Think of all the stuff that has happened to him as of late: He has been nearly killed and eaten several times before (Hagatha, Count Caldaur, The Ogre, The Monks, The Sharkees...), the stress of running a kingdom (even a fairly nice peaceful kingdom like Daventry) and trying to keep it safe and protected, plus the fact that his SON was taken from him by a mysterious man and they thought they'd never see him again, AND the fact that the dragon started terrorizing the land along with the Black Cloak Society CURSING THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY and wanting to cover the land in darkness... you can't imagine getting some grey hair over all that?!
19	** Additionally, for all the magic and absurdity in the series, Daventry is still in the equivalent of the Middle Ages. Even a king would be rather worn out by his mid-forties.
20	* In [=KQ6=], Alexander couldn't find the Land of the Green Isles until he saw the stars in the magic mirror. Yet at the end of [=KQ5=], Crispin knew where it was ''and'' teleported Cassima there. So why didn't Alexander just go to Crispin and ask him? The best I can come up with is that he wanted to avoid having to meet Cedric (which I wouldn't blame him for).
21	** Crispin's not the most helpful and competent wizard around, and for all we know he may have died of old age by that point.
22	** Alexander and the castle were seized by magic at the beginning, were never kept outdoors, and were teleported home at the end. He didn't get to see the stars around Crispin's place, and the place was far enough away that it required a flight spell for Graham to get there, so Alexander wouldn't be able to track Crispin down either.
23	* This is something that has haunted me ever since I was a little kid. It's funny the things that you remember. In the screen with the walnut tree there is a bizarre brown thing in the background to the right. What is that thing??!! I know that the graphics can be unclear at times but at least on every other occasion the background is comprehensible or even possible to speculate on. Is it just me? Does anybody know what the fuck that brown thing is??
24	** Just looks like the side of a really tiny cliff or something.
25	** Yeah, a simple bluff. The soil there collapsed and slid away.
26	* So what were the programmers thinking when they created the "throw a bridle on a snake to turn it into a Pegasus" thing in the second game? Where was the solution to that one supposed to come from, in-game?
27	** They were likely thinking "We are totally going to make a fortune on strategy guides/Help lines"
28	** Apparently, it's a reference to the Greek legend of Bellerophon taming Pegasus by putting a magic bridle on him. Pegasus was the son of Medusa, hence the snake. Seriously.
29	* In King's Quest 6, Alexander cannot talk to the animals unless they were magical talking animals to begin with. Meaning he since got rid of the dough in his ears (Probably stuffing them in a drawer somewhere) WHY WOULD YOU GET RID OF THAT ABILITY? If I had the power to understand what animals are saying, I would never get bored of it, and never take the dough out.
30	** The spell probably wore off over time.
31	** You can take the dough out of your ears manually in the original AGI version of KQ3, upon which it crumbles and is lost forever. I assume Alex decided at some point that keeping magical dough with bits of hair sticking out of it in your ears for years on end wasn't very hygienic and wouldn't make him look very good with the ladies, so he took it out at some point.
32	* What happened to the Specialist Gnomes on the Isle of Wonder in KQ6? They only appear when you first land on the island, but after that they're gone and never seen again...
33	** Seeing as the island is based off of Wonderland. They probably only exist when they need to. Which happened OFTEN in the Alice books, as characters and even locations would appear and vanish like crazy. And seeing as there is no logic in Wonderland, really should we even question anything?
34	** The island is a big enough place that Alexander has not seen all of it. It even has mountain range seen on the map that you never visit. They simply returned to their homes or went somewhere on the island that Alexander didn't go to.
35	* In the second game (original and remake) why didn't Graham take the magic shield?
36	----> Gervain: Kolyma is not the safe haven it once was.
37	----> Graham: I will take my sword, I'll be fine. (With the shield he would have been invincible against the random monsters, the thorns, the snake, and in the remake, the Sharkees, Caldaur and the werewolves)
38	** He probably thought it better to keep it in Daventry, in case the kingdom were invaded during his absence. Also, if he took the shield with him and worst came to worst, it would have been lost for his kingdom forever. (Sure, no enemies would have been able to kill him, but there is such a thing as falling off cliffs, treacherous swamps, etc.)
39	* Honestly Graham's heart attack, being the most powerful Kingdom in the land, did Graham have no Royal Doctors or Wizards to aid him? Then again, if you count the "curse" from the AGD remakes, maybe it was a magical heart attack?
40	** The intro and manual mentions the doctors, healers, etc checked him and couldn't find a way to cure him. Some diseases are not curable in a medieval setting, even with magic. Much of material related to KQ4 and Companions suggests either his heart was weakened naturally or do to extreme emotional and stress. The KQ8 manual does mention possibly a magical spell though.
41	* In KQ6, in the Land of the Dead if you don't show the ticket to the skeleton, he threatens you with a sword, and even kills you. What is the reason? As 99.99% of the people arriving are already dead what can he do to them? Kill them again? Unless it's a magic sword that can destroy souls.
42	** He has no reason to keep out the dead. Presumably everyone's who's dead gets a ticket, and those without them are clearly still alive, so the gatekeeper is there to keep out the living, to whom the sword is a threat.
43	* I'm not going to question how Dracula survived to be at your wedding at the end of KQ2, or why he was even invited. But rather, how did he even get into the Church? A simple cross repels him, so shouldn't he be writhing in burning agony from the pure holiness while he's sitting there?
44	** Well it wasn't touching him directly. Remember he can grab you with the cross, and then runs once he brushes against it' going after your neck.
45	* Manannan paranoid of Alexander casting spells to kill him, kills him if he is carrying anything dangerous. Yet he ignores the butcher knife. Seriously? He never considered Alexander stabbing him in his sleep?
46	** Perhaps he has some spell that protects him from physical harm.
47	** You can type "kill wizard" near him while he's sleeping in his bed in the actual game and it blatantly states that he's too powerful for you and you'd merely end up getting yourself killed.
48	* So was there actually an in-story reason that Shamir couldn't attack Alexander directly in [=KQ6=], instead resorting to SchmuckBait traps? I'd understand perfectly if genies are bound by some sort of magical law whereby they cannot attack humans... except that Shamir ''can'' fight directly during the end game.
49	** Brazenly assassinating someone in the middle of the day is a problem, particularly when it's done by a genie who cannot act on his own. Saladin and the guards would know Abdul ordered the genie to kill Alexander, and at this point, Abdul wants the crown, so he's not going to risk it.

Context Headscratchers / KingsQuest