Tales Series

Wasn't that due to the cultural aspects of Malevolance based on Japanese purity beliefs?

Malevolence is written as kegare in Japanese, which is a kind of Shinto impurity that affects many aspects of religious practice. It's an amoral spiritual property separate from sin, but still requires people to avoid certain things or ritually cleanse themselves at certain times. For reference, there's no such thing as "purity", there's just this metaphysical stuff called kegare that attaches to you and needs to be avoided/removed.

That said, the way it's used in the story is fairly different from how it's used in Shinto, where it's mostly associated with death, so it's probably better to understand it as its own fantasy thing. The concept of amoral metaphysical stuff that brings bad mojo through no one's fault in particular is worth noting though.

Historically, it's probably just a primitive concept of contagion and disease.

edited 4th May '16 2:57:52 AM by Clarste

What Clarste said, yeah. There's no moral judgement attached to kegare in theory (though of course even back in the 700s women were considered more susceptible to it, due to a kegare stigma attached to blood), and I never particularly read it as capital-E Evil in-game, either - it's more like a weirdly metaphysical thing borne out of physical and mental suffering.

Basically, yeah, the game didn't do a great job writing it, I think. A big part of the latter half of the game (which felt very rushed story-wise, despite all the false ending buildups and backtracking) was Sorey starting to feel uncertain about what he was doing and about potentially having to kill Heldalf, which I think was very important - Sorey was never chosen by some force of cosmic good, he's just a kid who can talk to spirits and who was crazy enough to think the world needed saving. Same with Heldalf - he seems to have embraced his role as the "Bringer of Darkness", but he wasn't chosen by evil either, he's just a man who was badly, badly hurt and decided to spread that hurt around. It's not really a story of good versus evil, just of two people who have different ideas of how the world should be.

...or at least that's how it could have turned out. In practice we got something a little less nuanced, what with Heldalf kidnapping seraphs and Symonne being all 'hey I know I just showed up with no real fanfare after 25+ hours of gameplay to talk about how seraphs aren't nice either but not actually show that', but... I dunno, the thought was there, at least?

New info.

I don't remember much if any of the specific dialog from the game, but something that stood out to me was Heldalf's point that malevolence was natural. It's a thing that's existed in the world for as long as humanity has (if not longer), and is a part of the natural order that the Shepherds did everything they could do seal away.

And the response the party (sort of) comes to isn't that malevolence is actually evil and Heldalf's just a madman, but it's that it doesn't matter whether malevolence is natural, or evil, or whatever. It only matters that it's hurting people. It wasn't Eizen's fault that he turned into a dragon, but as long as he was hurting people he needed to be stopped. The game's all about taking a very pragmatic and utilitarian view of things.

edited 4th May '16 5:52:09 AM by Clarste

Well I wonder how it will be explained in Berseria since it's acting like a disease.

edited 4th May '16 5:53:35 AM by OmegaRadiance

Diseases are natural. Just because something's natural doesn't mean it's good, or nice, or necessary.

edited 4th May '16 6:04:00 AM by asterism

@Clarste: And that's a perfectly fair viewpoint to take, I think - disease is also natural and spreads without will or malice, after all. (Whoops, ninja'd.) I don't think that means that humanity should attempt to crush every trace of kegare - I expect that's at least part of why Velvet is hunting the Shepherds, if they slaughtered her family or crew or whatever for showing traces of corruption - but hopefully that will be part of Berseria's stated 'logic' versus 'emotion' conflict. It may be logical for humanity to control every aspect of the natural world to its benefit - that's why seraphs are enslaved in this time period - but that doesn't make it right either, even if it is to benefit people.

That said, I also don't expect Velvet to be the 'kegare is good' flipside of Sorey and his party. It's not a good-versus-evil thing, it's a natural force that people treat in different ways.

edited 4th May '16 6:10:36 AM by RedSavant

So Velvet is hunting a man named Artorius an-Wait. Artorius.

Artorias?!

Latinized version of the name Arthur. Zestiria's final dungeon is called Artorius's Throne which raises some interesting implications.

Zestiria is filled with references to the King Arthur myths. Although I can't remember all of them... There's the sword in the stone, the lady of the lake, a town named Camlott, I think?

Bascly every location is a reference to the Matter of Britain. Ladylake, Pendrago, Guinevere, Morgause, Igraine...

Yeah, Zestiria has the highest concentration of Arthurian references I've seen since Ace Combat Zero.

And now Harry Potter because Titania prison is basically Azkaban.

So Velvet is probably either framed for blowing up her own village or that Daemonium thing infecting her and giving her Stretch Panic powers

Any thoughts on the spoiled gatchas? Looks like we'll get a few 5* characters with a Mieu companion and three 5* Kannonos

You can't give heroes to your friends in Tales of Link, can you? Because I kinda just got a 5-star Rondoline...

I don't think you can, no. :(

Sorry, dude

No Rondoline for Mighty Kombat?

Yes. I'm a jerk. Live with it.

edited 4th May '16 7:44:59 PM by HandsomeRob

Not gonna lie, I really want that Multiwarrior Cless since his leader skill boosts Thrust/Bash Attack and all my 5 Stars are Thrust and Bash.

Don't be sad, Mighty. I didn't get Judas last Mystic roll either :(

Yeah. It sucks she didn't get a Soul Arena despite the Mystic Summon thing implying it (along with Reid and Stahn) and I even did a fucking ten roll on it and not one single 5 star from it. You'd think blowing 50 hero stones would raise the chances of at least one 5 star hero showing up.

Although then Lippy did THIS so I can't be too pissed off. I mean dammi,t he got me a FIVE STAR PASCAL.

Very nice. I'm at the same level and only ever get junk.

Yeah. He tends to bring back a fre 3 star heroes at best. One time he alsog ot me a 4 star Nanaly. BUT A FIVE STAR PASCAL THO

4 star Nanaly's pretty good, wish I could limit break mine. I know a friend of mine got a 5 star Richard off of a mission.