Discussion VideoGame / StellaGlow

Dante is certainly the most trusted, as he is not sent out on individual assignments to the best of my recollection (Dorothy is given Sakuya to kill, while Hrodulf is sent to Kashmistan to find and kill the Earth Witch. Dante is quite literally never seen without Hilda or the rest of the Harbingers, which is more my statement). He is sent to meet the Harbinger's agent in Regnant and is always guarding Hilda when she's crystallizing towns offscreen.

I removed the writeup on Xeno because I feel that it gives away too much of the plot. The reader should experience the game for themselves, and I feel that telling all of Xeno's actions detracts from the experience. Be shown, and not be told, especially when the mere mention of Xeno is a fairly solid spoiler.

With Dante, that is a fair assessment and I can agree for that reason. While The Dragon is often the chief enforcer acting on behalf of the Big Bad, he doesn't have to be. The core concept of The Dragon is simply that he is a physical challenge that must be overcome before the protagonists can face the Big Bad, and Dante's repeated role as what is effectively Hilda's bodyguard certainly qualifies.

Regarding Xeno, I can agree that he should be in spoiler-tags for that reason, but the writeup does need to communicate both what the trope means and how the trope is being used; otherwise, it's a Zero Context Example. If players don't want the experience to be ruined for them, then they shouldn't be reading Spoiler Text.

I would say that explaining a trope to that depth isn't necessarily needed. Instead of listing what he does as the Dragon, I would put down what he does that proves that he is the Dragon.

Leading the army of Angels, masterminding the Anthem Program, etc etc.

Try to keep it fairly brief; if not, I'll just trim it down.

Point for point the weapons you buy in the store are better than the Witch weapons. By a single point.

Lisette's Ecthelion (store weapon): PATK +15 MATK +30 ACC 75 SLOT X 5

vs Yggdrasil Staff (Witch weapon): PATK +15 MATK +29 ACC 100 SLOT x3 (Really only two because of a built in Freeze Orb)

1 point isn't going to make that big of a difference in the long run, so it ultimately comes down to how much you value Accuracy vs how many Orb slots you want in your weapon.

Because the store weapons have more slots and as such can be more widely customized I think that it still fits as a Plus, while it's the limited slots of the Witch weapons that prevent it from being a Plus.

For instance, you can fit in only Attack Orb 3 and Water Orb, along with the innate Freeze 2 in the Yggdrasil Staff.

Ecthelion you can have a Water Orb, Attack Orb 3, Freeze 2, Drain Orb 3 and Absorb Orb 3.

I agree that the stats are fairly comparable and the store-bought weapons can be made superior using Orbs, but Infinity +1 Sword is characterized by the intense difficulty in obtaining it. It's not just the strongest weapon, it also has to be obtained by embarking on an optional sidequest or getting a rare drop from a powerful enemy or finding a secret hidden spot on the map or somesuch.

Infinity -1 Sword, meanwhile, is the easily obtained alternative for those who aren't willing to or don't know to put in the tremendous effort to find the Infinity +1 Sword.

Yggdrasil Staff can only be obtained by stealing it from an enemy that only appears once in a battle that disallows the use of Ewan and Rusty, requiring players to spam Thief Orb or Thief Orb 2 over and over and hope for the best. It never becomes available again if missed.

Ecthelion can be purchased five seconds into Chapter X and remains available forever. It requires no effort whatsoever to obtain.

One of the key parts of Minus is that it isn't as good as Plus. It's not just ease of obtaining but also ultimate power and usefulness.

That is a good point.

Alright, since the stolen weapons meet one criteria but not the other, I brought it up here.

The ATT discussion is suggesting that neither set of weapons can be considered Infinity +1 Sword. The stolen weapons do not meet the criteria for being the most powerful weapons in the game, while the store-bought weapons do not meet the criteria for requiring effort to obtain. Without both criteria being fulfilled, neither set meets the requirements for the trope.

Further ATT discussion brought up Inverted Trope, which got me thinking about listing them as Playing With examples. To this end, I propose the following:

• Infinity -1 Sword: Inverted by the final set of purchasable weapons for the four elemental Witches. The best weaponry for each Witch^note Best stats, specialized for the character's combat role, and a full 5 orb slots for customization can be purchased at the store, replacing a powerful set of weapons that players may have put a lot of time into unlocking.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Subverted in Chapter 10 by the Witches' stolen weapons. When confronting the shadows of the past witches in Alto's Spirit World, unique weapons that can only be equipped by the four elemental Witches can be stolen from each shadow. The battle disallows the use of Rusty and Ewan, who can steal, and forces the player to rely on Thief Orbs to obtain the weapons. The reward is a set of weapons that outclasses everything else the characters can equip, but only for the chapter. Then they're overshadowed by the final set of store-bought weapons.

The store-bought weapons are an Inverted Trope because the Minus One is supposed to be explicitly weaker than the Plus One, while the Witch weapons are described as subverted Plus One because they imitate the criteria of a Plus One set, right up until the rug is pulled out from under the trope by the addition of more powerful weapons that can be effortlessly bought in-store.

Additionally, these descriptions only talk about Lisette, Popo, Sakuya, and Mordi's weapons because I think the rest would fall under Not An Example. For instance, Rusty doesn't have anything that imitates the criteria of a Plus One weapon, so he also can't have anything that resembles a Minus One either. His final weapon is neither trope, and is simply the last weapon he can buy.

Is this acceptable?

The wording is a bit confusing and may have some readers do double or even triple takes.

"The reward is a set of weapons that outclasses everything else the characters can equip, but only for the chapter." This gives the impression that the weapons are only good for a single chapter, when they can fairly solidly carry the Witches to endgame.

If neither set of weapons fits the criteria then I would remove it entirely. I don't think it's impossible for a game to not have a Minus or a Plus Infinity Weapon.

Reflecting on it, neither set of weapons fits the criteria; the Witches aren't Plus because it's not a lengthy, Guide Dang It sidequest, and if you accidentally kill a Witch before you get the weapon she's holding you can just reset the battle or use a battle save.

Neither sets of weapons fit either criteria, and while they're certainly strong, both of them are missing both Plus and Minus's second criteria.

Fair enough. I can agree to that. While I do like the idea of listing them as an Inverted and Subverted Trope, I can accept that compromise as well.

I am willing to admit that I may have accidentally deleted potentially more than I should have. Go ahead and put the Celestial Qualia back up under that trope.

As for the Made of Evil, if it's just an aspect then it's not the entire thing; calling Mother Qualia Made of Evil when it's really only Cartesia and optionally Eve is an oversimplification in my eyes.

Eve being Made of Evil isn't optional, though. She can be purified by the Celestial Qualia via the optional tuning but, if she isn't, then she remains wholly controlled by negative emotions to the moment she dies. Even in the Golden Ending, she remains fueled by the Mother's negativity until her tuning.

In the regular ending, Marie is the only one of the three who is not Made of Evil while Cartesia's existence never comes up. In the Golden Ending, Marie and Alto are able to charge Eve with positivity and set her free while Cartesia remains Made of Evil.

In both Eve and Cartesia's case, they're Made of Evil because they're part of the Mother Qualia, which is the embodiment of humanity's negativity. Marie is only different because she broke off from the Mother and formed distinctly separate, and even she temporarily succumbs to the negativity when she's reabsorbed into the thing. Eve, Marie, and Cartesia are simply personifications of the true threat, which is the giant crystal formed of humanity's despair.

Which is effectively ignoring the characterization given to the aspects and instead choosing to blanket all of them as Made of Evil.

Cartesia fits nicely under the Playing With Made of Evil's Exaggerated trope.

Mother Qualia is, in the end, just another Qualia, another stone.

I suppose a good question to ask is if something Made of Evil can be redeemed or not.

There is a precedent for it. In Dragon Ball, the character of Piccolo is the literal embodiment of one person's evil. After he reincarnates himself in response to being killed by series protagonist Goku, however, he gains a capacity for moral agency. This allows him to be redeemed in a later arc through the love of a child, even to the point of sacrificing himself to protect the kid.

Eve similarly becomes capable of redemption where she wasn't before, through the supernatural application of an external source. Once the protagonists begin fighting Cartesia, the Celestial Qualia channelling the positive emotions of the world causes her to feel them for the first time and changes her from being 100% Pure Evil as she was before, an effect that even Marie and the party's Kirk Summation previously could not achieve.

Depending on the ending the player gets, either Eve or Cartesia is presented as irredeemably evil and must be destroyed for lack of another option. In either case, it is because they are the physical representation of all the humanity's negative emotions, embodied within Mother Quality.

Except Eve is only being influenced by Cartesia, and not the source of the emotions themselves.

Not so much Made of Evil; rather, The Corrupter at worst.

In your example, is that character still considered as Made of Evil by others?

Eve isn't being influenced by Cartesia. She's afraid of Cartesia but is depicted as a wholly separate entity from her. The game never suggests that Cartesia is the reason for Eve's negativity. If anything, it suggests the opposite; Eve is flooded with positivity before Cartesia is defeated.

Cartesia exists within the Mother Qualia in the same way that the Shadow—

...

You know what, never mind. I was just about to say that Cartesia exists within the Mother Qualia in the same way that the Shadow Witches exist within the Witches' Qualias. Then I realized that actually supports your point. The Qualias channel emotional energy. That the Mother can even be tuned at all is proof that it's not Made of Evil. "Made of Empathy" would be a better term for it, but that's not a trope.

Cartesia is basically the physical representation of humanity's negativity, just like the Shadow Witches are of the Witches' negative emotions. She completely defines the Qualia because it's gone for so long without being tuned. Consequentially, Eve is basically what, say, Popo might become after a few thousand years of having her identity overtaken by Shadow Popo.

You've convinced me. Objection withdrawn.

Up until Chapter 8 Hilda is responsible for all the major events in the game. Mother Qualia was not active until the Anthem and the Eclipse. Even if it was in response to Mother Qualia, Hilda's villainy drove the story up until the reveal. I am of the opinion that Hilda should still be classed as a Big Bad.

Cartesia is not even hinted, let alone seen, unless you are on the path of the Golden Ending. If you are taking the three aspects of Mother Qualia as a single being, which, again, is an oversimplification in my eyes then you are correct in Cartesia not being a Greater Scope Villain.

That raises an excellent question as to whether a character can qualify for Big Bad status if they aren't the true menace, because the audience doesn't know they aren't until they're defeated.

I'm posing that question to Ask The Tropers. Keeping the actual game and characters unstated since it's a COLOSSAL spoiler, of course.

Based on the ATT discussion, I propose these definitions:

• Big Bad: The Mother Qualia is an ancient system charged by negative emotions and designed to wipe out humanity. Her agent, Xeno, manipulates the 9th Regiment into recruiting the four Witches, defeating Hilda, and performing the Anthem Program. This act unleashes her destruction upon the world.
• The Heavy: Hilda, the Witch of Destruction, uses the Song of Ruin to crystallize towns across the Regnant Kingdom. Initially presented as the main adversary, Hilda carries the brunt of the conflict until her defeat, where it's revealed she was attempting to prevent the apocalypse. After her true motives are revealed, Hilda joins the protagonists. Her wealth of knowledge and experience remain pivotal to defeating the true threat.

That is agreeable.