History Headscratchers / Shantae

** Could also be that she was in on Risky's plan to use Shantae to double-cross the Empress; otherwise, why wouldn't she have snitched on Risky once it became clear Shantae was more capable than she had claimed? Possibly, Lobster Girl just was never interested in the goals of her fellow Sirens and was assured by Risky that as long as she agreed to defect from them and help her instead, she would be welcomed by Shantae and her friends with open arms once it was all over.

* When Lobster Girl frees Shantae and Sky from the Armor Baron's trap, Shantae claims to have seen her before... At what point in the game was that supposed to have happened? As far as I can recall, her popping in for the rescue is the first time she appeared or was even alluded to, but the game seems to act as though you're supposed to remember her from somewhere previous to that. Did I miss something?

** She's posing as a half-genie to get Shantae's job in order to worm (no pun intended) her way into Scuttle Town to get at everyone's memories. As a memory herself, her appearance may be malleable.

[[folder: Why isn't Shantae a good role model again?]]
In ''Shantae and the Pirate's Curse'', Shantae meets a swordsman named Bran-Son, who proclaims himself to be a good role model, to which Shantae replies something to the effect of "I'm not, on account of bad temper and my outlandish outfit."

Fair enough on the former point, but Bran-Son's outfit is far more outlandish than Shantae's. Why doesn't he get any role model points docked for wearing what basically amounts to a Speedo and a couple belts?

* Shantae is insecure and is putting herself down.
* Alternatively, it's a knock on the DoubleStandard for how scantily-dressed men and women are regarded by MoralGuardians.
* Wait... "bad temper"? When has she ever shown that? At least in Pirate's Curse, the only times I recall her getting mad were perfectly reasonable times to do so, and often more akin to irritation. (Though the "outlandish outfit" is definitely a bash at MoralGuardians.)
** Most of that 'bad temper' shows up in the original GBC title, and she's almost always ready to fight across every game. But, yeah, she's got some confidence issues in ''Pirate's Curse''.
** More than that, she has confidence issues present in all four games, to some degree.

[[folder: Regarding the endgame of Half-Genie Hero...]]
Before going after Risky, as usual, for their final confrontation Shantae must find clues about Risky which happens to be in possession of the Sequin Land Barons (Ammo, Squid, Hypno and Techno). However she nonchalantly aids them, some who caused ''massive'' trouble through the game, gather resources so they can act again. Shantae of all people should know better than help people like ''them'', so why she STILL helped them?
* She's kind and helpful to a fault. Recall that her nature as an AllLovingHero is a ''plot point'' in ''Pirate's Curse'', and how quick she is to help out Rottytops (who's fresh off of betraying her in ''Risky's Revenge'') and Risky herself.
* That and because three of the four Barons give her good reason to.
** Techno Baron's been sentenced to a billion hours of community service building a mermaid reserve. However, he's stubbornly refusing to carry it out, his excuse being that the Data Chip containing his financial information is still in the Mermaid Factory.
** Hypno Baron is getting back into his old macabre ways. If not given the Sunken Souls he demands, he outright states that he'll take the souls of the people of Scuttle Town to torment in their place.
** In the previous game, Ammo Baron was able to press assault charges against Shantae for stopping him from destroying Scuttle Town, nearly rendering her unable to do anything when a much greater threat arose. Giving him Scrap Metal to help him repair his warship would smooth things over with him so he's not as inclined to sue Shantae again while Risky Boots is in the final stages of her EvilPlan.
*** Actually, it wasn't the Ammo Baron who sued her, but the Sequin Land Palace over attacking the Ammo Baron, since he was legally the rightful owner of Scuttle Town at that point. So he wouldn't have any right to sue her once the town deed went back to Mayor Scuttlebutt.
*** There's also the fact that Ammo Baron does not hold such grudges and is actually on fairly good terms with Shantae at a personal level. Remember that he was civil to her in ''Shantae and the Pirate's Curse'' even after she wrecked his tank, and was pleased to welcome the half-genie into his army when she turned over the targeting module to him. He also offered Shantae her old guardian genie job at the end of Pirate's Curse, which is something he would not have done if he hated Shantae's guts. So there's really little reason for Shantae to be nasty to Ammo Baron.
** Squid Baron is actually friendly to Shantae when he's not [[PunchClockVillain on the clock]], so Shantae doesn't need much justification for helping him.
** I figured it was at least partially due to previous events giving her a bit of perspective - Risky has just corrupted Shantae and turned her into an evil version of herself, as well as revealed her intention to do the same to the entire Genie Realm. In light of that, lending a hand to help out the barons, who at at worst apathetic toward Shantae as long as she stays out of their way, would seem quite mild in comparison to the end of the world. (That, and none of them were planning anything terribly evil as a direct consequence of Shantae helping them - Techno Baron was performing community service and just wanted his financial data chip, Ammo Baron just wanted scrap metal to build something, Hypno Baron actually threatens to do something vaguely evil if Shantae ''doesn't'' bring him the sunken souls, and all Squid Baron wants is a poster. At least they're not up to anything Shantae can't put a stop to once she deals with Risky.)

[[folder: Destroy them!]]
* in ''Risky's Revenge'', why didn't Shantae destroy the Magic Seals once she found them? She threatens to do it once when Risky shows up and demands them, but never seems to consider going through with it again.
** My guess would be that she's unable to do so, although I'm not sure if it's stated in-game. Shantae probably just grabbed the IdiotBall.

[[folder: Keeping secrets]]
* Why didn't Uncle Mimic tell Shantae what the lamp was for in ''Risky's Revenge''? Considering what it can do, it would seem beneficial that she know now that Risky has possession of it and is also going after the seals. What harm is there in just telling her "The lamp can imprison a genie and force them to grant wishes for people?" It's not like it's a huge spoiler to the player or anything, so why is he keeping it a secret?
** He's being overprotective, and Shantae's mother specifically had him promise not to do so at some point in the past.
** I know that's the reason the game gives, but I don't see how it makes sense. Shantae going after the seals is already more dangerous than her simply knowing what the lamp does, especially since they know that Risky is also after them.
** ''Nobody'' make rational decisions 100% of the time, especially when afraid for their life or somebody else's. Mimic is doing what he was told, because he believes that keeping Shantae from investigating the lamp is the best way to keep her safe. It's not his fault that she goes charging in anyway.
** But Mimic ''knew'' Shantae was going to go after the seals. You're speaking as though Shantae went behind his back to go on her journey, when he gave her permission early in the game. Him wanting to protect her makes no sense when he's letting her go up against Risky either way.

[[folder: Rottytops' loyalty?]]
* In the Friends to the End expansion for ''Half-Genie Hero'', Rottytops, Sky and Bolo confess that they did not expect to survive Nega-Shantae's maze, but kept the faith that even if one of them were to fail, the other had an attribute that would ensure eventual success. Bolo mentions that he placed his faith in Rottytops as a loyal friend who would never quit on Shantae. That would be fine and all, if not for the fact that Rottytops holds the dubious honour of being the ONLY character in the series who actually BETRAYED Shantae...
** I haven't played ''Pirate's Curse'', so I'm going to assume her only betrayal was the one in ''Risky's Revenge''. In which case, Rottytops wasn't alone in that betrayal - she had her brothers, too, and it's not made clear who did more of the dirty work. And they only did it because Risky promised them all a lifetime supply of coffee, which is pretty much the Wolfsbane potion for these guys, so it wasn't like she chose to betray Shantae just because she was evil all along or secretly agreed with Risky's agenda or anything...She even visibly felt regretful afterward, unlike Adner and Poe. (Alternatively, her betrayal is exactly what Bolo was referring to. She betrayed Shantae once, was regretful of it, and now he trusts that she'll do everything she can to not let her down again.)
** After playing ''Pirate's Curse'', I feel it's also possible Shantae told Bolo about her encounter with Rottytops's human self in the Village of Lost Souls, wherein Rotty acknowledges how she feels she keeps messing things up for Shantae and wishes she could be a better friend to her. So he would know that she'd never stop trying to help her, even if she didn't always succeed.
** It's meant to show some character development on Bolo's part. He spends the entirety of their quest arguing with Rotty specifically ''because'' he thinks she's disloyal and selfish, due to her past misdeeds. By the end of it, though, he recognizes how devoted and loyal Rotty really is to Shantae, just like how Rotty learns to recognize Sky as smart and responsible instead of Ms. Bossypants, and Sky learns to recognize Bolo as determined and unyielding instead of a scatterbrained ditz.
** In addition, after playing the first game, I'd hesitate to call what Rotty did in ''Risky's Revenge'' a full-on betrayal, seeing as she and Shantae weren't really friends yet. If anything, she was more like an informant -- getting Shantae into the Cackle Mound and telling her about where to find the barons -- but not someone who thought she owed her any actual loyalty until she realized how much Shantae's company really meant to her.

[[folder: Import Room]]
* I realize this isn't quite the place for gameplay-related questions, but I'm trying to find out what the point of the Import Room is in ''Risky's Revenge'', and I can't find any answers. When I talk to the woman inside, she tells me that she can't receive her shipments due to the recent surge in pirate activity, but she always says the same thing even after I beat the game. What kinds of stuff do they sell, and what do I have to do for them to sell it?
** It's a remnant from the DSIWare version of the game - if you own Mighty Flip Champs and Mighty Milky Way, you can get bonus gems to start your game with.

[[folder: Shantae's hair]]
* The ending of ''Risky's Revenge'' shows that Shantae was surprised that she still had her hair-whip [[spoiler: even after being drained of her genie-half:]] Mimic confirms that that part of her seemed not to have come from her mother, as he'd originally thought. But weren't there any other half-genies around from whom Shantae would've realized this? ''Half-Genie Hero'' mentions that many of them continued to act as town guardians after their genie parents disappeared - surely, Shantae would've happened across one of them and realized they couldn't hair-whip like she could? Or is she the last half-genie left alive somehow?
** Considering the only other half-genie we meet is Holly Lingerbean, and she's either faking or simply corrupt, it may well be the case that she's the last, or at least the last in Sequin Land.
** Holly Lingerbean tells Shantae outright that she's not half-genie. On the other hand, though, Mayor Scuttlebutt indicated at one point after firing Shantae that there were other half-genies out there he could find to take the job.
** I was under the assumption that half-genies inherit magical properties from their mothers, but what they get is unique to the individual half-genies (so Shantae might get her power set while a different half-genie would have a FlyingBrick power set).
*** It looks like you were right, then. In the first game, a resident tells Shantae that half-genies can have all sorts of strange powers, like shooting milk out of their eyes, in one's case -- so I guess it makes sense for Shantae to assume that the hair-whip was hers'.

[[folder: Destroying the Genie Realm]]
* In ''Half-Genie Hero'', how could the entire genie realm have been destroyed, just by Shantae destroying the Tinkerbrain? All the Tinkerbrain did was corrupt its magic.
** RuleOfDrama. In seriousness, though, it's likely some sort of chain reaction. Dark Magic seems more volatile than Light Magic, so destroying the Tinkerbrain completely rather than going in with the Magical Polarizer to change it back has disastrous consequences.

[[folder: Dynamo blueprints]]
* If Mimic designed the original blueprints for the Dynamo, how come he never realized that Risky sabotaged them?
** He was probably so relieved to get "his" blueprint back that he didn't bother checking it over. Or the change Risky made was just small enough that it could be dismissed as a minor skip in his memory if he spotted the difference at all. Shantae does mention that he can be scatterbrained...
[[/folder]]

[[folder: What happened to the Tinkertub?]]
* Why has Risky resorted to using the Tinkerslug for her attack on Main Street in ''Half-Genie Hero''? The Tinkertub seemed fine at the end of the last game...Was Shantae such a lousy pirate that she ran it aground several times when she was on her own, to the point where it was inoperable once Risky got it back?
** Risky's constantly upgrading her boats. In the first game, she's got a normal pirate ship. By Risky's Revenge, she's got the Steam Powered Oceanic Tinkertub, and only falls back on the S.P.O.T. Mk II because Shantae destroys the first one. It's not out of the ordinary that she'd choose to upgrade further to a living ship that more or less doesn't have to rely on the wind to sail.

[[folder: Why does Holly Lingerbean have long ears?]]
* The only other character with long ears is Shantae, and this troper assumed that was due to her genie heritage...but Holly tells you before you fight Wilbur that she's not half-genie, so why does she have them?
** She's posing as a half-genie to get Shantae's job in order to worm (no pun intended) her way into Scuttle Town to get at everyone's memories. As a memory herself, her appearance may be malleable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Tinkerbat loyalty]]
* Whose side were the Tinkerbats on during the events of ''Pirate's Curse''? We see that some of them had yet to be corrupted into Cacklebats - the ones who leave Shantae a map at the end of each dungeon - but were they trying to help her and Risky stop the Pirate Master, or helping the Pirate Master get his revenge on Risky for her betrayal?
** I think they're trying to help Risky out - possibly in their final moments as 'her' Tinkerbats. Since it's Shantae who shows up, though, they end up just dropping their maps and running away. You can't really blame them given what ''usually'' happens when they cross Shantae's path...
[[/folder]]

* Why doesn't Shantae know any new moves at the beginning of ''Pirate's Curse''? Bolo ended off ''Risky's Revenge'' by promising to teach her some human moves after she lost her magic, and he says during the Ammo Baron's attack that "training's over," but Shantae doesn't seem to have developed anything beyond her normal moveset - in fact, she actually downgraded a bit, since I recall her having to buy the backdash move (a base ability in the previous game) from the shop, in addition to new moves like the upperkick and backflip. Wouldn't it make more sense for her to have known these from the start?

[[folder: Visiting the Genie Realm]]
* At the end of ''Half-Genie Hero'', Shantae tells Mimic of how she got pulled into the Genie Realm while fighting the Dynamo, and that she'd always dreamed of being able to go there...but hadn't she already gone to the Genie Realm at the end of the first game? Why is she acting like this is the first time she's been there and seen it?
** Out of universe, HGH is meant to be a bit of a soft reboot, less reliant on past games and events for the benefit of everyone who's playing a Shantae game for the first time. In-universe, maybe she just means she wishes to be there for more than a few minutes?

[[folder: Purpose of the Twinkle Stone]]
* In the first game, the antagonist needs four stones to superpower her steam engine. She also gives an explanation for what she plans to do with each stone. The Dribble Stone supplies it with unlimited water. The Golem Stone can "handle the power of the other stones". The Simmer Stone gives unlimited heat to produce steam. The Twinkle Stone provides... unlimited light? Risky never actually explains what use this stone is at all to her steam engine, or what it even does. As it stands, it seems like the other three stones, or even just the Dribble and Simmer stone are really all the steam engine needs. Has there ever been any explanation of what the Twinkle Stone's function, or is it just something that's never been expanded on?
** Seeing as the Twinkle Stone is apparently ice-element, my best guess is that Risky needed it to control the extreme heat given off by the Simmer Stone. She may need a high temperature in order to boil the water into steam, but if it gets too hot, she would risk it melting the machine down from the inside.
** As confirmed by the manual for the VC version, which describes the Twinkle Stone as being good for cooling down heavy machinery.

[[folder: Bolo's act of heroism]]
* If you speak to Bolo sometime after finishing the Frostbite Island dungeon, he asks if Shantae noticed the act of heroism he performed earlier. Shantae assumes he's referring to how he sabotaged the targetting module for the Ammo Baron's weapon, but Bolo plainly doesn't know what she's talking about, proving that that act of heroism was an accident. But what was the act of heroism he was actually referring to, then?

[[folder: Is Risky a human?]]
* This is something I've been wondering for a long time. While I'm sure there are a lot of bizarre-looking types of people in Sequin Land, Risky ''almost'' looks human enough for it to seem innocuous, but she has pale purple skin. ''Half-Genie Hero'' has her state that she has sensitive skin, but I can't tell if that's supposed to be a joke or not. She onced served under the Pirate Master, who's specifically identified as ''not'' being human, and her slight resemblance to Nega-Shantae briefly made me suspect that she was a genie or half-genie he corrupted and turned to his side... but she doesn't have pointed ears, or any magic powers that we know of. Is she supposed to be an ordinary human with really pale skin, then? And if so, what made the Pirate Master recruit her when the rest of his army seemed to consist of corrupted Tinkerbats?
** Her pale purple skin points towards some serious meddling in dark magic, but other than that, she's presumably human.
** Originally Risky was meant to be a pirate ghost (or zombie, or some kind of undead being...). Even after being made human the color scheme stuck.

[[folder: Why is this here?]]
* Inside the Cackle Tower in ''Pirate's Curse'', Shantae comes across a machine she says looks like it's from her uncle's workshop. What's odd is that the game never explains how it got into the dungeon from there, especially since it has three other parts that are hidden away in separate rooms that are needed to power it. Did the corrupted Tinkerbats steal it and put it there?
** I'm pretty sure she's saying it looks like it's from her Uncle's workshop on account of it being a strange machine, not that it's literally something that belongs to him. Considering that it's intricately tied to the dungeon's overall puzzle, it likely belonged to the previous occupant.

[[folder: Role of the Golem Stone]]
* Related to the above question about the Twinkle Stone, what purpose did the Golem Stone serve in Risky's plan? The other three had a direct role in powering or maintaining the steam engine, but all Risky and the manual say about the Golem Stone is that it's the only material sturdy enough to contain the power of the other stones...Was she going to forge the stone into the chamber for the new steam engine? If it's small enough for Shantae to carry around, it seems unlikely there'd be enough there for something like that, though.
** I assumed that it was meant to be the coal for the steam engine.
** Or maybe she planned on reverse-engineering whatever material the stone was made out of, or just forging different metals together until she came up with something close enough to work. Obviously this would be a lot easier if she had the stone itself to use as a reference, hence why she would've wanted it.

[[folder: How did she know?]]
* During ''Pirate Queen's Quest'', Shantae tells Risky before their final confrontation that her friends were the ones who helped her shake off the Dynamo's corruption, but since this is supposed to be [[UnreliableNarrator Risky retelling the story to make herself look better,]] she had to have known that detail to include it in her retelling. But how did she, when Shantae didn't actually say anything about it during their encounter in the ''actual'' game?
** Given how smart Risky is, she likely figured out on her own. Already at the beginning of ''Pirate Queen's Quest'', she was confident Shantae was going to return.

[[folder: Why can't they just destroy the magic lamp?]]
* I mean. Destroying would've been a better solution than splitting it into three magic seals. Or at least sink into the bottom of the ocean.
** The best answer I could come up with would be that they thought the lamp could be used as some sort of GodzillaThreshold, so to speak. If there were a genie or half-genie who went to the dark side, for example, the lamp could be used to imprison her or take her powers away. Alternatively, maybe they're just incapable of destroying the lamp or the seals. Shantae does threaten to do so, but we've nothing to suggest that she actually could.

[[folder: Risky's plan?]]
* Okay, so Risky's plan in Seven Sirens was to give the Empress Siren the life force of 5 half-genies while leaving Shantae around in case the Empress Siren stabbed her in the back. There is just one problem with this. There are only 5 half-genies. If Rotty hadn't disguised herself as a half-genie, then Shantae would have been taken. Did Risky somehow know that Rotty was going to do that, or was it just pure luck that Rotty turned up?
** Presumably, Risky was ready to turn over the half-genies for real. That, or she was planning on making sure some useless extra ended up on stage at the time of the kidnapping, in order to leave Shantae free to explore the island. Rotty just happened to slip perfectly into that role, saving Risky some trouble.
** Risky was in charge of the show. She had ample opportunity to toss another dud into the mix if Rotty hadn't come along. Heck, we even see [[EpilepticTrees another female zombie hanging around]]...
** Even if Shantae had been captured, Risky would probably be capable of finding some way to get her friends to rescue her without arousing the Empress's suspicions. She already passed Shantae off as a dud of a half-genie, so the security around her cage could conceivably be expected to be pretty lax.
** Plus, we don't know that the Empress would've wanted Shantae even if Rotty hadn't showed up. If she were that interested in someone Risky told her was a dud and not worth the trouble, why wouldn't she have had her captured along with the other five in the actual game?

[[folder: Where does Harmony live/protect?]]
* Does Harmony live on the island or did she travel like Shantae and seemingly Plink did? There are only three towns on the island and one was a dud for Risky's plan. Zapple guards Armor Town while Vera guards Tree Town. However, the ghost of seemingly Harmony's mother is found in the depths of the sunken city. So where is she from? And if she is from the island, how could she not guess that something wrong was happening if she was able to tell Fillin wasn't a real genie from a glance?
** When Harmony's talking about the Genie Scrapbook, she says, "I'd hoped that by coming to this island and taking part in the performance, I'd finally be able to share (the book) with other Half-Genies", so presumably, she's not living on the island. It wouldn't surprise me if she'd originally lived there, but the rest of her family moved her away after her mother's sacrifice to stop the Sirens - or if they left at her insistence, for that matter.

[[folder: Genies from the first game]]
* Seven Sirens tells us that Shantae's magic dances are her special genie power. If they're unique to her and her mother, then, how did the four labyrinth genies from the first game know to teach her transformation dances when she rescued them? If it were any other half-genie, it sounds like the dances would've been useless.
** EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.
** I always thought that belly dancing was how all genies used their powers and they just taught her the dance and guessed she could put it to use.

[[folder: What exactly are the barons?]]
* The question's in the title, I guess. ''Risky's Revenge'' described them as bandits who pass themselves off as artifact collectors, but this seems to have been to justify each of them having a PlotCoupon in that game, since none of them seem particularly like they make a living out of thievery. Then Pirate's Curse introduced a fourth one and Seven Sirens introduced a fifth, and the only things any of the games seem to agree on about them are that Ammo Baron and possibly Armor Baron are military leaders and Techno Baron is a MadScientist inventor-type. Hypno Baron has been portrayed inconsistently between the two games he's appeared in, and Squid Baron has been relegated to being a recurring fourth-wall-breaker and filler boss who's mostly just there for comedy...I'm aware that detailed world-building isn't one of this series' highest priorities, but I'm just wondering if there's any consistency regarding these guys or if they're just whatever each new game wants/needs them to be.
** They honestly just exist to be a tier of bad guy between 'regular monsters' and 'Risky Boots'.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Who are the "Spell monsters" in the fifth game?]]

[[folder: Why was Risky allowed to escape in Seven Sirens?]]

** In Pirate's Curse, Shantae does mention that she thinks her outlandish regular outfit makes her a bad role model. Seeing as this series has that level of self-awareness, maybe it's a jab at how, despite the colorful graphics and goofy scenarios, it's still a bit disingenuous to market these character designs as being appropriate for kids.

[[folder:Warping in the fifth game]]

** In Pirate's Curse, Shantae does mention that she thinks her outlandish outfit makes her a bad role model. Seeing as this series has that level of self-awareness, maybe it's a jab at how, despite the colorful graphics and goofy scenarios, it's still a bit disingenuous to market these character designs as being appropriate for kids.