History Headscratchers / Tsukihime

*** Hence, "just screwed up" is a valid explanation. If she wins, she asks why he didn't use the eyes, since they would have helped him win. If she loses, she berates herself for not working fast enough. Sion's not infallible, Shiki's not a pushover, and the {{Nasuverse}} canon basically runs on large-scale quantum mechanics.

* Even if they're bullshitting us as to the contents, why would that mean her route wouldn't get released? We already know the route has changed a lot from what Nasu was originally planning. It certainly wouldn't reverse causality and make MeltyBlood stop existing just because it no longer follows a released route perfectly.
** The content length doesn't really fit. For all that information to be revealed requires a longer time frame than the other routes got. That's not even really taking into account that it's ''Satsuki's'' route, not theirs. So the focus still ought to be on her, even if she doesn't live through it or whatever. If they want to release a Satsuki route in the remake that includes everything that Kagetsu Tohya or MeltyBlood are based on then it will either be far longer than the other routes or they'll have to at least partially rewrite the other routes to make them closer. Also, in a narrative sense, is it Far Side or Near Side? Or does it have a special Middle Side? Maybe I think too much about actual writing and how it fits together, but it just doesn't seem like a Satsuki route can ''fit'' without feeling like it's rushed or that it skips over too many details. Hell, apart from any romance angle, how does she become the 10th Dead Apostle? Is her Reality Marble going to be mentioned? And then it needs to include at least part of the background material of Makihasa for the Far Side routes to make sense. Perhaps it will be released since it'd be a real waste not to, but it seems like if it is it wouldn't be released with the Tsukihime remake so much as in something like the Manga or a different game altogether. It's not a 'Satsuki route' if they do that so much as merely writing an entirely new story that happens to be a prequel to Kagetsu Tohya.
*** I guess I wasn't clear enough. I'm asking why you think they'll release a prequel to MeltyBlood instead of Satsuki's game route. I have a little more confidence in Nasu's editor than to think that he'll try to cram in everything that's implied in the spinoff games, rather than write the thing and say "it's not directly related any more." Though really, pretty much everything non-Satsuki related implied in MeltyBlood is either standard Near Side stuff (Nero's appearance, Shiki's attraction to Arcueid and kohai relationship with Ciel, and the like) or can probably be explained in a Satsuki route.

* How does Shiki actually beat anyone in a fight ''without'' killing them? In MeltyBlood, he beats Sion specifically because his eyes are so unpredictable, and also defeats Ciel. Plus Akiha. Am I missing something? His eyes ''kill things'' or at least make unhealable wounds. If he's not cutting lines, he's just a knife fighter. And therefore predictable.

*** Apparently confirmed by MeltyBlood. Arcueid is [[spoiler:resurrected by Gaia after Roa kills her in Type-Earth form]]. You'd need to destroy the World to kill her (something Shiki has proven capable of, in localized areas).

** Ciel ''didn't'' leave Japan, she left for the one Catholic church in Japan with a connection to the Burial Agency (...wait, wouldn't that be the [[FateStayNight Kotomine church]]?), to get a permit for Shiki to enter the Vatican. She ''does'' mention that she might be gone for several days, and that Shiki could last a couple of weeks safely in her room, so it probably just didn't take as long as she expected.

*** "No modern weapon" and "super-powerful" wouldn't apply to Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, which is really what the argument is about. "Concepts of Death" are already an incredibly important plot point in Tsukihime, considering such things as Shiki being able to see object lines at all, not being able to kill Arcueid under specific circumstances, and Shiki's brain slowly ticking towards implosion because he's starting to understand ''everything'' Gaian (enough to see points of Death on people and things). Point being that ORT can be killed, it's just insanely difficult because he can't be [[OneHitKill wtfpwnzed]] by Satsujinki. Besides, Gaia being isolated is also a plot point with regards to [[FateStayNight Shirou's projection magic]].

*** Because SHIKI's "immortality" was weaker than Roa's own regeneration power? SHIKI's not immortal so much as ''incredibly'' hard to kill (he survives self-inflicted lethal wounds routinely, and was functioning just fine with only an upper body before Akiha ripped him apart), and all fusion does is match his life level to Shiki's. It may have only been due to the full moon, but Roa literally ''regenerated everything from his ankles up'' after Arcueid did something even more thorough to him. And who exactly has been saying that Roa would get Satsuki's reality marble? Of course he wouldn't; he wouldn't have Satsuki's personality and soul. He also doesn't ''need'' her reality marble, [[http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Michael_Roa_Valdamjong#Powers_and_Abilities he's got his own]]. Also, in Roa's own words, he valued Ciel as a host far more than SHIKI, because while Elesia certainly was a working-class human rather than his favored upper-crust, she also had a huge prana capacity similar to the original Roa...on the level of a [[FateStayNight servant spirit]]. Satsuki is supposed to be even ''stronger''.

* How did Nrvnqsr Chaos create a Soil of Genesis out of the dog to bind Shiki AFTER he'd stabbed its point? Shouldn't it have been reduced to useless biomass?

** I beleive their relationship is described as a "weird friendship" by WordOfGod. Also, am I the only one who sees the LesYay in their relationship? :P

*** Well, she's the only natural reincarnation of Roa, who fell in love with Arcueid at first sight. Considering that he mistook it for hatred for eight hundred years, her own antagonization with Arc seems kind of suspicious. Of course, considering that she fell in love with Shiki, it makes one wonder if SHIKI's antagonization of his replacement might be him protesting too much. Maybe his obsession with Akiha is a displacement activity?

*** Actually, considering that she retires hunting Dead Apostles in her good end and is planning on quitting the Buriel Agency in the prologues for Tsukihime 2, Ciel is most likely not a fanatical hunter so much as someone who is joining forces with the people that tortured her for years because they're the biggest threat to Roa and have a weapon that's capable of preventing him from reincarnating.

Contrast this with Hisui's True End, where Kohaku's XanatosGambit works... but she still brings Akiha tea even though her mistress is dead, and only with a knife in her chest does she say she's finally got to talk to Shiki. Her last words are:

Maybe it's just because Kohaku's suicide fate in "Midday Moon" is just such a TearJerker, but it's only in that fleeting instant before death-by-knife-through-the-heart that she seems to find her ''real'' self again. In Hisui's Good End its LaserGuidedAmnesia, while in Kohaku's End it seems more BecomingTheMask. Even after Shiki gives her the white ribbon back, and a double dose of IntimateHealing (one for Shiki, one for her), she still tells Shiki that she might just be [[ChanceTheGardener what he wants her to be]]. Shiki insists that it's not the case, but he isn't terribly convincing. After the FinalBattle between Akiha and Shiki in the school, when Kohaku prevents Akiha from killing herself, she even says:

As for Shiki's acceptance, the whole point was that he's ''not'' Makihisa or SHIKI. When she's sexing him up while he's essentially paralyzed, all he can think of is how horrible he is for using her for her power (he has almost the exact same thought during Hisui's route). That was the entire point of the second round of sex, Shiki using sex as an expression of love, with no other purpose beyond that. The kicker being that he gets through to her; that was part of the turning point. The other parts were his reaction to her insistence, not that [[ChanceTheGardener he's projecting what he wants on her]], but that she feels something but doesn't know for herself if it's real (he insists that if she's feeling it, it's real), and his insistence that while he would always love Kohaku for whoever she was (an answer she expected), he liked "cheerful" Kohaku most of all (which she ''didn't'' expect).\\

**** Definately seems plausible for the Tohno's to have the potential to wield Magecraft. True Demons possess the nifty ability to use their entire body as a substitute for magic circuits. So it stands to reason that half-breeds like the Tohno's would at least possess some lesser variation of that inherent ability.

*** I understand what you mean, it's just that the Near Side stuff doesn't really entirely cover all the stuff it really should if it's just Satsuki. Oh, and it'd have to be a prequel to Melty Blood since chronologically it comes first. And it's not that I think they'll release a prequel so much that they're doing a remake of Tsukihime (aren't they?) which would be the best place to include her route. The other option would be to make it it's own game and actually do the story justice. But that's not really something that's being talked about, is it? So, in a hypothetical Satsuki route, I think we agree that it'd have to include Arcueid and Ciel, then dispose of Nero. SHIKI/Roa infects Satsuki somewhere around this time. Then he dies at some point, presumably before whatever is going on with Satsuki is finished but not so soon as to be simply [[DroppedABridgeOnHim anticlimactic.]] Hell, maybe they cut the time down and have Satsuki do it for us instead and Shiki simply delivers the final blow so he [[DeaderThanDead stays dead this time.]] This whole time you've also been building a relationship with Satsuki as well as Arcueid (Melty Blood implies that Shiki and Arcueid are together) and somehow the Tohno family is involved here as well. No other reason for Shiki to know about Vermillion Akiha or Kohaku being unbalanced, right? Satsuki's abilities have to be covered at least a little. The only way to fit all this stuff into a normal Tsukihime length route is to cut down on necessary details, or leave you on some type of cliff hanger with her route unresolved at least temporarily. It's not that I think Nasu and his editors are incapable of tying everything together. I'm wondering if they can tie everything together while still maintaining quality and without overshadowing the rest of the game. From what I can see the only way to do so would be to make it entirely separate from the remake (which is probably the only really feasible move) or to flesh out everyone's routes a lot. Which I suppose they'd do anyway, but that still only maintains a Tsukihime level of detail for Satsuki herself. IsntItSad?

**** IIRC, he never *chose* Ciel, Arcueid just managed to kill his preceding incarnation before he could choose a specific family to reincarnate into so Elesia/Ciel was his only natural reincarnation and just happened to have an insane amount of magical potential. I seem to recall that Elesia-Roa actively scouted out the Tohnos before incarnating into them, but the VN never gave any indications whether it was their status or just the fact that they had the strongest magical circuits around and were most likely to have a uber-magical kid. Depending on whether or not his incarnation starts from before birth like Elesia's presumably did, then the reason he chose SHIKI instead of Akiha may have simply been because ''neither'' of them had been born at that time, and it was pure luck of the genetic draw that Akiha was stronger than SHIKI (something that it took years of observation for her own father to determine, going by his journal), and Satsuki was just someone that didn't cross their radar since she didn't do anything even remotely magical until after SHIKI turned her. For what its worth, SHIKI's False Eyes of Death Perception is arguably the best ability that he could have hoped for, if he knew what he was actually using seeing as his main enemy (as he understood it) was Arcueid, who was powered by absorbing life energy from nature, without the brain-busting side-effects of the True Eyes of Death Perception. Too bad its not quite so useful against Akiha's ranged attacks, which in turn is supposed to be useless against Arcueid's magic resistance according to WordOfGod. And if those Eyes could carry on to the next incarnation, it would have been a good investment for the future.

* How did Ciel get tatoos on a perpetually time reversing body?