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Headscratchers / Guilty Gear

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Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Headscratchers in the Guilty Gear series.

  • Is Sol's Instant Kill in Xrd, Branding Breach, supposed to be him using the Saint Oratorio function of his weapon? It's mentioned in the game's glossary and every other piece of expanded material regarding the Junkyard Dog that Sol designed his new weapon as a combination of two parts of the Outrage that can change into a form capable of firing the supposed superweapon "Saint Oratorio". Before performing his IK he does transform it a bit, and the background changes to a barren, flaming wasteland and the attack is followed by an explosion around both fighters, which fits the "great damage to the target and user" description the Oratorio has. The only real discrepancy I can think of is that it's also considered a long-range weapon, but It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for Sol to get right up in someone's face unnecessarily. Chekhov's Gun dictates that they wouldn't tell us about some kind of awesome weapon without showing us, and it hasn't shown up in the story mode of either -SIGN- or REVELATOR.

  • Why did Zappa initially insist on going to Faust to get those nasty demons exorcised? One, Faust is a doctor (probably Not That Kind of Doctor), so I doubt he'd have the right tools to get the job done. Two, let's just say Faust is...um, special. Aren't there any other magicians/voodoo priests/aliens capable of doing that sort of thing? It certainly would save him a helluva lot of trouble, in regards to being "accidentally" cut open.
    • Well, Faust does have a general reputation as a "miracle worker," so Zappa just assumed that he'd be of some help.
      • Plus, I'm not sure Zappa knows he's possessed. All he knows is that he sometimes blacks out, and wakes up some time later with fresh injuries.
      • Yes, he doesn't know it. Just pay attention to his reaction when Faust tells him he's possesed. Also, about the Not That Kind of Doctor thing, he DID heal everyone in need of healing he encountered, including a Necro-possesed Dizzy
    • Faust also diagnoses Axl's time-slipping in one of the paths in Guilty Gear X+'s story mode, so his knowledge seems to surpass mundane medicine.

  • The Holy Knights are a (para?)-military organization, and Sol's a Jerkass. Why did Ky, as his superior, put up with him at all? Sure, Sol's competent as all hell, but why didn't he end up court-marshalled or dishonorably discharged for sassing back and generally being a loose cannon and a slacker?
    • Sol can set cities on fire when he's in a bad mood. Go ahead and court-martial him. I'll be right over here. On another continent.
    • I think he also came with a personal recommendation from Kliff Undersn, Ky's father figure. When your hero says "This guy'll be great for the place!" you tend to take him at his word for at least a little while. Also, on top of his power and his dedication to killing Gears, there is the whole mess of the Holy Order likely having a rather high death rate. Gears were designed to be incredibly good at magic, able to summon power the likes of which most humans can't match (Ky's reputation as a genius comes from his control over lightning magic, not any abnormal amount of power). Anyone who can keep fighting them and keep coming back alive would likely be considered essential enough to overlook some insubordination.

  • What is a Gear exactly? Is it a biological humanoid imbued with special powers? Or are they all artificial/mechanical androids like Robo-Ky? Or can a Gear be either, only defined by their powers? I used to think of "Gear" as a word for mecha, but none of them look like miniature mecha aside from the suit worn by Justice, who wages war on humanity, implying they're not human. So are they biological genetic constructs that don't count as human, biological constructs with android parts, androids with biological parts, or are none of them biological at all?
    • Despite the name "Gear," there's nothing mechanical about them. They're basically magic-infused, genetically engineered organisms. Beyond that, though, they come in many different flavors, ranging from Sol's I-can't-believe-it's-not-human to some rather monstrous things that pop up in art books and the like. "Gear" is really just a catch-all for Man-made magical lifeforms. Robo-Ky, while Man-made and exhibiting some electric magic mastery depending on the incarnation, doesn't seem to qualify because it's not alive.
    • Gear refers to evolution, hence "The Missing Link." In the GG universe, the Gears were originally meant to be the next step in human evolution. Instead they became weapons of war.
  • Followup question: just what are Eddie and Angra? They're never described as Gears, which seems supported by them not going catatonic following Justice's death, but they're described as "similar" to Gears...
    • They're Forbidden Beasts. Not a lot of information has been explicitly revealed, but what is known so far is that they're magical in nature and the product of forbidden rituals (even Slayer strongly condemns them after noticing Millia's hair in his story in #R) available certain members of the Assassin's Guild. The ritual apparently involves giving up something precious to receive power in the form of the Forbidden Beast. Zato-1 gave up his eyesight and gained Eddie. It has yet to be canonically stated what Millia gave up to get Angra.
      • When Eddie comes across Dizzy in story mode (I forget who's), he mentions that Forbidden Beasts are, on some level, the enemy of Gears. I always got the impression they were a sort of 'sentient summon' like Testament's succubus familiar. As for Millia, a mix of subtext and fanon is that she gave up her womb, or something similar (her frequent references to 'a maiden's purity' in her quotes among other things).
      • Re: Millia: in her GGXX Ending I (I think), Slayer warns Millia that "that hair is alive", and Millia replies that she is quite aware of this. In Ending II, Millia worries that she has been overusing her power (presumably Angra), but claims that she is not "like [Zato] yet." In other words, Angra, like Eddie, may be capable of taking over its user/host, or at least influence his/her actions or thoughts. Millia may or may not have been forced to sacrifice something during the Angra ritual (remember, she was coerced into joining the Assassin's Guild in the first place), but AFAIK, no in-game content corroborates the theory that it involved her virginity or anything... below the belt. Jam is the one with the "A maiden's purity" quote (said when falling victim to Faust's Shigeteki Zetsumei Ken/Stimulating Death Fist), and Millia's GGXX Ending III line about Zato having "stained her" (or "dirtied [her] soul") is, given the circumstances, most likely not a metaphor for physical defloration.

  • What was with Sol's story route in AC+ where he fights his past self, his past self gets killed and yet he survives anyway? Not only that but what was the point of that plot thread if it's never mentioned again? You would think Sol would be a LITTLE concerned about being alive despite his past self dying.
  • Every single time a character uses the contrived, awkward device of referring to the creator of the Gears as "That Man", and nothing else. Why? Do they actually not know who he is, or is it just a transparent attempt to keep his identity hidden from the player? Unless "That Man" is his actual name, people do not talk that way.
    • Knowing this series, "That Man" is probably his real name.
    • Also, most of the cast we've seen doesn't have a clue who he is. Really, the only ones we've seen who verifiably have any idea who he is, rather than that he's just some guy who did horrible things to them are Sol and Raven... and neither of them have much reason to tell anyone else who he is beyond "That Man."
    • If it's any consolation, That Man is sometimes referred to as the "Gear Maker" in Overture.
      • As revealed in Revelator, "That Man"'s real name is Asuka R. Kreutz. He is called 'That Man' by Sol because it's a way to dehumanize the object of his vengeance, which in turn makes it easier for Sol, since he was Sol and Aria's colleague in the Gear Project. The rest follow suit because they don't know Asuka's name; He and Raven play along because they don't care to correct the cast, plus he has more important matters like stopping Justice from reviving and wrecking shit.
  • It bugs me that Ky speaks American English in the dub despite being French.
    • By that logic, come GG3, Millia would be speaking in Russian, Baiken, Anji, and probably May would stay in Japanese, etc. It's a stylistic choice that characters hailing from countries besides the States don't speak their actual native tongues to keep uniformity among the cast, usually for the sake of the player. As far as fighters go, only Fighter's History and later Tekken installments have made an effort to have X character speak their own language, so this isn't anything new.
    • It's entirely possible for someone to speak a language foreign to them without a thick accent of their own native tongue. A more pertinent question might be why he has an American accent instead of an English or otherwise European one, being the king of Illyria and all.
  • It has always bothered me that Sol and Ky carry their weapons all the time. They don't seem to have something like a sheath.
    • For Sol, it's okay since his sword is as sharp as a bread knife and won't probably hurt anyone if he doesn't add his fire element.
    • Isn't it dangerous in Ky's case? A cop carrying a long, pointy sword is pretty scary. And holding the sword all the time is kinda tiring and inefficient.
      • Maybe he summons the Thunderseal out of nowhere, just how Testament summons his scythe.
      • This argument has been basically thrown out for Ky, as from Xrd forward, he is shown to carry his sword in a sheath at his hip. Strive even has a strap meant to loop around Thunderseal's hilt to prevent it from slipping out.
    • Perhaps ASW has kept an ear out, as Ky is seen carrying a sheath on his person in Xrd. No dice for Sol, though.
    • It's another way to highlight their differences, maybe? Ky has learned when to use diplomacy, can be polite/subtle, and prefers to only use violence when necessary. So he gets a rubber sheath to put the blade away when it's not needed. Sol doesn't care for manners and is unfailingly blunt/rude to everyone. He usually doesn't hesitate to get aggressive with people who annoy him. Thus, Sol doesn't bother putting his weapon away and has it ready at all times. If that doesn't work for you, this troper can't think of a way that Sol's swordclub could be sheathed.
    • It's entirely possible they do have sheaths or cases for their weapons; we just only ever see them when they're fighting since this is fighting game and all. What about Chipp? Do you think he goes grocery shopping with that giant blade attached to his arm?
      • Knowing Chipp, it's entirely possible.
  • I have a problem with with the ending music in Accent Core+. It just seems too inconsistent. We get the "okay" ending when Potemkin dies, but the "bad" ending music when May goes traveling with Anji? How does that work?
    • Probably somebody at Arc System Works realized it was wrong, but was too late to stop it, or something like that.
  • Is Justice mechanical, or is she just wearing Powered Armor? Sometimes it seems to be implied that she's just wearing a suit, but if you look at her proportions, there's no way a person could fit in there. And if that is actually her body, why the crotchspike? Seriously.
    • It's just armor. Though without it, she's apparently pretty frail.
    • Justice's armor is largely implied to not be part of her actual anatomy (for instance, I-No's quote for her in AC+ mentions something along the lines of tearing off her shell), although it could simply be an extension of shapeshifting powers similar to what Dizzy demonstrates (one example of this is Justice's leg turning into what appears to be a three-pronged blade when performing her air Kick); Justice might choose to just keep the armor at all times on as opposed to Sol and Dizzy, who instead routinely maintain a human appearance. As for the infamous crotchspike, here's something many seem to have not considered: Gears are essentially Mix-and-Match Critters when it comes to their anatomy and physiology, as various animal genes are thrown into the mix (this can be seen in Sol's Gear form, a humanoid dragon with a crustacean-like exoskeleton). Seeing as Justice, a Commander Gear, was the queen bee/queen ant of the Gears during The Crusades, that protrusion between her legs is likely an ovipositor, which goes a long way is possibly explaining how Justice gave birth to Dizzy.
  • Can Dizzy really be Sin's mother? Wasn't it said that Sin's half-Gear and isn't Dizzy a half-Gear herself?
    • Ugh... this is an example on how assumptions can confuse people. Sin is never stated as a half-Gear, but rather, described as a "child with the blood/genes of a Gear." So his fractions isn't officially 50-50.
  • Why does Bridget wear a giant handcuff for a belt? It's a silly question, but might as well throw it out there.
    • It's probably a reference to her job as a bounty hunter (the handcuff represents arrest).
  • In Overture, what exactly is Diva!Valentine referring to when she yells "You Weren't Here!" While the majority of her dialogue is just anger-fueled yelling directed primarily at Sol, this particular line seems a bit incoherent. The only guess I could make outside of a possible translation error is that maybe it has something to do with inheriting memories from Aria upon transforming into a large fortress-like Gear, and is akin to her saying something along the lines of "You weren't here/there for me" however this is completely conjecture. Granted, she's hardly anything resembling sane by this point but at least the rest of her statements make sense in context, which is why the meaning of this line still continues to allude me.
    • Just spitballing here, but -REVELATOR- shows that Aria was forcibly brainwashed into becoming Justice by the Universal Will during mankind's first expedition into the Backyard. During That Man's flashback, Sol was nowhere to be seen in the control room. Valentine could be remembering that from Aria's perspective, Sol wasn't there for her as she got transformed into a genocidal monster. This does rely on a certain character's memory not being self-serving, but this is the best that this troper can think of.
  • How and from where exactly is That Man getting all these Valentines - or Valentine-like beings in the case of Happy Chaos? As of yet the only established origin and agenda for Valentines is that they're sent by the Universal Will, so how is he able to just readily obtain & recruit them for his own causes?
    • There are four known Valentines - Valentine, Elphelt, Ramlethal, and Jack-O' - their main purpose being to fuse with Justice. The first three were created by the Universal Will in order to carry out the destruction of humanity. Elphelt was more or less a sleeper agent, hence her Faceā€“Heel Turn at the end of Xrd -SIGN-. Jack-O', on the other hand, was not created by the UW, instead being a creation of That Man/ Asuka R. Kreuz, and was more meant to bring Aria back from the dead, in a sense. Happy Chaos, however, is not a Valentine, the name instead being adopted from the true Happy Chaos Valentine, who was never completed. His true identity is The Original, A.K.A. the man who brought humanity magic, having been driven mad by a century and a half trapped in the Backyard.
  • So the Universal Will was actually a robot created by the creator of magic with the directive to never harm humans. How exactly did she bypass this directive?
    • The Original never strictly defined what a "human" is so the Universal Will came up with its own definition, that of a being with a soul and free will. However, it determined that humanity wasn't using its free will and therefore decided that the "real" humans had not come along yet. The Universal Will then set out to destroy humanity (which it called "redundancies") in order to create a new world for these "real" humans.

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