#because i'm NOT tagging all of its forms and iterations no SIR

[mindintheprogram]

on the series' antagonists, their dialogue, and personhood

i think the difference in narrative between forgotten land and the games before it is very interesting-- especially in how it presents its antagonists, and how it uses dialogue.

this is a bit of an essay post, so i'm giving it a readmore. spoilers for all of the "modern" games from RtDL onwards!

rtdl thru star allies had a very dialogue-driven narrative; with the exception of triple deluxe, a lot of the setting and plot is pushed by dialogue.

you can bother magolor a lot before the big reveal and he's got a lot to say-- susie's a chatterbox who alludes to this and that-- the mage-sisters and hyness all have things Going On even if it's just a brief encounter with them. all of the dialogue has meaning, whether it's characterization or plot developments.

forgotten land, meanwhile, has mostly just elfilin's idle chatter that alludes to... not much, he's an excitable little child really. like Triple Deluxe, the most important dialogue is at the very end, from Leongar and then the short tour recording.

you're left to just explore and piece together the (presumably) post-human world and left to stew in the wonder of "what happened? where did the residents of this place all go when the world seems to be in pretty good shape?". none of the first five bosses speak, though they have a very natural place in the world and we get more insight through figurine lore.

rtdl thru star allies also did something constant with its big bads: they're always Just People who got into something far bigger than themselves.

magolor is a quirky little dude who wanted more from life, so he conned the party into him getting great power. this was a mistake.

sectonia was, originally, a noble with a big personality. but the dimensional mirror took her vanity and selfishness, dialed it up to eleven, and made her a monster.

haltmann was a father grieving the loss of his only child, and would do anything to find her again. giving him answers was the ancient star dream... who not only made him completely lose himself, but devoured him to make itself whole in the end.

and hyness was always a bit strange, but the backstory of his people and his search for something greater lead down a path of obsession. in a fit of religious fervor, hyness not only sacrificed his adopted children, but himself too, to bring forth the god of destruction.

ID-F86 is given a whole introduction to us, sure, and we can emphasize with its horrible captivity and existence.

but the setting does not frame it as "a person in a bad situation/who did bad things".

it does speak, but purely out of desire to express its frustration and feelings about the situation. it doesn't speak for the same reasons susie or magolor or zan might: it has no interest in social rules or taboos or playing with you.

even after it fuses with elfilin and becomes fecto elfilis, it's not interested in being a person, or being treated by the narrative as one. even if elfilin's a part of it, and we know elfilin as a person, elfilis doesn't care. even when it demonstrates that it's sapient and capable of speech, it just... doesn't bother to. what's the point? you're here to fight and get elfilin back. that's all that matters.

magolor, sectonia, hyness and even star dream saw reasons to monologue at the end, but not ID-F86.

even when we see it again, as soul forgo and later as chaos elfilis, it doesn't try to speak. soul forgo subjects you to multiple psychic labyrinths, presumably to keep you far away from itself while it's recovering. chaos elfilis simply appears and immediately attacks, because, again, it knows why you're here.

at every turn, it makes it quite clear that this entity isn't interested in pretending to play the social game.

and i think that's really really interesting in the lens of previous games. while previous games deconstructed the hubris of just these normal people, and what tragedy can do to them, and how they're still people even at their very most monstrous...

ID-F86 doesn't care to be a person at all. its captors didn't see it as an equal, after all. why should it even try to pretend with you?

forgotten land is very much a game of "show, don't tell" while playing with that theme in a few ways. it's not better or worse than the previous games, and it does still tell a meaningful and interesting story. but it's a different kind of story.

and i think that's why, besides the 3d plane, it feels so different.

i think it's really wonderful, because it shows how Kirby as a series has quite a range with its storytelling and setting. Forgotten Land is very much a love letter to 64/The Crystal Shards: what with its relatively little dialogue, its colorful and variable setting, and an alien threat that knows exactly what it wants and how you intend to engage with it. it's been a long time since we've stepped back into that realm, and returning to it was wonderful.

it makes me very excited for whatever might come next. :D