#kirby meta

[giantchasm]

Y’know… I was thinking about the “previously nice people who fucked around, found out, went various degrees of insane, and started being not so nice to their once beloved underlings, who still refused to give up on them” quartet last night (as per usual) and I came to an interesting realization.

I’ve…. Always portrayed Sectonia and Leon specifically as parallels, then Haltmann and Hyness specifically as parallels because of the type of relationship they once had with their underlings, but giving it some further thought…

Once you toss out the father & daughter(s) element, and the ruler & loyal servant element for a moment……..

It’s. Actually kind of Sectonia and Hyness, and Haltmann and Leon who have more similarities in some ways?

Sectonia and Hyness:

-Were seemingly actively cruel, if not outright abusive to their beguiled underlings

-Went mad because of something presumably related to Dark Matter in a game themed around magic

-Didn’t really have a single puppetmaster pulling the strings. They were more corrupted by conceptual forces seemingly than individual people

In contrast, Haltmann and Leon:

-Uh….. weren’t actually that mean to their underlings? At least not in comparison. The worst thing we saw Haltmann do was tell Susie to stand down, then we didn’t see Leon interact with Carol or the others at all. Their damage to their underlings was more a form of emotional neglect than outright mistreatment

-Went mad because of something seemingly related to Dream magic in a game themed around tech

-Had specific individuals pulling the strings behind their descent into cruelty— Star Dream in Haltmann’s case, Forgo in Leon’s

Although thinking about it even further this morning, I did realize one way Sectonia and Leon, and Haltmann and Hyness are similar to one another specifically other than the type of relationship they once had with their mistreated underlings:

Their relationship with their madness.

Recently, my cool mutual @/fecto-forgo made a post about how it seems, to a certain extent, Hyness was aware he was descending into madness, but instead of accepting a peaceful life with his daughters, he continued to seek revenge anyways. And I agree with that assessment! There’s a Star Allies pause screen featuring dialogue from him where he apologizes for forgetting Zan’s name, then starts to reflect on how it seems his “heart is going crazy,” before shaking the thought. This, to me, implies a certain awareness of him losing his grip on reality.

Similarly, it’s implied Haltmann knew he was losing himself. In a pause screen of his, he describes “not even knowing why he reactivated that terrible machine,” before remembering it was all a desperate attempt to see Susanna again.

Meanwhile, I get the impression… Sectonia and Leon had little to no idea they were losing it? Leon seems to think his plan is his own and that Fecto Forgo is just an asset he’s willingly serving for his own benefit. And while in the Soul of Sectonia fight pause screen Sectonia begs for death, there’s no implication she understood what was happening to her as it was happening. Instead, she was consumed by egomania.

I… do think it’s interesting the way their motives contrast each other, too. It’s most obvious with Haltmann and Hyness, who take a different approach when it comes to the importance of their children. Hyness quite literally allows himself to lose it even knowing it may hurt his daughters, whereas Haltmann loses it in an attempt just to see his daughter again.

It’s… less obvious with Sectonia and Leon, but I do think there’s something interesting to be said about the way Leon’s goal seems to be for all of the Beast Pack to thrive in the new world whereas Sectonia, obviously, is only concerned with herself, rather than her people. There’s an element of selflessness vs selfishness there, too.

I’m not quite sure what to actually DO with any of this analysis, but it’s at least an interesting thought to chew on when it comes to setting the four of them, as well as the people they’ve hurt, up as parallels.

It potentially gives their underlings the ability to empathize with each other in different ways, and I think that’s Neat. Susie and the Mage Sisters can bond over their fathers going mad, while Taranza and The Mage Sisters can bond over getting thrown under the bus, and so on and so on! Lots of interesting angles to explore there.

[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

[anistarrae]

haii👋

[das-a-kirby-blog]

we can do it. at least do it for kirby

[itsquakey]

The one post I have been WAITING a long time to bring back- the most recent (and probably final, I have no reason to redesign these enough to where they need a new reference) set of Nextgen references.

[akanemnon]

Kirby drip✨And also Fall

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

He would not go there.

[rariatoo]

Hammer and Sword

[lunatykmode]

Canon interaction

[lovehaleylo]

Comic expressing some of my Kirby universe headcanons (Part 1)

Part 2 Here

[pinkd3mon]

This is what happens inside the buddy towers while they wait for Kirby, me thinks

Based on this post I made about Dedede watching TV and this amazing tag someone reblogged it with

[chmarzity]

They cancel out each others’ braincells

(Kirby gijinka by @moirasstrings !!)

[paintpanic]

Kirbtober Day 28: Final Boss

[anistarrae]

happy birthday to them all

[das-a-kirby-blog]

he wasn't lying..that wagdle can baby

[absolutely-zero-regrets]

Reblog if you, too, greatly desire a hot dog