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iridescentoracle · 5 months ago

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So, I talked the other day a Whole Bunch about how I’d rewrite Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney to make it actually good. Obviously, I’ve thought about the subsequent games too. It took me a lot longer to figure out what I’d do with Dual Destinies, and I’m still not sure about Spirit of Justice, but one thing that made a lot of stuff click into place was thinking about the original trilogy, and how it ultimately can be boiled down to three main themes/plotlines:

Satire/Critique of the Japanese legal system

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Kurain Channeling Legacy

[gestures at Phoenix and Edgeworth’s relationship]

There’s a lot of reasons the so-called “Apollo Justice trilogy” games all feel wildly disconnected from each other and also mostly the original trilogy, but I think a lot of it comes down to how the themes/plotlines from the original games get lost or are irrelevant because we’ve got a new cast of characters, but there’s nothing tying the new games together but a shared (and much more dramatically expanding) cast of characters.

So for this proposed rewrite project, I’m fixing that. The Apollo Justice trilogy is going to be a trilogy, and that means shared/extended themes and plots that tie all three games together, and tie this trilogy back to the original even though most of the original cast, in this version, have even smaller roles (see: Apollo’s shitty mentor in my rewrite of AA4 being a separate person from Phoenix, who we barely see, etc).

So:

The legal system satire/critique stays consistent in rewritten DD & SOJ, instead of getting completely forgotten about/undermined in DD and doubled down to the point of losing all meaning in SOJ.

Generational Trauma Surrounding the Troupe Gramarye Legacy

honestly i haven’t figured this part out yet but it involves apollo somehow. this rewrite project is a work-in-progress and i’m mostly figuring it out as i go

I’m going to get to each of these in turn, starting (more or less) with the legal system critique, although it’s about to look like I’m mostly complaining about bad writing (in the form of character actions that seem to have been written without any thought actually put into making them make sense from the perspective of the characters in question), which is fair because I kind of am; bear with me, though, I promise it’ll be relevant and I think it’s a pretty solid illustration of how the thematic issues are inherently also narrative/characterization issues and vice versa.

So, let’s talk about Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan and why the hell they thought that was a good idea. I swear to god, I cannot figure out how that entire plotline makes any sense, unless Edgeworth worked out that Blackquill thought he was covering for Athena and also that the real murderer was probably the Phantom purely via considering the parallels to his own life.

Because, like, the thing is. “this convicted murderer is allowed to be a prosecutor in the last few months before his execution (for murder), thanks to the machinations of a man who has dedicated the last like eight years of his life to being Staunchly Anti-Prosecutorial-Corruption” is just. completely nonsensical. So Edgeworth has to have some reason to think he wasn’t actually the murderer. But the canon trial makes it pretty clear Blackquill was the only suspect thanks to #1 nobody checking the security footage carefully #2 Blackquill making sure Athena wasn’t one, so why would Edgeworth think that? But for that matter, how did Edgeworth even know Blackquill, like, existed, let alone learn about the Phantom? Like, maybe he heard about Blackquill from a third party and got curious and looked into things, or was, like, looking through records of Prosecutors Found Guilty Of Crimes for some reason and found a case he and Phoenix hadn’t been involved in (for once) and had Questions, okay, but he wouldn’t have found out about the Phantom either of those ways, so even if he also somehow learned about him separately, why would he think to connect the two? So he has to have learned about Blackquill’s information on the Phantom from Blackquill, but why would Blackquill confide in someone else like that?

The only way I can make any of those pieces fit together in my head is if Edgeworth figured out Blackquill was attempting to cover for a kid who set off all of the Parallels To DL-6 alarm bells in Edgeworth’s head, and Edgeworth’s two mental options are “just fucking leave. run for it now. never think about this again” and “okay but what if neither the kid nor the other adult in the room was actually the person who murdered the kid’s parent. maybe there was a secret third adult who killed them for mysterious reasons” and he picks metaphorical door #2 (rather than leaving through literal door #1 and going home) and man do i want to see what that conversation/logic chess sequence looked like. At what point did Edgeworth contemplate the possibility of watching Phoenix cross-examine the defendant’s pet hawk

Also, crucially when i say Edgeworth picks #2, I mean he says that out loud, bc I really don’t buy that Blackquill would have just casually confided in him (or anyone) about the Phantom, but Edgeworth working out that Blackquill was trying to protect Athena (who he thinks really did it) and immediately going “okay i see why you assumed it was her but have you considered: what if there was secretly a third party who was the real murderer all along” does seem like the one thing that would actually get him to talk.

And tbh? I think everything makes more sense and is even more compelling if Edgeworth and Blackquill’s plan isn’t just to lure out the Phantom bc he’s a ~super spy with nefarious motives etc, but to lure out the real murderer, now that they’ve realized he probably exists.

To be clear, i don’t think that’s what was intended to have happened in canon, but i think it’s what would have to be true for Edgeworth’s involvement not to be hopelessly stupid and counterproductive.

And this is what I mean about the problems with the characterization/narrative choices being intimately intertwined with the thematic issues, because Edgeworth’s whole deal is fundamentally tied up in the legal system satire of the first three games (and Investigations 1 & 2, for that matter) and so it’s incoherent/inconsistent/nonsensical on a character/narrative level and a thematic level both at the same time. If we’re supposed to believe he did something as stupid as “letting a convicted murderer be a prosecutor without a reason to believe he had not, in fact, committed any crimes” then it undercuts his entire arc up to this point. Still, even that proposed backstory/context, while it would at least provide an understandable motivation/train of reasoning that would actually be in keeping with what we know about Edgeworth up to this point, is ultimately rooted in the Phantom plotline as it exists in canon, which I think is fundamentally flawed on three different levels, and genuinely fixing Dual Destinies requires completely rewriting it.

The three central problems with the Phantom plot, IMO, are actually pretty simple:

The legal system critique that ultimately was part of the heart of the first four games gets completely forgotten about.

Ableism

The stakes are too high and not personal enough, which undercuts the emotional impact and weakens the audience’s emotional investment.

To elaborate, because I’m not sure all of those are equally evident at a glance:

One of our main antagonists is a prosecutor who’s also a convicted murderer and… the worst thing he actually does is be mean to people. No evidence tampering, no forgery, no witness suppression, no actual murder. He’s just kinda scary-looking. The ultimate main villain of the game is a cop! He spends most of the game being nice and friendly and helpful but at the end of the day he committed a whole bunch of crimes, Dual Destinies says ACAB oh wait no never mind he’s actually an imposter and the real police detective he’s impersonating was probably genuinely a really good guy.

The whole “the Phantom has no emotions and therefore doesn’t really count as a person I guess so it’s okay to prove his identity even though the very explicitly established consequences are He Will Be Assassinated Right There in The Courtroom, Which Is Exactly What Happens but everyone’s pretty okay with that because hey, he didn’t have emotions, it’s fine, he’s exempted from, like, deserving basic human rights I guess???” is uh. you know. sure a choice they made

It sounds ridiculous to call the original games “grounded” or “realistic,” but like… at the end of the day, the culprits in the first four games are all just… people? The most powerful people who turned out to be murderers were, like, the CEO of a company, a chief of police, a popular actor, etc. Those are real kinds of people who do normal crimes in real life. The characters are ridiculous and over-the-top but at the end of the day the stakes mostly felt high because they were personal. Even when there’s magic involved, the actual crimes are ultimately things that could have happened for mundane reasons too! All the drama with spirit channeling and at the end of the day, half the spirit channeling-related crimes in the original trilogy come down to someone trying to kill or disgrace her sister and niece so that her own kid will inherit, or a teenage girl dealing with emotional abuse/neglect trying to escape and then trying to cover her tracks or get revenge on people she felt had personally hurt her. But now our stakes involve international espionage and a super-spy who can look like anyone? Absurd as it is to say, Dual Destinies doesn’t feel grounded the way the original trilogy did, and outside Athena’s trial, the personal aspects of the cases mostly come down to “the victim and/or suspect are cared about by the characters we care about,” which isn’t enough to bring the absurdly high stakes back down to something it’s easy to genuinely be invested in.

So. Let’s fix all of those. Conveniently, they all have the same solution: Bobby Fulbright is genuinely a cop. He’s exactly who he seems like up until the canon reveal. He is good-natured and cheerful and energetic and mostly pretty helpful to our protagonists. He’s also the man who murdered Metis Cykes and Clay Terran.

Instead of international espionage, he was engaged in corporate espionage. He was a security guard at GYAXA who got bribed to steal some of Metis Cykes’ research, but got caught and panicked and stabbed her. Even after Simon Blackquill was found guilty, he still felt too nervous to keep working at more or less the scene of the crime, and quit the private security guard gig in favor of becoming a cop. Seven years later, new Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth continued his whole signature anti-corruption deal, going through records of convictions of past prosecutors & law enforcement officers, and something about Blackquill’s conviction didn’t sit right, so he arranged to meet the guy in person. Hearing the story from Blackquill’s own mouth, Edgeworth saw some parallels between UR-1 and DL-6, figured out out that Blackquill had falsely confessed under the belief Athena Cykes had accidentally killed her own mother, and (mostly for DL-6 reasons) theorized that there could have been a third person on the scene who managed to escape undetected. Investigating the evidence, he found the security footage of someone in a security guard uniform and Metis Cykes’ jacket leaving the scene of the crime, and met with Blackquill again with that information and a record of Athena testifying at Blackquill’s trial that she’d seen a stranger in her mother’s lab before Simon arrived. At the time she’d been written off as lying or confused due to the trauma, but with the security footage proving her right, Edgeworth and Blackquill realize that she (unlike the security camera) likely saw the security guard’s face, and so would be the only person who could potentially identify him as Metis Cykes’ real killer—thus putting Athena in danger, if they ever happened to meet.

Without actual evidence linking the unknown security guard to the crime, though—no unidentified fingerprints had ever been found, and the footage didn’t show his face, so there was no way to figure out which of the security guards employed at the time was the real killer, if any records even still existed seven years later given that none of the security guards had been seriously considered as suspects at the time—the new evidence wouldn’t be enough to re-open Blackquill’s case, let alone overturn his conviction. (I have no idea if that would be true IRL, in the US or Japan, but this is Japanifornia, it’s fine, that’s how it works here because I say so. The burden of proof is on the defense and defendants are guilty until proven innocent.) Worse news: this whole discovery happened right after Blackquill’s execution date was finally set, severely curtailing their ability to investigate in any kind of normal sane way because Oh Boy That Time Limit, so: time for an absolutely terrible insane plan that would absolutely ruin the anti-corruption reputation Edgeworth has spent the last ten years working very hard to develop if it didn’t pay off. Also fuck it, Edgeworth says: let’s get Phoenix Wright involved, this is exactly the kind of batshit gamble he thrives on.

(Note: this game rewrite is set post–my Apollo Justice rewrite, in which Phoenix was never disbarred, and he and Edgeworth got together within a year of T&T. See here for elaboration and, like, a lot of complaining about how AJ should have been amazing and wasn’t.)

As in canon, the plan in question is, essentially:

Let Blackquill return to prosecuting crimes again while still a convicted murderer on death row

?????

The real murderer of Metis Cykes is caught and Blackquill is proven innocent after all

Profit

I have no idea what step two is supposed to be but given that step three of the canon plan seemed to be “the Phantom turns up to steal back the psych profile which he somehow finds out Blackquill had all along” and I didn’t understand step two there either, I don’t super care.

Blackquill agrees to the whole crazy plan, but only on the condition that both Edgeworth and Phoenix swear they won’t tell anyone about the real plan without his permission, and in particular they absolutely will not tell Athena specifically.

Phoenix, who just hired Athena like a week ago, and has definitely connected the dots to figure out she became a lawyer to save Blackquill and is seeing some parallels of his own:

…But Blackquill’s life is the one in imminent danger (his execution date has just been set) and the whole plan relies on his cooperation, so ultimately (after a lot of arguing), Blackquill wins and they agree.

It’s not easy; after 1-5 and 3-5, Edgeworth and Phoenix were not going to be easily convinced not to tell Athena. They have seen how Complicated Scheming With The Goal Of Protecting A Young Woman But Without, Like, Telling Her Anything goes before (not to mention the more general Bad Associations with the possibility that someone out there might be plotting the death of a kid for the crime of being inconvenient in some way, see 1-4 and 2-2 and arguably 3-1), but I absolutely do believe that Blackquill would listen to all their arguments and still be like “my only priority is Athena’s safety; if she finds out about any of this she will try to investigate and will not prioritize her own safety, I don’t care what you think, if you tell her anything I’m out,” so ultimately they’re stuck.

On a side note, Trucy (when she does turn up in Dual Destinies) is a delight, but her role is bizarrely tiny for someone who’s hands-down the best new character of the trilogy, so in this rewrite she actually spends most of the game investigating with Apollo and Athena. She’s not actually super happy about it, though, because she wants to be investigating with Phoenix but he won’t let her, or even tell her about what his current case is. She feels like he doesn’t trust her and she’s pretty hurt though she doesn’t want to talk about it, etc, and in general there are canon-typical levels of hinting at deeper issues without actually directly addressing them.

In the end, things get more or less wrapped up by Phoenix (and Edgeworth) being like “look we wanted to tell all three of you what was going on but we were sworn to secrecy, and it was Blackquill’s life on the line so we couldn’t risk breaking his trust,” with the implication of further discussions to be had off-screen/post-game abt the deeper insecurities and anything that still feels insufficiently well justified, but just like that, here’s Trucy in a larger role with a new emotional conflict/interestingly complicated relationship that nevertheless doesn’t require/get much screen time bc Phoenix isn’t there for her to be actively having this conflict with.

There’s also a whole new case added between 5-3 and 5-4 that revolves around the Gramarye family legacy, in which Trucy, Apollo, and Lamiroir all learn who they are to each other, but I’ll get to that later.

In the meantime, back to the Fulbright thing! As in canon, he’s both Blackquill’s assigned police detective and his parole officer, which definitely secretly kind of terrifies Fulbright because oh god oh fuck he was a suspect specifically because he used to hang around the space center with his sister & mentor back when I worked there, what if he recognizes me, but hey, keep your enemies close, right? Especially when they’re definitely planning something, and also the only person who knows they didn’t actually commit the murder they were convicted for that was actually your doing. So.

(If Athena notices that despite his cheerful demeanor and attempt to be casual about the whole thing, he actually sounds terrified of Blackquill, it’s ironically very easy to brush off bc like. Look he tries to be cheerful and good-natured but Blackquill’s a scary guy, okay, just look at him, etc.)

So, with Fulbright secretly there all along, not in on the investigation/unaware there’s new evidence that could help point at his guilt but still close enough to keep an eye on things, no further progress is actually made in the luring-out-Metis-Cykes’-real-killer project, and time starts growing short.

Meanwhile, GYAXA is preparing for a manned rocket launch. Time to rewrite some more backstory.

A bit more than seven years ago, Solomon Starbuck worked for a private sector rival of GYAXA, but their secret use of sub-standard materials nearly proved deadly for him, and upon returning to Earth, he quit and joined GYAXA instead. The rival company’s reputation took multiple massive hits (from the near-failure of the mission, the subsequent exposé about cost-cutting measures at the expense of employee safety up to and including materials used in rocket ships, and the newly-famous Starbuck’s resultant departure for GYAXA), and they promptly resorted to attempting corporate espionage (via bribing security guard Bobby Fulbright), leading to Metis Cykes’ death.

Seven years later, when GYAXA starts gearing up for Starbuck’s next trip into space, their rival company attempts to cause the launch to be canceled via phone calls claiming the rocket will be sabotaged otherwise. The hoax partially works: the director secretly arranges for the launch to be faked bc he believes better safe than sorry but he doesn’t have the authority to just straight-up officially cancel it, and meanwhile the police are also alerted of the claimed bomb threat, and a team is sent to ensure everything goes fine, which would’ve been fine, except Fulbright is on the team.

That would also be fine, except Fulbright is already concerned because Blackquill’s execution date is closing in so there must be something big going on that he doesn’t know about but even being Blackquill’s parole officer/detective hasn’t let him figure out what. (Ironically, he’s probably wrong; Edgeworth and Phoenix and Blackquill are all getting pretty stressed about things getting down to the wire, but don’t actually have any more concrete way to lure out the real killer or they already would’ve arranged it, and mostly what’s going on behind-the-scenes is arguments about getting more people (including Athena) involved in the investigation.) When he then learns about the bomb threat to GYAXA and (correctly) guesses that it’s likely the doing of GYAXA’s rival company who’d bribed him all those years ago, Fulbright is super paranoid about the possibility that the bomb threat might be real, and if it is that it might be the work of a new security guard, and if it is and they get caught, that the already-raised suspicions regarding Blackquill’s innocence will be basically confirmed, and Fulbright himself will finally be suspected of the murder of Metis Cykes.

As a result of his paranoia, Fulbright goes poking around in areas he wasn’t actually supposed to be, accidentally runs into Clay Terran, and (in a panic) kills him. Solomon Starbuck is deemed the primary suspect, Apollo takes the case, and a bomb squad specialist (disappointed the threat to GYAXA turned out to be a hoax) gets bored. The Cosmic Turnabout and Turnabout Countdown commence.

Things actually mostly go as in canon, just following on from the differences I’ve already established. The final major change is that while the hostage situation still happens, we’re lowering the stakes and making them more personal: it’s not a dozen people conveniently-for-Aura including Trucy, and there’s no fake robot uprising. Trucy is the hostage and Aura’s pretty open about it being her doing from the start.

Again, this is a sequel to my alternate version of AA4. Phoenix never got disbarred and he and Edgeworth have been together for years. It is common knowledge that Trucy is the daughter of Phoenix Wright + the new chief prosecutor. Since she’s Blackquill’s sister, Aura might even be one of the few people who knows Edgeworth found new information about the UR-1 incident (although she either doesn’t know about or doesn’t buy the security guard theory), and that this whole weird letting-Blackquill-prosecute-cases arrangement is part of some sort of plan to prove his innocence, so hey, win-win, right? Phoenix and Edgeworth try Athena for her mother’s murder, they prove Blackquill innocent just like Edgeworth was already trying to do anyway, and their daughter doesn’t get hurt.

Also there’s still room for an “oh no the robot uprising!” joke in there, potentially. The robots all start acting weird, someone’s like OH NO THE ROBOT UPRISING! CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL, I GLADLY SURRENDER TO OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS etc and then via the nearest robot Aura is like “oh my god shut up” and it turns out all the robots are acting weird bc they’re all looking for Phoenix or one of his associates to let him know his daughter’s being held hostage and he better listen up.

Aaaand that’s about all I’ve got on that front. I know the culprit not being a super-spy and there not being actual bombs at the HAT-2 fake launch creates some plot holes but while I’m a life-long mystery fan, I’m not a mystery writer and that’s not really the part of this that I’m good at coming up with solutions to, although if anyone’s got ideas I am All Ears.

It’s not the most hard-hitting critique of the legal system, and I’m still working on figuring out how to improve it more; in particular, I’m honestly torn about Blackquill even turning out to have been completely innocent because it very much was a Whole Thing that all the prosecutors used to start out as corrupt and the ones we like had to become better, or, you know. go to jail for the crimes they very much did in fact commit. So it actually feels like a real step down, having the prosecutor in this one be a straight-up convicted felon who… turns out to have done nothing wrong and been a good guy all along actually, surprise! But I can’t figure out how to change that without undermining the whole resolution of the game and turning him into a fundamentally different character, so for now that part is what it is.

Meanwhile, at the end of the day: ACAB, including Bobby Fulbright who is actually genuinely a cop, and used his position to avoid being found guilty for crimes he’d committed (up to and including forging evidence to frame someone else). Which is to say, what the game almost said, without the haha nope nvm he was an imposter and the real Bobby Fulbright was probably a great guy actually of it all. Also in this version Fulbright casually tazing Blackquill is like. actually treated as fucked up and a reminder that oh right cops still suck and even if one seems friendly he will probably absolutely abuse his power over others given the slightest excuse, and also no one deserves to be subjected to police brutality. And while Edgeworth winds up being ethically in the clear in that he didn’t actually pull strings to let a murderer prosecute other people’s crimes bc he did know Blackquill was innocent all along, at the end of the day someone was in fact able to pull strings to let a convicted murderer etc. Which on the one hand requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, but on the other hand, like I just said about Blackquill: idk man I had to change this much just to make Fulbright work, I’ve only got so much to work with here and I’m not actually good at coming up with grand sweeping changes.

Also it occurs to me I haven’t actually established this yet but “the Dark Age of the Law” is stupid and we’re completely dropping that whole concept because if two relatively new lawyers apparently turning out to be bad people was enough to kick off a whole ~Dark Age~ and make the general public lose faith then where the hell was everybody during the reign of Demon Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, Chief of Police Damon Gant and Chief Prosecutor Lana Skye, and the forty-year win streak of Manfred von Karma. And so forth. There’s probably room for something interesting to be done with like, the ways in which public perception of a situation doesn’t always reflect reality and large populations can be slow to consciously react to major trends and sometimes one small incident can be turned into a symbol of something it isn’t really even an example of anyway or whatever but like… I have no idea how to do that in the format of an Ace Attorney game so personally I am simply ditching that plotline wholesale.

So that’s that. Now let’s talk about Troupe Gramarye. In canon, Apollo Justice sets the Troupe Gramarye rights up to be a major plotline, but then it gets completely forgotten about in Dual Destinies, and sort of half-heartedly continued but not really resolved in Spirit of Justice. In this rewrite, the Troupe Gramarye legacy is more or less what the Kurain Spirit Channeling legacy was to the original trilogy: a nominally magical element that at the end of the day is mostly the catalyst for a story about greed and complicated families and the trauma and destruction they create.

So, the Gramarye-related cases in my rewritten Apollo Justice go as established (i.e. actually basically like canon except Phoenix escapes unscathed), except with a couple more tweaks: Lamiroir’s face is hidden way better, and neither she nor the audience learn who she is to Apollo and Trucy yet.

That gets saved for Dual Destinies’ brand new Gramarye rights-centric case.

While it could probably go earlier, I think it would fit best between Turnabout Academy and The Cosmic Turnabout. I’ve already covered the latter, so some notes about the former: plot-wise it remains unchanged, but a lot of the dialogue is different because I would have thought it was unbearably preachy and condescending at age nine and this game was rated M. We Do Not Need The Lecture, Thanks. Also Aristotle Means looks slightly more human/less like an actual straight-up marble statue because that was so unbelievably distracting. There’s weird character designs and then there’s By The Way, This Literal Marble Statue Is Sentient I Guess.

The rest of the difference is that (following on from my proposed Apollo Justice rewrite) Klavier Gavin gets to be an actual human being with feelings and not 60% of a lovingly-painted cardboard cutout of a person. He shows up with a re-design—possibly a slightly different outfit in general, I don’t have strong feelings about that, but the important thing is that he’s gotten a haircut. In my head he’s got roughly the same style from the flashback portions of 4-4, but that’s partially just because I’m not good at picturing things like that. What matters is that his hair looks nothing like Kristoph’s anymore. Also it’s established in passing that he and Trucy and Apollo have had a whole bunch of conversations in the last year and are all on good terms now, despite [gestures at 4-1 and 4-3 and 4-4], and that Klavier is doing more or less okay. Emphasis on “or less” once his beloved mentor gets murdered, but in this version he actually gets to be part of the post-case denoument conversations and establishes that he’s pretty devastated (despite the return of his professional facade) but Apollo and Trucy and Athena are all well aware of that and are, so to speak, on the case, and with their support eventually he’ll be okay.

So. With that out of the way, here’s a new case about the legacy of Troupe Gramarye.

We start off by learning that Lamiroir is in town again and Trucy wants to go see her, because last time they saw her perform live things went pretty badly and it kind of soured the whole experience in retrospect, but she really did have such a beautiful voice that Trucy wants to see her again (hopefully with nobody getting murdered this time). She talks Apollo into going with her pretty easily; he might put up a token resistance, but he’s actually not really opposed since she’s performing solo this time and he likes her music a lot when the Gavinners aren’t involved. They go to the show, and it’s everything they could have hoped for and more, including that as it turns out, she’s working with Valant Gramarye again, and the effects are, again, super impressive.

But gasp, betrayal, after the show (possibly the next day, at the Wright & Co. Offices?) it turns out that Valant sucks even more than we thought (though, you know, framing his friend/in-my-version-brother for murder and abandoning the child of the woman he loved who had just also been abandoned by her father wasn’t exactly a great start): he’s suing Trucy for the Gramarye rights, based on the premise that she inherited them under false pretenses, because he’s discovered evidence that suggests Thalassa’s death was due to active negligence on Zak’s part, and he’s arguing that while Zak was the better/more talented magician, and thus Magnifi liked him better than Valant, Thalassa was Magnifi’s beloved daughter, and there’s no way Zak would’ve been given the first shot (so to speak) at earning the Gramarye rights if Magnifi hadn’t been blinded enough by grief to believe it was an accident, and while Trucy inherited the rights fair and square from Zak, he should never have had the rights in the first place, and Valant is the rightful inheritor.

I have no idea where the rest of the plot goes because I’m not a mystery writer and I don’t know how to come up with actual plots and red herrings and clues, but eventually there’s a dramatic reveal that there was active negligence involved, which Valant knew all along bc it was his fault.

…but that reveal is ultimately secondary to the one either shortly before or shortly after, that [drumroll] Thalassa wasn’t actually dead anyway

Which, again, I’m not a mystery writer, I don’t know if or how this would actually fit, but in my head there’s a great dramatic moment where the reveal happens for the audience—Valant, Trucy, Apollo, any Troupe Gramarye fans in the gallery, and the players—but not, for the first few moments, Lamiroir herself.

For whatever reason, she removes her veil/scarf, or they slip somehow, and so she’s there on the witness stand with her face visible around other people for the first time in years. The whole gallery (and Apollo) kind of collectively draw in a breath, while Valant says her name, genuinely stunned

And in almost the same moment, Trucy (who would sound five years old, if this bit was a cutscene) says “…Mommy?”

Cue discussion, Lamiroir learns who she is, the realization that Magnifi must have known she wasn’t really dead and the real cover-up was his doing all along etc, everything gets resolved, and Valant gives up on suing Trucy for the rights.

(The “hey that’s an awfully familiar-looking bracelet” reveal probably doesn’t happen until after the rest of the case is resolved, but I don’t have particularly strong feelings about that one way or the other.)

Everything winds up reasonably happy—Apollo and Trucy find out they’re half-siblings and their mother’s alive, Lamiroir resolves to get the surgery to restore her eyesight (and in the end credits we find out it helped restore her memory too), and Trucy gets to keep the Gramarye rights bc Valant’s suit was built on two different fundamental lies (that Thalassa’s death was Zak’s fault/that it wasn’t Valant’s, and that she was, you know, actually dead), and relatedly, in a shocking twist for the series, no one actually gets murdered, and there isn’t even an accidental death!

…but any hope of Trucy and Valant reconnecting/Valant becoming a positive figure in Trucy’s life again is pretty solidly destroyed, and there’s another two blows struck against the Troupe Gramarye legacy, bc not only was Thalassa’s accident actually Valant’s fault all along, Magnifi knew she wasn’t dead and abandoned her.

In a very direct parallel to Maya at the end of 3-5, Trucy spends most of the case uncertain whether she even wants these rights anymore—she ultimately decides the answer is yes, but it’s in question from basically the moment she learns Valant’s argument for why the rights should belong to him, and even him admitting the whole thing was based in lies and the rights are hers fair and square doesn’t convince her entirely right away.

Aaaaand then The Cosmic Turnabout kicks off and we’re back to the previously-established plot!

#aa tag #ace attorney #AA5 #LONG POST WARNING oh my god i cannot overstate how long this post turned out to be #this was supposed to be like. half the length of the klavier post which was about 70% the length of the main AA4 rewrite post #instead it is. just shy of the length of both of those combined #how did this happen #also yes there is a spirit of justice post in progress but that one actually IS pretty short #because most of it comes down to ''yeah i have no idea how to fix this sorry''#so at least there's that?#aa posts #aj rewrite tag

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itsybitsylemonsqueezy · 1 year ago

Note

How do you rank the Yakuza games by story quality?

Welp, this will be opening up a can of worms, but to thank you for asking... (still leaving out both Judgment games because I'm a loser who hasn't played them) And obviously, this will get long, so much more under the cut:

First: Yakuza 0 -

You can all dunk on me for putting the popular choice first, but it's popular for a reason. The story stands on its own feet; if you never played another Yakuza game, you still got a satisfying story out of this. No dangling plot threads or criminally underutilized characters*. I think as a whole the series could have built more on these themes, I think Kiwami 1 does a little, which we'll get to in due course, but in general my biggest problem with Yakuza series writing is they adamantly refuse to view their writing as a story and only see it as a vehicle for a video game which... makes for some really questionable decisions. (* I know there are those who think more should have been done with Makoto or Nishitani living and there's room to argue here. It's half the reason to write fanfiction, but I think from a bird's eye view, we have a cohesive narrative where the stakes were fulfilled.)

Second: Yakuza 7 -

On the whole, this was a really solid entry writing wise. There's only a couple of missteps I see here and mostly they're to do with the very end. So, spoilers for the end of Yakuza 7, skip to the next point if you don't want to know. I think it would have been really cool if they'd just made Ichiban Black-Asian, but that's a personal quibble for me. I think crowbarring Kiryu in was... questionable and not really good??? For Ichiban??? But my biggest problem was killing Ryo, that was absolutely unneeded and kinda makes a mockery of Kiryu's entire arc. Like, Ichiban and Kiryu, as have oft been noted, are very different protagonists. Kiryu is haunted by the sins of his father and the death of his brother. These slowly eat Kiryu from the inside out (much like cancer) turning him bitter and away from the yakuza as a whole. We deal with these themes in every single game, more or less. That's not what Ichiban's set up to deal with. Ichiban from day 1 is Just Some Guy, started at the bottom now we're here. He's all about success and joy and loving life, especially in the face of adversity, and in particular, in the face of social convention. Killing his brother saddles Ichiban with deep guilt and grief over what could have been, should have been, or at least it should, right? Ichiban spends their last minutes together trying to save his soul and I think would have been successful if the writing hadn't fucked him at the last second. And just... why? What purpose does it serve? Tying up loose ends? I don't know how to explain this, but you actually can let a character's story be over without killing them. That's actually just a very normal thing you can do. And this is what I mean about viewing the story as a video game rather than as a story: the boss must be defeated, Ryo must die, whether or not that makes any fucking sense. And especially in the context of what Kiryu went through, this looks super fucking bad because I can almost guarantee we will never revisit any guilt or sorrow over that death in any future game. Like, we do the exact same thing, Ichiban traumatically loses a brother he had a fraught relationship with, just like Kiryu, but instead of changing him and his trajectory irrevocably it just... bounces off. Really, really bad choice, I do not care for it.

Third: Yakuza Kiwami 1 -

Haters gonna hate, but I love Kiwami 1. I think it's an excellent retelling and refinement of the first Yakuza while incorporating a lot of relevant details and character progress from Yakuza 0. If I was going to level a criticism at it, it would be that we still shy from letting Kiryu confirm his emotional tethers. For all that I think there's some very strong writing regarding what Kiryu cares about and what motivates him, at strange moments the writing will suddenly back down in a fit of cowardly homophobia and cling to just enough plausible deniability that they won't upset censors or alienate less subtextual readers. This goes hand in hand with the narrative cannot fucking figure out what to do with Majima. He's important! But not that important. He's Kiryu's closest friend and also they hate each other. Sometimes the narrative tries very hard to convince you It's Not Gay We Swear, The Rivalry Is So Straight And Malicious You Guys when two scenes before they lovingly stared into each others eyes while speaking deep personal truths for like a full three minutes, unblinking, unlaughing. And in the context of later games, it's weird to give Majima so much space in this game and in 0, to give him oodles of screen time, to make it very clear how close he and Kiryu are, and then frantically backtrack and nearly try to erase him from the narrative later, assure you he's Just Some Guy to Kiryu, after they've already painstakingly proved otherwise. It's frustrating, but certainly not a unique criticism. And I get that Majima has a big pull promotional wise, we all love the mad man, but... pick a lane. Either let him be Kiryu's one true love or stop messing with this shit, since it makes you so uncomfortable to imply otherwise.

Fourth: Yakuza 3 -

Okay, this game has really, really good writing actually! Yes, it drags in spots, but I think this game pulls off the greatest villain reveal of the whole series. It's really hard to reveal a villain's motives at the very end and have it resonate with the audience. And when you hear Mine say "Daigo is the only man I ever loved" it fucking makes sense. All his weird behavior, his barely contained rage, his psychotic choices... it all becomes crystal clear why as you see this picture of a man with the worst kind of self-esteem problems, who pinned the whole of his essence on someone else and cannot come to terms with the reality of human frailty. I make no apologies for being a huge fan of Mine and he's definitely the best written character in the game. This game still struggles with letting Kiryu put proper emotional weight on his core relationships, both with Majima and with Daigo specifically. And even with his orphanage, we introduce all those children but when do they ever matter? Yes, this is a yakuza game, Kiryu has to go out and fight people because this is a game and he's the protagonist, but then why have him retire to the beach at all if you're just going to have him come back, painlessly, every time?

Fifth: Yakuza 5 -

Oh, Yakuza 5, my ugly beloved. My swan song. My cherished disaster. Equal parts sublime and terrible. This is peak writing for Kiryu, of all the games, this one understands him the best. He's tired and sad and bitter, he's riddled with guilt and doing his best and his best is shit, and in the end he still tries to come home. God, this... this was the closest we ever came to letting Kiryu grow, letting him learn his lesson, letting him understand that dying like his father did and abandoning his family is not the fucking answer. Kiryu's arc in this game is so good, so earned, we even let him go bug fucking crazy at the idea Majima is dead, I could swoon. God, this was So Good, I will not hear any criticisms about Kiryu in this game, 10/10 Kiryu.

On the other hand, it has been well documented that I am a Mirei Park hater, RIP to her lovers, but I just hated every part of that. I think Majima was character assassinated this game. I understand that at the time, 0 and both Kiwamis didn't exist yet and so the writing is responding to this impulse that for Majima to work, for him to make sense, there has to be deep pain and tragedy in his background. But this was a catastrophic vehicle for it, it does not fit for him, and they did a 10/10 job in 0 so... that's the canon I believe. Semi-related, I don't love making Haruka an idol? Not only does she state in previous games that she's not interested in being an idol, but I just think it's a waste of her potential. I love her being a protag, I wish we could get MORE protag Haruka, god she deserves it, we deserve it. And I think there were many other ways we could have done that, I think this fell prey to a lack of imagination on the part of the writers. But, she does call her father home in the end and decide this isn't what she wanted after all so... I do love that. They snatched it back in the end.

And hey, we even got a fulfilling arc out of Saejima! Who knew! On balance, the writing of this game is really good, it just has a couple of critical failures for me. But mostly, expert characterization and finally allowing emotional weight to have its due. It's cruel of me to say, but I so wish the series had ended here. Or even hard reboot with 7, that's fine. Just... man. I wish we hadn't destroyed everything we did correctly here.

Sixth: Yakuza 4 -

Everyone loves to dunk on Yakuza 4 for being too complicated and difficult to understand. That actually doesn't bother me. I think the plot isn't that bad to follow and I think the introduction of non-yakuza members to the crime world, Akiyama and Tanimura, are really good world building. It helps to understand that there are forces that can impact what the yakuza do and what they are capable of doing. I think Daigo is 10/10 in this game, I think his mistakes are entirely justified, and I love how we have to deal with it.

What I don't love is Kiryu's amnesia from Yakuza 3, that those lessons seem to be entirely lost and have to be learned again. I don't love that there's no continuity of consequences, either from other games into this one or from this game into later ones. That's really my biggest problem with 4. That despite introducing fan favorites like Saejima and Akiyama, both of whom are executed really well and are excellent additions, the political tension and themes that I think are very coherent here don't have much impact on the later series. And maybe that was down to poor reception and people complaining that they didn't like the story. That could just be an artifact of serial publication and bending to the whims of public opinion. Again, for me that's an issue of viewing the story as a video game and product rather than maintaining loyalty to the story above all else. But that's my bias as a writer and as a professional academic when it comes to story.

Seventh: Yakuza 6 -

Full disclosure: I have almost no love for Yakuza 6. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and a fog in my brain. I find it particularly egregious of erasing past lessons, of ignoring understandings we already had. I think it deliberately ignores emotional weight we already established and used. I loathe what we do with Haruka, that her entire autonomy is stripped from her and she is little more than a bauble used to torture Kiryu. I find the choices made for her at best perplexing and at worst deeply misogynistic and narrow. I hate that rather than use characters already long-established to deal with Kiryu's trauma regarding organized crime, family, brotherhood, and fatherhood, we introduce new people who do not matter and will never be seen again instead of resolving anything with the people we already know and care about. It feels like an incredible slap in the face to anyone who cared about those previous characters and the relationships they had with Kiryu.

Think about that letter to Daigo at the end. How earned, how deserved it is. And yet, it's so hollow because it's literally the bare minimum Kiryu needed to do for him. Think about how much more fulfilling this story could have been if we actually spent it with Daigo, resolving all the pain there. Also, Kiryu faking his death??? Abandoning his family, after we just literally in the last game proved why you shouldn't do that??? I get that this was supposed to be the end of the series and nothing is more final than death. But at the first opportunity they drag Kiryu back, like they always do. So his faked death does nothing to the plot except hurt the people around him, the people who cared about him. I in fact wrote an entire fic about how bad a job I think this game was and how much it hurt me personally. So it's very hard for me to be objective about this.

Viewing it apart from continuity, it's a relatively engaging story about a middle-aged dad trying to navigate a shady past. And if you look at this like that, if Kiryu was just some guy, some stranger, I know I wouldn't be as devastated by it as I am. For all the people who love this game, maybe that's what's working for you. It's also lush and beautiful and Kiryu's ass is in every shot. But putting it in context... I can't really think of anything I like here.

Eighth: Yakuza Kiwami 2 -

Now, now, before you get angry, I love Kiwami 2! In terms of enjoyment, I rate it very high! But... it's a pretty hot mess in terms of story. It's a real odd duck in continuity and I know that's down to it was originally a sequel to a standalone game that was never meant to have a sequel. And when they remade Yakuza 1, they couldn't very well not make Yakuza 2. But considering what we later did in the series... it just doesn't quite come together. Like, Ryuji should matter. The shit we bring up about that backstory should matter. This was a great opportunity for Kiryu to unpack some of his feelings about the yakuza and it makes sense that he's depressed as shit here, but... there's just a lot of missed opportunities. In our pursuit of putting Daigo on the throne, there was so much more work we could have done regarding the sins of the father, the narrative is kinda set up for that since we're a father-son team, but... we don't really. We again let Kiryu refuse to unpack and shy out of the emotional weight of our choices. I don't love that. And since we do some of the work, we at least start it, in Yakuza 3 with Kiryu having to acknowledge that he abandoned Daigo in a shit position (god if only, if only...), it's weird that we didn't build more of the blocks here. Again, I know this is largely down to Yakuza 2 was never supposed to exist and they didn't know how many games they would get, but since it's a remake, they had time to go back and clean things up. *sigh* Oh well, at least there's Ryuji titty and tigers to fight.

#This is very biased #Not objective #Yakuza writing

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tonydaddingham · 1 year ago

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I was debating whether or not the Omelas theory and Crowley knowing Jesus would be relevant to S3. And then they released that set of pictures with not just Aziraphale as Mary, but Crowley as crucified Jesus: Arguably the ULTIMATE scapegoat. Thus tying my two questions together. Hmmm...

yours is the second ask ive gotten about those photos, anon (and other anon, i promise i will answer you!!!) and frankly i still don't fully know what to make of this!!!✨

i do think omelas is at the very least has or is going to have some general narrative influence or inspiration on GO, even if it's not even directly related to metatron's coffee order... in any case, im glad that it may feature because i remember loving it when i read it years ago! couple of favourite (and potentially relevant?) quotes, because why not:

"Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it."

"But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else."

"Happiness is based on just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive."

as for crowley's part in it; well, im not sure. we know that in GO!canon that crowley essentially replaced the devil (as described in matthew, mark, luke etc.) as the tempter of jesus, in that he showed jesus the kingdoms of the world (ie. the third temptation and representative of tempting jesus into the dereliction of god). so, we could possibly surmise that crowley also tempted him into eating and into essentially killing himself to test god's love (by preventing it).

well, we know crowley has done those first two temptations before, right? even if the context isn't the same, it is aptly mirrored in s2:

but tbh, it could be that crowley never actually tempted jesus in GO!canon with the first two temptations (ie biblical texts misreport it), or that the interactions were not temptations and instead was misconstrued niceness ("his travel opportunities were limited"), or it could be that crowley is just that indeed a knob sometimes and his recount of the third temptation is not strictly accurate in sentiment as he himself reports it (ie. unreliable narrator). personally, id like to think the second option, given the potential link* between crowley and jesus as scapegoats in different but mirroring scenarios.

either way, his depiction as jesus being crucified is intriguing. if we take the imagery that crowley narratively mirrors jesus, we could arrive at the conclusion that crowley himself was a scapegoat. ive discussed the scapegoat thing more in some other posts, and more specifically along the lines of the old testament depiction of the scapegoat origin, but fuck it, let's chat about it again.

however, i have kinda gotten stuck re: that crowley image - if we take the new testament allegory of the scapegoat (ie the crucifixion), then that would suggest to me a couple of narrative points as concerns crowley's fall:

that crowley was blasphemous (potentially true given his comment pre-fall, "if i were in charge...")

that whoever passed his sentence was (if you consider the gospel of mark re: pontius pilate) originally merciful, but bent to the will of 'the people' (👀 at god and metatron)

but may also have refused to pass the sentence directly (if you consider the gospel of matthew) and instead turned crowley over to someone else to be condemned (double 👀 at god and metatron)

crowley may have fallen for a higher purpose - ie: used as the scapegoat (as jesus died to bring humanity back to righteousness/absolve humanity of sin - and would track with omelas), but we ought to consider that other angels fell too

crowley rose again after falling (which, yeah, he did - presumably into the garden of eden - but none of the fallen, as far as we are aware, died?).

none of the above is impossible, but im not entirely convinced. the above to me would strongly suggest that this scenario would better fit lucifer's narrative anyway? or maybe a bit of both? neil has wiped the possibility of crowley having been/being lucifer (rip), and so if lucifer was indeed the first prince of heaven (as neil has confirmed) and fell first to become satan... where would crowley fit in with the above? it almost seems like it's a bit too main-character-ish in that particular part of the hypothetical narrative for this allegory to fit crowley specifically.

this is where instead i feel like the scapegoat story in old testament texts might be a better parallel. leviticus says that god commanded the israelites to once a year perform a ceremony that would symbolise jesus' own later sacrifice. this was in the form of aaron sacrificing a bull as a burnt offering to atone for his own sins, and then to cast a lot on two other goats - one goat would be sacrificed as a sin offering on behalf of the temple (tabernacle), and the other would be spared but cast into the wilderness carrying the sins of the people, never to return. these two goats together represented the sacrifice and atonement for sin, even if only one was killed.

(@everyone, i think ive read the above right, but obviously it's very summarised and therefore may miss out or misinterpret the details; please come and kindly correct me if not!!!)

so we have three potential elements to this; the bull, and the two goats. if we take the bull out of the equation though, just for a minute, we could potentially interpret that the sin-offered goat and the scapegoat are potential lucifer and crowley respectively; that would fit.

the thing for me however is the - i believe - quite widely known point that crowley and aziraphale were originally meant to be the same character in initial drafts of GO. and we know from the pre-fall scene that aziraphale's information on the fate of the stars may have goaded crowley into challenging god, despite his warnings afterwards not to do so.

so - and hear me out - what if crowley was in fact offered up as the sacrificial goat, *the one which died and rose again, and aziraphale were the scapegoat? spared the fall, but cast out of heaven instead to bear the weight of sin, of the fall, on his shoulders? wouldn't that track with his being stationed on earth - cast into the wilderness - where he just so happens to end up meeting crowley again? and wouldn't it also match the symbolism behind aziraphale's own depiction as the virgin mary; being that of purity, faith, and virtue?

this could further cycle back around to omelas, and the condemnation of the child to be kept in squalor and darkness in order to preserve the paradise of the city. this could easily be parallel to crowley - someone who fell but didn't deserve to - and in doing so, staying fallen, maintains that equilibrium in heaven, and to aziraphale being one to walk away from omelas after learning of the child:

"They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

certainly, it raises questions about metatron's suggestion to aziraphale that he could restore him to angelic status. did metatron make the offer knowing that crowley would reject it, and therefore keep them both separated? that aziraphale would return to heaven - to omelas - and continue in maintaining its illusion of paradise? bring home the scapegoat and instead wash it of the sins it had previously - and potentially unknowingly, re: memory-wipe theories - carried?

#Big Thoughts that may be utter dogshit and barely arrived at a Point but there we are #im not an expert enough on religious texts to talk about it with any authority so if you want to correct me feel free #but pls be kind about it i did my best #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #pre-fall aziraphale spec #AWCW spec #scapegoat theory #omelas theory #mary/pieta spec

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sothischickshe · 2 years ago

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Writing ask games are so fun!!

Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

I was JUST talking to a friend about this! Do you have a preference for narrative versus summary styles? Is either more challenging than the other?

Thank youuuu 🥰🥰🥰🙇🏼‍♀️ & 🤝I agree they are fun (+ maybe capable of shaking something loose 😅)

Although coming in hot with the hard question/s I see! 😅😄

Okay: dialogue vs description... I'm not sure I have a preference?! I like writing both, and I think both are challenging, especially to do well/succinctly.

And... ~it depends!! I find writing dialogue pretty fun generally, but if I'm writing Beth & rio speaking to each other my face gets grumpy & lots of stuff ends up crossed through bc I tend to violently dislike it when they speak (🤯🤯🤯) & also they're so taciturn, nonsensical, insane etc.

And description! I mean what even is that! Of settings, of ppl, of outfits, of how ppl are speaking (eg volume, pitch, facial expressions & movements etc)...? It's a huge topic to lump together as a preference no, and not to be that guy (just kidding! I love to be that guy!) there's no reason dialogue couldn't be descriptive eg 'what did the man look like?' '18ft tall with 7 feet and bright purple scales'.

So first of all: kinda false dichotomy maybe? But most of all: deffo false dichotomy, in that I think the really hard bit is knitting them together! Just back and forth dialogue btwn (espec only 2 characters, particularly of different genders so you can rely on pronouns as identification) isn't so hard, and neither is finding ways to describe whatever needs describing: and even if the latter doesn't come super naturally, I think if you can identify what needs more detail to bring it to life, that's a workable challenge. The heavvvvy difficulty is tying them together dynamically, & unforcedly!

~conversations (I'd say beyond only dialogue, bc there could be unspoken communication via say eye contact, body language, movement etc) can be a great way to pepper in descriptive texture (eg of the environment, the objects characters are interacting with, the characters & their physical responses) but it's a fine balancing act!

Typically when I'm reading a conversation, I want to know what the other person says next in response!! I don't always want a lot of superfluous detail abt where their fingers are dallying!! That can take the reader out of the rhythm of the dialogue! If there's a paragraph of motion and detailed description btwn each spoken line and/or relevant gesture, I might simply forget what the heck they're responding to by the time we get there!!

So I think ^structure & rhythm/pace (as well as what pov it's filtered through) become v important. If it's a "dialogue" scene btwn oh let's say 2 v taciturn annoying insane etc chars where actually only about 3 lines of speech are exchanged, having a lot of additional descriptive texture can help. If the responses are being eked out, then a lot of glaring & gesturing & looking away at other stuff indeed makes sense to be happening & makes sense that it would be noticed by the pov character. Whereas if it's a rapid fire screaming match, too much detail & motion can slow the scene down, be distracting for the reader & easily seem unrealistic for the pov character (eg why are they staring at the actions of each individual finger when it was established a moment ago they were glaring into another character's eyes? How are they taking in & enumerating micromovements when they're established to be apoplectic with rage & incapable of focus?).

I'm trying to type up a ragged paper first draft atm, and what I've been struck by for the dialogue + description sections is:

too many dialogue tags! In order to convey who is (still, sometimes) speaking + shove in some relevant description, there can end up being too much he says she says where it doesn't need to be specified, which can get clunky & repetitive, and inevitably slows scenes down

Too much/fussy visual detail -- description can be fun, but ultimately writing can never convey visuals the way TV/film/comics can. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to make the reader 'see' the story, but again I think this runs the risk of slowing things down too much and also if everything is described in detail, it makes it difficult for the reader to pick up on what's important (but conversely, if only the important things are described, it can make it too obvious what's plot-critical)

Beth and rio are... There I guess? And... Wearing clothes maybe? And rhea is there!! Let me describe to you her entire outfit, including each pocket in vivid detail 😂 (the author might like one character more than the others and maybe she should just leave it like that cos she's right!!!!)

Sentences aren't that load-bearing!! You can't realllly just throw 24 commas into one and pray it makes sense, which can make knitting dialogue + description together more challenging, espec in terms of trying to keep sentence structure varied (eg not 12 in a row starting with a pronoun or name, or SVO generally)

I'm looking fwd to one day being at the editing stage to find solutions 😊 & I don't know if I'm cheating but I deffo vote for an idealised seamless combo as the really challenging bit!!

Which leads clumsily onto your second q, narrative vs summary styles, to which I'll start by saying (since it is the brand): false dichotomy...?

Firstly cos I'd probs term it ~scenic vs summary (given that I think summarisation IS still [or does still have? 🤔] narrative), but also bc they frequently operate in combination, and, as ever, ~it depends.

Dialogue (+ description) scenes are probs the perfect vehicle for the combo! In order to keep dialogue snappy & engaging, over realism, things like pauses or repetition are often culled from the genuine "spoken bits", and summarised eg 'he agreed & they organised the next meeting', 'he said her name again', 'she ummed & ahhed, until eventually admitting it'.

Additionally, I generally prefer summarised dialogue when characters are remembering something from the past, rather than them apparently having perfect recall of a conversation from ages ago. This also allows for them remembering in full detail one or two choice lines that were yelled @ them to stand out!!

Likewise, this switch is a device that can be employed to display information about the pov character/'s ~mood eg is there a full record of conversation with one character vs with others it's simply summarised? Or are their scenes with character/s when they're on good terms detailed vs ones where they're on the outs just staccato summaries? Or indeed vice-versa! What are they paying attention to, and what are they comfortable expressing even to themself?

Ppl talk about the difference btwn the two styles (& indeed showing vs telling) as if they're absolute, but I'm not sure I adhere to that. If you have a character who is v matter of fact (at least in some scenarios), their pov might come across as summarisation rather than scenic; if you have a character that doesn't want to engage with their interiority (at times anyway), scenes might veer twds the telling side. That's not necessarily bad!

Ultimately I think it depends on the type of story! Many will have both 'proper' scenes & summarisation, and I think they work particularly well in concert bc of the contrast! The latter is often used to convey the passing of time succinctly (although I think that can be done scenically too, eg with the length of them, or bg deets), and I'm a proponent of allowing things to be glossed over which arent super relevant bc the reader doesn't need to be bombarded with too much (as that makes it difficult to pick out what matters) & also cos otherwise it gets too bloody large (hell for author).

A seamless transition btwn the 2 styles (ie from general to specific) can be one of my fave narrative tricks to experience as a reader eg (à la 85% of dh Lawrence stories) 'he lived in a cottage, with a long lane behind it. Every day he took that route to work, climbing over the tall gate. The sun was shining, hot on his head & bright on the clover as he panted along', like oh OK we've arrived at the action in the middle of the establishing detail have we!!!! Conversely, it can be one of my most hated experiences to read (what! I contain multitudes 😂) eg a couple of proper scenes suddenly descending into summary with not even a line break between 🤯 (I suppose it comes down to whether it feels intentional, vs messy? 🤔)

& I think both have challenges! A story purely composed of 'real' scenes runs the risk of putting too much onus on the reader -- can you know that you've conveyed what you wanted accurately as the writer? And to whom? What implicit references could be clear universally? (is an audience of a different generation or region or experiences going to pick up on things the same way?) plus a bunch of similar scenes can become repetitive -- do you need to slog through each weekly meeting, or do you just want to display one or two, then establish that they keep going on? (repetition CAN be really powerful, bc if it's established then the breaking of that routine may be v striking, but you probs don't want eg the minutiae of several similar council meetings if they're not super plot relevant.)

But is summary too simplistic? Is stating things removing needed ambiguity? Are these things which could have been displayed elsewise and/or earlier?

I'm not sure I have a preference, and I'm not sure they can realllly be separated out (most proper snapshot scenes will have some degree of summarisation to them), and I think ~summarised storytelling gets a bit of a bad rap & is unfairly seen as juvenile where it can be such an effective way to move through time, can certainly be told v much via the pov character's lens, allows authors to skip over stuff which would bloat the story (or indeed paper over weaknesses) & can be so so effective in short stories.

Especially where the two are used in combination, I think it comes back to structure & pov for me. What's actually relevant to the story? What would the ~narrator bother to dwell on? How long do you want this monster to be?? What needs to be clear to the reader? If everything else is the other way, does diverting here feel weird or does the difference underline a change in mood/focus/whatever?

And ultimately: trying things out is the best! The more comfortable I've got/ten with being able to do different things, even if not to a very high level, the better I feel about the ability to utilise them as a tool!

Writing asks

#Thank you!!! 😘😘😘#And sorry that got so long 😅#Writing #On writing #Fanfiction #Love how I said sentences can't just have 24 commas shoved into them & then took that advice not at all huh 😂#False dichotomy #Something #< me @ me in 🤕📆👀🤯

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makethiscanon · 2 years ago

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Finally got around to watching Belle (2021)!

I’ve said I have mixed feelings about many movies before, but this one tops the list. It’s a fascinating movie about lots of different topics. Some things could have been improved, but I think the ending pays off.

I was in major love with it’s tackling of modern-day internet conflicts. I.e. the movie’s blatant calling out of antis. The harm of doxxing and how little doxxers care about the harm they cause, as long as they can feel superior or get clout. Online mob mentality. How they will never know the irl situations people come to the internet to hide from. It just felt very relevant and something that’s not really been highlighted before?

And I loved Suzu’s character arc. Finally being able to accept why her mother did what she did, when presented with something similar.

Admittedly, I think the way it was framed throughout the story got a little muddled. Suzu’s original motivation wasn’t clear, and sticking so close to the Beauty and the Beast narrative felt forced at times. It conjured up weird and unnecessary romantic parallels.

But past that, and despite the fact I found myself asking “what the f*** am I watching?” at times, the ending was absolutely beautiful and tied many of the prevalent themes together once I arrived there. I actually liked that they subverted the expectations for Dragon’s reveal. I felt like they were building it up to be Suzu’s dad, maybe? But the actual reveal worked so much better for the overall story, especially tying it to Suzu’s mother’s story.

Gahh-- it’s 4am. I’m waffling. I have many feelings for this movie. It’s beautiful but also kinda bad. The beats and the pacing are off but the story’s good. Definitely watch it at least once.

#the review no one asked for #Belle 2021 #sarah rambles #4am thoughts #anime recs #anime review #beauty and the beast #fairytale anime #suzu #kei #dragon #summer wars #belle #anime musical

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hollowwhisperings · 2 years ago

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KH Spec: Princesses of Heart as Stars, part 3/?

Part 1 went into some of the symbolism of Stars in KH, as derived from Paopu Fruit & Wayfinders. Part 2 went in-depth on the Founding Princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora) & how they connect to each other through songs, key themes & the film Pinnochio. Part 3 will be an 'interlude' that is not so-much about the non-character that is 'Alice' but on the purpose of an "Alice-Role" within the KH series & setting. But before ditching Alice-the-Character, let there be a bullet point compilation!

The Key Themes that make a Princess of Heart thus far have been:

Dreams (Wishes your Heart makes)

Dreams Becoming Reality

True Love, the Most Powerful Magic of All (Resurrection/the power of Awakening)

Hearts that Inspire Love in others (Found Family, Fairies, & Anonymous Princes Charming)

having a Magical Setting

thematic resonance with the "Wish Upon A Star" song from 'Pinnochio' (& thus Stars)

Alice: An Exceptional Interlude

Alice is an oddity amongst the Original Disney 6: her "royal" status is non-existent in her Disney film, achieved in her second book. Even then, rather than a becoming a 'princess', Alice crossed a chessboard & was a 'Pawn' promoted to 'Queen'.

Like 'Pinnochio', 'Alice in Wonderland' is a Narrative Lynchpin of the KH series as a whole: where 'Pinnochio' was used to foreshadow the nature of Hearts & thematically connect the earliest works in the Disney Animated Canon (tying together wishes, stars, dreams, true love & miracles), 'Alice in Wonderland' (or, rather, its books) has served to hint at the nature of 'Light' and 'Darkness'. It is also, very probably, a reference to Sora's role in regards to Kingdom Hearts itself.

Alice, the character, barely appears in the KH series at all: this makes sense given her role is largely thematic in purpose and that she is a Literal Child. Not a young teenager like Sora, not an "ambiguously aged & timelooping young girl" like Snow White: Alice is, like, 10. It is also very pertinent to her story that, bizzare adventures ended, Alice 'wakes up' to her home in mundane England.

Alice herself is not 'relevant' to the KH series: her setting is, and, just like Christopher Robin, Alice is less a 'character' and more a 'role' (a role that Sora and, to a lesser extent, Kairi conveniently fulfil without being aware of it).

All that said, going into the Themes of Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass is something that can never truly be exhausted as Theory Fuel with respect to the KH series. Thusly, I'll do a vague list of bullet points & go take a nap.

The Alice Role

hearts, heartless, & the manipulations thereof

un/reality & "waking up"

blatant lies, truths hidden in plain sight & misdirection

game of cards = CoM

game of chess = KH3

Disney's Queen of Hearts was a combination of said queen from Alice's 1st book & the Red Queen in her 2nd

queen of hearts "painting the roses red" = red queen converting pieces?

the "normal" [youth] put in a magical setting

sora through the looking glass (kh3 is a reflection)

relationship of dreamer & dream

pawn promoted to queen

sora is alice, just as he is christopher robin

wishes & cryptic sorcerers

#kh meta #kh theories #alice in metahell #wonderland meta #alice meta #sora is alice #sora through the looking glass #this is barely about princesses of heart #i vibe alice as getting the role accidentally & ditching it asap #alice the princess by technicality

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years ago

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A couple of months ago I started Mark Watson’s novel Eleven, and then, to be honest, I got distracted by a bunch of Daniel Kitson stuff. Which I feel a bit bad about, because based on a number of off-handed half-joking comments he’s made, I think Mark Watson has sort of spent his entire career being afraid that would happen. My apologies to Mark Watson on that one; it’s an unfortunate fact that we can’t all be Daniel Kitson, and the one person who does get to isn’t even enjoying it. But Mark has his share of advantages; Daniel Kitson could not do a show that would last 24+ hours, or organize an entire online festival in the name of making comedy accessible (quite the opposite, in fact, and I am genuinely grateful to Mark Watson for taking the anti-Kitsonian stance on comedy’s accessibility).

I almost wrote that Daniel Kitson couldn’t write this novel, but actually I think he almost could, and I mean that very much as a compliment. The layers of interconnection. The jumping around between timelines and perspectives to make you gather up the story in seemingly disparate pieces, making it all the more satisfying when they fall into place and you can look at the whole puzzle. The messages about community and overlapping lives and people affecting each other through proximity. The overexplanations of consequences and meaning. Daniel Kitson probably wouldn’t have written the character whose prominent stutter was one of several traits that emphasized why he was such a pitiful figure, but other than that, it turns out the themes that make me drop whatever else I’m doing for a Daniel Kitson recording were in this novel all along.

I’m at my parents’ place for Christmas at the moment, and finally sat down long enough to finish the book. I read the first 150 pages a little at a time over several weeks, and the last 150 pages in about a day. The pace really picked up in the second half, as the network of connections got bigger and more complicated, and some of the treads started tying together. I love watching threads tie together.

I wrote a post just after starting the book that said I was immediately struck by how the writing style reminds you, almost every word, that this author studied literature at Cambridge. “Oxbridge” is an adjective that’s almost never used positively, and rightly so in many ways, but a novel is the appropriate place for someone to show off how well they can pick out words and put them together, so it’s a good thing this time.

It's so nicely written, the details all picked out carefully. Certain things get described in unusually flowery terms, like one character’s Geordie accent, and I liked that. Overemphasis on little things made it feel like it was written from a closer perspective, following the main character in the specific things he notices.

I first got this book along with Frankie Boyle’s novel (which I’ve only just started, after finishing the Mark Watson one), and when I first got them, I posted something silly about getting novels from two authors who have some deep-down fundamental similarities but are diametrically opposed in many ways. You know, one of my attempts to fit real life into the sort of nicely woven narrative that gets written about by Mark Watson and Daniel Kitson. I compared the quotes on the cover; the Mark Watson book used one that called it “gentle, compassionate, unusual, and thought-provoking”, while the Frankie Boyle one got called “a twisted Caledonian take on Altman’s The Long Goodbye”. Contrasting adjectives that might tell you something about the authors behind them, I thought.

That’s relevant to how the book turned out, because, like with Mark Watson’s comedy, it ended up going darker than its fairly soft and easygoing surface suggested. I often think about a comment Mark Watson made on a podcast once, about wishing he had a better “killer instinct” in his stand-up routines, being willing to stay in the tough subject matter he takes on instead of undercutting it. This book backed off from that a little bit; an author who was more confident in their killer instincts might have written a few parts of this book more intensely (that author could just be a more recent version of Mark Watson, I think he’s developed that skill much more in the last few years). However, there were several parts of Eleven that didn’t back off at all, went every bit as dark as Frankie Boyle or Daniel Kitson or anyone else would have, and it was done with all the care and skill that Mark Watson puts into everything else. It felt like an overall very good book with flashes of more intense brilliance.

The characters felt so much like real people, the settings felt like places I know, the situations and choices felt realistic. I don’t want to spoil it, but I’ll say the mysteries that drew me in did end up with satisfyingly interesting answers. My overall rating is reducing complex and subjective works of art to numerical value is fucking pointless, but this was a damn good book that I should have finished sooner.

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madeitlate37 · 14 days ago

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The Tangi Virus by Paul Cantalanotto (also known as Vintage Eight)

It’s time for our first analog horror movie, and as luck has it, the first in a trilogy.

To make things more interesting, our first virus as well. Because I’m trying to have as much variety as possible in these seven analog horrors—if I even stop at seven because I keep finding new ones that capture my fancy. Prehistoric Emergence, looking at you. And I couldn’t have that variety without including at least one horror with a viral contagion as the main threat.

Vintage Eight’s Analog Horrors, with Sink Hole being the longest from my observance at one hour and eight minutes, generally presents his stories in the form of short films. The Tangi Virus, and its sequels, are no exception to this.

(NOTE: If it wasn’t obvious, I’m still experimenting with how I should do this as well as what I should say or omit, so I’m going to go closer to spoilers, or actually saying the general concept, because concept itself is arguably the most important part of any story. I fear I’ve been too vague in my prior reviews, so we’ll see how well this approach does in comparison.)

All three of the movies—as well as every other analog horror of Vintage Eight’s—are able to be watched in a vacuum from each other much like his other movies. Every analog horror by Vintage Eight generally takes place within the same area, and every story is independent from one another aside from the occasional cameo where it makes sense. With this trilogy, however, there is a cohesive narrative tying each one together. It goes: The Tangi Virus, The Oracle Project, and The Human Trials, if you are interested in watching the entire series.

First, the spoiler-free qualities:

• Viral threat, unlike Midwest Angelica, it is a virus that operates like the vast majority of viruses on earth, except for…

• Hive-mind threat, this occurs later, however, and is not the largest issue the virus presents.

• Biological study, one particular portion of the movie revolves around the attempted study of the virus.

• Untrustworthy sources, one infomercial says something isn’t safe, very next one essentially tells you to sprint towards that thing like your life depends on it.

• B-Plot threat, basically, there is another “threat” that is included, but it exists in the background so much in The Tangi Virus that it can be confused as the main threat if you don’t see The Oracle Project.

Okay, so slightly smaller list—there’s less content in the movie than the series because I don’t want to dip into the sequels for this. So let’s move on.

Higher spoiler-risk content:

This analog horror—and many of Vintage Eight’s other movies—present their information in a slightly different method that we’ll also see in next week’s series. This also takes up the bulk of the film, which is: Personal logs narrated by automated voices. The automated voices are not included in every instance of this, but the main go-to for Analog Horror is for some visual imagery. Even with Vita Carnis’ documentaries and interviews, there is always a relevant image as either the real focus or the backdrop while the text is still displayed.

In The Tangi Virus, the audience is mostly reduced to a black computer monitor with text appearing as the log is narrated, with the occasional infomercials or government warnings in between as the only relief. Yes this can be considered cheap, but it did also make me as an audience member feel much more isolated. Much like the people of this small town were when they were held still in this dangerous location. You’re stuck with only one primary source of information and, regardless of the fact that a scientist is at the helm of this monitor, it feels too easy for details to be omitted or lost in the gap between the event and the translation into text.

For that reason, that method of storytelling completely works for the short film and for its sequels.

Now, because The Tangi Virus is only a half hour long, it’s harder to find specific points worth mentioning without directly spoiling what happens, but Vintage Eight is very good at presenting facts and events in a way that puts their audience through an emotional rollercoaster. Again, I strongly suspect that this is because that isolation makes audience members emotionally grip onto whatever information they receive tighter than they would with surveillance footage and the like. Because, especially if something scary happens, the audience likely witnessed at least a part of it and are overwhelmed by the events to some degree, often needing a moment or even a rewatch to fully look at that event again through an analytical lens. In Vintage Eight’s series’, that lens is all you have because your only senses are hearing and seeing, but the lack of images throughout most of the story negate your sight. All while the voice you are hearing isn’t even a human one, and instead an automated voiceover.

I’m trying to go into more storytelling pros/cons because I’m also realizing that Analog Horror is a good example of creators and storytellers finding ways to make theirs happen. And, for someone like me who is still too insecure about my own stories to start actually posting anything, any example of creative and effective ways to handle stories are very helpful.

So, on top of me simply recommending a good Horror series/short film, maybe this could also be called pseudo-advice on how to express one’s own stories, specifically for people who want to make content for this or other genres, and who want to know how others did it.

We’ll see how decent I am at balancing that. For now, however, I think that’s all the non-spoiler-laden content I can write for the Tangi Virus, but I may revisit Vintage Eight in the future, especially because there is another movie of his that is my favorite of his Analog Horrors. But, not for this immediate list.

Please go check out Vintage Eight’s YouTube Channel if any of this is interesting to you.

As for next week…

#analog horror #horror #vintage eight #tangi virus

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ongolecharles · 4 months ago

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DAILY SCRIPTURE READINGS (DSR) 📚 Group, Tue July 30th, 2024 ... Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year B/KNOW YOUR CATHOLICISM

JESUS AND THE REALITY OF HELL

In this episode, we’re going to focus solely on Jesus’ parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat in the Gospel reading, which is taken from Matthew 13:24-30, and 36-43. There are two apologetical topics that this parable gives us opportunity to focus on: the reality of Hell and the problem of evil.

I’m not going to read the parable in its entirety. Rather, I’ll highlight the specific verses that are relevant to our topics.

Let’s start with the details of the parable that relate to the reality of Hell.

After stating that there exist weeds that grow along the wheat within the Kingdom of God, Jesus says,

Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn’ (v.30).

Then, in explaining the parable, Jesus comments,

The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Now, there are a couple of details here that suggests the reality of Hell. One might think Jesus’ statement about the evildoers being thrown into the fiery furnace where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth is a slam dunk for proving the reality of Hell. But someone might counter and say that this could refer to temporary—something akin to purgatorial pains, not the eternal suffering of Hell.

I think there are two details that we can appeal to in response. First, notice that the weeds—those who cause others to sin and all evildoers—will be “collected out of [the Lord’s] kingdom” and “thrown into the fiery furnace.”

To be “out of the kingdom” cannot be a reference to something akin to purgatory because those who are in purgatory are in the kingdom. So, if we interpret this separateness as definitive, then the evildoers are in Hell.

Now, someone, like a universalist, might challenge the definitive nature of the evildoers being separated. Perhaps these evildoers, so the argument might go, are only temporarily separated from the kingdom, like a Christian who is temporarily separated from the kingdom when he commits mortal sin but then is restored through the Sacrament of Confession.

In response, there is nothing in the text that suggests those who are taken out of the kingdom are put back in. In fact, the flow of the narrative suggests that the “being taken out” is permanent. The whole parable is about the weeds existing alongside the wheat for a time and then eventually separated from the wheat and put into separate places. The parable wouldn’t make sense if Jesus intended the separated weeds to eventually be put back alongside the wheat.

“But,” someone might counter, “you’re assuming that the weeds stay weeds. A universalist could argue that the weeds eventually become wheat due to God’s grace.” Again, there is nothing in the text to suggest that. Nowhere does the text say anything to suggest that the weeds become wheat.

Since there is no evidence that the weeds are changed into wheat and thus put back into the kingdom, we are justified in interpreting Jesus’ parable according to its natural sense—namely, those who cause others to sin and evildoers will be definitively separated from the Kingdom of God. That’s a state of existence that we call Hell.

There’s another detail that suggests the reality of Hell: the binding or tying of the weeds into bundles (v.30). St. Thomas Aquinas picks up on this in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.

He argues that this is the same imagery used in Matthew 22:13 where the man who didn’t have his wedding garment for the Wedding Feast is “bound” and cast out from the wedding feast. The same Greek word, deo—“to bind” or “to tie,” is used. In this parable, it is clear that the bound man is excluded from the Wedding Feast in a definitive way. Jesus says, “Many have been called but few have been chosen.” This implies that some will not participate in the Wedding Feast. Given that the Wedding Feast is an image for Heaven, it follows that some will not be chosen for Heaven.

Like the bound man who is permanently excluded from the wedding feast, the weeds that are bound in Jesus’ parable of the Weeds and the Wheat will be permanently excluded from the barn. Given that the barn is an image for Heaven, like the Wedding the Feast, it follows that the weeds, or the evildoers, will be permanently excluded from Heaven. That’s a revelation of Hell.

The next topic is the problem of evil. The detail that’s relevant to this topic is Jesus’ teaching to allow the weeds to grow up alongside the wheat. Given that the weeds symbolize those who cause others to sin and evildoers, this is a direct revelation that God wills to permit evil to exist alongside the good in this order of providence. This raises the question: “Why?”

St. Thomas Aquinas, again, in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, he gives four reasons why “evil men should not be wiped out for the sake of good men.”

First, Aquinas writes, “good men are exercised by the evil.” In other words, good men themselves are sharpened in goodness by the evil experienced. Also, their goodness is manifested.

Aquinas quotes 1 Corinthians 11:19 where Paul says, “for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.” He also quotes Proverbs 11:29, which states, “the fool shall serve the wise.” To illustrate this principle, Aquinas gives the example of the knowledge of the saints. He argues, “If there had not been heretics, the knowledge of the saints, of Augustine and others, would not have shone forth.” This being the case, Aquinas concludes, “Hence he who would wipe out evil men would wipe out many good things as well.”

The second reason Aquinas gives for why “evil men should not be wiped out for the sake of good men” is that sometimes a person is evil for a while eventually becomes good. Aquinas gives the example of Paul, arguing, “if Paul had been killed, we would lack the teaching of so great a master.” Again, much good would be wiped out if evil men would be wiped out.

A third reason is because “some men seem evil and are not.” Aquinas doesn’t elaborate on this. But perhaps what’s behind this is the Church’s teaching that someone can commit an objectively grave evil act and yet not be guilty of mortal sin, assuming that either full knowledge or deliberate consent is lacking. In this scenario, the individual, in reality, wouldn’t be one of the evildoers who is bound and excluded from the wheat in the barn, although it might look as if he should.

This line of reasoning fits with the quote from 1 Corinthians 4:5 that Aquinas uses to end his thoughts on this reason, where Paul says, “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.” The point here is that if the harvester were to get rid of all that he thinks is weeds, he may end up getting rid of some wheat.

Now, someone might counter, “This line of reasoning might apply to a creature wiping evil men out. But it wouldn’t apply to God since God would know who is not guilty of mortal sin.” I must admit that this is a fair challenge to this line of reasoning, since within the context Aquinas does seem to give these reasons as to why God permits the evil to exist along with the good. Right before he lists the reasons, he writes, “[T]he Lord puts up with many evils that many goods might come, or also lest they perish.”

So, if we apply this line of reasoning to God, I don’t think it works. However, if it applies to human authorities, then I think the line of reasoning would apply.

The fourth reason Aquinas gives is that “sometimes someone has great power; so if he were cut off, he would drag many with him, and thus with the evil man many would perish.” It’s hard to know exactly what Aquinas is getting at here. He gives the example of a congregation not being excommunicated with their priest, or a people not being excommunicated with their prince. But that’s not much help. Does he mean that if a bad powerful man is wiped out, his fellow bad men would not have a chance to repent? If so, then that’s the same as the second reason that he gave. Does he mean that if a bad powerful man is wiped out, generally good people might feel sorry for the bad man being wiped out and adopt his evil ways? I admit I’m not exactly sure.

But at least we can say that if all evil were wiped out, many good things, including good people, would be wiped out as well. And that’s something we can run with. In fact, that’s our Lord’s explanation. To the question of whether the weeds should be pulled, Jesus answers, “[I]f you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them” (v.29).

CONCLUSION

Well, the readings give us an opportunity to reflect on two important topics:

• The Reality of Hell, and

• The problem of evil.

The Lord be with you.

***

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