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felassan · 4 years

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Do you think we're ever again going to hear from Hero of Ferelden or even see them on screen? I mean ik that Bioware said it is tough, because in many cases HoF is dead (ultimate sacrifice thingy) but... Leliana could be dead too, and here she is, standing proud as Inquisition's spymaster - pretty big role for a dead woman. Lyrium spirit you say... Same question about our old companions from DAO and DA2. Well, except Wynne I guess. 😅

Under a cut for length. TN spoilers under cut.

Hello, sorry, I know it is a popular wish but I don’t think we will see the HoF on-screen again :[ The HoF’s story is long-over, both in-universe and irl, and they led 2 whole games and a host of DLC. Compounding this, as you say they can be dead and BioWare have said something along the lines of how bringing them back would be tough and that it’s unlikely. It would be a lot harder to bring back the HoF compared to the lesser challenge bringing back Hawke in DAI was, due to the larger amount of base variables (3 different races as an example, no set voice) and the lack of easily-defined personality (like red or purple). In addition, even with the lower amount of variables involved, the implementation of Hawke in DAI for a large section of the fandom went down like a lead balloon. There were opinions and complaints that Hawke was OOC - for example, genuinely amazing as it was to see Hawke again, my blood mage Hawke went on nonsensical rants about hating blood mages and I was like huh? BW will have seen that sort of response and how it got a bit messy and taken it on-board. If the Inquisitor will return as an NPC like Hawke did in DAI (which is most likely out of the three previous PCs, owing to the obvious Solas connection), I imagine they already have their hands full with this. The other thing to keep in mind is that Hawke could not die in DA2. Hawke was alive in all worldstates. In quite a lot of universes, the Warden is dead. another thing is that around 2017 Laidlaw tweeted that the HoF was never going to feature in any of their products again. ofc things can change in the years since and he has left, but that was a fairly strong statement.

Hearing from them via letter or in dialogue references I think is possible, more likely and way easier to implement. Saying that, even then - the HoF’s story has been concluded and tied off. If they survived Origins, they traveled west on their quest for a cure for the calling. We can tell from romanced Leliana’s Trespasser epilogues that they have at the very least returned (I don’t see why only Lelimance Wardens would have). It’s not clear but from them I also assume that they found a cure.

I know that other main characters such as Leliana could be dead but were brought back, but I don’t see them repeating that trope for a big-name character again. After a few times it becomes over-used and cheapens the deaths that supposedly occurred. It also has the potential to get messy. How many lyrium ghost people or “surprise! this character who died in game actually survived!”s are we supposed to accept before the premise becomes silly, over-used and immersion-breaking, you know?

About the old DAO and DA2 companions, I mean… that’s a big question, especially if you’re asking “will we see them on-screen” and “will we hear from them again” about each of them. We could easily hear from any of them from among the ones who still live, especially if they bring back receiving letters and a war table-esque type game mechanic.

Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, Warden Loghain and Oghren have already been seen again in big ways in a subsequent game. His smaller amount of re-appearance content is a sore point for a lot of folk, but Zevran appeared again in DA2. Dog is a no. Wynne is dead. Morrigan might be brought back if they go for the “Flemythal isn’t really dead” or “Flemythal pushed her godhood through the mirror to Morrigan” or “Morrigan has advice on how to deal with this new threat” angles, or if they choose to delve into an end outcome for the person who drank from the Well. Leliana could feasibly be seen again if she’s Divine. If she’s not Divine she might appear as the Inquisition-remains’ Spymaster, although it really depends on the time that has elapsed because she’s clearly been grooming and preparing successors for that role. Whether she’s still a direct part of the “Inquisition’s generals” depends on the specific timeframe I expect.

They leaned quite hard into fleshing out and making prominent-once-again the Crows in TN. There’s a bit of potential there for Zevran to reappear, but I can’t tell how much of that is wishful thinking/reaching. The last time we saw and heard from him he didn’t exactly hold the Crows in high regards (more idle reaching/rambling on the Zevran question here, ctrl-F “Zevran”, TN spoilers at link). Sten is the Arishok in most universes. The Qunari Antaam invasion seems like it’s going to be a big plot point or at the very least a major backdrop/context to the next game. Whether we encounter him I think will depend on what’s going on with the hinted schisms in the Qun, whether it was he that ordered the Antaam to invade, etc. Some more thoughts on the Sten thing here (TN spoilers at link). It would be cool if we (well, us in a meta sense) ended up meeting him on the battlefield or something like he foretold years ago in DAO, or if we could have a meeting with him to try and propose peace or allying to try and defeat Solas or something. Shale… iirc some endings of DAO have her heading for Tevinter, but she was followed up on in Asunder, and was DLC only. I had originally thought she might be a good shout to tap, but that isn’t the case anymore since Solas is confirmed to be able to freeze even golems, and TN also makes a point of hinting at the existence of other intelligent/sentient golems.

Re: the possible return of DA2 companions I have less thoughts, and tbh I don’t really see a need in most cases. Many of them can be dead. Anders in particular can be dead, as in shanked in the back as a story decision cinematic from Hawke-dead rather than just “fought against Hawke after disagreeing with them at the end and ‘died’ at the time” (the latter could be story/gameplay segregation). Aveline has a role and steady job to do in Kirkwall. I don’t know why Prince Sebastian would leave Starkhaven and he’s been back in comics. The siblings can be dead. Bela was already back in comics and DAI. Varric’s done his time as a companion in 2 main games, although I can certainly see us getting reports/info/jobs from him, in the form of letters sent from the Viscount of Kirkwall. Merrill would be interesting to see and might be able to help us given that she’s an expert on eluvians. I would also like to hear what she thinks of the Dread Wolf being a Thing, you know? Find out where she stands on that, if it’s impacted her world view, would she support him or not, etc. Fenris has obviously been moved on the chessboard to Tevinter, putting him in the local area. I could see encountering him as the Blue Wraith in game, perhaps working for or with him a bit or getting a quest or two from him, but I don’t envision him as a DA4 companion. It’s also important to remember that the comics are not supposed to be nor designed to act as a prologue for DA4, like it’s not a direct-set-up situation (see the notes on the podcast mentioned towards the end here).

NB I love these characters! Please don’t interpret this post as not liking them.

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murasaki-murasame · 5 years

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Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 6: “Perhaps We Should Invite Ourselves Over”

If I had have been into this series when I was younger, I probably would have had a big gay crush on Kyo and Haru, but now that I’m in my early 20′s, let’s just say that Hatori can GET IT.

Anyway, this was another great episode, and I still really like the decisions they’ve been making with the pacing and the arrangement of events for the reboot. It all feels very natural and smooth, though it probably won’t please everyone.

Thoughts under the cut.

So in this episode we have chapters 7 and 9, or maybe I should say 9 and 7, since that’s the order they got arranged in, lol. It’s actually how I wanted them to handle it, since it works a lot better to have the sleepover happen at the end of the episode, so I’m happy with how it turned out.

It’s kinda interesting how the biggest changes in pacing the reboot has made have revolved around having stuff related to the culture festival happen earlier than they did in the manga. We had chapter 8 adapted back in episode 3, and now we have chapter 9 adapted right before the sleepover part. I think it’s a good choice all around. It helps make the reboot feel a bit less ‘episodic’ than the manga or the 2001 anime, if that makes sense. Like, instead of having the culture festival get brought up and then happen all in one episode, it’s set up a few episodes before it actually starts. It’s kinda hard to explain why I like it, but I do.

Even aside from how shuffling things about like this helped out the culture festival part, I’m happy that they didn’t spend TOO much time on the sleepover part to begin with. The episode in the 2001 anime where they spend an entire episode on it is one of my least favourite parts of the whole thing, since the comedy filler they had to add was super unfitting with the rest of the story’s tone, and it got really repetitive really fast. It worked a lot better here. For one thing, having it only take up half of this episode means that we still got introduced to Momiji and Hatori in this same episode, and it ended with the cliffhanger of Tohru getting invited to the Soma estate. In the 2001 anime, the sleepover episode felt very filler-y because the ONLY thing that happened in it was the sleepover, and they even cut out the hat scene, so there was absolutely no set-up for any future plot points in that episode. This episode feels a lot more substantial.

Also, I think I kinda prefer the sleepover getting done at this point in the story even more than how the manga did it. I always thought it was a bit awkward how abruptly we just get a sudden flashback in the manga to Tohru telling Uo and Hana about her living situation, but I think it was really neat that we got to see Uo and Hana get gradually more and more suspicious as the culture festival went on, until they eventually confronted Tohru about it. It also meant we got to see Tohru go ‘I’m not DATING him, I’m just LIVING with him, lol’, which was amazing. I just think it all flowed together surprisingly naturally, considering how substantially this episode was swapping and rearranging chapters. It kinda says a lot about how episodic the first few volumes of the manga were, that the reboot’s shuffled stuff about so much without it being noticeable.

This isn’t really any sort of a change from how it’s been handled before, but I still think it works really nicely to have the sleepover happen right after what happened in the last episode, since the theme of found families gets expanded upon as we see that Uo and Hana pretty much took Tohru in after her mother died, and they’ve been looking out for her ever since. I wish more anime could take notes from this series and have these kinds of strong female friendships.

I’ve seen a lot of people say that they don’t like Momiji’s voice in there reboot, and I can see that, but I don’t really mind it. I haven’t seen the dub version of this episode yet, though. I’m curious to see how both voice actresses handle things in the long run, since Momiji’s physical growth is a pretty commented-on thing in the manga.

In terms of things I didn’t really like in this episode, one super minor thing was that they didn’t seem to have any sparrow symbolism going on in the Akito scene, unlike the manga. Maybe I just missed it, but if they really didn’t include anything like that, then it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

And on the topic of Akito, I’ve also been seeing some people say that they dislike how ‘obvious’ the “““twist”““ is, and honestly all I can say is that maybe people should step back and consider that if it ends up being so unavoidably obvious that Akito’s a girl when she’s voiced by a woman and has a naturally feminine/androgynous design, maybe that just means that it ends up being a pretty transparent secret, lol. tbh, the entire concept of treating Akito’s gender as this huge mystery we all have to keep just feels really contrived. It doesn’t impact the story at all, at least not until waaaaay later. I think it’s very telling of how unimportant it actually is that the reaction of everyone who either gets spoiled about it or just ‘guesses right’ the first time they see her is “oh ok then”. Because that’s really the only response you can have to it. It’s just not that big of a deal, at least now until we find out the exact circumstances of it all way later on. I know that I’m kinda biased and bitter about this whole plot point, but I feel like it’s going to be one of the things that falls the most flat with modern audiences. Most people are just gonna be put off by the idea that Akito being a girl should be seen as shocking and scandalous, and I think that a lot of people are gonna be annoyed when it becomes clear that it’s less about patriarchal family structures, and more about Akito’s mother being so jealous of the fact that her husband was paying attention to a woman that wasn’t her that she forced Akito to live as a man.

ANYWAY, with that rant out of the way, I guess it’s time for me to launch into another rant, since there’s the whole elephant in the room of “that whole scene where the joke is that Yuki’s in a dress”. To be honest, this scene in a vacuum isn’t really a huge deal, but when you’ve read the whole manga it’s kinda obvious that it’s a piece of a larger topic of how this series just has some weird hang-ups about gender expression, and especially about the image of a man wearing a dress. At least in my opinion, I think that Takaya has good intentions with all of this, but she still ultimately plays into and in a lot of ways validates outdated gender norms. I’ll get into it when it actually comes up, but Momiji’s character in general is the best example of how I think that even when she’s clearly trying to be understanding and supportive, it’s the sort of uncomfortably narrow-minded allyship that says “it’s ok if he wears a dress if it looks nice on him. He’ll grow out of it later on anyway, so we should just let it slide for now”.

I also want to point out that even though they try and say in this episode that Yuki ‘has a complex about his looks’, it honestly doesn’t really come across that way. He only seems to get annoyed about it when he’s either forced to wear a dress against his will, or when Kyo calls him a girl as an insult, or when Kakeru calls him a princess as a joke later in the manga. And even then he never really seems to care THAT much. At least not compared to the things that he actually has complexes about. So it just all makes this whole thing seem even more forced, especially since it feels like Yuki’s more masculine in the reboot than he was in any other version of the story.

Although that does remind me that part of why I’m annoyed with how they never actually do anything interesting with the idea of Yuki having a complex about his femininity is that, sorta like with the whole plot point later on of him being ashamed of how he doesn’t have romantic feelings for Tohru, it all feels like it at least would be more interesting if he was gay. At least then there’d be room to explore the idea of him irrationally rejecting his femininity instead of it not going anywhere.

But that’s all getting into stuff that hasn’t even come up yet, lol.

Either way, for the most part I think this was a really good episode that made some nice adaptation decisions, even if it does also make it seem more and more clear that the reboot might ultimately suffer a bit from being TOO faithful to the manga, instead of changing/removing the more outdated parts of it.

Anyway, it looks like the next episode is going to be Hatori’s backstory. I think they’re gonna handle it like the 2001 anime did by having the episode basically just be all of chapter 10, with the more extensive backstory flashback from chapter 12 worked into it to flesh it out. If they do it like that, I think they’ll then spend episode 8 on the new years part, and then in episode 9 we’ll finally see Haru.

And on the topic of Hatori, before I forget, one reason why I like how they changed the timing of him contacting Tohru was because it let them show him looking at Kana’s portrait in his office when he’s talking about the prospect of having to erase Tohru’s memories, which was a really great way to handle that scene, and to set up the next episode.

#murasaki rambles #fruits basket

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