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goldenkamuyhunting · 2 years

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Replies to asks regarding what happened to Ogata in chap 310

New group of asks, this time tied to what happened to Ogata in chap 310. Sorry if I placed them together and it I’m late in replying to them.

@somethingelse-notunique said:

EASY MODE!! Thank you! That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking these last chapters, but I just couldn’t find the words. I’m not sure how everyone else felt while reading it, but I was super interested in the physicological parts of the characters. Especially Asirpa, Sugimoto, and Ogata (I know you’ve been getting a lot of asks about Ogata but…hopefully it not too annoying lol). I was really hoping we’d dive deeper into what makes them tick and force them to answer uncomfortable questions. All that we have been getting recently has felt rather shallow. I didn’t hate what the Ogata death soliloquy gave us, with him seemingly not feeling too guilty over his parents murders. I liked that, it was interesting(If expanded upon).I just wish he was forced to stew in it a bit longer. Deal with the more advanced questions. It especially annoying when Asirpa seems to take some of his ideas later on. It just set up perfectly for Ogata to impact her. Imagine the train scene with an Ogata already well in the process of coming to terms with himself. Even if that still ended in his suicide, I think it would have been the perfect place to truly shake both Sugimoto and Asirpa viewpoints/morals. Which they did a little with Asirpa, but no follow through. I feel the rest of the story probably not going to make them question themselves that much. Hopefully I am wrong, perhaps Tsurumi will pick up Ogata missed potential

If I could help, then I’m glad!

I’m the same, I’ve been very interested in the psychological aspects of the characters. The story previously used to care a lot about it and Noda was really doing a great work with it in previous chapters.

Asirpa, Sugimoto, and Ogata were among the most complicate, Asirpa was doing a lot of personal growth, Sugimoto was dealing with his PTSD and I’ve lost count of how many issues plagued Ogata.

Credits when it’s due, the manga didn’t completely drop the psychological aspect, but it ended up mostly overshadowed by the action scenes and neglected or going nowhere. “Golden Kamuy” is also an action manga, and I’m sure there’s a part of the fandom which prefers this but I fear I belong to the side that favored the psychological side.

I don’t mind Ogata asks, though I’m trying to put them all in a single post so as not to fill people’s dashboards with posts saying similar things. Sorry if I gave you a different impression.

I wouldn’t say Ogata feels no guilt for his parents’ death, at least for what his mother is concerned (but I’ll develop this more later, after I reply to the following anon ask if, it’s okay for you) and I fear, from the way Noda constructed the scene, we couldn’t get more out of him. This isn’t him rationalizing his feelings, this is him breaking down. It’s emotional, not rational.

I’m… not sure which idea of his you think Asirpa took later on. If it’s the one about the gold bringing misfortune and leading people to more fights and death the first to suggest it is Makanakkuru (if we go by the volumes in the story) otherwise it’s Kimuspu (if we just follow the chronological order) and it’s overall correct.

And yeah, it would have been great if Ogata’s death was used for… something… but ultimately the story and the characters have no time for it. Asirpa and Sugimoto have to face Tsurumi so what happens to Ogata feels like a parenthesis, which is why I wish Ogata’s death had happened sooner, so it could be processed better.

Well, it would be great if Tsurumi could actually promote some food for thoughts… but I fear if we’ll get it, it’ll be when all has ended.

Chap 216 in a way foreshadowed the situation we’re in now, with the group chasing after a white bear in a reckless manner hoping in a maximum gain, with the result they only worsen Sugimoto’s wounds and lose the bear. Chasing the gold was equivalent to chasing that bear in such a way, a lot of harm and no good came from it but somehow the group didn’t even realize the lesson.

I wonder if, at the end, Noda will remind us of this parallel or not. We’ll see.

I appreciate all of the writing and thinking you do about GK. Thank you for being in this fandom and enriching it with your work. :) I do disagree with how I interpret Ogata's finale (and only chapter 310, I'm with you on Noda assassinating him being smart, cautious and independent character) though: I think the poison gave him an epiphany into realising, that he was indeed normal and not defective. And him killing himself instead of leaving it to the poison was his (only) way of taking responsibility for the sins he committed. I don't think he wanted to escape his pain by dying. He was so calm and collected, when he readied the rifle and specifically went for the eye, instead of the forehead, as a target. That seems like his analytical and composed self, and his guilt integrated back into one person - and allowed him do die with peace of mind. (This interpretation is actually what keeps me from not being completely devastated with how the story turned out, so I am quite invested in seeing it this way...) So, you who has been having issues with the plot for a while, would naturally disagree, but i'd like to hear your thoughts on it nonetheless ^^

Thank you for enjoying my work!

Having different interpretations is fine, I don’t really own the truth and that scene is complicate. I’ve seen tons of different takes and who knows which one is the right one and if your interpretation helps you, then it’s all the more good for you to embrace it. I thank you for wanting to share your interpretation and for wanting to know mine. I love to hear other people’s interpretations and if they enjoy to hear mine it makes me happy!

And yes, I view the scene in a way that’s slightly different from yours or from the anon of the previous message. So, if it’s okay with you, I’ll go and explain my thoughts.

I fear it’s pretty long as this will be more of a meta about the whole of Ogata’s psychological arc more than just about his suicide in chap 310 because 310 goes back and forth in his story and so it feels easier to cover it all. I apologize to you and to the previous anon for the length and thank you again for wanting to hear my two cents. So, without further ado…

LET’S HAVE A TRAVEL IN OGATA’S WAY TO DEAL WITH GUILT

So, how do I interpret the whole thing that happened to Ogata in chap 310, if I discharge the idea it’s just ghost possession (an idea as I’ve said in the past which I personally disliked but that was foreshadowed and might work well for Japanese readers as it would be digging into their culture) and consider it from a psychological standpoint (which might not be wrong either)?

Ogata killed his mother when he was a child. Afterward he should have felt guilt, all the more because his father didn’t even come back to her.

Now, guilt and the shame it causes are extremely unpleasant emotions and with good reasons. They exist to stop us from doing again something we regretted doing afterward. However children don’t like to have to deal with unpleasant emotions, their brain isn’t ready yet to unpack them on its own and turn them into something that help us take a better course in life. They need the help of an adult to do it and, if they don’t get it, they do the only thing they know how to do on their own, try to push the painful thing away from them with various maladaptive copying methods.

Some persuade themselves the misdeed never happened, some push the blame on others, some… just suppress the guilt and shame. We’re adults, we know this is wrong, but they’re children and for them this is the equivalent of self defense. The brain must protect the child’s psyche. What’s painful needs to go away one way or the other and there’s no one who is capable to blindly believe to his brain’s lies like a child.

But while overall this seems a quick and easy fix, the brain isn’t really capable to cause the guilt to disappear entirely by just pretending it isn’t there. Basically, metaphorically closing the child’s eyes won’t really erase what the child doesn’t want to see.

Feelings that don’t get unpacked and processed in a healthy way remain trapped inside the child, behind the walls the brain has built to keep the child from seeing them and, therefore, feeling bad. The guilt bangs on the wall of its prison, it causes subconscious stress but, exactly because it’s subconscious now, it’s even harder to deal with it. The more it goes on, the more damaging it is. The walls chips, guilt oozes out but the conscious can’t even name it because it can’t see it.

Meanwhile, since the memory of guilt was suppressed along with guilt, it couldn’t work as a stop from repeating the same mistake, so more mistakes can been done, then guilt is suppressed again and stuck into the same prison with the previous guilt.

On the surface it seems easier for the brain to do so, the prison now already exists so it becomes a fast process to stuck the guilt in it, and the person can really delude themselves they don’t feel guilt at all. However new guilt adds in to the pressure of the previous one.

Walls will be eventually torn down as they won’t be able to hold forever and, if the process is too abrupt, all the guilt will get free and pour on the psyche like a crashing Tsunami with devastating effects.

And that’s more or less what happens to Ogata.

He makes again the same mistakes under the false beliefs he won’t feel guilty, even though guilt slowly oozes out of him and fill its prison.

Chap 243 shows a scene in which Ogata asked for confirmation of his mind setting to Usami. Asking for confirmation is the easiest signal no matter what you say, you aren’t secure of your beliefs…

This seems hinted also in chap 165. As Ogata insists that nobody feels guilty there’s a swirling shading on him, which actually is normally used to indicate inner turmoil. To make matters worse, Yuusaku, differently from Usami, doesn’t validate Ogata’s beliefs.

It’s worth to mention chap 243, 165 and 187 contrast slightly with each other as in 243 Ogata seems more aware of his insecurity (in fact in the volume version Noda adds a scene in which he questions if he’s the odd one because he was unloved… even though since Usami has agreed with his mind setting, this would make two of them and Usami had loving parents) while in chap 165 it seems less aware and in 187 he has worked out a conditio sine qua non his theory that everyone can’t feel guilt works, ‘you won’t feel guilty IF YOU HAVE A REASON TO KILL SOMEONE’ a condition he didn’t include in 165 where his point of view was just, nobody feels guilty when they kill, everyone fakes.

Whatever.

Anyway Ogata kills Yuusaku in hope this will lead Hanazawa to him and then kills Hanazawa in exchange of a last, and possibly first, talk with him.

Guilt fills him just the same and gets suppressed and, since years have gone by from his mother’s murder, his brain is fast into placing guilt in the prison built for it. The walls are old and torn though.

Again chap 310 implies we never see Yuusaku’s face out of his guilt and his inability to face it, and this can be applied to his mother’s face as well. Chap 310 won’t even bother to reveal Tome’s face. On the other side we saw Hanazawa’s face just fine in the flashback so it’s hard to quantify how much Ogata regretted killing him and if he did at all.

Hanazawa was, after all, a complete stranger to him, and one that discharged him and his mother and showed disgust toward them. He and Ogata are tied together by a biological link but that’s all, he has no kind memories of his father so murdering him might not have made such a big of an impression same as murdering his mother or Yuusaku.

We go on with the story.

Chap 243 implies it was already leaking out more consistently than it did previously by showing that, when Ogata was sleeping and his mental defenses were low, he calls his brother and is overheard by Usami, who immediately figures Ogata, deep down, is regretting killing Yuusaku. On the opposite side Ogata is still fully in denial but, if the leaks were to keep being slow, maybe they could have forced Ogata to confront them so he would have lead with them in a better manner. Or not.

We’ll never know because it wasn’t meant to go that way (and because we can’t tell if he dreamt Yuusaku again out of his fever dream in 164/165 because the manga never showed him doing so and the fact it happened in 243 might be merely due to him not having fully recovered yet… though this would mess up a bit with the timeline but whatever).

Anyway we don’t really know in details how Ogata was prior to the gold hunt, but through the gold hunt we see he’s a risk taker when trying to reach his goal. Very likely it’s not all bravado and recklessness.

Ogata’s maladaptive copying mechanism is showing its downsides.

Not only it doesn’t stop Ogata from making the same mistakes over and over but leads him to be subconsciously suicidal which is a side reaction suppressed guilt can cause. It’s not conscious otherwise Ogata would have just gunned himself much sooner, but it’s there, subconscious, and it makes him reckless.

It’ll get worse though.

In chap 164 Ogata gets delirious with fever, his mental defense weakens and he starts seeing Yuusaku in place of Asirpa. If before Ogata would see Yuusaku just in dreams which Ogata might or might not remember, now he sees him in front of himself. Kind Yuusaku, mortally wounded Yuusaku, he’s in front of him in place of Asirpa. A part of Ogata’s consciousness probably starts connecting the dots but is again suppressed as Ogata continues to deny everything because it’s safer, it’s less painful and he never fully graduated from being a child who believes if he closes his eyes bad things will disappear for real.

Again, maybe with time (and, likely, with help from an external source) Ogata might have processed it better but that’s not that kind of story and, as he gains strength due to recovering from the fever, his mental defenses go back in place and he likely goes back on seeing Asirpa instead than Yuusaku.

It was just the fever, nothing more, he likely told himself.

Only it wasn’t so simple.

On the ice field, in an effort to get Asirpa’s cooperation, Ogata put in Sugimoto’s mouth the words he wanted his father to tell him and he’s so emotionally involved by his narration he makes the mistake of telling Asirpa Sugimoto would want to eat something that’s absolutely not connected with Sugi, anglerfish nabe instead than, let’s say ‘citatap’ or something else he KNEW Sugimoto liked (Ogata couldn’t know of the dried persimmons but picking a random food was way more risky than trying with a food he knew Sugimoto liked to eat). Asirpa discovers the lie and Ogata cracks a little.

He challenges Asirpa to kill him.

Officially because she’s like him and so she can kill too if she has a reason.

According to chap 310, because a part of him, which he still keeps suppressed, has realized his own sense of guilt thanks to her and now he wants to be killed by her.

Yes, the mind can fracture in such a way, keeping your wishes hidden from your conscious yet moving to act you in a certain way and manufacturing fake reasons so that you don’t have to face your real ones but also yes, I would have wished Noda had explained it better.

Anyway Asirpa refuses. He tries to threaten her into compliance, and we might wonder if he sees Yuusaku as he aims at her. We’ll never know if he sees him or just thinks at him as he says ‘it’s simply not right that people like you exist’ (the you is a plural in Japanese meaning it doesn’t refer just to Asirpa).

Asirpa, by mistake, hits him with a poisoned arrow.

Ogata loses his eye but, later, manages to escape and go back to Hijikata’s group.

The loss of his eye can have caused him to suffer of minor visual hallucinations which might have worsened his state as they can be a consequence of enucleation. As Ogata got himself a glass eye he might have been told he might get them, so the scientific explanation would work for him also as a way to deny them, to deny that his hallucination mattered and were caused by guilt.

Or not.

Chap 164 has Kiroranke say the Orok believed Ogata was possessed by an Anba, an evil creature (悪い化物 ‘warui bakemono’), and connect the whole thing with Yuusaku. Ogata will call Yuusaku a akuryō (悪霊 “evil spirit”) in 253 and 310 so he too embraced the idea a ghost is haunting him (let’s remember his father cursed him and that being haunted by the ghost of the one you’re killed are part of Japanese traditional beliefs).

So yeah, it can be Ogata is being plagued by more hallucinations which are actually for a physical reason, the guilt that’s slowly oozing out of its prison pushes him to interpret them as ‘Yuusaku haunting him’, making him embrace superstitions, which is convenient as he can continue to deny his guilt by painting it as an evil ghost haunting him.

The story goes on and doesn’t really dig on him beyond two occasions in which he tries to shoot Asirpa… and senses in his blind spot ‘someone’, the visual telling us that someone is none else but Yuusaku.

The fracture in Ogata’s mind is more visible.

He tells himself he would be fine by killing Asirpa and tries to do so and his sense of guilt goes to plague him in roundabout ways as he isn’t ready to face it, bet effectively stopping him from killing Asirpa.

Ogata still manages to kill Usami, and this might have been important because Ogata might have realized on the ice field, despite threatening to kill Asirpa, he just remained staring at her and didn’t press the trigger and so this can have caused him some doubt. But then he kills Usami no problem and this proves not only he can shoot accurately but that he can shoot to kill.

The thing with Asirpa should have been a fluke, he can tell himself, and dismiss he just stood there with his rifle aimed and did nothing.

Though Noda didn’t really develop this so it might be it’s just me.

And so we get to 304/309/310.

People know I’ve plenty of grievances for how those chapters handled the story, despite them confirming almost all my speculations.

I’ll skip 304 for now.

309 shows Ogata aiming at Sugimoto at such a close distance even the worst shooter could have blown his head off aware Asirpa is watching him and shooting.

I don’t know if the bullet at least hit some part of Sugimoto, it clearly didn’t blew his brain out. Then Ogata recharges his rifle, turns and is hit by a arrow.

Ogata pulls the arrow out.

As far as we know he never had a crash course on how this isn’t a bright move or on how he also has to remove the flesh around it as he wasn’t around when Kumagishi was shoot (apparently in the exactly same spot and Asirpa didn’t even try to save him because since the arrow was in his stomach there was nothing they could do). Anyway Ogata wastes precious time pulling out just the tip of the arrow by carving his stomach to pull it out.

It tells us he didn’t know that this wouldn’t be enough, that nothing would be enough.

Ogata talks about ‘something that has been bothering him for a while and that got resolved’.

The vague phrasing that really has no reason to be vague could refer to Asirpa being able to kill or not, as his wording seems to match the one he used in 187 as @deepfriedegg observed or they can refer to him having been able to kill Usami as he might have been bothered by the fact he couldn’t kill Asirpa and the fact he can’t die yet is tied to how he has to prove himself he can shoot her… because if what he consciously wanted was just to kill her he could have let the poison do his work.

So the fracture in his mind becomes even stronger.

However his stress level rise too high for him to handle. He’s poisoned, he has a wound in his stomach and one in his leg and fighting with Sugimoto, as brief as it was, wasn’t the equivalent of a stroll in a park.

His mental defenses crash down and, instead than seeing Yuusaku in his blind spot, he sees Yuusaku ahead of himself.

The following scene is confusing but the easiest psychological interpretation is that all he had kept trapped in his subconscious, all his guilt, all his fears, all his negative thoughts overwhelmed him.

It could happen because Ogata was in a situation of extreme stress, but exactly because he’s at his weakest psychological point and has suppressed all that for so long, he’s absolutely not equipped to face it.

Among his worries there is that his mother’s murder was meaningless, which hints he felt guilty for it or otherwise he wouldn’t have cared if it mattered or not… and Tome’s face is still not shown (but maybe Noda will fix this in the volume).

The way I see it, Ogata can’t stew in it any longer or face the more complicate questions because at the moment he can’t face not even the simplest ones. It’s a tsunami, even the visual implies that his head is spinning and water is dragging him away.

Him begging to ‘stop it!’ and ‘that’s enough!! Don’t think anymore!! I lose!! No more!! Don’t think anymore!!’ it’s him trying to apply his maladaptive copying mechanism of suppressing what cause him pain, but it clearly can’t work anymore. The prison for his unpleasant feelings which he built over the years has shattered and he can’t push them in any longer.

When this happens the mind breaks and, often, presents solutions that basically lead to suicide (or, if you’re ‘lucky’ just to self harm… or to harming others… it really depend on the situation) as the only way to stop the pain because the pain comes from within yourself and you’re all of sudden your worst enemy and you might not even realize it because you aren’t thinking straight and you can’t realize harming yourself is not the way to fix things.

Going for his eye is not just symbolic of how the bullet came out of Yuusaku’s eye, but an actually ‘safer’ way to stop yourself from seeing things and thinking (moments ago Ogata reminded himself in order to hit a bear’s brain he should have gone for the eye not for the head).

It’s unlikely Ogata is calm as he pulls the trigger.

Not only he was overwhelmed a moment ago, but his seeing eye is open wide, which isn’t a sign of inner calmness.

If we look at the scene from a psychological angle, what we see is not exactly him having an epiphany in which he experience sudden and striking insight about his guilt, it’s more him having an episode of psychosis (to not confuse with psychopathy, psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real) through which his suppressed emotions come to light.

One would need help to overcome this and Ogata gets none.

People watch him break down but they are his enemies and, even if they weren’t, they aren’t equipped to help him, they don’t get what’s going on, they can’t even predict what will happen, in fact they’re all surprised by the outcome.

Ogata fundamentally dies alone and his death, at the moment, hadn’t been used by the plot. It didn’t affect any of the characters in a significant way. It just happens so that the cast can move to the next step.

In fact Asirpa had already decided to kill people for the sake of her goal, starting with attempting to do it with Ogata and, if she felt pain for him, it lasted two panels… but it might also be she’s just saddened/worried by her resolution to handle the mess on her own and ask Sugimoto and Shiraishi to remain behind so they’ll stay safe as an old defining trait of Asirpa was her fear to be left alone.

Everyone is free to speculate on this but, for now, she doesn’t seem affected by what had happened, nor were Sugimoto or Shiraishi. It happened. Let’s move on.

So that’s the end of my two cents. I might be wrong of course as I’m not Noda and my interpretation is influenced by my studies, my experiences and by my culture and they’re no the same of the intended target audience so I guess everyone can choose his own while we wait for the release of the volume and see if things in it will be different.

Still thank you to you both for wanting to hear me out.

#Ask #Ogata Hyakunosuke #Asirpa #Sugimoto Saichi #Makanakkuru #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Hanazawa Yuusaku #Hanazawa Koujirou #Ogata Tome #Usami Tokishige #Kiroranke #Kumagishi Chouan

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madartiste · 5 years

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Deadly Fortune book 1, Chapters 6-11

These notes are for the rest of Book 1. Again, I’m putting everything under the cut so I don’t clog up people’s dashboards with my notes. There’s some really interesting bits in this part. I will note: There’s a discrepancy in Nero’s age in the book and in what one of the developers said. The book puts him at 16-17, while one of the devs (and I wish I could find the source right now) said that Nero is the same age as Dante/Vergil were in DMC3 -- which is 19. (Which incidentally puts Dante at 37-39 in DMC4 if that’s correct)

Link to the translation: https://originaldmc.github.io/DivinityStatue/Downloads.html

Link to the first section of notes: https://madartiste.tumblr.com/post/186802435475/so-i-started-reading-the-only-english-translation

Stage 06 (Agnus' lab)

Nero feels an 'explicable nostalgia' when he first sees Yamato. Agnus calls him an "arrogant little devil." He's pretty startled when Nero busts the glass of the Containment Room since he shouldn't have that kind of strength. He actually refers to Nero's right arm as "sacred."

Interesting: Agnus says that a "righteous" person who gains the power of a demon becomes an angel. So he realizes they've basically turned themselves into demons, but feels that their intentions make them holy.

When Nero gets pinned to the wall, he's stabbed through the arms as well as the stomach. Agnus kinda tortures him a bit by messing with the lance that's stuck in his abdomen, mainly because he's annoyed that Nero is passing out while he's trying to monologue at him.

The Bianco Angelos are made from pieces of Nelo Angelo's armor. It washed up on Fortuna's shore along with Yamato. Agnus took that as a sign that his work was basically blessed by god.

Oh dang. Angus actually stabs Nero in the left chest when he mouths off, though Nero couldn't tell if he actually got his heart or not. Nero's heart stops.

Dante is upstairs in the master bedroom of the castle --trying on a freaking hat he found -- and Devil Triggers briefly when Nero goes down. The energy he felt, phrased as 'the cry of a soul,' feels like Vergil's, though he knows it isn't. He decides to keep dealing with the Order before he figures out what happened.

Back to Nero: He remembers a dream he had on the day his arm was injured. It doesn't seem to have been during the fight, but maybe later? He saw a man with 'cold eyes' but who also felt 'lonely.' The guy (gotta assume it's supposed to be Vergil) asks what Nero wants, but Nero punts the question back to him. Vergil says "I want more power," so Nero replies that he wants that too.

Nero can feel his Devil Trigger even without looking at it. He refers to it as 'another person' and 'another me.' He doesn't have good control at first, and feels like he might lose his mind.

Stage 07 (Echidna)

People who fail to undergo the Ascension Ceremony turn into demons but lose their ability to think like people. Ah, Credo and Kyrie's parents were killed by some escapees who failed the ceremony, but he never told Kyrie or Nero about it. He acknowledges that if he's going to fulfill Sanctus' vision of an ideal world, there will be sacrifices, and he is conflicted about that. He consoles himself by thinking that many more people will be saved in the future. His main goal is to protect his sister.

Agnus storms into a meeting and grabs Credo by his collar, yelling about how Nero is a demon. Credo didn't actually know about it, and he doesn't actually believe what Agnus is saying -- he thinks Nero just scared the guy by being so aggressive. Agnus blames him for Nero taking Yamato, which, consequently, screws up all their plans.

LOL, none of the other knights want to chase Dante because they saw him beat the crap out of everyone at the Opera House.

Credo consoles himself (again) that catching and possibly hurting Nero is for the greater good even though he thinks of the kid like a little brother.

Back to Nero: He passed out for a while after chasing off Agnus. The book makes a point of saying that his clothes are torn up but his body is healed from getting stabbed. He is convinced he's not human anymore, but he's willing to deal with it for the power.

Back to Agnus: He respects Credo's strength even if he doesn't like him. The power gained from the Ascension Ceremony has more to do with the personality of the individual than with the demonic energy put into them. Sanctus has genuine doubts Credo can beat Nero. Kyrie is already at HQ because that's where the people were evacuated to, so Agnus goes to find her.

Back to Nero: Mitis Forest was an evergreen forest before rather than subtropical. Nero doesn't shoot Dante when he sees him on the cliffside because he wants to know what the flip is going on. Dante, of course, doesn't tell him. There's a funny line from Nero when Dante jumps: "I want to learn from him."

Nero uses his charge shot on Echidna for the first time. He holds Blue Rose in his right hand for it. He also uses Yamato on her and is a bit shocked at his own strength. He still doesn't feel like he can control it.

Stage 08 (Fighting Credo)

Dante POV: The HQ is empty because all the knights are protecting the area where the citizens are hiding out. Trish meets up with Dante and tells him that Yamato was fixed. She's surprised, but he isn't. He correctly guesses that Nero was the one who did it, which also surprises Trish since she didn't know they'd bumped into each other. It's hard to decipher, but Dante thinks that the connection he felt to Nero has been steadily getting stronger as the kid is delving into his devil abilities.

He finally tells Trish that Nero might be his relative, and she asks if he's Dante's brother. Dante considers it but dismisses the possibility because he doesn't think Sparda would come back to Fortuna… and it doesn't seem to feel right. She asks if he'll go rescue Nero, but he says no. I'm not clear on some of the wording, but he says that if Nero loses to Credo, Dante will kill 'him' and take back Yamato. I'm… not sure who 'him' is supposed to be -- but hopefully he means Credo because otherwise that's pretty grim.

Trish asks if Nero is Dante's illegitimate kid, but he just says that the "joke is not funny." He doesn't seem bothered by the insinuation and doesn't even consider it as a possibility.

Back to Nero: His description of Credo's movements --which is how he recognizes him since he can't see his face at first -- is hilarious: 'over the top and neurotic walking posture.' Credo doesn't say anything while Nero questions him about what's going on. It's interesting how freely Nero speaks to him. He jokes a bit about how Credo shouldn't take anything Agnus says series, that Agnus provoked him first.

Nero is really upset by Credo's transformation. He wanted to believe Credo didn't know anything about what was going on, that he, who is like a brother to Nero, isn't the same as someone like Agnus in giving up his human self for power.

Fighting Credo is hard for him because Credo is the one who taught him how to use a sword. There's a long passage where he thinks that he was never good at dealing with other people, that he had no parents, that people thought of him as a burden, so there were a lot of things that Nero didn't know how to do (presumably because no one ever taught him), but Credo was the one who showed him. Whenever Nero was using a sword, he forgot all the bad things in his life, and he wanted to be a Knight like Credo. He mentions that he 'unexpectedly received praise from others' when he became a knight, and that he wants to help other people because he knows what it's like to be abandoned and feeling alone. Nero knows he'll never be like Credo -- their personalities are too different -- but he thinks that Credo is worthy of everyone's respect and love.

Nero asks Credo why he should fight him, and Credo demands the same thing, saying that Nero "betrayed" them. Nero tells him that he didn't betray anyone and just wants to know the truth of what's going on. Credo yells back that the truth doesn't matter to Nero anymore because he's possessed by a demon (ouch). Incidentally, there's a lot of details in the fight that tell you how to beat these bosses. Nero catches Credo's spear and throws it back at him.

There's some back and forth conversation. Nero asks Credo who's really the devil here, him or Credo. Nero thinks that he doesn't want to kill Credo, but he'd better fight hard because he'll lose otherwise. He's always had a hard time reading Credo's moves, but suddenly can now. Specifically it references a 'three combos' that Credo uses when practicing with Nero with wooden swords.

Nero goes Devil Trigger, and there's a funny line from Credo: "Buddy… look at you…!"

Nero is pretty wiped out from the fight, and he puts his sword to Credo's throat -- just like Credo did to him during one of their practices -- which is when Kyrie shows up.

Agnus shows up and outright says that he told Kyrie that Nero was a demon. Credo actually shoves Nero behind him (I feel like it's meant to be protective) when Agnus pulls the sword on Kyrie. Agnus is hella rude to Credo and then starts taunting Nero about being so influenced by a woman. Nero knows he can take Agnus, but if he loses Kyrie, he'd pretty much lose any 'value of existence.' Ooooh, Agnus actually cuts Kyrie in the book.

So, Nero and Credo both kneel on the ground, and Agnus demands that Nero hand over the Yamato, which he does. Agnus then tells Credo to bring him the sword. Oh heck! Credo starts to do as he's told and then basically rams Agnus with his shoulder, getting Kyrie loose. There's a burst of energy which pushes Nero over and knocks Kyrie out. Pissed off, Agnus actually puts his boot on Credo's head -- he was knocked over too -- and calls him a traitor. Unfortunately, Credo is worn out from fighting Nero, so he can't do much other than yell at Agnus about Sanctus using Kyrie. Agnus kicks Credo repeatedly (ow) and Nero runs over to get to Kyrie, though Agnus is too fast and gets to her first with his insect wings.

Agnus says he should grab the sword but he's not dumb enough to try to fight both Nero and Credo. They kind of conjoin this scene with the one in Agnus' lab where Nero tries to grab Kyrie but gets her necklace instead. Before he takes off, Agnus says that if Nero wants Kyrie, he'll have to bring them the Yamato. Again, everyone seems to all Nero "little devil."

Hah! There's a funny interlude where Nero asks Credo if he's still alive and Credo says "... probably."

Credo gets to his feet and says he knows why Sanctus is so keen to get his hands on Nero, that Nero is "a Sparda-born person." Nero is understandably confused, so Credo explains that in order to complete the savior they need the sword Sparda and the "son of the swordsman." Nero is still confused, though he asks why Credo would think he's a descendant of Sparda. Credo just chucks him Yamato and says Nero should go find Kyrie while he figures out just what Sanctus is up to.

Stage 09 (Nero fights Dante)

Nero goes into the HQ and finds no one but sees signs of fighting. Looks like Dante has cleaned house, though Nero ponders why he couldn't find a trace of Dante earlier, but now that he has something else to do, the guy's just waiting for him. But why?

Dante says Nero is slow. He asks why Nero is in such a bad mood (Dante… really??) and just pisses Nero off. Dante asks for Yamato, Nero asks how he knows about all this stuff. "The sword was originally my brother's thing." (hah) Nero is surprised that Dante even has a family. (Hah!)

Definitely different: Dante says that Yamato belongs to him now that his brother is dead and says he doesn't care why the sword ended up in Fortuna. Nero actually seems to feel a little bad? But, as he puts it, the Order doesn't care about him, and he needs Yamato to fight them.

Dante kinda tries to talk Nero out of fighting, but Nero's not having it. Nero gets knocked back when he tries to attack Dante, Dante taunts him about not really making much progress in his skills. Dante calls it a "nostalgic scene," Nero's confused. Again. (Is Dante talking about their earlier fight… or Vergil?)

Nero uses his charge shot to shoot the pillars next to Dante, which Dante assumes was a miss. Until the pillar explodes. Nero uses the distraction to attack, Dante blocks but leaves an opening, Nero is sure he's got the upper hand until Dante catches Red Queen with his other hand. It cuts him, but Dante is too strong for Nero to just pull the sword back. So Nero rams into him. Dante just grins at him and asks if Nero wants him to teach him Kung Fu. Oh man.

Nero has a bit of a crisis because he realizes how much stronger than him Dante is. So Nero says "I want more power!' and goes DT. Dante just avoids all the attacks. There's a line comparing Dante to a matador. Which is the bit when Nero charges at him and gets knocked to the floor. Nero is annoyed that Dante wasn't fighting him with his full strength before, but Dante sort of compliments him by saying he hasn't had a workout like that in a long time. The phrasing is something along the lines of "I haven't had to breath this hard."

Nero notes that while he was trying to kill Dante, Dante was definitely not trying to kill him. In response, Dante simply says that he has more experience, and that he's been doing this for a long time. Nero is actually willing to give him Yamato, but he is uneasy because he feels like he needs the power.

Dante calls the sword a loan. He says as "rent for the loan" Nero has to tell him his name -- even though he already knows it. He calls Nero "little devil" again.

Dante calls Trish's disguise a "masterpiece." She dressed like that because she thought it was funny since the Order is so prudish. Ah, it was a spell, and while getting rid of it isn't hard, casting it again takes a while -- which is why she didn't reveal herself earlier.

Trish is uneasy about letting Nero go with the sword since "Vergil's Yamato" could fall into the Order's hands. She doesn't know the details of the Savior, and it's been a big secret. (I'm guessing only a handful of people knew about the thing.) She knows that the Order can use Nero to complete the Savior and points it out to Dante. He says that if things go wrong, he'll help Nero -- and even go a little further because they're related.

Stage 10 (Nero vs. Sanctus)

Lower level knights aren't allowed in the bottom areas of HQ, so Nero's never been down here. He goes by a room with numbered cages. (!) They contain demons that are being experimented on. He sees something that his half human, half demon, and wonders if this is what happens to people who fail the Ascension Ceremony. Oh HECK! He sees Tonio, who's left side is demonic, and Tonio shrinks away from him in the cage when he leans in to look. Nero is unnerved because the guy was always so grim and sneering and now he's cowering. Sagan is there too. Nero is pissed off. He realizes that these are no longer the people he once knew.

He thinks about the fact that he never liked those guys, and they didn't like him, that they resented how much he got away with because he was close to Credo, and that they both had a crush on Kyrie. Nero feels like he'd probably be just like them in terms of having a thing for her even if he hadn't been raised like a family member by her parents. (There's a strange phrasing that says "it's too old fashioned to be raised like a family," which may be a reference to Kyrie's parents' general outlook.) Nero essentially says he didn't want this to happen to Tonio and Sagan even if he didn't like them.

Okay, so Nero has never told Kyrie about his feelings for her (Pretty sure she knows, dude), and he wonders if she'd be disgusted to know someone like him thought of her that way (Nero, plz).

He promises Tonio and Sagan that he'll save Kyrie and get revenge for them. Nero wants to rescue them, but he can't let them run free the way they are now and doesn't know how to turn them back -- which makes him feel incompetent.

Agnus POV: The Savior was produced in a manner similar to the Bianco Angelos, by extracting the 'shell' from a demon and using the demon's soul to power it, but the Savior is more complicated. The Bianco Angelos are mass produced. The Savior is powered by a 'magic heart furnace' which functions like an actual heart, using the power extracted from 'millions' of demons to power the rest of the Savior. It's not enough to actually make the thing work, though.

Agnus had given up on finish it when Gloria showed up with the Sparda. The intention was to use the Sparda to power the Savior, but using the Sparda to its full power requires someone related to Sparda. Sanctus was definitely aware that Sparda had at least one son, and that Dante sealed up Mundus again. The Order kept him under watch. There's a passage that says that some of the Order suggested inviting Dante to Fortuna to "sacrifice as a living god." Pffft. They decided not to because Dante is too human -- he runs a business in a shitty part of town, listens to rock music, eats pizza, and uses guns. (I'm wondering, just by context, if that actually means they intended to worship him, not sacrifice, but decided he wasn't worthy of that because he's a bum.). So they changed their plan to use him to power the Savior.

The plan changed again when they realized Nero was also a descendant of Sparda. Him repairing the Yamato would be impossible otherwise. No one is sure how he is related, but it's possible Sparda left someone behind on the island since he used to live there. Or that's what Agnus thinks. Also Dante is too much of a badass, and the Order can't handle him.

Back to Nero: Nero thinks the Savior is ugly as hell. Sanctus gloats. Apparently the two have never met before. There's a nice Nero vs. Sanctus illustration. Sanctus looks pretty freaky, actually.

Sanctus goads Nero to use Yamato. Nero fights the statue a bit, realizing that he's not doing much damage and that it can heal. He uses the same trick of a 'missed' charge shot on Sanctus, which shakes the guy up a bit. Sanctus acts like he's going to drop Kyrie out of the Savior -- causing her to fall and possibly die -- and distracts Nero enough for the statue to grab him. Sanctus then tells Nero he should thank him since Nero will get to be with Kyrie inside the Savior.

Sanctus ponders that Nero must be around 16-17 (I think one of the game devs says Nero is 19 in an interview, though, so not sure if some of this timing is retconned.) and goes on to say seventeen years ago, the year he became head of the Order, he met a man. This was after the previous 'pope,' Soleimani, died of disease. Sanctus was previously a knight and then became Supreme General of the knights. (Does this mean Credo would've become pope if he hadn't died???) Sanctus and Soleimani were the same age, so it was a question of which of them died first if Sanctus could succeed him as head of the Order. Sanctus had a grand vision of 'paradise,' basically making everyone grateful to god and devout etc. etc., that Soleimani just couldn't grasp. (Probably because he was sane.) Sanctus decided to kill the guy with poison, which he did because as a 'bishop' he regularly dined with the pope. It took two years for the guy to die, so everyone assumed it was disease. Aha, Sanctus was the oldest of the 'bishops,' and no one had any problem with him so that's why he became 'pope.' (I'm just gonna use that word since the translator does and it takes too long to type "head of the order of the sword" every time.)

So, the new pope is expected to spend a night up in the Castle in what they thought was Sparda's bedroom to 'inherit the noble soul of Sparda.' Vergil sneaks into the room to poke around, which understandably spooks Sanctus. Sanctus asks what he's doing, Vergil says he just wants to 'follow in the footsteps of Sparda' and won't kill him if he's honest. Not being utterly useless, Sanctus realizes he has no hope of beating this guy. He asks if Vergil is human, Vergil replies "If I'm not human, what would I be?," but Sanctus has fought demons before, so he asks "Are you a god?" The guards come, and Vergil decides to yeet out the window, but Sanctus is desperate to find out who he is.

Vergil takes a moment to say he doesn't mind these people worshipping his dad, but they should remember that Vergil will surpass him, and says they should consider who they should admire… their old god, or the son who surpassed him. And then he jumps out the window.

Sanctus says he's sure that the man he saw that night is Nero's father. Nero thinks he's nuts. Credo drops in and gets stabbed just like the game. Trish and Sanctus exchange some words. She asks him if he thinks she should "dress more plainly."

Haha! When Sanctus is taunting him about how he's won, Dante says "I think this little devil is still a little bit motivated." Nero chose to smash Sanctus against the statue because he didn't think he could get a good enough grip to crush him with the Devil Bringer. He also didn't want to throw Sanctus at Dante because he 'didn't want to rely on that guy.' While he's getting sucked into the Savior, he thinks that he can rely on Dante to win, though.

Nero asks for help, but Dante says "I don't care about you, just give me the sword back." (Yeesh! I'm hoping that's a mistranslation.)

Stage 11 (inside the Savior)

When Nero sees Kyrie inside the Savior, she apologizes to him and blames herself before she disappears. Nero thinks that if he's in the core of the Savior, that means they aren't trying to kill him. As long as he's alive, he has some hope of saving Kyrie. Then he passes out.

End of the first book.

Link to the next section of notes: https://madartiste.tumblr.com/post/186847616290/deadly-fortune-book-2-chapter-00-1-15

#Devil May Cry #DMC4 #My Notes #Deadly Fortune

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netmaddy-blog · 7 years

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How to Exhume Your Buried Site and Get Recovery From Google

New Post has been published on https://netmaddy.com/how-to-exhume-your-buried-site-and-get-recovery-from-google/

How to Exhume Your Buried Site and Get Recovery From Google

Is There Really a Recovery From Google Slaps?

If you head out on Google and search for ‘recovery from Google’ or ‘recover from Google Penguin,’ or Panda or algorithm updates, you’re going to find a ton of people out there touting that they’ll get you back on track for X amount of dollars.

You’re told you have to contact site owners and have links removed coming into your site. You’re told you have to do this – do that – do something else, create new links this way, listen to “gurus” tell you this is the “new way” to build links post-Panda and post-Penguin.

And for a limited time, you can get our services for $997! What?

Seriously, why would you want to pay someone for something you can do – and should do – yourself?

My e-commerce site was not only slammed by Google’s algorithm updates in September 2012, it was buried – cremated may sound even better. How, you might ask? To this day, I’m not really too sure if it was the Penguin or Panda update, but one of those bad-asses animals took me down – HARD.

My site went from about 150-175 unique visitors a day to TWO – overnight. Like many, many other site owners out there, I was devastated! In less than 24 hours, my site got buried back on page 15+ on Google.

And if that wasn’t enough, Google started de-indexing my pages – one by one until I was left with nothing but the handful of solid backlinks I’d gotten over the last few years of being in business.

I didn’t know what to do. I’d actually had the site and business up for sale for a couple of weeks before the take-down but after Google hammered me, I couldn’t have given the site away.

So I left it to sit for about another month or so while Google systematically de-indexed about 85% of the site’s pages. Slow but sure death and cremation of a site I’d worked hours and hours and hours to build and rebuild. Gone.

Now, I have to say, this wasn’t one of those “niche sites” just for making AdSense or Amazon cash. This was a full-fledged storefront for a product that I design and sell myself.

And I’d taken it from nothing to being on the front page of Google between #1 and #8 position for most of the primary keywords I wanted. I was just gaining an edge on some of my top competitors when – BAM – Google decided my site just wasn’t good enough.

I’d worked on this site for the better part of four years and had registered a brand new NON-exact match domain name about six months before the slam. So I was rather livid, to say the least. I will say that hearing some mega-major corporations being slammed as well did make me feel a little better. At least I knew I wasn’t alone, for whatever that was worth.

So what did I do get back into Google’s good graces? I didn’t file a reconsideration petition. I didn’t follow the “advice” from the “gurus” and buy a new domain name or contact the site owners from where my allegedly “spammy links” were coming from. In fact, when I did a backlink analysis, there really wasn’t much there to be concerned with. So that left on-page issues like overusing certain keywords and/or lacking significant content.

Some “gurus” said my site was worthless now so I may as well ‘put my big girl panties on’ and accept it. Quit. Do something else. You’re done. You did something wrong and now you can’t undo it.

I am so glad I didn’t listen to any of them!!

I knew I had a valuable website with something to say, a great product to offer and content that just needed some updating to be more valuable. So I decided to start on my path to recovery, exhume the ashes of my now more-than-dead site and get to work.

Step One – Remove the Site from Google Analytics That’s right. They de-indexed the site so why bother analyzing it anymore. They took it from me, I took it from them.

Step Two – Take It Down. Yup. I removed every last file from the server and replaced it all with only two files – the index and the custom 404. Regardless of where people landed, they got the same message – and this is crucial in retaining visitors even during downtime.

I did not use any “under construction” images or anything like that. I did a video – me on camera – explaining that I had taken the site down temporarily while doing a complete renovation, to please bookmark the site and stop back around December 5.

Why did I give them a date? Because I didn’t want to have to do another video, for one, and it gave me a deadline to work towards so I wouldn’t get sidetracked doing anything else. The same video announcement went on both the temporary home page and on the custom 404 page.

Step Three – Get Educated. This was something I learned while wandering around YouTube in a daze one day wondering what to do with my site. Sometimes a good redesign with some updated content can do the trick. But you have to know what is wrong and how to fix it. And that takes some research.

My site was built as an HTML/CSS static site, which now that I know more about WordPress, I know using an HTML site leaves a HUGE margin for error if you’re not careful. And now I believe this was one of the main negatives for my site. The URL structure was not correct for the site and the way I was copy/pasting pages to use for other pages encouraged the dreaded “duplicate content” within the site.

The duplicate content actually came in the form of repeated meta tag keywords and meta descriptions showing up on more than one page. Google does not like that – at all. And they’ll let you know by starting to de-index those alleged ‘spammy’ pages.

So I knew I had to rebuild the site using WordPress. And that meant learning a lot more about WordPress than just setting up a content blog. This was serious business here. My old HTML site had the lightbox effect for the product images and a custom order form. I had to replicate that in the new site.

Step Four – Go to YouTube And watch a lot of instructional videos about WordPress. On YouTube I found out how to install the lightbox plug-in, includes the plug-in for WordPress, and how to structure the URLs for a solid site that Google would love.

Step Five – Dig In and Start to Work! I’d already started to get familiar with the Atahualpa theme since using it to rebuild another site, so I figured I’d start with that theme and go from there. Again, because I’m a self-admitted YouTube junkie, I go there first when I need help with stuff. So I spent a lot of time with two browser windows open – one with a YouTube instructional video, the other with the WordPress dashboard open following along.

I’ve also learned a lot about PhotoShop via YouTube so that helped me design a new header image for the site.

Once the framework was done, i.e., color scheme, layout, CSS adds, etc., it was time to start copy/pasting over 200 pages of HTML into Pages and Posts. I love using shortcodes and Include files so I went back to YouTube and found the video I needed to learn how to do that in WordPress. A piece of cake.

Step Six – Time for the New Sitemap! After about 60 hours, yes, an entire week of “overtime,” the site was ready for its new sitemap and re-add to Google Analytics.

Step Seven – Time, Patience, Education and WORK Paid off! I added the site back to Google Analytics along with a brand new 267-page sitemap on December 1. December 2 I checked and they had already indexed 179 pages! And that was after they’d de-indexed all but 23 of 260 pages a couple of months earlier!

So what did I learn from this?

First, when it needs to be done right – Do It Yourself! There are just some things that can’t and shouldn’t be outsourced to anyone else. And when it comes to your business website, this is something that needs to be taken on by you alone.

Why? You know what you want and it’s beneficial to actually get the education and learn new things along the way because they’ll be easier to fix in the future if you have to edit something.

Also, as I moved along through the rebuilding, I recognized several areas where what I had created the first time probably was seen by the Google ‘bots as spamming and duplicate content. If I’d outsourced the job to someone else to “copy/paste” their way through rebuilding, they may not have recognized it.

The ‘Gurus’ Aren’t Always Right! I’d been told by so many people over the last couple of months that my site was dead in the water. Forget it. Start over with something new. Let the domain name expire because it’s worthless now.

And a lot of people probably would have. A lot of people have, especially if they were only small niche sites set up only for the purpose of making Google AdSense or Amazon Associate cash.

I also think there are a lot of people who may be afraid to start over because they may not have invested the ‘blood, sweat & tears’ into their businesses to begin with. They may feel they have nothing to lose so why bother, right?

I could have just ditched this business too, but I was like, I’m gonna beat you, Google! I am not going down without trying! LOL

And then there are the “stereotypical” online marketers who are pretty much just too lazy to put in the effort it will take to exhume their sites from the Google cemetery and they’re perfectly content to start over. Whatever works for them!

But I had a feeling that if you can show Google you’re 100% serious about your business by doing what it takes to survive out there, they’ll work with you. And – I never filed any of those stupid “Reconsideration” things either. Not necessary. I would have felt like I was begging for mercy or something.

I didn’t touch any of the already incoming links to the site either. I left those as they are, wherever they’re coming from. I don’t think I got hit over that, to begin with. I still think it was on-page “over-optimization” – in Google’s algorithms anyway – that nailed my site. And I think reconfiguring and rebuilding all of my ‘old’ content into some fresh stuff made the difference.

Going Forward from Recovery Content – Content – Content. There are two main people I have to give a shout-out to during this entire process both for their encouragement, the way they keep their websites at the top and their 100% focus on building quality content.

Lisa Irby of 2createawebsite.com. Lisa absolutely refused to let me give up on my site. So I’ve been keeping her posted on my progress.

David Boozer of Online Mentor Now. I only just started following David recently after finding him on YouTube and immediately signed up for his email list and free mentoring.

Both David and Lisa will tell you what works – Content. Regularly building high-quality content is the only way to go today and going forward. They’ll tell you that the ‘gurus’ with their latest allegedly push-button, no-work schemes that promise you thousands of dollars overnight – those things don’t work. I know they don’t. I tried them and I got “punished” for using them – harshly.

So with the insight and education of these two awesome online marketers, I put everything else aside and dug my website out of the Google Cemetery. Will it rank high again on Google? I’m expecting it will, now that I have it all in place the way it should be.

So Can You Make a Recovery from Google Slaps? Yes, but you have to WANT it bad enough and then put in the work to make it happen. If you only have a five or ten-page niche site only set up for ads and affiliate links, maybe not.

But if you redesign it – in WordPress – stay away from the shortcuts, do your due diligence and add quality content, you should be able to pull yourself back up.

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