John Harker said:My take was that they killed each other and 5 years later, we see Sylvia and Travis daughter Jeane. Sure, the girl could have imagined it, but that seems like too much of an easy way out - and why would a little girl imagine killing her parents and getting rapped and all that anyway? Jeane in the story was older than the little girl. I would have bought this line of thinking a bit more if they showed Crystal with an abusive-type man, but it wasn't happenin'.
Alts said:A reason why we should take the ending seriously:
Suda's interest in making a sequel. You can't really make a sequel to an imagined scenario. Although, even in your interpretation, a sequel would be hard to pull off without retcons all over.
I agree with the assessment that in some ways the game is a coming of age story for this hopeless 27-year old otaku...doomed1 said:Bad Girl i'm not so sure of what to make of. using the kill=fuck train of thought, she's a slut. her crocodile tear move is very showing of her manipulative nature and sort of sets up for a kind of relationship that's discussed in Sublime's "Self Esteem." it's not a wonder that Travis walks away shaken
Alts said:I'm going to focus on this part for now, although I will say thatDestroyman's "why fight" thing was a trick. The hand shake zap thing? When I said "the assassins weren't real", I meant they weren't real assassins, not that they didn't exist in that particular reality.
About my understanding of the 'dream ending.' It isn't about being an easy way out, it is about the ending having lost any legitimacy by that point. The twists aren't about making the plot deeper, but about throwing in twists for the sake of it. The dream is just another twist, it doesn't have to be rationalized any more than Henry and Travis being twins does.
Why would the girl imagine her parents getting killed? She didn't. If the painting is just that, then there is no way to know if Henry or Travis are even real people. The father could be anyone.
Why imagine getting raped? That whole segment of the story was fast forwarded, and while it is there, and it makes things convenient, to what extent was the player supposed to know about it? To what extent does Jeane know about it herself if, in the dream, it too was fast forwarded?
The main distinction here is, do we read into the real ending, or do we view it as a joke. I and (likely) Jenga saw it as being a joke. You took it literally.
A reason why we should take the ending seriously:
Suda's interest in making a sequel. You can't really make a sequel to an imagined scenario. Although, even in your interpretation, a sequel would be hard to pull off without retcons all over.
what are you talking about?John Harker said:Might want to fix my quote, you left the spoilers open
We hear that guy talk, and his accent is completely and totally different. I think that was meant to show us that it WASNT that guy, not that it was one of them.
actually,Koomaster said:I agree with the assessment that in some ways the game is a coming of age story for this hopeless 27-year old otaku...
As has already been mentioned, he's been put through the paces of past failed 'kills' of women. And finally speed buster took him under her wing sorta speak as the mature experienced woman. She doesn't put up a fight with Travis, more she is teaching him. And once he's had patience and explored her world and pushed the right button (the telephone poles) she's ready to relent and he's ready to 'kill' her.
On to Bad-girl, now that he has been taught, he can fully interact with her and she with him. BOTH partners have a back and forth with this fight (batting the guys), and Travis also has to be respectful of her moods and knowing when to back off (the fainting). Then toward the end, things get heated up with Bad Girl (the flaming bat). And of course, the fight ends with Travis 'killing' her to which she ends up very suggestively on top of him. Even he himself is tired out from this fight.
Jirotrom said:what are you talking about?
Alts said:Suda's interest in making a sequel. You can't really make a sequel to an imagined scenario. Although, even in your interpretation, a sequel would be hard to pull off without retcons all over.
Yes you do... when Sylvia doesnt show up near the end after one of the fights a clean up man talks to you instead...who has the same voice as the guy who calls you. First you state you don't here them then you state you do...? show a you tube video so we can compare voices it sounded pretty similar to me.John Harker said:You don't hear the two men who do clean up speak at all in the game. At one pointSylvia does not make an appearance after the Bad Girl fight, so the skinny man says like "on behalf of Sylvia Chrystal, you are now ranked 2" or something. That is NOT the guys voice leaving Travis the answering machine messages. I think it was a plot device used so we know that that voice recording is not from these two characters. It helps the allusion that it is from Henry. Especially his last voice message. Listen to it again. It sounds clearly like him and he drops him trying to hide his Irish accent when he says the word 'journey.' But hey, it could all be in the little girls head anyway, right? Easy to get things cloudy when you're dreaming it ::shrug::
Regardless, the voice operator letting the Irish accent come out in the final message to Rank #1 more or less proves it's Henry.Jirotrom said:Yes you do... when Sylvia doesnt show up near the end after one of the fights a clean up man talks to you instead...who has the same voice as the guy who calls you. First you state you don't here them then you state you do...? show a you tube video so we can compare voices it sounded pretty similar to me.
that I have to double check... youtube? I can't remember that as I wasn't paying attention.Jenga said:Regardless, the voice operator letting the Irish accent come out in the final message to Rank #1 more or less proves it's Henry.
Jirotrom said:Yes you do... when Sylvia doesnt show up near the end after one of the fights a clean up man talks to you instead...who has the same voice as the guy who calls you. First you state you don't here them then you state you do...? show a you tube video so we can compare voices it sounded pretty similar to me.
well i think Harker mentioned that it would be neat to haveJenga said:I'm pretty confident in NMH 2 we'll see a bunch of retcons. Not just to make the sequel's plot fit in, but to also make fun of game/movie/comicbook/etc sequels that ret-con the shit out of the original story.
I did... but I didn't think it was a big spoiler.John Harker said:I'm trying not to spoil anything, hence the spoiler tags there pal. Did you even read what I wrote in there, heh
doomed1 said:well i think Harker mentioned that it would be neat to havebe the star of the next game. it would certainly make things interesting and would allow Suda to explore female sexuality and gender roles as well. i could see how he could keep up the LOL OTAKU theme going as well.the little girl
Vinci said:Thank you guys for using spoilers so effectively. I came in here just to say that I let my best friend play this game and he went completely apeshit over it and is purchasing his own copy. Yay!
So yeah, the fact that I haven't beaten it yet ... thanks for the walls of blackened text.
Vinnk said:I love the clean-up men. I wonder what their story is..
oh gawd, i would flip out and explode in my pants at the announcement of a NMH2 Destroyman style.John Harker said:Yea. It goes along with his Kill-Bill-revenge-style scenario as well.
But along those lines, what interests me the most, was how it looked like the"To Be Continued" font at the end of the real ending looked like "Back to the Future." It would be cool if he did some play on that. This one was very Star Warsy, it would be cool to do a satire of other films like BTTF and star the little girl in the future and her own life, or perhaps write it like it his Travis daugther and she can go back in time and save her father from being killed, etc. Oh, the possibilities.
Honestly though, I'm pretty sure I'd be equally as happy with a NMH2 as I would be a totally original Suda project as well. I wanted a Killer7 sequel badly and I got this instead and was MORE than pleased, so.
Jenga said:Regardless, the voice operator letting the Irish accent come out in the final message to Rank #1 more or less proves it's Henry.
Jirotrom said:that I have to double check... youtube? I can't remember that as I wasn't paying attention.
MiniDitka said:Is this the message? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjEspjuU9w
The one problem I have with that isJohn Harker said:Thanks for that man.
I've been saying that for 3 pages.
How can you listen to that and NOTthink its Henry? The voice from the beginning sounded like him but was trying to cover the accent. And as I said, ever since the Big Show ranking, Sylvia disappears, and the voice messages have been shorter, curter, and sometimes ruder. Suspicions abound. Till finally Henry confronts him.
Akai said:The one problem I have with that isHenry alluded to having no part in Sylvia's con deals...And Sylvia herself appeared surprised that Henry popped up after #5...
Enduin said:Once the Rank 1 battle comes available the whole story loses all credibility and direction, everything was thrown out the window. Applying the new information to what happened and why doesnt work, and its not supposed to. Its the whole point, the twists and revelations are just there to ruin everything, continuing and emphasizing how so many games and movies are devoid of good and clever story telling so they must resort to absurd twists and character introductions at the very end that make no sense in order to have an interesting ending.
That definitely makes sense...Of course, you could also addJohn Harker said:I think she wasn't surprised as much asconcerned. Maybe his job is simply to act the part of the messenger, but he got suspicious of Sylvia and actually came to check out who she was conning this time. She was concerned Henry was on to her, and then after being with Travis after the next fight, she flees the scene more or less, and Henry gets more agitated after seeing who Travis was and made it a bit more personal. He did say he had nothing to do with it, but what would be his motivation for admitting he was in on it? His part in the scheme was relatively minor. He could have just made those calls, not entirely knowing what Sylvia was up to, hence he finds her just 'disappearing' from time to time to make some extra cash.
Enduin said:You guys are trying really hard to make sense of Henry and so on but I think youre wrong in trying so. Youre attempting to make sense of something that is not supposed to make sense.
Once the Rank 1 battle comes available the whole story loses all credibility and direction, everything was thrown out the window. Applying the new information to what happened and why doesnt work, and its not supposed to. Its the whole point, the twists and revelations are just there to ruin everything, continuing and emphasizing how so many games and movies are devoid of good and clever story telling so they must resort to absurd twists and character introductions at the very end that make no sense in order to have an interesting ending.
Yeah I was going to say that too. That's why I'm not sure if it wasninj4junpei said:One thing I don't understand is whyTravis' answering machine has the same voice as Henry? What I mean is the message when there are no messages.
nice... thanks, yeah thats definitely henry.MiniDitka said:Is this the message? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjEspjuU9w
John Harker said:But this is where we differ slightly.
The story does matter, and fairly deeply. It isn't the story that is what is satiracal here, so much as the way it is presented. From the opening line to the final scene, the whole way I looked at it was that the game itself was very self aware. The game knew it was a game. The narrative was important and complex, but it was struggling to be heard and understood because it was being delivered to you via a video game. So a lot of references and comments and things were thrown into the story so you never forgot you were playing a video game, but that doesn't belittle the actual events of the game itself, the actual story and narrative. As Alts is trying to point say to some extent, the themes and allegorical nature and so forth are important and real and so is the narrative, its just struggling within the boundaries of the video game world and doesn't let you forget it.
So to me it isn't so much trying to piece together a useless or senseless plot, its more like trying to pull back the presentation curtain and see what really happened. A lot of the lines were delivered in jest or as a video game satire or a movie joke or whatever, but that simply underlies the fact that a real story was happening.
Damn....you were right. You have a good ear becauseJohn Harker said:Thanks for that man.
I've been saying that for 3 pages.
How can you listen to that and NOTthink its Henry? The voice from the beginning sounded like him but was trying to cover the accent. And as I said, ever since the Big Show ranking, Sylvia disappears, and the voice messages have been shorter, curter, and sometimes ruder. Suspicions abound. Till finally Henry confronts him.
Error said:all the plot twists at the end were fully intentional, if you take NMH story as satire then it all makes sense but if you try to approach it with another mindset then you are missing the whole point of the story.