Lilly's Route (SPOILERS)

[SpunkySix]

Still more condescending bullshit.

There's this thing called an Ad Hominem attack. You should really look it up before you get into these kind of arguments. Otherwise, you shouldn't be taken seriously.

He's not just saying that you're being condescending though, he's saying that you're being that way in addition to having a poor argument. This is a fairly justified criticism, and the first half might not affect the actual argument at hand, but it would still be nice if you'd adjust your 'tude.

[someguy1294]

I thought this thread was dead... I missed a lot while I was gone ._.

Comparing Hanako to a child isn't creepy, because Hisao didn't fuck her in this route!

Maybe Hisao is just a pedophile I mean lolicon.

...Wait! That solves everything!

You're right, guys. Comparing Hanako to his daughter wasn't bad writing. The writers of Lily's route simply chose to interpret Hisao as a pedophile.

Ooh, think we'll ever get to see a sequel to Lily's route where Lily helps Hisao lure children out of kindergartens with free candy? Come on, fanfic writers. This stuff's just begging to be written.

[someguy1294]

it would still be nice if you'd adjust your 'tude.

...Are we all somehow missing the fact that Potato accuse me of being illiterate and mentally ill in his first post? Am I really the one in need of attitude adjustment, here?

[Steinherz]

Ooh, think we'll ever get to see a sequel to Lily's route where Lily helps Hisao lure children out of kindergartens with free candy? Come on, fanfic writers. This stuff's just begging to be written.

What, do you think everyone on here is Banda?

[Potato]

it would still be nice if you'd adjust your 'tude.

...Are we all somehow missing the fact that Potato accuse me of being illiterate and mentally ill in his first post? Am I really the one in need of attitude adjustment, here?

If you cannot distinguish questions from accusations, well...That's a personal problem. And yes, you are. Your hypocritically-condescending dismissal of all my posts by replacing all the text doesn't exactly give you any high ground here either. That first post is absolutely laced with mockery but at least I'm still quoting your actual words instead of this passive-aggressive text-swapping shit.

Illiterate mentally ill bullshit

Look at that. I prevented you from being a liar with the previous post. You're welcome.

And I'll take up that fanfic challenge. Should be fun.

[Guest Poster]

...Are we all somehow missing the fact that Potato accuse me of being illiterate and mentally ill in his first post? Am I really the one in need of attitude adjustment, here?

If you cannot distinguish a question from an accusation, well...That's a personal problem.

To be honest, an assholish remark worded as a question in order to be able to play the question/accusation semantics game is still an assholish remark. Someguy's posting style in this thread could have used some 'tude-tuning, but I thought he was right on the mark with his complaints about that one.

[Potato]

To be honest, an assholish remark worded as a question in order to be able to play the question/accusation semantics game is still an assholish remark.

Very true. But no assholish remarks were framed as questions to play a semantics game. There were questions framed in mockery but that had nothing to do with enabling any kind of game. That had to do with the fact that I was mocking him.

See, when some guy goes off on a long ramble criticizing a story then shows a complete inability to interpret a most basic story element that I learned in elementary, I legitimately begin to wonder A) If he has some condition that hampers his ability to pick up on such things (which I would not mock) or, barring that, B) whether he's just not well-read enough to understand said basic element (which, given the lengthy criticism, I had to mock). Hence why both were phrased as questions, and the first specifically separated from the mocking ones.

There isn't even any kind of semantics to argue there. I didn't accuse him of anything in that post, he just failed to realize they were legitimate questions...Y'know, even though that very same post says they are legitimate questions.

[Guest Poster]

Whenever trying to determine what to write in my posts, I generally try to apply the question "How would I phrase this if the person I'm addressing would be standing right in front of me?"

If someone I just met in real life immediately started asking if I had any mental disorders in response to my words, even if that person meant it as a serious question, I'd probably be ticked off too. In fact, going around asking people if they have mental disorders in response to statements, whether you agree with them or not, is generally an excellent way to antagonize them before you even get to the crux of the argument.

If you sincerely asked someone you just met whether he has a mental condition or not and were genuinely surprised it was treated as an insult and not as a neutral question, then (no offense) I think you missed something in elementary as well.

[Oddball]

Am I really the one in need of attitude adjustment, here?

At this point? yeah. You pretty much are.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, both your posts are pretty vitriolic, regardless of whether it is because of the use of insinuating questions, accusations of mental deficiencies or other underhanded arguments.
I predict that if this continues as it has, this thread won't survive the day.

[Silentcook]

Oh, no. No no no no no.

If this continues as it has, someguy1294 and Potato might not keep access to their accounts for long.

But the thread? Still fine.

STRONG hint: PMs exist.

[SpunkySix]

Oh, no. No no no no no.

If this continues as it has, someguy1294 and Potato might not keep access to their accounts for long.

Good sir, if I may, as somebody not even directly involved in this particular quarrel, this post put, as one might say, "the fear of God" in my heart.

[Atario]

Rather than an internal monlogue, he could have just called her and found that her phone was turned off/dead/out of service... action is usually more interesting than internal monologue, anyways.

That presumes he didn't already know her service was discontinued. If, as might be expected, (1) she'd had it shut off, and (2) he knew she'd had it shut off, there'd be no reason to try calling nor to think to himself that there would be no reason to call. There would be nothing to do but go to her, as he did.

You seem a little too confident about Lily's route growing on me. Sometimes people simply don't like certain stories

I have faith.

[someguy1294]

Well, you heard the Cook, Potato. Do you want to take this to PM's, or do you want to drop it? Those are about the only option I think we have at this point.

For the record: I came to this thread with the intent of discussing literature, not getting bogged down in an ugly argument.

[someguy1294]

Rather than an internal monlogue, he could have just called her and found that her phone was turned off/dead/out of service... action is usually more interesting than internal monologue, anyways.

That presumes he didn't already know her service was discontinued. If, as might be expected, (1) she'd had it shut off, and (2) he knew she'd had it shut off, there'd be no reason to try calling nor to think to himself that there would be no reason to call. There would be nothing to do but go to her, as he did.

That's not a bad theory on the cell-phone thing, but I still feel too much was left to the reader's guess-work.

I'd like to talk about a point you brought up a few pages ago, that the central problem in Lily's route is not her attachment to her family, but her inability to express and act on her own desires. The most moving scenes in the route (the wheat field, the hospital) come when Lily drops the pretense of what is 'proper' and dignified and expresses her desires without censoring herself, so you may very well be on to something here. I may have latched onto the family connection thing, because to me, that is a more compelling obstacle to overcome. That, and I loved the scene in which Akira tells Hisao about how she took care of Lily when she was a child. One of the better pearls I picked out of what I mostly considered to be a muddy ocean bottom.

One of the reasons Lily's aversion to asserting her desires didn't come across as dramatic to me, I think, is that it isn't something Hisao had to fight against on Lily's end. He had to deal with the same problem on his own end (as you noted), but rather than actively struggle to get through Lily's barriers, he draws Lily out of her shell by accident; he has a heart-flutter, Lily becomes aware of how easily he can die, this forces her to express her feelings.

Now, this sets Lily's route apart from the Rin's, Emi's and Hanako's haven't read Shizune's yet, so I can't speak on that because in all of the other routes, Hisao had to struggle to overcome the girl's personal boundaries to connect to her. He suffers endlessly in his efforts to follow and understand Rin, he confronts Emi on her tendency to dodge serious issues and hide her problems, leading to a nasty argument (in one branch, anyways), and he goes through tremendous efforts to ease Hanako out of her timidity. My point here is that in these routes, the chief obstacles Hisao had to struggle against were at both psychological and external; they came from the personal demons and baggage each love interest was carrying around.

With Lily's route... he didn't struggle to get through her wall. He lured her out by accident. The only psychological obstacle he really struggles against is his own inability to fight for what he wants. He creates the obstacle entirely on his own. To me, that just isn't as compelling.

One could argue that Lily's aversion to expression of desire rubbed off on him as they spent time together (picking up traits from the girls seems to be a recurring theme in each route, so this is not unreasonable), but this raises some questions about the definition of Hisao's character, or, perhaps, the lack thereof. Hisao is clearly the least defined character in the story (as he must be, since who he is changes depending on the reader's choices), but if Hisao's central flaw is merely a mannerism he picked up from the love-interest, it makes him feel a little hollow, a sort of place-holder character. Being a dynamic character is one thing, but Hisao appears to be so malleable that he has no real substance in and of himself.

Now, Hisao being a bland character isn't as large a problem in the other routes, because in the other routes, his problem comes primarily from his expectation and desires bouncing off the love interest's personal barriers. Thus, Hisao defines himself by struggling against those barriers. The subdued nature of his character works as a foil against the more vibrant and defined characters he interacts with.

This isn't to say that one can't write a compelling story in which the chief conflict is the protagonist's own mental conflict. It's merely to say that if the chief conflict comes from the protagonist himself, then the protagonist must have interesting internal problems to struggle against. If Hisao's chief problem is that he has an aversion to expressing his desires for fear of violating social grace, than that needs to be a defined part of his character.