Hanoko Ending - A choice where there is not a choice -Lolwut

[Gnarle]

Spoiler warning : Choice within route

There is a choice after Lily leaves for Scotland, (1 call it a day or 2) go out

No matter the action taken, the conversation her door where she locked herself in, is the same 100%
But.
When calling Lily, after you talk to her locked in, there is another "choice"
1) Agree with Lily 2) Trust your own judgement

Problem is, if you did not take her out, you cannot agree with Lily no matter what, which makes the choice name quite weird,
you agree but you dont agree?, its the same as trusting yourself dialogue.
Now this might actually only make a little sense if the scene at her door were different as if you would not have gone out, but it is not. It is identical
Is that a bug? Its like making a choice where its : 1) Say yes 2) Say no --> Pressing 2 --> "You cannot say yes, you say No instead"
= Lolwut?

Somehow this part made me very frustating, even though its not a route i actually dwelve too much in personally.
Thoughts?
And no i dont think the taking out part have enough argument behind it to change the choices based on the scenes after being the same.

[Guest Poster]

I think by the time of the call, Hisao was already too entrenched in his white knight persona to be talked out of it...so the choice is ultimately cosmetical, but it's not the only cosmetical choice in the game.

[Gnarle]

Hmpf. I would say it could have been justified, if the dialogue actually changed to reflect is.
One could say that not asking her out resulted in seeing her as an object that needed protection more than a person you wanted to hang out with and have fun with.
But the dialogue does not indicate he is doing either from what i have seen (just played it through again to check)

Ohh well.

[newnar]

Just what are you talking about???

[Guest]

Just what are you talking about???

You dont know unless you played Hanako Route.
And if you did your memory does not serve you well.

[Althamus]

I thought the Hanako route was quite harsh... the original choice between bad route and good/neutral route was quite tough IMHO. I sat for a good minute staring at the screen thinking if I ask her to town, she'll decline. It's the middle of the day, and Lilly isn't there, she'll just turn me down. However splitting from her for the day isn't going to help anything either, so I guess asking her to town on the offchance she says yes is better...?

Emi's route had a let-out clause. If you made a bad decision, Misha came and rescued you. I think the phone call should've been like that.

[Minister of Gloom]

Depending on your previous choices, yes, this choice may be meaningless by the time you get it. Hisao is, in fact, capable of listening to the advise he is given and changing his mind if you made the right choices before. If you checked both of them and none work, it means you need to go back to the beginning of the Route and try again.

[Brogurt]

You know that a VN protag is well written when you tell him to do something and he refuses to do it.

[NoOne3]

I have a theory about that:
It is supposed to replicate the situation from real life, when whatever you do, you're still fucked because of some mistakes you made before, not even knowing due to lack of insight into the simplest of choices.

It seems sooo real.

[Althamus]

I have a theory about that:
It is supposed to replicate the situation from real life, when whatever you do, you're still fucked because of some mistakes you made before, not even knowing due to lack of insight into the simplest of choices.

It seems sooo real.

Yes, but that would apply better to choices you make which are obviously right or wrong. "Do I attack this girl or do I not?" will obviously potentially end in "This girl will never ever like me."
"Do I take a girl with severe social anxieties into a garish city or not" shouldn't have a possible ending of "ultimate failure" IMHO. It's too harsh a choice bearing in mind deciding not to go would be the choice I would probably make IRL (this is a book, and so is leading towards Hanako being independent. IRL there are no such guarantees.)

[Guest Poster]

I don't think the point of the choice was taking her into the city or not. The point of the choice was leaving the choice itself up to her. This choice, like many others, determines Hisao's outlook on things.

If he decides not to go into the city, because of Hanako's social anxiety, he makes the choice for Hanako without giving her a say in the matter and this mindset that he knows what's best for her then becomes stronger up until the moment of Hanako's birthday. If Hisao does decide to ask Hanako to come along, he figures in advance she's gonna decline, but feels he should still leave the choice up to her. Not only does this create a different mindset (wanting leave those kinds of decisions with Hanako where they belong), but to Hisao's surprise, Hanako immediately says yes, leaving Hisao wondering whether he got into the habit of underestimating her, which also factors into his ability to maintain faith in Hanako when Lilly tells him to.

[Althamus]

I don't think the point of the choice was taking her into the city or not. The point of the choice was leaving the choice itself up to her. This choice, like many others, determines Hisao's outlook on things.

If he decides not to go into the city, because of Hanako's social anxiety, he makes the choice for Hanako without giving her a say in the matter and this mindset that he knows what's best for her then becomes stronger up until the moment of Hanako's birthday. If Hisao does decide to ask Hanako to come along, he figures in advance she's gonna decline, but feels he should still leave the choice up to her. Not only does this create a different mindset (wanting leave those kinds of decisions with Hanako where they belong), but to Hisao's surprise, Hanako immediately says yes, leaving Hisao wondering whether he got into the habit of underestimating her, which also factors into his ability to maintain faith in Hanako when Lilly tells him to.

Clever. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but that's a good way of looking at it which makes the story arc make a lot more sense.

[Brogurt]

The wording for the choices didn't imply that at all.
Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that something like that happened. "I'm fine," anyone?

[Althamus]

The wording for the choices just describes the final actions you can take. It doesn't detail the thought processes which led to those actions being decided on. You might've asked Hanako to the city because you wanted to give her the choice, because you thought it would do her good to get out a bit more, because you actually thought she might go with you, or because you wanted to see her break down and cry in front of everyone.

If you got the good ending, I think it's retro-actively assumed you went because of some similarities to the first reason I gave in the previous paragraph.
If you got the neutral ending, I think it's retroactively assumed you went because of the second reason, etc etc.

[Guest Poster]

or because you wanted to see her break down and cry in front of everyone.

This kind of depends on the choice you made at the beginning, but in Act 2 Hisao gets approached by the student council and he has the choice to ditch them or help them out. If you choose to help them out, Hisao asks Hanako if she's coming along too, but she declines and walks off. (maybe intimidated by Shizune) That scene there indicates to the player that Hanako's not some extreme doormat who passively goes along with everything, even if she really doesn't want to, but is capable of determining and setting her own boundaries. With that in mind, inviting her onto a city hop isn't that much of a risk...if she doesn't think she can handle it, she'd have said no.