Katawa Shoujo Forums

Smoku wrote:Well... it IS totally possible to have a disease that wouldn't be so easy to spot and could be lethal.

Strictly speaking, yes, it would be possible. It would still be rather contrived, though.

It would also run the risk of overshadowing the actual substance of Shizune's path. Shizune's storyline wouldn't be about romancing the hot-tempered deaf-mute chick, but helping her overcome the loss of a friend. Which might make for a good story in and of itself, I suppose, but a significant departure from what we've understood KS to be thus far.

The whole idea of killing off Misha reminds me of the thing with the Modern Warfare series. One of the player characters in the first game is killed off by a nuke about halfway through. A lot of people considered it an excellent idea, the shock of killing off a player character seemed to really hit a nerve with the reviewers. Me? It just pissed me off. In the second game, TWO of the player characters are killed off. Pissed me off even more, and the reviewers began to say that they were using it too much, for cheap drama.

Now, the thing is, MW is a war game, so it makes sense that players and NPCs are killed of regularly. It's WAR after all. However, think for a second. Have you ever had something like a game or movie or soap opera happen in real life? Have you ever sat by someone's bedside as the slowly wasted away, having them utter their final words to you as their heart flatlines? Probably not, that kind of stuff doesn't happen in real life. Trust me, I know.... And yes, I know that KS is not trying to be realistic, but it still just feels cheap to kill off a character to try to add drama. Every single time a major character has been killed off in some form of media, it just pisses me off. It rarely makes me sad, it just makes me hate the guts of the writer.

Misha is a beloved character. You have people left and right asking for a route for her. You have fan art and fan fiction involving her appearing just as often. She is a really well-liked character for the most part. Killing her off may add drama, it may make some people think you have the balls to kill off a major, well liked character. But for people like me, all it will do is piss us off, and a lot of us will think you did it as just a cheap way to tug at a player's heart strings.

As for the lesbian ideas, well, I think it could be possible. I highly doubt it based on the way she acts though. She may hang out with Shizune a lot, but when you think about it, all of the major females come in pairs. So theoretically, you could say that any of the major females has a chance to be gay.

Extremist_Line wrote:... you could say that any of the major females has a chance to be gay.

Now your just inflaming the minds of the yuri fans out there with comments like that.

I was wondering to myself why does a character without a path and who is pretty much a sidekick to a girl with a path get so much prolonged attention in the forum? I think she has more posts about her in the forum than any other character. First I considered it might be the "Pink Drill Hair Power" mesmerizing people but found no proof that such a power existed. Then I decided one factor making her so "poplar" could be her lack of a path. Since she doesn't get to bag Hisao people seem to feel much more free to indulge in speculation about her.

So am I making stuff up out of thin air, or is there a seed of reality to that idea?

Extremist_Line wrote:Misha is a beloved character. You have people left and right asking for a route for her. You have fan art and fan fiction involving her appearing just as often. She is a really well-liked character for the most part. Killing her off may add drama, it may make some people think you have the balls to kill off a major, well liked character. But for people like me, all it will do is piss us off, and a lot of us will think you did it as just a cheap way to tug at a player's heart strings.

A fictional character shouldn't get hurt just because someone likes her? This strikes me as pretty stupid. Maybe you think getting upset over the death of a character you like is a bad thing? (it's not)

Extremist_Line wrote:Have you ever had something like a game or movie or soap opera happen in real life? Have you ever sat by someone's bedside as the slowly wasted away, having them utter their final words to you as their heart flatlines? Probably not, that kind of stuff doesn't happen in real life. Trust me, I know....

It does, though. I admit that fiction is very liberal about letting characters die while conscious and coherent- when my grandfather passed away with our family around his bedside, he'd been barely coherent for days and passed away in his sleep. But people do actually die without a war occurring, and it does actually make the person's loved ones sad. It's only a cheap dramatic trick if you use it over and over; using it once, it can be very effective.

You guys made some valid points, I'm sorry, I just tend to get worked up when it comes to character death. I think it's mostly because most of the deaths I've seen just come right out of nowhere in a kind of "Oh, you liked him/her? Well screw you buddy, now feel sad and go beat the crap out of the bad guy." kind of way, you know what I'm saying? And that really makes me mad, just the fact that a writer will throw in a character death for no other reason than just to show he can.

In addition, another reason I'm worried about having Misha die, is the fact that if she does die, it will likely be on Shizune's route, right? Or at the least, her route will have the most impact on it. What I'm worried about is a "pity sex" scenario. You know what I'm talking about, when a mourner's lover comes along, starts cheering them up and then BAM! Pearl Harbor is my most referenced example of this (even though I don't remember that scene all that well).

Anyways, yeah, sorry for the rant, I was being kinda selfish.

Extremist_Line wrote:Misha is a beloved character....Killing her off may add drama, it may make some people think you have the balls to kill off a major, well liked character. But for people like me, all it will do is piss us off, and a lot of us will think you did it as just a cheap way to tug at a player's heart strings.

What you define as "cheap" is completely arbitrary. Apparently, judging by this forum's obsessions, throwing burn scars onto a character is a cheap way of tugging at everyone's heart strings, and it's already well established that a(n excessively) timid character getting to know the MC when she barely trusts anyone else is another valid but arguably overused emotional stimulus for the reader. Does Hanako need a character redesign, then? I don't think you'll find anyone here who believes so (even me, and I dislike both aspects of the character).

What matters is how it's done. As another example, VNs generally include sex scenes as a "cheap" way of appealing to a larger audience, but that's not the approach KS' writers appear to be taking with the erotic content in Katawa Shoujo. Similarly, I doubt they'd make a character death come across as "cheap". My hatred for Shizune and Misha as characters does not in any way extend to the path writer (in fact, it's only because they're well written that I can understand them enough to hate them to the extent that I do) and I have every confidence a Misha death in some branch of the Shizune path would be handled well if it were to occur.

If the popularity of a character exempted him or her from harm, you would swiftly kill off all dramatic tension in any literary work. (This is what happened to Wolverine in Marvel; he's so well liked that his regenerative factor has basically increased by fan demand to the point that he has shrugged off nukes in years past.) The KS authors would obviously prefer that every one of the girls is well liked, so by your logic nothing bad should ever happen to any of them. This is an excellent way to kill off all realism in a story and a very bad way to get a reader hooked.

EDIT: Oh, you posted again. *reads* Well that apology just sorta takes all the steam out of this, doesn't it? Great. I think I hate you now. D:

Aura wrote: A fictional character shouldn't get hurt just because someone likes her? This strikes me as pretty stupid. Maybe you think getting upset over the death of a character you like is a bad thing? (it's not)

This.
Saber kinda dies in F/SN and I like her a lot (she returns in Fate/ hollow ataraxiabut whatever!)

If I want to see a totally non- problematic fun life I read and watch K-ON!. A lot of people (including me) love it tough nothing especially dramatic actually happens there. (Oh, the drama when Azusa joins the club!) <--- not as serious as someone's death, but Death is a realistic thing. Especially should be better known to characters like Hanako (d'oh, her dad dies in a fire and she got scarred. creepy and dramatic and yet not cheap)
Wouldn't be strange if someone, anyone would die on any of the KS routes (doesn't necessarily need to be a major char, maybe someone minor).

Pity sex... is unlikely.

EternalLurker wrote:What matters is how it's done.

For evidence, just consider how many beloved characters Joss Whedon's killed off over the years.

Ok, ok, ok, I get it, I f*cked up! I had a tiring weekend, ok?! Cut me some slack! Jesus, I haven't even been here a month and I get people saying they hate me, plus I have one of the freakin' developers saying my opinions are stupid.

*sigh* I get what ya'll are trying to say. Saying that you shouldn't kill off a character because I don't want her to die is selfish and short-sighted of me. Saying it's a cheap way to inject drama is just a feeble way to try to justify my opinion. Plenty of narratives couldn't have been as good as they were without death, no matter how seemingly random their deaths were, and I should have thought of that.

Just ignore everything I've said. Go back to your speculation, the thread was a lot better when that was going on.

....I'm gonna go play something to get my mind off this.

Extremist_Line wrote:....I'm gonna go play something to get my mind off this.

No need for butthurt my friend. Just a good old-fashioned overly-passionate online debate about nothing of importance. ^_^ Also, the devs think everybody is stupid, possibly even including themselves.

Extremist_Line wrote: get people saying they hate me, plus I have one of the freakin' developers saying my opinions are stupid.

....I'm gonna go play something to get my mind off this.

You take this Internet business far too seriously. My statement was not only sarcastic but also not even in response to the content of your post, merely its timing, and the devs think everyone is stupid. If it makes you feel better, the core idea of what you're saying is understandable; the only real flaw in it is the confidence we have that the devs will keep up the writing quality they've shown in most of Act 1.

Play nicely kids.

EternalLurker (buggy cellphone) wrote:My statement was not only sarcastic

Eh, the problem with sarcasm is that it does not transfer well over the internet. Thanks for clearing it up though.

I think we've got everything straitened out, so can we get back on topic?

Bara wrote:I was wondering to myself why does a character without a path and who is pretty much a sidekick to a girl with a path get so much prolonged attention in the forum?

Two words: haunting laugh.