Katawa Shoujo Forums

Jobriq wrote:
Let me give a better answer: Hisao's retarded. Also, he probably wouldn't be able to convince her to stay in Japan over a phone, although he might not have been able to do so in person either. The only option left is almost killing yourself and forcing her to stay out of concern for your health. *insert scumbag Hisao meme*

Maybe she wouldn't be convinced over the phone, but the least he could do was be like
"LILLY DON'T GO YET I NEED TO TALK MMKAY"

Baby come back! You can blame it all on me! Wait, that may not be the appropriate song here...

FYI, this is a weird request, I know, but can I eat your username?

Ascension wrote:can I eat your username?

Kinky ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It's also perfectly possible that Lilly simply had her phone turned off in order to avoid last-minute calls that would shake her sense of guilt.

Oddball also makes some pretty good points regarding Lilly's "issues". One more thing though:

3) Control freak. Looking over the path, everything that happens is because Lily decides what happens and when it happens.

Lilly's actually trying to get Hisao to show more initiative...it just doesn't really work until she's on her way to the airport already.

Has anyone thought of the fact that some people don't like their phones on 24/7/365? Some people don't actually have their phones on constantly. Seriously, don't read too far into it.

And thank you for interrupting whatever was happening o.o

Liminaut wrote:Lily has some pretty huge emotional issues, and they are only lightly touched on.

Abandonment.

Only loving the broken.

Control freak.

Epic emotional compartmentalization.

Lilly has no apparent abandonment issues. "BUT SHE HAS TO HAVE BEEN MESSED UP!" - Prove it. Go compile every single instance of parents leaving their children ever. If every such child has issues, you might have a point.

Lilly confesses to Hisao after a heart attack? So fucking what? She was into him before that. The attack just kickstarted the urgency of making a move. Her friend is emotionally broken? Again, so fucking what? She's Hanako's friend. That isn't a crime.

Everything is left to Lilly because neither Hanako nor Hisao step up to make any decisions. Hanako's too broken and Hisao's too apathetic. They expect her to do it so she does it. That isn't a control freak. That's just someone who is able to take the lead when it's expected of them.

Emotional compartmentalization? Sorry but "She didn't make a big depressing ordeal of saying goodbye!" is not emotional compartmentalization. She knew from the beginning what was going to happen. She made her peace with it long before the time came for goodbyes. Just because she didn't meet your personal standards of how lovers should say goodbye doesn't mean she has issues.

TL;DR - There's a reason none of that is heavily touched upon: You just made all of that up.

A lot of people have responded very well to my previous post on this thread. It's clear I've been understood, if not agreed with, so I'm happy there.

Part of the inherent nature of VNs is that words are sparse, especially compared to the story that gets told. This means that we perforce get the tip of the tip of the iceberg in terms of the personalities of the characters, and we readers have to / have the chance to fill in the details of the iceberg. If my Lily is different from other people's Lily, I think that's a feature not a bug.

Oddball wrote:

Liminaut wrote:

Why does Lily love Hisao, anyway?'

He's helpful, friendly, smart, honest, and hansom, helpful, and shares some of her interests. He also tends to let her lead rather than trying to take control and given that she by her nature has to move more slowly this could be a big deal for her. Also, he's extremely patient and nonjudgemental when it comes to her best friend, a person that not a lot of other people care for. There's also a certain naiveness about him that she says she enjoys.

Basically though, he's just a really nice guy.

That makes sense.

Xanatos wrote:

Liminaut wrote:Lily has some pretty huge emotional issues, and they are only lightly touched on.

Abandonment.

Lilly has no apparent abandonment issues. "BUT SHE HAS TO HAVE BEEN MESSED UP!" - Prove it. Go compile every single instance of parents leaving their children ever. If every such child has issues, you might have a point.

TL;DR - There's a reason none of that is heavily touched upon: You just made all of that up.

Did you ever have fantasies as a child of being abandoned by your parents? How did that make you feel?

I remember going through that as a child, and the fantasy was so strong it reduced me to tears. I couldn't tell my parents why I was crying -- I knew it was only a silly fantasy -- but I still couldn't stop crying.

Now, imagine going through that in real life.

Imagine being in Lily's position. Having your parents leave you and only your sister being willing to stay and look after you. Imagine that first night without your mother and father being there when you wake up in the middle of the night. How does that feel?

Yes, I'm using the word 'imagine' here. The nature of a VN is that we aren't even given a skeleton of a story, we are given just the ligaments. And we have to imagine the rest. And in Lily's I keep coming back to that 12-year old waking up in the middle of the night.

You have to remember that Lilly's parents left 6 years ago. It's quite possible Lilly had a rough time with that at the beginning, but eventually managed to give it a place and move on. She's had several years to do it. That doesn't mean the event couldn't have had any impact on Lilly in any way, but it doesn't immediately show, neither directly nor indirectly.

Also, Akira got a job in Japan around the same time, so she would have stayed around anyway. She took care of Lilly because their dad's parents were having health problems and she didn't think leaving Lilly with them was a good idea.

Liminaut wrote:Did you ever have fantasies as a child of being abandoned by your parents? How did that make you feel?

I remember going through that as a child, and the fantasy was so strong it reduced me to tears. I couldn't tell my parents why I was crying -- I knew it was only a silly fantasy -- but I still couldn't stop crying.

Now, imagine going through that in real life.

Imagine being in Lily's position. Having your parents leave you and only your sister being willing to stay and look after you. Imagine that first night without your mother and father being there when you wake up in the middle of the night. How does that feel?

Yes, I'm using the word 'imagine' here. The nature of a VN is that we aren't even given a skeleton of a story, we are given just the ligaments. And we have to imagine the rest. And in Lily's I keep coming back to that 12-year old waking up in the middle of the night.

See, there's your problem. You imagined it and cried - But the vast majority of people are not you. In fact, only one person on this entire planet is you. What you did, how you reacted...Means nothing while discussing Lilly.

Me, my parents split before I can remember so I got no abandonment vibes from mother going away. After that, my stepmom was awful and her abandoning us was no great loss (hell, when she died of cancer later, all it got from me was "*shrug* Karma's a dick."). And my father was honestly kinda shit at being a parent to the point that I prefer not to refer to him as such so when I imagine him bailing, the biggest loss is less "My parent is gone." and more "The guy who pays for things is gone."...How does it feel? "Eh, I'll find someone else to provide stuff."

And what relevance does the question have anyway? You're not talking about me, you're talking about Lilly. And Lilly shows no signs of trouble so any abandonment issues are mere assumption on your part.

Seems to be my "She shows zero signs of issues so she doesn't have them." versus your "She shows zero signs of issues but I know for an absolute fact that it is 100% impossible for her to not have issues, so she has them!"...One of those looks at the evidence. The other looks at the evidence and completely ignores it in favor of projecting personal feelings onto the scenario.

There is nothing in the nature of a VN that forces a lack of or minimal story. Hell, I've seen some that might as well have been short books. That said, the nature of any fictional media is that anything unexplained is free for fan interpretation so you can imagine whatever you like...But in the end, any abandonment issues she has are only in your head and thus not canon which brings me back to "It's not touched upon because you just made it up."

And you really can't criticize a story for not touching upon things you just made up. Though, you can still criticize it for not taking the direction you wanted (certainly a 'what if' to speculate about)...Though there's enough parental abandonment issues with Emi.

Or Akira for that matter. She's kinda easy-going and carefree most of the time, but mention her parents to her and you'll be able to cut the bitterness in the air with a katana.

Guest Poster wrote:Or Akira for that matter. She's kinda easy-going and carefree most of the time, but mention her parents to her and you'll be able to cut the bitterness in the air with a katana.

That's saying a lot considering Akira's basically got a constant flow of beer into her system. You'd think she'd be able to shrug off all that bitter resentment stuff...

Here's the thing about Lilly's wheat field speech and then going to Scotland.

By the time she confesses to Hisao, she had already been proposed to live in Scotland. Lilly confessed to Hisao because she knew it was her chance to do so, and if she did not she probably never would get the chance to again. The reasoning behind this is because Lilly wanted to live her life in Japan to the fullest while she still could and perhaps maybe even find something in Japan to stay there (namely Hisao).

This is probably why Lilly tries to get Hisao to tell her everything and not to hide anything, even though she was hiding something herself. I believe she was trying to get Hisao to show a little initiative and speak his feelings, but of course Hisao being freaking Hisao he doesn't catch on to this and believes everything is handy dandy so has no idea what's going on until he gets a call from Akira who flat out tells him that they're leaving.

But here the thing, by that point Lilly had finally decided to leave and it was too late to do anything about it. Although Hisao tries to get her to stay, he still doesn't show any initiative to try showing her why she should stay. It's not until Lilly actually leaves for Scotland that he finally shows initiative to try and get her to stay.

So, Ironically having a heart attack is the best thing that happened to Hisao. If he hadn't have had a heart attack he wouldn't have caused a commotion, without said commotion Lilly and Akira would have never noticed that he was even there. Thus, Lilly sees that Hisao almost killed himself just to get Lilly to stay and showing how much he really loved Lilly. So with this, she decides to stay and be with Hisao forever and live happily ever after while Akira goes to work in Scotland.

Or atleast this is what I get from playing Lilly's story. What do you guys think?

I think you've confused "intuition" and "initiative"...

And if he hadn't had the heart attack, he might've caught up anyway. A commotion is as likely to have Lilly and company hurrying along without getting a good look through the people crowding around him...Really, Hisao just got lucky.

Xanatos wrote:I think you've confused "intuition" and "initiative"...

And if he hadn't had the heart attack, he might've caught up anyway. A commotion is as likely to have Lilly and company hurrying along without getting a good look through the people crowding around him...Really, Hisao just got lucky.

I think you're right. (fixed)

And I guess, lol

Still, I think my main idea as for why Lilly did what she did is pretty possible. And would make MUCH more sense than going "NEVER LEAVE ME!!" then leaving herself for no good reason like everyone seems to believe.