Lilly's Route

[Xanatos]

I've not yet played Shizune or Rin's arc but so far, I'd say Lilly's is the best. Happy, sad, confused, worried, angry, touched, aroused...This thing was pulling me every way. Then I got the bad ending and...I think I died just a little inside (as opposed to simply wanting to after Hanako's bad end).

[OtakuNinja]

Wow, I just stumbled upon the perfect thread for us Lilly Lovers to argue with the Feminists. Silentcook approves

Bring it on, Megumeru! And others...

[Megumeru]

Wow, I just stumbled upon the perfect thread for us Lilly Lovers to argue with the Feminists. Silentcook approves

Bring it on, Megumeru! And others...

I'm flattered I have the honorary mention...

...am I that famous?


seriously though, this thread is old...or quite old

[OtakuNinja]

Wow, I just stumbled upon the perfect thread for us Lilly Lovers to argue with the Feminists. Silentcook approves

Bring it on, Megumeru! And others...

I'm flattered I have the honorary mention...
...am I that famous?

seriously though, this thread is old...or quite old

You're the only one with good arguments.

Who cares? It's the perfect battleground. Silentcook can't stop us this time.

[Xanatos]

Shizune rules, Lilly runs into walls.

[Yellow 13]

You are just jelly that your waifu didn't get an epiloge

[ShadeHaven]

Rin FTW.

What's that? Wrong thread you say?

[Megumeru]

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

Why should we be jealous?

Anyway, ending considered in a more serious note...
Someone quotted that a 'happy ending' is 'happy' because it ended at the right note/timing. What happens next is up in the air.

Shizune's ending though gave an entirely different feel--it doesn't feel like an ending, but more like the 'end of the beginning'. This actually serves true with Rin's ending as well and to some extent, Hanako and Emi. It doesn't give total closure like Lilly's, but an indication that this is just the start of a new page in their life

Which is why I prefer the routes of the other four compare to Lilly.


...now to get my helmet...

[Heartless Wanderer]

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

That sounds like Indoctrination Theory, dude. >_> Also, I wouldn't call it a perfect happy ending, per se. Hisao still has a heart attack, and like the other times he's had heart problems during that story (notice that he has them more often in Lilly's route than in any of the others), it's always going to hang over his head as a constant danger... a constant reminder that some day he may quite likely die too soon, that some day Lilly may lose him anyway. Something as "perfect" as "happily ever after" doesn't entirely apply in that situation. Maybe "all was well." That's more of a "present tense" version of the same thing.

EDIT: I voted "3" because I prefer both Hanako's route and Rin's route to Lilly's. Lilly's wins out on a quality scale just slightly over Emi's in hindsight. I like the relevance and undertone of the choices more, I very much appreciate Lilly as a character in general, and the sex scenes in Lilly's route are my favorite out of all the ones in the game because they have this almost perfect blend of romance, eroticism, and, well, relevance that just hits all the right buttons for me. Hanako's was plot-important and great for characterization, and Rin's were as out of nowhere and tempestuous as everything else about her character. Emi's were shameless quirky fun (or awkwardness), and Shizune's were just spontaneous sexy-time. Nothing wrong with any of that, but I wasn't quite as drawn-in by most of those.

Also, seeing Hanako grow in a more independent way during Lilly's route was endearing as all the hells.

[Megumeru]

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

That sounds like Indoctrination Theory, dude. >_> Also, I wouldn't call it a perfect happy ending, per se. Hisao still has a heart attack, and like the other times he's had heart problems during that story (notice that he has them more often in Lilly's route than in any of the others), it's always going to hang over his head as a constant danger... a constant reminder that some day he may quite likely die too soon, that some day Lilly may lose him anyway. Something as "perfect" as "happily ever after" doesn't entirely apply in that situation. Maybe "all was well." That's more of a "present tense" version of the same thing.

It does sound like indoctrination theory, doesn't it? I'm not saying the ending is bad, it's good--but it's too perfect to be believable. It's like how ME-trilogy ends with utter mindfuck with the god-child and Bioware trying to justify it with the extended cut DLC--which didn't really solve the problem, mind you. Download the 'ending' mod for a better one, screw 'artistic integrity'

But anyway, Lilly's ending is more of a running joke in my case though, something I actually hold canon


Now, Lilly's ending ends in a happy note and--unlike the other ending--it gave something others didn't, and that is closure. The story ends with Lilly and Hisao walking off towards the sunset, all problem somehow magically resolved (or swept under the rug), everybody's happy. It ended at the perfect timing and the right note that wraps up the generic soap opera.

It is, basically 'the end', 'finito', 'owari', 'fin'. This is the feeling Lilly's end gave; the epilogue enforces it even further, while others did not.


Now I kinda wish for 'Katawa Shoujo: After Story' for the rest of the girls...particularly Shii-chan and Rin

[Cognostic]

The story ends with Lilly and Hisao walking off towards the sunset, all problem somehow magically resolved (or swept under the rug), everybody's happy.

I wouldn't say that problems were swept under a rug. More like, they were finally able to fully rely on each other to deal with whatever problems they had. It was before the ending scenes that the problems were swept under a rug.

[Xanatos]

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

No, the epilogue is not an indication of your fanfiction. Sounds like every other ending. It's happy then it stops.

[Oddball]

I'm not saying the ending is bad, it's good--but it's too perfect to be believable.

So a character having a life threatening heart attack and requiring surgery to save his life is "too perfect" to you?

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

No. Is is an indication that you don't know what the word "surreal" means though.

It ended at the perfect timing and the right note that wraps up the generic soap opera.

That's kind of what endings do. The end the story and wrap things up.

But anyway, Lilly's ending is more of a running joke in my case though, something I actually hold canon

Meg, the only one that thinks constantly bringing up that Hisao really died in Lilly's route is funny, witty, or just plain "not incredibly stupid" is you. Honestly, it gets less funny and more annoying every time you bring it up. You didn't like the ending, fine. You're allowed to not like the ending. I didn't like most of Shizune's route, but I don't go around saying that MY version is the correct one and the game was really lying about everything that happened.

[Heartless Wanderer]

EDIT: Spoiler tags added. Would appreciate similar tags being added into quotes of these posts, please. I'm afraid I got caught up in the heat of making a point and forgot to account for people who haven't finished the path yet.

It does sound like indoctrination theory, doesn't it? I'm not saying the ending is bad, it's good--but it's too perfect to be believable. It's like how ME-trilogy ends with utter mindfuck with the god-child and Bioware trying to justify it with the extended cut DLC--which didn't really solve the problem, mind you.

The "problem" was lack of clarification and closure. Extended Cut gave us that, even if the ending concept itself didn't do it for everyone even after those holes were filled in.

Also, Indoctrination Theory would have been a bigger mindfuck, not least because it fucking required indoctrination to completely change its function during the last ten minutes of the game. All Indoctrination Theory was when you boil it down was unsatisfied fans in denial. They didn't like how canon ended up so they tried to convince themselves that there was a canonical loophole through which they could dump the canon ending into a furnace. It was wishful thinking, at best. Like your little "running joke" there. Let's entertain that for a second.

What you suggest in the "Hisao really died at the end of Lilly's route" scenario is a textbook "But it was all a dream" ending. Do you have any idea what a tired, overdone, cliche, anathema piece of shit hackneyed cop-out that would be? Because it would be really tired, very overdone, incredibly cliche, UTTERLY anathema piece of shit hackneyed cop-out if it were true.

Thankfully, it's not. So we can all rest easy.

I don't think Lilly's ending was "too perfect" by any means. It starts with Hisao realizing that he fucked up far too late to do a goddamned thing about it and then further fucking up by giving himself a heart attack in the process of trying to fix things. That he survives (under much more likely circumstances than "he had a heart attack alone in the woods with a girl in the midst of winter," mind you) and has his chance to win back the girl in the end anyway is hardly "too perfect." If I had to pick a detail that seemed a bit cheesy it would be the presence of the music box in the hospital room, and that's just about all.

Also, I didn't see any problems being swept under the rug in the epilogue. Hell, if nothing else, Akira having to move to Scotland anyway put a bit of a damper on the mood even if I was happy to see she at least changed her mind about breaking up with her own boyfriend in the process. A nice touch of bittersweetness, there.

Also, they don't walk off into a sunset at all. Look at that ending art, it's clearly mid-day. What, is good weather a mark of melodrama, now? And like, the very last lines in the story basically say, "Yeah, we know there's probably going to be some more shit going down at some point down the line, but we'll deal with it when we get there." So yeah. It's actually not that perfect at all. It's just that happy moment of resolution that all romances aspire to. Resolution is sometimes mistakenly seen as an ending, where things are wrapped up and put away. But it's more about decisiveness, determination. It's something that is both the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

That's what Lilly's ending was, quite literally. Their resolution to move forward together. It's also what the other good endings were, and what any decent "good" ending is, really. It's just more blatantly spelled-out in Lilly's ending than it is in the others.

And I've been holding that in for a bit too long. Bleh. Rant Mode: Off.

[Megumeru]

The story ends with Lilly and Hisao walking off towards the sunset, all problem somehow magically resolved (or swept under the rug), everybody's happy.

I wouldn't say that problems were swept under a rug. More like, they were finally able to fully rely on each other to deal with whatever problems they had. It was before the ending scenes that the problems were swept under a rug.

Personally I believe it to be swept under the rug after the climax and after the ending. Lilly learned to rely in others, but that is just one of the answered questions out of a few that were left out.

What about Lilly's parents? They won't stand still knowing this--she's still the daughter of the Satous afterall.

What about Akira's boyfriend suddenly being able to leave to Scotland with Akira? How does that work? Why can't they do that the first time before the airport scene? Don't get me started on the taxi scene.

Isn't the epilogue an indication that Hisao actually bite the dust at the airport scene with all that surreal image of a 'perfect happy ending'?

No, the epilogue is not an indication of your fanfiction. Sounds like every other ending. It's happy then it stops.

It isn't an indication of my fanfiction--though I'd be happy to write one, featuring the guy inTaxi and his MIB licensed jet-powered car

Officially, it is a happy ending. Though canonicaly in my interpretation it is more of a bittersweet ending with everything ended up as a figment of imagination minutes before Hisao died--but that's just me...maybe

*snip*

There you go again, provoking hostility which doesn't exist in the first place.
You might want to read the question I jokingly tried to answer before taking things seriously