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Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:09 pm
by ProfAllister
Xanatos wrote:
ProfAllister wrote:Also, for all her talk, Emi doesn't give up on Hisao.
How is Hisao actually trying to salvage things and Emi blatantly refusing to bother not giving up?
Emi's not refusing to bother. She's actively trying to push Hisao away.

No matter how you go about it, it's pretty much explicitly stated that she's following a script, but her heart's not really in it. Regardless, she stops to listen to Hisao - she doesn't want to be the bad guy. She wants Hisao to agree that it's not going to work, or to admit that he doesn't really care. She wants a reason to break it off, and any excuse will work. GoodEmi Hisao doesn't let her have an excuse, while BadEmi Hisao won't even try to fight arguments she doesn't believe herself.

Also, Emi allows Hisao to make stupid mistakes. In the other arcs, one wrong choice is an express train to Bad Ending. For Emi, you need to make two wrong choices. The second chance is an important detail.

(Yes, technically speaking, Rin allows you one wrong choice with a chance to make it up, but it's a lot less explicit, and the first wrong choice isn't so much wrong as less right)

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:23 pm
by Snow_Storm
I enjoy Emi's bad end because she kept it real.

Granted, I also never experince any type of feels or emotions during any of the characters bad endings.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:30 pm
by Arco
lolwut?
Did it really make you sad?
The whole over-rehearsed break up thing she pulled out made me want to jump across the screen and tell her to go and f*** herself

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:35 pm
by yummines
fyi, bad endings are supposed to make you feel bad.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:40 pm
by Snow_Storm
Arco wrote:lolwut?
Did it really make you sad?
The whole over-rehearsed break up thing she pulled out made me want to jump across the screen and tell her to go and f*** herself
No, because I don't take video games or visual novels so seriously I get emotionally worked up about it. I see it how I see other games and VNs if I get a bad ending or a game over: Suck it up and figure out what was the best path to take.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:53 pm
by Nyzer
Ok it's been a while since I've played her path, but doesn't virtually every side character come give you advice on her at some point during the path?
Misha, the Nurse, Emi's mom (maybe). Does Kenji say anything absurd but insightful in this arc? I don't think so, could be wrong.
You have to ignore pretty much everything they tell you to get her bad ending.
I think seeking Misha's help causes Hisao not to ignore it. The Nurse's advice doesn't seem to do much towards either end. Emi's mom is in the same boat as Misha.
Mutou pretty much flat out tells you what you need to do to get her good end.
No, he's talking about scientific observation. It ends up being a phrase Hisao remembers later and tries applying to social situations - that is, that the actions of one object might cause visible reactions in others nearby - so he wonders if Emi's flip-flop mindset might be something her mom can clue him in about. But the conversation with Mutou and the offer for that conversation are not related to her at all.
Or you just have to ignore them all and not talk to them, being single mindedly focused on Emi. Again, keep in mind, when you are making choices in the game, you aren't only choosing what Hisao will say, you are forming his very personality. If you ignore everyone, and always follow Emi everywhere she goes, the personality you form for him is kind of a clingy freak. And this isn't even going into Emi's own personality, which is far more similar to Hanako than it seems on the surface. Emi is also a deconstruction of white knighting, and if you keep pressing her about her issues, you are trying to "fix" her, which is pretty much the antithesis of what this game is about.
I don't know that she's quite a deconstruction. Certainly not on Hanako's level. Bear in mind that Hisao isn't necessarily clingy if he's BadEmi Hisao, he's just not really social with most people. Hisao, up until the conversation on getting close to people, assumes he's in a romantic relationship. Then he wonders if it's not just her thinking they're friends with benefits, and that upsets him. Before he can even get his head straight she's off lying to other people how important Hisao was to her during that one, what was it, exam week(?) that they barely talked to each other, and inviting him to dinner with her family. She's the one being more clingy in public, not him. He doesn't treat her like he treats Hanako in her arc.
Just pointing out, for those of you where it wasn't blatantly obvious, every bad ending is due to errors on Hisao's part and errors on the girl's fault. Specifically, you (the player) influence Hisao to make decisions that specifically agitate the girls, leading to an escalating reaction where the relationship dissolves and everyone walks away feeling miserable. Every. Single. One.
I can mostly agree on this. The girls will often make decisions that agitate him, too, and it's his responses that you pick, sometimes. So he's not always the trigger, and usually his actions are at least somewhat justified.
I'd almost go so far as to say the main conflict in each arc has to do with Hisao mirroring the worst aspects of the girl in question, but I haven't gone over the details in enough depth to affirm that statement.
I don't know about that, but as a general statement, it's not bad.
On the flip side, BadEmi Hisao refuses to open up to anyone. He doesn't need to connect with other people (Emi excepted), rejects help from those in the best position to offer it, and most certainly won't open up to the loud airhead who's expressing concern (for a change). The Emi situation is something he can't handle, and he doesn't want anyone else's help, so he starts running himself.
It's not uncommon for someone going through a tough time to not want to open up with all the sordid details to someone they're not all that close to. And sometimes, it can make things worse. It's less that he doesn't want anyone's help, and more that he's embarrassed, ashamed, depressed, and probably doesn't believe anyone else could help anyway.
After a week of him basically pretending she didn't exist (and her doing the same), his attempt at the track in the Bad Ending was pretty pathetic.
Preten-wha? He's hurt and confused, so he spends some time away from her to lick his wounds and try to work things out in his head. If he shouted at her at her house, he's feeling a nice amount of guilt, as well. He doesn't go face her before that because he can't, not because he won't.
He was too aggressive about it though. My first run through Emi's path, I was in that situation, and stayed to talk to her mom. She gave me advice about it, and Emi and Hisao ended up having the conversation they needed to have. It's not about not pursuing the situation at all, its about pursuing properly. I am trying to remember what you say in particular that pisses her off if you follow her right away, but I do recall there being something...
You can't make Hisao stay and talk to her mom unless you've made him have a completely unrelated conversation with Mutou by that point. And if I recall correctly, if he follows her, the argument eventually degenerates enough that he asks something about her father, rudely, because of course he's figured out that he's the core of her darkness. He realizes how rude it was as soon as he says it, but she is enraged about it and tells him to get out for it.
BadEmi Hisao won't even try to fight arguments she doesn't believe herself.
I'd phrase that differently: BadEmi Hisao is too hurt, confused, and lacking self-confidence to effectively try to fight arguments he doesn't fully realize she doesn't believe herself. Especially "confused". The difference between BadEmi and GoodEmi is whether or not Hisao has someone else's perspective on the situation. When he gets that, he ends up a little less confused, and is able to cut through her shell of bull to get at what's really bothering her.
Also, Emi allows Hisao to make stupid mistakes. In the other arcs, one wrong choice is an express train to Bad Ending. For Emi, you need to make two wrong choices. The second chance is an important detail.
Um, the first "choice", being talking to her mom (if you have the option), isn't Hisao making a stupid mistake. Emi just freaked out about her father and left the table in a hurry, what did she think those two, who have nothing in common but her, were going to discuss? The wallpaper? Though Emi does, at least, realize she went overboard when Hisao is respectful about her asking him to leave. But, no, that one isn't a stupid mistake. He literally had nothing else to do but sit at the table and say nothing in a horribly awkward silence that wouldn't help anything. If Emi's mom had left the table... eh, maybe, but I still wouldn't say so.
The second choice isn't really a stupid mistake. See what I said before about why he might not want to discuss everything with Misha. The same thing is a stupid mistake in Hanako's arc, but the circumstances are totally different - a close friend of both Hisao and his love interest, who seems to know them quite well, gives him advice. The option isn't whether to get her advice or not, but whether to act on it after getting it. This is not that.
And, IIRC, part of the reason for the "second chance" is because Emi's arc, otherwise, only had one real choice that affected the outcome. There's still Mutou's conversation which is needed to set it up, but again, it's something totally unrelated...
She doesn't "allow" him to make that one mistake (that is, confronting her about her dad in that argument), which is, in all honestly, almost trivial compared to hers. If he manages to break through her shell, and if that's the ending setup you got, she's more than willing to be forgiving about it. Otherwise, she uses it as a good excuse to break off the relationship. She uses it as a mostly legitimate excuse - "you and I just aren't working", which is true - but, still. They're not working because she's put him into a state of ridiculous confusion and then gets upset about his attempts to make sense of what the hell is going on.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:00 pm
by Nyzer
No, because I don't take video games or visual novels so seriously I get emotionally worked up about it. I see it how I see other games and VNs if I get a bad ending or a game over: Suck it up and figure out what was the best path to take.
Hmm. Some people are able to emotionally invest themselves in media to varying degrees. And some may find scenarios in media playing out uncomfortably close to scenarios that they've experienced.

I can say that I had emotions stirred up by reading through KS, though I wouldn't say that I took the game overly seriously. Kind of - I imagined trying to go through the scenario in person as I read through it (kind of the intent, I suppose), but I never considered the game to be anything but a game. I'm not quite depressed by having bad endings in the game or anything - I like that they're there, and I like to come on here and talk about the thoughts and actions of characters. I like the fact that I don't like Emi's personality, weird as that is. Especially weird, since in that arc's case, I do have real life experiences that run uncomfortably parallel. Maybe I'm seeing it as a mind exercise or something?

Whatever the reason, I find it interesting, though it's not emotional.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:05 pm
by Arco
Snow_Storm wrote:
Arco wrote:lolwut?
Did it really make you sad?
The whole over-rehearsed break up thing she pulled out made me want to jump across the screen and tell her to go and f*** herself
No, because I don't take video games or visual novels so seriously I get emotionally worked up about it. I see it how I see other games and VNs if I get a bad ending or a game over: Suck it up and figure out what was the best path to take.
If there is a thing that annoys me about english, is that you guys don't have a plural form of "you"
The question was rather pointed to the author who did claim he got emotionally worked up, so... yeah
I don't usually get touched by video games either, but I prefer to take KJ as a book... displayed with 800px600p sprites

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:16 pm
by Nyzer
If there is a thing that annoys me about english, is that you guys don't have a plural form of "you"
"you guys"

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:03 am
by sporkaganza
Or "y'all" if you're in the South and/or willing to get made fun of.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:05 am
by russianspy1234
Xanatos wrote:
And? Does that somehow negate that Emi's equally at fault?
Yes, just like Hanako's issues negate that it's equally her fault when she flips out at you even though you are "just trying to help."

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 2:45 am
by Xanatos
russianspy1234 wrote:
Xanatos wrote:
And? Does that somehow negate that Emi's equally at fault?
Yes, just like Hanako's issues negate that it's equally her fault when she flips out at you even though you are "just trying to help."
Yeah, except they don't negate Hanako's fault in it either...

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 10:38 am
by TheEdward39
Nyzer wrote:
She's the one who messed Hisao around, all he did was try to react to what-the-hell-subtext-is-all-of-this, and then she flatly breaks up with him for it. Granted, she at least had the decency to say "look, it's really not working" rather than "you're a jerk" or something, but from start to finish, she set the stage for what would happen. Hisao barely had any choice in the matter, and isn't able to speak the magical words to make things better without outside help. I have sympathy for the character in that she's clearly having a tough time in her head; I have no sympathy for her drawing someone else in close and then messing them up too. If she did want to look, she should have done just about anything differently than what she actually did...
I guess I'm trying to save Emi so hard because I got the good ending first, and somehow it really touched me... And only then I got the bad ending, which was... It really wasn't the best thing she could do.
Though there are things, that she could and should have done, but she hadn't, and that caused the whole thing at the track.
I'm too forgiving, to be angry or to see her like a bitch... It must have been tough to her.
She made mistakes (maybe a lot of them, but I got the good ending, which made me forget all her mistakes, because in the end, they sorted out the problem, and that's what matters to me the most).

But I can see the point in your opinion, and you're absolutely right... I just... think differently, I guess.

(And it's true, that Hisao was just trying to make right decisions and to react properly in Emi's house, but I still think he made a mistake as well as Emi - and none of them is more faulty than the other.)

But I guess my attitude won't be a huge succes here, but heey... We're different, right? There's no need to be douche, I can understand it, if you say it normally (Like I did it /At least I'm hoping for it, I didn't want to offend anybody, and I apologize if I did/)

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 2:08 pm
by Guest Poster
Yeah, except they don't negate Hanako's fault in it either...
This. Hisao was clingy, yes, but Hanako shutting herself in without even eating is behavior that pretty much invites the kind of worrying Hisao displays.

Re: Emi's Bad Ending Made Me Sad

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 2:30 pm
by Nyzer
(And it's true, that Hisao was just trying to make right decisions and to react properly in Emi's house, but I still think he made a mistake as well as Emi - and none of them is more faulty than the other.)
I can't see it that way, I'm afraid - in my opinion, Emi is much more at fault than Hisao. Try to imagine it in real life. She's the one who starts off the relationship, and then doesn't tell Hisao for the longest time that she isn't ready to do much of anything beyond keeping it mostly casual. When she does finally tell him so, he doesn't have the time to work the surprise out before she starts lying to others about how important he is and how close she keeps him, and then she goes off and has that dinner date arranged. If Hisao hasn't been spending extra time with Mutou talking about totally unrelated stuff, he follows her at that dinner when something wrong seems to happen, and she gets mad at him for it. He finally shows some of the real frustration he's having at her firing off so many mixed signals and not telling him what the issue with her dad is, because obviously, there is an issue - and then he's ordered to get out. Realizing what he's said, he does get out, and then he spends a week avoiding her. Bear in mind - she's the one who told him to leave, not vice versa. When enough time has passed that he realizes she isn't going to come talk to him on her own, and he's able to get his emotions somewhat straight, he goes to try to talk to her. Almost the first thing she says is "really? After avoiding me for a week?" Oh, yeah, because he had no reason at all to give you space or to want space of his own, yeah?

He gets frustrated at her playing around with him - whether she's having trouble dealing with it or not, that's what she's doing - and he gives her space after they have a bad fight. That's really all the mistakes he makes. One more, if you count brushing off Misha as a mistake, which is fair. (Not talking to her mom instead, that's not really a mistake - it's completely dependent on having a totally unrelated conversation well before the issues arise. Unless you did talk to Mutou and then opted not to talk to her mom...)

She started the relationship, she encouraged the relationship, she said one thing and did another for a long period of time, she blew up when he attempted to talk to her about what was obviously a serious issue, she kicked him out when he finally stood up for himself (if rudely) and then when he'd given her space and time for them both to try and calm down, she criticized him for it.

Good Ending does show that she's horribly confused and hurt by the fact that she lost her father in such a flash of time, and so irreversably. It shows that she does have a lot of decency at her core, when Hisao finally breaks through to it - but until then, she really doesn't show it. And it's not just that she's having trouble letting people get close, because that would be one thing, but she fires off mixed signals all over the place after admitting that, and walks Hisao almost directly into a serious conversation that she gets mad at him for trying to understand. She was dishonest with him and with others after admitting that she didn't want to get close to him.

I see her route as someone who gets involved with someone else, but who doesn't tell him ahead of time that she doesn't want to be anywhere near serious, then confuses the hell out of him after finally admitting that much, and blames him after he tries to make sense of a situation she put him in. And she, herself, tells Hisao that this sort of thing has already happened before. So she knew what could happen, and failed to care at all about how it would make him feel, instead jumping into the false relationship headfirst.

Forget how she shows herself to be in the good ending. Think about everything that happens up to that deciding moment in the track field - would you have sympathy for someone who'd done that to, say, a good friend of yours? Because she doesn't show how unsure of herself, how confused, how badly damaged she is until that good ending, and even that isn't a free pass for her actions.

I have known someone like that - she set up a ridiculously similar scenario, though she was worse than even Bad Ending Emi was. At one point after that breakup, she was trying to say how stressed out she was by how everything had gone down. It ticked me right off to hear that being said like it was anything close to what she'd inflicted on the guy she'd ... I don't know what, led on, I suppose? This may be why I don't have sympathy for Emi in her story - I can't look at someone who starts a relationship on their terms, and ends up ending it on their terms, all the while withholding important stuff from their supposed significant other, and then end up thinking for even a second that they deserve sympathy. You don't get to control 90% of what happens in a relationship with another human being and then get mad at other people about the fact that you screwed it all up, by choice, for no apparent reason.
Yes, just like Hanako's issues negate that it's equally her fault when she flips out at you even though you are "just trying to help."
Negates nothing, and I've said this before. Another poster here said what my opinion on that is in a nutshell:
Hanako shutting herself in without even eating is behavior that pretty much invites the kind of worrying Hisao displays.
Also without communicating, which makes it even worse. Bad Ending Hisao fails to recognize the warning in her tone when she asks him to get out, but there is nothing about his worry that isn't justified. His approach was terrible, but she gave him every reason to be worried. Even just a "Please, I'm not feeling well, but I'm not going to do anything stupid - can I just have some time to myself?", even just by text so she doesn't have to stress out face-to-face, would have negated much of his worry, but she didn't do that much. And the difference between Neutral Hisao and Good Hisao isn't that Lilly makes him worry that much less about Hanako, but that she makes him worry about himself. And that lasts for what, twelve hours? before Hanako finally comes out, giving him any sign that she's not going to end up overdosing on prescription meds behind that closed door, so we don't really know what would have happened in the near future shortly after that. Maybe another few days of waiting would have had him confront her anyway.

No, what helps negate Hanako's behavior is that she's never outright dishonest with Hisao; she doesn't jerk him around while she tries to figure out what she wants. (And even when the two of them have a poorly-thought out tryst in her room, she's honest about why she did it and why she's feeling awkward the morning after, when he asks.) And when she does blow up on him in the bad ending, not only is it actually about things she really doesn't have control over (her emotions, his unwanted presence in her room), but we aren't shown what happens after that. We aren't shown that she holds a grudge not over just that confrontation, but also over him giving her space after such a confrontation. Maybe it does happen that way, but without seeing it, no one can say for sure. And generally, it's not expected that she would.