New lore disappointment

[changb1]

In the cutscene of the newest reception, it is implied that guests are somehow in purgatory and all the library did was a simulation, anyone find it kind of... sounds like a dues ex machina forced happy ending?

I mean the library at first really gives players a monstrosity vibe, an arena of life and death where guests fought with their life to pursuit their goals and dreams. To make players blend in with the cruel nature of the dystopian sci-fi world project moon created with so many details and lore.

Now the library just feel like a story sharing daycare, where your rent will be a few moments of your lifetime if you want to get a book, but failed the virtual reality first person action game the place provides.

Seeing how Xiao abandoned her duties and Philip distorting this hard. Really makes all their struggles and effort for naught and vastly trivialized, when you realize they could’ve just waited to be reunited with the ones they cherish.
Now Philip and Xiao just feel like clowns who got trolled hard and got fooled by a death prank that’s not at all funny.

Maybe more people then I thought out there prefer 8-year-old fairytale happy endings where everyone lived happily ever after to one that actually makes sense, heck even in most tales at least the evil side had a misfortuned fate.

In real life, life doesn’t work that way, some loss or regret is certainly going to happen, and that’s what makes a story have insight and depth, the beauty of imperfection.

Sorry for the long rant, but this feels way too much convenience plot device that seemed to be trying too hard to force a happy ending for a dystopian setting. The first game the struggles seemed real and palpable, and now it deteriorated into a crude simulation death prank where nothing matters had happened.

[Jinlunch]

I mean, when the exact same thing happens to the librarians when they die in the library, it isn't all that surprising that the guests are essentially in purgatory in the books. It'll likely end up being that in order for whatever Angela does in the end she'll have to destroy all of them anyway in order to extract the light out of them and even if she does let them live, I doubt they would be able to leave the library anymore as they're essentially a part of it.

[Dima green]

Spoilers but in a QnA JiHoon said that he does not consider LoR's ending a happy one :Roland:

[花园骑士]

Dude, the game’s subtitle is literally a battle simulator. What did you expect?

[bgammax]

Y'know, even if they're not technically dead we are still effectively abducting people from their homes and leaving their friends and loved ones to pick up the pieces, to the point where we've still effectively destroyed the Liu association and enabled the entirety of the Thumb's presence in the city to get killed.


Really if anything its more telling of how crappy the world outside's gotten that we're even considering it a kinda ok way to go.

[Skriff]

I think you're a little bit overreacting here, it makes you miss crucial elements.
The point of this new lore is to reveal that technically, everyone was doomed from the moment they entered the Library. They all became puppets in Angela's abnormal simulation. They have no control over their lives anymore (if they ever had any to begin win) --- thus, why we can replay the same fights, over and over again, and losing has no impact on the outside world as it stands.
The play is rigged--- no one masters their lives, they're all submitted to Angela's will, and even her own is depends a lot of Carmen's. Wouldn't you call THAT just what is the City about? Everyone's lives depending on others, having no grasp over their own existence?
What's more, there's no assurance that they can actually come back to life + leave the Library after all. This is what Carmen pretends to drive Angela to the "Ultimate Book", but what if it's all wrong and everyone just kinda disappears, y'know? Sure, we have a potentiality of a "everyone kinda lives" scenario, but that's also what LC could have done with the "clone and reset everyone to infinite"
yet they didn't.

[FlavorTown]

Originally posted by changb1:

Now

It always was, you were just REALLY bad at following the story so now that hit in the head with it

[Mastema]

Just hit the reset button 4Head

[CG_Hunted]

Hey its dark dystopian world we can hope only on the middle of good ending and bad ending if u see other endling of lobotomy corps there none good ending

[overmind]

does this make Roland an isekai protagonist?

[Alpha Chad]

no, i completely agree, real life is no fairy tale, except for the fact i have multiple super hot GFs that love and care for me. I want every story made by PM to follow the same pattern of being dark drab and for me to be unable to actually tell whats going on because the cinematographist thought itd be awesome and epic to make the screen 50% darker.

I just want PM to make the same story like they did for the last 7 games.

[Flygoniaks]

Originally posted by Skriff:

I think you're a little bit overreacting here, it makes you miss crucial elements.
The point of this new lore is to reveal that technically, everyone was doomed from the moment they entered the Library. They all became puppets in Angela's abnormal simulation. They have no control over their lives anymore (if they ever had any to begin win) --- thus, why we can replay the same fights, over and over again, and losing has no impact on the outside world as it stands.

So in other words, it's the lore explanation for replaying battles that I've been waiting for?

[Rabbit]

Noice
I was close to calling it
Feels good

[Skriff]

Originally posted by Flygoniaks:

So in other words, it's the lore explanation for replaying battles that I've been waiting for?

Literally, yea
Hokma's story reveal that the moment people enter the Library, they are put into some kind of slumber. Whenever we start a Reception, we actually "copy" the people that signed the invitation and go through the process of kicking their arses, which produce actual books from their deaths... and we can repeat that infinitely since the originals are still asleep, so just copy/paste over and over. That's also how the Red Mist was recreated, a portion of Gebura was copied and "simulated".
The process of going to the Library is actually a big scam, you lose the moment you enter since you cannot actually escape, even if you win : the moment winning people leave with the books, they disappear. They're simulated copies.
This is why Angela thinks she's doing better than L Corp (the original people are alive...) and doesn't really feel guilty, but also hesitate as to what to do at the end of it all. The only one who really died is Roland because he "breached" the process through Purple Tear's help, and was recreated as a Librarian. This is also why Purple Tear wasn't scared at all by going into the Library: she p much knows what's going on, and trusts in the idea that at the end, they'll be freed.
Now for the ones who flee away (=Philip/Argalia), it simply means that the Library is basically letting them go. It's intended to indirectly lure other people (Argalia lures Purple Tear and probs all the other Distorted people, Philip lures the Wedge, Circus and Liu). So Carmen/Angela have all the interest of the world to just wake them up and let them go, even if they keep "saves" of them for the fights to repeat.

TL;DR:Angela lied, the Invitation is like, the least fair system in the world. Just like the City as a whole, it's rigged, and no matter what you do, your life is in the hands of more powerful people. The only "freedom" you have is to sign (or not) the Invitation. But, well, we saw that most of the time, people were forced into it. (:

[AritheReaper]

Yeah, no, considering the genre of storytelling we're talking about, and the fact that the creator themselves don't consider the ending of the game to be particularly happy, I wouldn't exactly worry about a fairy tale ending. Especially since they won't inherently wake up at the end of the journey.

...Also, RIP Yan, who distorted before he entered the library, lol.

[Skriff]

Originally posted by AritheReaper:

Especially since they won't inherently wake up at the end of the journey.

Precisely. The Library might "decide" to kill them off officially at the end of it all, maybe to keep its secret; Angela was even shown to hesitate on that exact subject. We don't know what "asleep" means here, we don't know what happens when we do let 'em out, we don't know what the risks would be to let them escape and have the Library's secret out in the open. What if the Library isn't closed? What if it stays open forever? They might never wake up in that case as well.

Originally posted by AritheReaper:

...Also, RIP Yan, who distorted before he entered the library, lol.

Kudos to Tomerry (+ Townsfolk) and the Puppets too....... but that could also mean that Yan could be returned to normal if we reasoned him instead of kicking his arse............. [/yansimp]