Murder of the WARP Express Lore Analysis - SPOILERS AHEAD

[NetMoverSitan]

There has been a few bits of lore in this part of the story, that the WARP Trains are still going, even after the power storage due to the loss of Lobotomy Corporation, it's also revealed that each station has the same core template, but an aestetic that matches the District that it's in (e.g. District 20 has steampunk elements) As for Color Fixers, they get their own train, due to how dangerous they are, likely due to one slipping the net and being in Standard Class by mistake, there's also a freight car...which is useful for transporting vehicles like Mephistopheles.

Faust revealed that while she was on the WARP train, while in transit (and not in Mephistopheles) she lacks access to the network where she gets her knowledge from. But once she's in Mephistopheles or the WARP train is not in transit, the connection is restored.

It's revealed that the doors in First Class can withstand pretty much anything, although Jae-Heon (The Puppeteer) and Elena somehow bypassed this. Normally the Master Keycard is needed to open that.

As for the Bloodfiends, they're Distortions that predate the White Nights and Dark Days, created when humans accepted the blood from the abnormality Nosferatu, which was also an abnormality that wasn't created by Lobotomy Corporation as Cassetti was around two centuries old, long before the founding of Lobotomy Corporation, Moses and Ezra certainly encountered them...just before the Distortion Detective was discontinued and they wanted to work on a game based on it. It also appears that in at least some cases, there are Bloodfiends that have a healing factor.

As for Don Quixote, something was revealed here, she never took her shoes off, there's a reason for this, it's because they're limiters and they also suppress something inside her, when she took them off, when Cassetti attempted to turn her into a Kindred, she revealed herself to be a Bloodfiend herself, a 2nd Kindred, which outranked that 6th Kindred, only Vergilius, Faust and Dante knows about this on Mephistopheles...she must be much older than any of the Damned Dozen!

[Manta]

they sabotaged don's character in a lot of ways. they did nothing with the agatha christie inspiration, they significantly created major plotholes by doing this for limbus, ruina and distortion detective, and they destroyed all of the cervantes-theming in don's character. It's a really bad event that felt rushed and makes me retroactively question PM's writing. The hints that Don was a bloodfiend weren't significant enough to be considered proper hints, and felt more like "write-as-you-go" storytelling. There was expositional flashbacks to things that didn't happen within the actual plot we see, that needed to be added to retroactively justify this. There was no proper suspense, No real buildup, nothing.

The Faust and Gesschellshaft stuff is interesting, but completely overshadowed by this massive trainwreck (lol) of a reveal with Don.

[NetMoverSitan]

Originally posted by Manya:

they sabotaged don's character in a lot of ways. they did nothing with the agatha christie inspiration, they significantly created major plotholes by doing this for limbus, ruina and distortion detective, and they destroyed all of the cervantes-theming in don's character. It's a really bad event that felt rushed and makes me retroactively question PM's writing. The hints that Don was a bloodfiend weren't significant enough to be considered proper hints, and felt more like "write-as-you-go" storytelling. There was expositional flashbacks to things that didn't happen within the actual plot we see, that needed to be added to retroactively justify this. There was no proper suspense, No real buildup, nothing.

The Faust and Gesschellshaft stuff is interesting, but completely overshadowed by this massive trainwreck (lol) of a reveal with Don.

Yeah, they need to raise their game with Chapter 7, as Chapter 6.5 (Part 2) was not as well written, although in the source material, Don Quixote was a multiple choice past kind of person mixed with being outside reality.

Faust likely has an implant that allows her access to her network, although it explains why Don Quixote is a lunatic (e.g. so that no-one would suspect that she's a Distortion herself) they could've handled that better. The ZAYIN E.G.O. being bleed...that doesn't mean anything by itself.

[Manta]

Originally posted by NetMoverSitan:

Yeah, they need to raise their game with Chapter 7, as Chapter 6.5 (Part 2) was not as well written, although in the source material, Don Quixote was a multiple choice past kind of person mixed with being outside reality.

Faust likely has an implant that allows her access to her network, although it explains why Don Quixote is a lunatic (e.g. so that no-one would suspect that she's a Distortion herself) they could've handled that better. The ZAYIN E.G.O. being bleed...that doesn't mean anything by itself.

I am seriously having my doubts about this coming canto given how rushed this reveal was, for something so significant to her character, not being voiced and just being thrown at us like this makes me wonder what on earth we can honestly expect now, going forward. I think the main thing that damages Don's character here is that she's no longer an underdog, while Don Quixote in the book was an enfeebled old man amongst other things, I thought that a mental disability suited her very well to being a parallel - Now, Don Quixote is an uber-powerful vampire who (despite having died multiple times, and are we really supposed to believe the shoes NEVER came off, despite having their bodies blown apart and torn to pieces), and everything else about Don Quixote is secondary. It's like Kim Jihoon thought "Well, Don Quixote is OLD so Don Quixote should be OLD" which is such a gross misrepresentation of all the theming and everything Cervantes wrote. it feels distressingly poorly written here. It throws in the face everything i've come to expect from PM regarding their storytelling, and never ever have I ever seen anything create so many plotholes than this decision - which I would've totally and utterly overlooked had it been handled well within the story, instead of being this rushed, insuspenseful mess.

I don't know, I don't know what they can do to try and save Don Quixote now, they took a perfect little underdog and made her into a complete mess of a character. I'm really upset about it, she was one of my favorites, I cherish Cervantes's work and I've gone out of my way to read great literature because of this game, and now it's for what, to see these works torn apart and their loose themes and mere references to characters names being paraded around like toys.

[NetMoverSitan]

Originally posted by Manya:

Originally posted by NetMoverSitan:

Yeah, they need to raise their game with Chapter 7, as Chapter 6.5 (Part 2) was not as well written, although in the source material, Don Quixote was a multiple choice past kind of person mixed with being outside reality.

Faust likely has an implant that allows her access to her network, although it explains why Don Quixote is a lunatic (e.g. so that no-one would suspect that she's a Distortion herself) they could've handled that better. The ZAYIN E.G.O. being bleed...that doesn't mean anything by itself.

I am seriously having my doubts about this coming canto given how rushed this reveal was, for something so significant to her character, not being voiced and just being thrown at us like this makes me wonder what on earth we can honestly expect now, going forward. I think the main thing that damages Don's character here is that she's no longer an underdog, while Don Quixote in the book was an enfeebled old man amongst other things, I thought that a mental disability suited her very well to being a parallel - Now, Don Quixote is an uber-powerful vampire who (despite having died multiple times, and are we really supposed to believe the shoes NEVER came off, despite having their bodies blown apart and torn to pieces), and everything else about Don Quixote is secondary. It's like Kim Jihoon thought "Well, Don Quixote is OLD so Don Quixote should be OLD" which is such a gross misrepresentation of all the theming and everything Cervantes wrote. it feels distressingly poorly written here. It throws in the face everything i've come to expect from PM regarding their storytelling, and never ever have I ever seen anything create so many plotholes than this decision - which I would've totally and utterly overlooked had it been handled well within the story, instead of being this rushed, insuspenseful mess.

I don't know, I don't know what they can do to try and save Don Quixote now, they took a perfect little underdog and made her into a complete mess of a character. I'm really upset about it, she was one of my favorites, I cherish Cervantes's work and I've gone out of my way to read great literature because of this game, and now it's for what, to see these works torn apart and their loose themes and mere references to characters names being paraded around like toys.

Well, we'll need to wait until October to find out, in-between, it's the hentai monolith.

[fliesabove78]

Originally posted by Manya:

they sabotaged don's character in a lot of ways. they significantly created major plotholes by doing this for limbus, ruina and distortion detective, and they destroyed all of the cervantes-theming in don's character.

While I get that this reveal may have destroyed Don's character but I don't understand how this is exactly is a plot hole. It doesn't contradict any thing about bloodfiends especially we know very, very few things about them. Other then the typical things we expect from a vampire society in stories( such as being very secretive and require blood to survive). In fact I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't unique about bloodfiends that separate from vampires from other stories.

Also the way they could go with Don's story while keeping her a vampire is that vampire Don wants to be normal again and the sinner Don Quixote personality is her living that dream. SO during her canto she will be force to face reality which would the fit theme of the book somewhat. After all with many of PMoon's character they are inspired by the books but don't directly follow such as Yisang not jumping off a roof and in hope to sprout his wings and the entire Ishmael storyline begin a sequel to moby ♥♥♥♥.

[Manta]

Originally posted by fliesabove78:

Originally posted by Manya:

they sabotaged don's character in a lot of ways. they significantly created major plotholes by doing this for limbus, ruina and distortion detective, and they destroyed all of the cervantes-theming in don's character.

While I get that this reveal may have destroyed Don's character but I don't understand how this is exactly is a plot hole. It doesn't contradict any thing about bloodfiends especially we know very, very few things about them. Other then the typical things we expect from a vampire society in stories( such as being very secretive and require blood to survive). In fact I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't unique about bloodfiends that separate from vampires from other stories.

Also the way they could go with Don's story while keeping her a vampire is that vampire Don wants to be normal again and the sinner Don Quixote personality is her living that dream. SO during her canto she will be force to face reality which would the fit theme of the book somewhat. After all with many of PMoon's character they are inspired by the books but don't directly follow such as Yisang not jumping off a roof and in hope to sprout his wings and the entire Ishmael storyline begin a sequel to moby ♥♥♥♥.

I think that, a storyline about Don being a vampire and wanting to be normal, is basically not don quixote at that point and would be a boring, waste of time story that breaks no ground and tells nothing new. The plotholes are specifically referring to what has already been established about bloodfiends, and i am not going to go over an entire wiki article about how many rules they break and toes they step on.

I thought the ending of Ishmael's canto did sort of break her character a bit, but I attributed rushed writing there to the massive drama within the studio at the time.

The characters, again, aren't 1-1 retellings of the original work, and that's not what im complaining about, even Yi Sang who was a very real person isn't subject to this, this is purely commentary about how "Don Quixote" is now a broken character and barely evocative of the original work, much like how the Murder on the Orient Express event just took their names, it just takes the name of Don Quixote and plasters it over a vampire now and expects me to go

"Oh! the Don we've just assumed to be a plucky underdog is the same as ever!"

what a farce!

[fliesabove78]

Originally posted by Manya:

I think that, a storyline about Don being a vampire and wanting to be normal, is basically not don quixote at that point and would be a boring, waste of time story that breaks no ground and tells nothing new. The plotholes are specifically referring to what has already been established about bloodfiends, and i am not going to go over an entire wiki article about how many rules they break and toes they step on.

I thought the ending of Ishmael's canto did sort of break her character a bit, but I attributed rushed writing there to the massive drama within the studio at the time.

The characters, again, aren't 1-1 retellings of the original work, and that's not what im complaining about, even Yi Sang who was a very real person isn't subject to this, this is purely commentary about how "Don Quixote" is now a broken character and barely evocative of the original work, much like how the Murder on the Orient Express event just took their names, it just takes the name of Don Quixote and plasters it over a vampire now and expects me to go

"Oh! the Don we've just assumed to be a plucky underdog is the same as ever!"

what a farce!

What have been established about bloodfiends is very few and far between we only know about how the old and new vampires are in conflict about theirs rules and how they function in a society. We know practically nothing about them other then that so to me it Don being a bloodfiend isn't a plothole ( for me a plothole has to contradict what we learn from a story or breaks logic).

To Don know, wasn't the og Don Quixote a broken character since he was chasing around this fanatical idea of being a knight so much he miss on all the actual interesting things in his adventure because it didn't align to his fantasy until the end. To me book theme is about the "while there a place a for fantasy in life, reality is often time just as important and fanciful as the stories you read", so having a vampire Don could ( emphasis on could) be a interesting twist in that theme of something aligning with fantasy trying to be normal only to then find a balance between to two.

If you worried that the characters aren't being like their og book counterpart. I also worry about that too ever since they brought in Erlking Heath. Mainly because what heath connection to anything tothe Wild hunt or European folklore.

Don't take me as being blindly optimistic when it comes to Pmoon's writing especially since this storyline would have them be walking on nuclear covered eggshells but I don't think it as bad as you making out to be. This is just my two cents though. (although I am interested on why you think the ending for Ishmael was out of character)

[NetMoverSitan]

Originally posted by fliesabove78:

Originally posted by Manya:

I think that, a storyline about Don being a vampire and wanting to be normal, is basically not don quixote at that point and would be a boring, waste of time story that breaks no ground and tells nothing new. The plotholes are specifically referring to what has already been established about bloodfiends, and i am not going to go over an entire wiki article about how many rules they break and toes they step on.

I thought the ending of Ishmael's canto did sort of break her character a bit, but I attributed rushed writing there to the massive drama within the studio at the time.

The characters, again, aren't 1-1 retellings of the original work, and that's not what im complaining about, even Yi Sang who was a very real person isn't subject to this, this is purely commentary about how "Don Quixote" is now a broken character and barely evocative of the original work, much like how the Murder on the Orient Express event just took their names, it just takes the name of Don Quixote and plasters it over a vampire now and expects me to go

"Oh! the Don we've just assumed to be a plucky underdog is the same as ever!"

what a farce!

What have been established about bloodfiends is very few and far between we only know about how the old and new vampires are in conflict about theirs rules and how they function in a society. We know practically nothing about them other then that so to me it Don being a bloodfiend isn't a plothole ( for me a plothole has to contradict what we learn from a story or breaks logic).

To Don know, wasn't the og Don Quixote a broken character since he was chasing around this fanatical idea of being a knight so much he miss on all the actual interesting things in his adventure because it didn't align to his fantasy until the end. To me book theme is about the "while there a place a for fantasy in life, reality is often time just as important and fanciful as the stories you read", so having a vampire Don could ( emphasis on could) be a interesting twist in that theme of something aligning with fantasy trying to be normal only to then find a balance between to two.

If you worried that the characters aren't being like their og book counterpart. I also worry about that too ever since they brought in Erlking Heath. Mainly because what heath connection to anything tothe Wild hunt or European folklore.

Don't take me as being blindly optimistic when it comes to Pmoon's writing especially since this storyline would have them be walking on nuclear covered eggshells but I don't think it as bad as you making out to be. This is just my two cents though. (although I am interested on why you think the ending for Ishmael was out of character)

They definitely need to up their game.

[SmallGespenst]

I don't see how they've supposedly broken Don's character.
It's a layer of why she's like that.
The drive behind her passion.
She's driven by her fantasies of knighthood and justice because that's what keeps her human.
It fits with established themes like the Wolf, in that the role of a monster is to act like a monster, and her behaviour makes clear that isn't something she wants so her actions seek to break out of that role.

Originally posted by fliesabove78:

What have been established about bloodfiends is very few and far between we only know about how the old and new vampires are in conflict about theirs rules and how they function in a society. We know practically nothing about them other then that so to me it Don being a bloodfiend isn't a plothole ( for me a plothole has to contradict what we learn from a story or breaks logic).

you forget that fans have filled that out already there's pages of speculation, so it must be a plot-hole if it contradicts their fanfic. much like when people were crying over EGOs being different Risk Levels to their source Abnos.

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Manya:

I think that, a storyline about Don being a vampire and wanting to be normal, is basically not don quixote at that point and would be a boring, waste of time story that breaks no ground and tells nothing new. The plotholes are specifically referring to what has already been established about bloodfiends, and i am not going to go over an entire wiki article about how many rules they break and toes they step on.

I'm going to single this out because it really annoys me
The wiki made up most of the stuff about Bloodfiends. It's not a plothole if it's contradicting fan-fiction.
"Source: I made it up" is not cannon plot. Do not make the mistake of assuming speculation on a wiki to be verified fact. This is how Misinformation spreads.

edit: another thing.
since when was Don (Limbus or literary) an underdog?
Don Quixote is not an underdog story. It's a story of a deluded old man causing problems. He isn't justified in his actions and there's no "top dog" for him to be opposing, most of the people subjected to his fantasies are worse off for it.

Limbus Don is much the same, She's is not and hasn't been powerless aside from when Vergil scolded her. her IDs tend to be in positions of power. Her habit of causing problems is because she has the power to act on her fantasies, dragging the bus crew into the consequences.
getting upset that you fanfic version of Don is being contradicted doesn't mean PM is ruining her character.

[NetMoverSitan]

The only link to the source material "Murder on the Orient Express" for this is Cassetti, who in the source material was an American Gangster. In the game, he was part of an altogether darker underground society.

[jobhobster]

I understand why the guy is panicking about Blood Don being stupid, especially considering the clone wars BS that was C6, but yeah, I'd rather don't worry about it until Canto releases, they may do something neat with it
Hell, it's probably more interesting than some boring ♥♥♥♥ we could get instead, because Don is like, the most one-dimensional character out of everyone, with obvious "oh no I witnessed a fixer that does bad things, I can't be delusional anymore" character arc
But her being bloodfiend means it could be something else, something more interesting. Maybe we'll get some cool vampire hunters ID's in rad leather jackets, maybe we get some major lore on bloodfiends, it sounds kinda fun overall

[NetMoverSitan]

Originally posted by jobhobster:

I understand why the guy is panicking about Blood Don being stupid, especially considering the clone wars BS that was C6, but yeah, I'd rather don't worry about it until Canto releases, they may do something neat with it
Hell, it's probably more interesting than some boring ♥♥♥♥ we could get instead, because Don is like, the most one-dimensional character out of everyone, with obvious "oh no I witnessed a fixer that does bad things, I can't be delusional anymore" character arc
But her being bloodfiend means it could be something else, something more interesting. Maybe we'll get some cool vampire hunters ID's in rad leather jackets, maybe we get some major lore on bloodfiends, it sounds kinda fun overall

The insanity of Don Quixote is clearly a personality that was created so that no-one would suspect her for what she really is. Would anyone suspect that a blonde lunatic is an ancient Distortion that predates the White Nights and Dark Days?

The lore of them can be found in Library of Ruina via Nosferatu's info, Elena's info and the last couple of chapters of The Distortion Detective.

[A Wispy Willy]

Older Bloodfiends aren't Distortions themselves, they're more akin to how Abnormalities create minions.

[NetMoverSitan]

Originally posted by A Wispy Willy:

Older Bloodfiends aren't Distortions themselves, they're more akin to how Abnormalities create minions.

They are actually, just ones that predate the events of Lobotomy Corporation, however after the White Nights and Dark Days, others appeared that weren't part of an established family, rather than those that had their origins tied to the abnormality Nosferatu. At least they should be called distortions to lessen the complications.