"Dragon" route appreciation + discussion, who voted for what?

[Divadop]

Hey, everyone!

First of all, I can't stress enough how much I enjoy the new routes. They're all so brilliant in different ways, I love the different perspectives and ideas the game manages to convey with this concept.

Being "forced" to witness things from the princess's PoV, the *thump, thump, thump*, everything is just so good. Out of the two, I prefer the harsh princess. I'm a sucker for the enemies-to-lovers done right, and I love that she only spares you if you don't try to save yourself.

I also *love* how, if you do this route late enough (with enough experience with all the voices), you can *instantly* recognize Voice of the Opportunist from the very first line of "You'd love to know our thoughts, wouldn't you?".

It's a testament to how good Jonathan Sim's voice acting is, that we are able to recognize a character from just the tone and cadence of the voice.

Also, I just love the callback to how the opportunist also tried to do a vote to slay the princess and rope the narrator into the vote, as well, in the Thorn route. He also does it in the Witch loop, when you try to give the weapon to her.



Me gushing about the dragon route aside, I have two things I'd like to discuss, and I'd be happy to hear everyone's thoughts about them!



1. I was curious about is the vote the voices have done.

Hero says they weren't all aboard this decision, and that it wasn't a majority decision, and Opportunist says they had plurality.

Excluding the player, they had 4 voices amongst each other: Hero, Narrator, Opportunist and Cold.

With 4 people, you need 3 votes for majority. 2 votes can only be plurality (versus a tie) if the other 2 votes are spread.

This means that, 2 of the voices chose to kill, while 2 others chose other options.

I'm really curious who chose what! Opportunist and Narrator obviously chose to slay, but the other two are a mystery.

In the Thorn route, Hero passionately votes to spare the princess.
In the Witch route, Hero abstains from the vote on giving up the blade.

The cold has never participated in votes.

My guess is that Hero voted to spare, and that Cold abstained (especially since, when the dragon does stab us - we see 3 CGs: the opportunist gleeing, Hero hesitating, and Cold coldly watching).

But I do wonder about Cold. He operates by choosing things that are more interesting and less dull. Would he just abstain?


2. I'm curious, do you guys think this route would be a good route for a player to run into early on?

These new routes are so good and brilliant, but a part of me wonders if they're a little *too* good for the player to run into them too early.

It's definitely not an issue at all, and there definitely isn't anything I would change about this. Locking it to only be possible after a few other routes are completed would be a BAD solution imo, I think it SHOULD be open, just like it is already!

But I must say, being forced into the princess's shoes is a lot more impactful after playing the game for as much as I have than it would've been if I got this run first (luckily I had 100%d the game before the pristine cut came out, and then I replayed it all before the update).

And it's also a little bit of a shame that some people won't experience that feeling of "ahhh, Opportunist, is that you?" (in Lalo's voice, like when he talked to Mike in Better Call Saul).



Looking forward to everyone's/anyone's thoughts!

[Sanmei]

I suspect the Cold's contributions to that silent discussion are invariably something the Opportunist is happy to claim are at least a half-vote in favor of whatever position he's holding at the moment. XD

"Slay her or don't; it's all the same to me."

The only exception might be if the "Dragon" is informed that the player persona is with the Princess, in which case I could see the Cold shrug off his apathy long enough to murmur something along the lines of "Oh, isn't that interesting. I wonder what happens if he dies along with her?"

[Divadop]

Originally posted by Sanmei:

I suspect the Cold's contributions to that silent discussion are invariably something the Opportunist is happy to claim are at least a half-vote in favor of whatever position he's holding at the moment. XD

"Slay her or don't; it's all the same to me."

The only exception might be if the "Dragon" is informed that the player persona is with the Princess, in which case I could see the Cold shrug off his apathy long enough to murmur something along the lines of "Oh, isn't that interesting. I wonder what happens if he dies along with her?"

I instinctively read that in Cold's voice - that's definitely something he'd say!

The latter would definitely be counted as a vote for slaying by the Opportunist, giving them majority, so the Cold probably didn't care enough to vote at all.

We can have comfort in knowing that even Cold is less interested in killing us than our good friend Opportunist, who couldn't miss out on becoming the top of the pecking order.

I do love the fact that, in the absence of the player - it's the opportunist that usurps control. The other voices had a momentary control over the body, as evident by the hesitation and disinterest right before we got stabbed, and the occasional changes in body language as the voices spoke, but it's the Opportunist that was able to make the call to take the knife and dangle it in front of us with glee in his face.

And that's to be expected - *of course* he's the first to jump to taking the power.

The only surprising thing is that he was so open about wanting to kill us, considering he only appears in our head if we pretend to be saving the princess and stab her while she's distracted (for the Witch route). That goes to show just how cocky he got as soon as he was at the helm.

[Sanmei]

What interests me in retrospect is that usually the other personae take a back seat to the player's autonomy -- subversion of this is rare enough that it's treated as a (typically unwelcome) surprise whenever it happens. In the absence of the player's control, the body seems to be more evenly split between personae, with Hero and Cold briefly interrupting to speak to the Princess directly, which otherwise never seems to happen. Imagine if Smitten had been able to speak directly!

(The Happily Ever After route suggests something even more interesting about personae autonomy that I almost wish had been pursued more thoroughly...)

[hi]

The Cold didn't abstain. He voted to save the Princess. 50/50 vote, not majority, but plurality. I don't know why everyone thinks he'd automatically abstain. He pushes for interesting things to happen. Not voting wouldn't be very interesting, now would it?

As for 2, I am so glad I'm not the only person who feels this way. When I first saw The Razor and The Moment of Clarity, all I could think was "this route is a lot cooler when you've played through several other routes already." I would agree that The Princess and The Dragon is also a route that doesn't hit the same way if you haven't been playing the game for a while.

[Divadop]

Originally posted by Sanmei:

What interests me in retrospect is that usually the other personae take a back seat to the player's autonomy -- subversion of this is rare enough that it's treated as a (typically unwelcome) surprise whenever it happens. In the absence of the player's control, the body seems to be more evenly split between personae, with Hero and Cold briefly interrupting to speak to the Princess directly, which otherwise never seems to happen. Imagine if Smitten had been able to speak directly!

(The Happily Ever After route suggests something even more interesting about personae autonomy that I almost wish had been pursued more thoroughly...)

Yeah, normally it's as if the voices are physically overpowering each other in your head to be able to take control sometimes, like with the cage route. Without someone at the wheel, it's like there's just a power struggle. And of course, the opportunist comes on top - as is his nature.

I'm imagining Smitten taking Opportunist's place in the dragon route, now. That's a picture and a half. That's enough to traumatize a grown bird.

[Divadop]

Originally posted by hi:

The Cold didn't abstain. He voted to save the Princess. 50/50 vote, not majority, but plurality. I don't know why everyone thinks he'd automatically abstain. He pushes for interesting things to happen. Not voting wouldn't be very interesting, now would it?

50/50 would be a tie though, right? The game was intentionally being pedantic with the majority vs plurality, and afaik plurality is defined as the situation where one option gets more votes than any other option, but less than half of the total votes.

I think it would be just as interesting to slay the player while they're in the princess's body (since it's not clear if the loop condition is the player dying, or if it's their body dying - as we saw earlier in the route, the loop didn't actually end with the player's death, it ended with their body's death), as it would be to leave with the princess, so I can imagine Cold not minding either option, leading to a 2-1-1 split (a plurality).

Originally posted by hi:

As for 2, I am so glad I'm not the only person who feels this way. When I first saw The Razor and The Moment of Clarity, all I could think was "this route is a lot cooler when you've played through several other routes already." I would agree that The Princess and The Dragon is also a route that doesn't hit the same way if you haven't been playing the game for a while.

Yeah, the Razor too! I definitely don't think it should be *mechanically* limited in any way, the game isn't really structured in a way where it would make any sense, but I know I'm glad that I saw the razor, the moment of clarity, and the new routes after having beaten so many of the other ones, getting to know the other voices and getting a good grasp on what's going on, what everyone's situation is, etc.

The Dragon just hits so differently after you essentially "play the game" for a long time and get used to it being like a game, with chapter titles and such, and then being forced to actually be put into the princess's shoes and see how your "game" affects her and her experiences through it.

I also love the touch of how the player is silently staring at the princess each time there's an inner dialogue happening, and how the princess can hear you take the blade, etc.

[Pepper&Berry]

The Princess and the Dragon route was one the most romantic in the game.

[Sanmei]

The text imposed upon the Princess as the end of the loop merges with the beginning of the next was really something too. "This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what—"

I have to imagine that's something from the Ur Narrator bound into the construct itself, some facet of his hatred and loathing of the "Shifting Mound" rising up from the programming. It's unclear to me whether the Princess herself registers it on any kind of conscious level, much like she doesn't see the title cards.

Stars above, I find myself wishing more and more that we could revisit a little of that petty cruelty back upon him. The player is able to experience some hint of what he'd subject the universe to in many different ways (the Happily Ever After route, the two ways of getting the "good ending," the various times you can be stuck for an indeterminate amount of time in intolerable conditions...) and I find myself wishing we could pursue that more. Tell him exactly how horrid eternity could be.

[ivanything43]

1- Yeah, I'd agree with what you said, Narrator and Opportunist kill, Hero spare and Cold abstain. (maybe Cold could've chose to spare because he hasn't done it yet? Since he likes to choose interesting options)
2- I think a good thing to consider in if it's good to see a route first is how you get to it. It's pretty hard to get to the route, if you wanted to kill the princess, you most likely would reach the wraith since its a lot easier. If you allowed her to possess you, it's probably because you liked her and would ignore the "Slay the Princess" option. It's a pretty unique decision to let her possess you and then kill yourself to kill her.
But I also think it's a very natural progression from the situation. I think this chapter 3 was put in the perfect place in terms of theme since everything is very generic to focus on the very harsh shift of the formula and it exists in the path that requires you to do the most generic option, slay the princess.
But you're somewhat right about it kinda being "too good" to have as the first thing you play. But not because you wouldn't have context for understanding the chapter, but because every other chapter just doesn't completely shift the formula as much as this one. It might feel a bit disappointing that it was the only chapter to break everything. But at the same time, the princess herself is probably the most boring variation of the princess, probably by design.
Even then, there are still some others that reach a similar realm of breaking the game like The Stranger, The Moment of Clarity, The Wild and The Razor (although I think it'd be very unlikely to get both razor and specter in a first playthrough) so it's not a bad expectation to have for the game.

[Rallania]

I also think that Voice of the Cold voted to save the princess, but I think it's because you're missing from the body. It always felt to me that Cold prefers 'the Decider' over the other voices given how he reacts to the mirror and what he says during 'The Nightmare' (considering how the Construct is described to be cold by the princess, maybe he identifies more with the Long Quiet in general?); when he does talk to the princess during the dragon chapter, he tells her what's going on to the detriment of the Opportunist instead of taking a back seat like in other chapters, which I thought was interesting.

As for whether the chapter is "too good" for a first chapter, I do agree in that it does give away a lot in terms of foreshadowing LQ's and Shifty's nature/original relationship to each other (them originally being one being as stated by the Narrator), but as the person above said, I don't think that's much of game changer since to get to the Spectre you'd have to be completely locked in (aka ignore every dialogue option and opting to just do the objective), which is probably unlikely for a first go around.

On a side note (and just because I really wanted to mention it), I unironically love the fact that the 'harsh' princess commits to stabbing you if you tell her that you've switched back without encouraging her to kill you so she can "take you back". Really gives the vibes that she's trying to rescue the LQ from being stuck with the other voices (aka the Opportunist) and I'm honestly here for it.

[hi]

Originally posted by Divadop:

Originally posted by hi:

The Cold didn't abstain. He voted to save the Princess. 50/50 vote, not majority, but plurality. I don't know why everyone thinks he'd automatically abstain. He pushes for interesting things to happen. Not voting wouldn't be very interesting, now would it?

50/50 would be a tie though, right? The game was intentionally being pedantic with the majority vs plurality, and afaik plurality is defined as the situation where one option gets more votes than any other option, but less than half of the total votes.

Majority is when one option gets more votes than the other. Plurality is when one option simply gets more than one vote. Whatever you defined would require more than two options to actually work.

[Arlyeon [Crit Hit]]

Originally posted by Divadop:

Originally posted by Sanmei:

I suspect the Cold's contributions to that silent discussion are invariably something the Opportunist is happy to claim are at least a half-vote in favor of whatever position he's holding at the moment. XD

"Slay her or don't; it's all the same to me."

The only exception might be if the "Dragon" is informed that the player persona is with the Princess, in which case I could see the Cold shrug off his apathy long enough to murmur something along the lines of "Oh, isn't that interesting. I wonder what happens if he dies along with her?"

I instinctively read that in Cold's voice - that's definitely something he'd say!

The latter would definitely be counted as a vote for slaying by the Opportunist, giving them majority, so the Cold probably didn't care enough to vote at all.

We can have comfort in knowing that even Cold is less interested in killing us than our good friend Opportunist, who couldn't miss out on becoming the top of the pecking order.

I do love the fact that, in the absence of the player - it's the opportunist that usurps control. The other voices had a momentary control over the body, as evident by the hesitation and disinterest right before we got stabbed, and the occasional changes in body language as the voices spoke, but it's the Opportunist that was able to make the call to take the knife and dangle it in front of us with glee in his face.

And that's to be expected - *of course* he's the first to jump to taking the power.

The only surprising thing is that he was so open about wanting to kill us, considering he only appears in our head if we pretend to be saving the princess and stab her while she's distracted (for the Witch route). That goes to show just how cocky he got as soon as he was at the helm.

Yeah, my conclusion was the cold was indifferent to matters, and didn't care enough to even vote.

[Divadop]

Originally posted by Sanmei:

The text imposed upon the Princess as the end of the loop merges with the beginning of the next was really something too. "This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what—"

I have to imagine that's something from the Ur Narrator bound into the construct itself, some facet of his hatred and loathing of the "Shifting Mound" rising up from the programming. It's unclear to me whether the Princess herself registers it on any kind of conscious level, much like she doesn't see the title cards.

(Beast route spoilers)
The beast also says this when she swallows you:
"When I killed you I tried to leave this place, but it wouldn't let me. 'You belong down there,' it screamed at me. 'The world is better off without you in it.'"

The Narrator himself also frequently uses those words too, "the world would be better off without her", so that's a very good point - we get cute little title cards, the princess gets hate mail from a piece of the Narrator.

[Divadop]

Originally posted by hi:

Originally posted by Divadop:

50/50 would be a tie though, right? The game was intentionally being pedantic with the majority vs plurality, and afaik plurality is defined as the situation where one option gets more votes than any other option, but less than half of the total votes.

Majority is when one option gets more votes than the other. Plurality is when one option simply gets more than one vote. Whatever you defined would require more than two options to actually work.

I've never heard that definition of plurality (an option getting more than one vote) - all definitions I've been able to find define majority as more than (but not equal to) the 50% of the total votes, and plurality as one option having more votes than any other option.

Still, I can't imagine that the Opportunist would be able to move forward with the slaying if it had been a tie. The Hero would probably also mention that it was a tie and not just "it wasn't a majority decision".

I do like the idea thought that the Cold voted to save us, though - as "creepy" as he is described to be, he's oddly comforting sometimes. It's a nice thought.

[Divadop]

P.S, I love that the princess says "Get away from me, you cold little freak!" right before she manages to pull the player out with her.

What was the voice of the Cold doing, was he trying to prevent her from taking us (the decider) with her? Or perhaps he was simply grabbing her to prevent her from leaving altogether?