*SPOILERS* Luciola's Story...I don't like it

[Dragon]

This post will contain SPOILERS about Luciola and Renne too, and also various other characters from the Trails games.












So I got to Chapter 9 and completed Luciola's story with Schera in my party.

I wasn't happy with how her story turned out.

I had expected that the resolution to her story would have given her some depth and make her not be a psychopath.

But it didn't actually do that. Instead, it left her as a psychopath.

That was very disappointing.

Here is what I think they should have done with Luciola's story: Harvey owed money to the same criminal organization that used to control Renne. Their enforcers threatened Harvey, and said they would massacre him and his whole troupe unless he either paid up what he owed or made a deal with them. Harvey then decides to sell Luciola & Schera to them as prostitutes because he thinks it's the only way to keep himself and them alive. Luciola overhears Harvey making this deal, then kills him in order to stop herself and Schera from being sold.

I wonder why they didn't make the story something like that. IMO that would have been much more interesting than making Luciola a psychopath like they actually did.

[Oguzhan]

So you would rather have someone like Harvey a terrible person instead of someone else? Dude not every enforcer is a misstreated person who does the things they do because the world treated them badly. Luciola loved Harvey but instead got a different response however instead of beeing sad she let the urge take in and killed him. It is something that happens a lot in real life and the urge, believe it or not, happens to a lot of people. She even says it, she didn't feel bad for killing Harvey at all. Now is she a complete pschopath? No. She does show empathy towards Schera and legitimately feels bad for leaving her but she still has that dark side of her with Harvey. She knows she was wrong and she knows that not feeling bad for killing him is a bad thing which is one of the reasons why she joins Ouroboros since they can help her use that darkness. She is not a good person but she is not a straight psychopath either, hell Renne is more of a crazy than her at least at the beginning.

[myhr2]

You could write a book with all the criticism you have given about the Trails games. And by criticism, I mean you basically saying "I don't like things". Believe me, you're better of focusing on things you actually enjoy rather than dismanteling something you don't. And I don't mean that you can't give your honest opinion, but you should focus on things you like.

[Dragon]

Originally posted by myhr2:

Believe me, you're better of focusing on things you actually enjoy rather than dismanteling something you don't.

I actually like Trails better than most games. I criticize other games a lot harder than I do Trails, like for example DOS 2 which I can't stand and I think is a very bad game.

One of the reasons I like Trails is because sometimes it doesn't present its villains as one-dimensional caricatures like 99% of video games, tv shows, and Hollywood films do.

But then Trails undermines it's own innovations in that regard by reverting back to that stale old cliche formula with this Luciola example as described in the OP.

[Serval]

Luciola and Walter are truly not the best antagonists we could have in the game. They fill a bit like fillers.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡⁧⁧the.jester]

Sometimes people can just be bad people. To me Luciola came across as manipulative, taking advantage of Shera's desire to find her "older sister" before essentially stabbing her in the back.
I do think the trails games tend to make some enemies a bit too likeable - sometimes you just want an enemy who is an absolute out and out sob regardless of their backstory!

Besides, her story is almost certainly not finished, do we even know if she told Shera the truth?

[butterbattle22]

Shouldn't some villains be psychopaths?

[Dragon]

Originally posted by butterbattle22:

Shouldn't some villains be psychopaths?

No, because the world already has a way over-abundance of that. Like as I said, 99% of video games, Hollywood movies, and tv shows. That concept has been done to death. There's nothing more boring and less interesting then seeing it rehashed again for the one thousand trillionth time.

I also agree that Walter is another poorly-done, one-dimensional & cliched cartoon of a villain.

[Hat8]

I think you misunderstand what the Enforcer's actually are and seem to believe that all stories need a mustache twirling villain.

[Berahlen]

Oh look. Another one of these. -_-

Sometimes, just sometimes, people who join an assassin society happen to be batcrap murderous psychos.

Also your suggestion for "fixing" things is frankly its own brand of cliche edgelord.

[Void Cat]

Same boat. Wasn't a fan of her little story either. Or Walter's. Renne's was decent, that's about it. The Enforcers to me were the worst part of this game. Luckily this game is much more than just them, so I had plenty of other things to like.

[butterbattle22]

We're using the word psychopath pretty loosely though, aren't we? You might as well say that you don't like Luciola's story because it makes her seem like a bad person? So you don't like it when a villain is a bad person because bad people are uncompelling?

Do you like the Joker from Batman?

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Waypoint:

Also your suggestion for "fixing" things is frankly its own brand of cliche

Granted, my fix is not the most original one in the world, but nevertheless, it's still at least 1,000,000,000,000 fold better than what is actually in the game. And I only spent a couple of minutes thinking about my fix. If I put real thought/effort/energy into it, then I could have made it much better. But apparently I'm not supposed to do that unless I get paid dollars for it first, because when I suggested Falcom should formally recruit volunteers to translate the Crossbell games for free, then I was bawled out and everyone told me no, it's better for us to have no Crossbell games ever because the volunteers must be paid before it is right that they should do any work.

Moving on, I just beat the game today, and they did the same exact thing as they did with Luciola with the Professor too! He could have been a great villain, albeit a sicko who will do anything in the name of science, but they had to totally ruin him by needlessly throwing in that line where he says something like "My favorite part is seeing the despair on your face" (not an exact quotation, but you know what I mean...the point is they made him get pleasure from torturing people, which is an element that does nothing but ruin his character).

So now we have at least three separate one-dimensional psychopath cartoon caricatures in this game (Walter, Luciola, Professor). That way over-abundance very much deflates the argument "some villains should be psychos because some people are psychos." Psychos are not anywhere near so common as they appear in this game, nor in 99% of movies/tv shows/other video games. And even if they were, that still wouldn't be a good reason to make 99% of all fictional villains be one anyway.

I haven't seen anyone make any kind of compelling rebuttal to my point. How, exactly, specifically, does making the villains into one-dimensional cartoon caricatures make them better/more interesting than they would otherwise be if they instead were complex and three-dimensional and realistic?

Loewe is a great example of villain who isn't a one-dimensional cartoon caricature. And so is Richard, and so is his chief lieutenant in the first game. To some extent, so is Renne. If Falcom's writers had put the same storytelling effort into its other villains as it did to those ones, then the game would have been much better, because there wouldn't be a "yes but..." caveat in regards to it having great villains.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Originally posted by Waypoint:

Also your suggestion for "fixing" things is frankly its own brand of cliche

Granted, my fix is not the most original one in the world, but nevertheless, it's still at least 1,000,000,000,000 fold better than what is actually in the game. And I only spent a couple of minutes thinking about my fix. If I put real thought/effort/energy into it, then I could have made it much better. But apparently I'm not supposed to do that unless I get paid dollars for it first, because when I suggested Falcom should formally recruit volunteers to translate the Crossbell games for free, then I was bawled out and everyone told me no, it's better for us to have no Crossbell games ever because the volunteers must be paid before it is right that they should do any work.

Moving on, I just beat the game today, and they did the same exact thing as they did with Luciola with the Professor too! He could have been a great villain, albeit a sicko who will do anything in the name of science, but they had to totally ruin him by needlessly throwing in that line where he says something like "My favorite part is seeing the despair on your face" (not an exact quotation, but you know what I mean...the point is they made him get pleasure from torturing people, which is an element that does nothing but ruin his character).

So now we have at least three separate one-dimensional psychopath cartoon caricatures in this game (Walter, Luciola, Professor). That way over-abundance very much deflates the argument "some villains should be psychos because some people are psychos." Psychos are not anywhere near so common as they appear in this game, nor in 99% of movies/tv shows/other video games. And even if they were, that still wouldn't be a good reason to make 99% of all fictional villains be one anyway.

I haven't seen anyone make any kind of compelling rebuttal to my point. How, exactly, specifically, does making the villains into one-dimensional cartoon caricatures make them better/more interesting than they would otherwise be if they instead were complex and three-dimensional and realistic?

Loewe is a great example of villain who isn't a one-dimensional cartoon caricature. And so is Richard, and so is his chief lieutenant in the first game. To some extent, so is Renne. If Falcom's writers had put the same storytelling effort into its other villains as it did to those ones, then the game would have been much better, because there wouldn't be a "yes but..." caveat in regards to it having great villains.

Dude, lemme just say neither of those 3 are one dimensional trust me. Even weissman has some background that you don't know about. They hint at it at the end of this game but it is something that is built up in the background since it connects to a certain event of the past.

Walter and Lucciola, if you don't like them then fine but in all honesty they are not one dimensional. Walter is a guy who decided to use the killing fist but was still respectful of his master and so was his master to him. However Zin was the stronger of the two meaning he will inherit the dojo and marry Kalika and while Kilika does have a saying in the matter Walter could not except it which is understandable from someone who lived his life hoaning his martial arts that and even Kilika wouldn't except just being with Walter......at least that is what he thought at the time. He is not some killer who just murders everyone. He even has a real soft spot for Renne. Its kinda like Akuma actually. He enjoys a death match but doesn't go around killing random people.

Lucciola I already mentioned my opinion on her.

[Hat8]

Originally posted by butterbattle22:

We're using the word psychopath pretty loosely though, aren't we? You might as well say that you don't like Luciola's story because it makes her seem like a bad person? So you don't like it when a villain is a bad person because bad people are uncompelling?

Do you like the Joker from Batman?

She is a bad person.

Of course, there are details we don't know and the fact that this series is willing to do that is a good thing. Some stories just explain too much.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My thoughts on Luciola:

https://imgur.com/pV6wgN9