Manny [Story discussion and SPOILER for Episode 1]

[MaGi]

I hope you've finished Episode 1 before reading on...

So my first thought upon finishing Episode 1 was "hmm, Manny is clearly evil; maybe he'll turn out to be one of the villains from the origina... oh wait a minute, is Manny Manannan?"

Manannan the evil wizard from King's Quest III[kingsquest.wikia.com]?

And now I'm going to spoil King's Quest III as well so if you're still planning to play this amazing twenty-nine-year-old game, stop reading and do it!

It seems I'm not the only one to make this connection: the wiki[kingsquest.wikia.com] asks "Is Manny short for Manannan?", as did a user on NeoGAF[www.neogaf.com]. Funnily, I even found some old KQ3[www.gamefaqs.com] walkthroughs[www.agdinteractive.com] referring to Manannan as "Manny".

It kind of makes sense: Manannan is a wizard, and Manny is the "intelligent" knight in this game. The only discrepancy is that he's so short, whereas Manannan was very tall.

Last piece of evidence: listen to the track Manny's Fugue, which I believe plays during the Duel of Wits. If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can almost hear Manannan's wonderful haunting theme from KQ3. It's not the same theme, but very similar --- I believe deliberately so, but not so similar that it would spoil the story by association.

If this isn't true, then it's pretty weird that they chose to name the new villain so similarly to the old one.

If this is true, what else can we gather from this?

• I'm assuming that Manny will go on to be Graham's nemesis for the rest of the series.
  
• Manannan probably kidnaps Alexander as revenge for Graham defeating him in the tournament, or something else Graham does in a later episode.
  
• Remember the story of Manannan from the KQ3 manual[www.sierrahelp.com]? He kidnapped infants and raised them as his servants, not just Alexander, but many before that. Remember how Manny was the only one who knew how to communicate fluently with Achaka? And then later he lied about Achaka's origins? Maybe Achaka was Manny's servant boy, and he raised him on this funny language so he couldn't communicate with anyone else. I'm not quite sure what his plan was with Achaka but it seems plausible Achaka was supposed to help Graham along with Manny, to ultimately give Manny greater influence in the court.

What do you think?

[Banjo]

I figured Manny is a goblin. Goblins are clearly going to be important in later episodes (you can see them hauling around mattresses so they're involved in trapping the dragon), you never see Manny's face, he's the right size, and during the Duel of Wits, he mentions that Goblins are smarter than they look. His defining character trait is that he's smart, so he would be talking about himself.

Which is not to say that it's one or the other. Either way, Manny displayed no magical talent in the first episode, so there would have to be a big development in later episodes for your theory to be true. It's certainly an interesting theory.

[Mr_Math]

They all but said that Manny will be a returning character. At the very end, Graham started asking him what his angle was, and he ran for it rather than answer. That's as good as saying, "Here's a mystery we will be addressing later."

[Korzic]

Certainly an interesting theory, though I too was leaning towards Manny being a goblin.

The height discrepancy of Manannan vs. Manny can easily be explained away via magic. Alex was able to transform into a fly and an eagle, not to mention Mordack did a few transformations of his own, so who knows what magical abilities Manannan's capable of (and let's not forget that Alex learned his transformations from Manannan's own book).

[Banjo]

Originally posted by Korzic:

Certainly an interesting theory, though I too was leaning towards Manny being a goblin.

It could be both, really. It's plausible that magic could turn a goblin into an old man, and I could imagine a handful of scenarios: Manny hating being a goblin, Manny wanting to disguise himself, a spell gone wrong (probably due to Graham meddling), etc.

[rognik]

Manny being Manannan would explain why he kidnapped the prince, rather than some common village boy like he supposedly had in the past, but that's about the only link I see. Whether he shrunk himself as a disguise for the knight tournament, or the wizard body was a disguise, the stories don't quite line up enough to make them the same person. They could be, and it would be an interesting twist, but I just don't see it done in a believable manner.

[Sslaxx]

That ending for chapter 2 certainly lends fuel to this fire!

[timmo4444]

Interesting! i was not aware after episode 1 people were suspecting manny as a goblin. Because after episode 2 the chances of that have risen quite a bit.

[RubiconVale]

Dude. This changes so much and really fits wirh lore. My major disappointment with Ch2 is not enough KQ2 references like Dracula or Hagatha. Manny as Mannanan sure adds a nice twist.

I personally hope the guy at the end is Derek Karavagan or whoever wrote the Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles.

[Banjo]

Heh, I remember this thread.

I replayed Chapter 1 not long ago and I had another thought: what about the Hobblepot son? If you hang around their shop you can hear them talking about how Graham reminded them of their son, who ran off to be a knight. I think that means either Manny is their son, or if the weird guy at the end is their son. Either way, after replaying that episode, I think that Manny is somehow connected to them. He complements the Hobblepots during the duel of wits (similar to how he complements the goblins), he knows enough to pre-order the eyes from them, and he has the hypnosis powder. But he didn't seem to know about their new creation: the whitening potion. So that tells me he knows quite a bit about the Hobblepots, but is out of touch with their current activities.

Anyways, dunno what Manny's history is. But I am now 100% convinced he's Mannanan. Between his name being Manny and apparently arranging to steal a baby, there's just no way that's a coincidence.

[Cat]

Originally posted by Blizdi:

So, do you guys think Manny will be in later episodes? Or is he a one-time vilian?

You need to watch a short cutscene at the very end of episode 2 to get the answer to your question ;)

[MaGi]

Oh boy, I saw the messages come up in this thread weeks ago but I avoided looking because I hadn't finished Episode 2 yet :)

Now that I have... I think the baby swap book definitely supports my original theory. But who is that man? Could *he* be Manannan instead? Excited for Episode 3... just look at that picture at the end! It looks like a painting of the intro to King's Quest V.

[markornikov]

Originally posted by MaGi:

Now that I have... I think the baby swap book definitely supports my original theory. But who is that man? Could *he* be Manannan instead? Excited for Episode 3... just look at that picture at the end! It looks like a painting of the intro to King's Quest V.

That man could be Mordack, Manannan's brother and villain of KQ V.
He also has black hair and a beard...

It would also support your theory.

[MaGi]

Oh man, how long has it been? So pumped for #3.