Why do so many villagers hate poppies?

[Blundering Rookie]

Is there some sort of myth behind them that I'm not aware of? It's a universal hated item, but I'm not sure why? Most hated items make sense, but this one has me scratching my head

[Nakos]

Originally posted by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Also, Poppies are an ingredient in Morphine (and other harder drugs) ... which is addictive.

And finally, it might be a reference to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG2keYgBiZc

[Coffee Addict]

penny loves them, not that i can blame her she is the only one who lives in a trailer and has to share it with her druken ogre of a mother so she needs somethin to numb the pain

[Aerogems]

You're probably overthinking it. Put yourself in the shoes of the developer. You have a limited selection of things in the game, some of which need to be hated items. You could go through and try to make individual choices for every single one, but then you have to keep track of all those throughout the entire game, which gets to be a lot of work, so eventually you will probably just randomly pick something to be a universally hated gift. There's likely no real significance to it, or at least not a conscious one. It could also be something as simple as Ape hating poppy seed muffins.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Aerogems:

You're probably overthinking it. Put yourself in the shoes of the developer. You have a limited selection of things in the game,

flowers have significance. and there are thousands to choose from to put in the game. the fact a flower related to death is a hated gift is unlikely to be a coincidence.

[ChrillBill]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

Originally posted by Aerogems:

You're probably overthinking it. Put yourself in the shoes of the developer. You have a limited selection of things in the game,

flowers have significance. and there are thousands to choose from to put in the game. the fact a flower related to death is a hated gift is unlikely to be a coincidence.

I was going to say, and from what I know red poppies in particular are used to honor veterans and fallen soldiers. There is also an ongoing conflict in the game, even though it is barely mentioned, but the Ferngill Republic is basically at war with the Gotoro Empire. This is where Kent is returning from - prison camp in the Gotoro Empire. So those flowers might just be a very sore reminder of what is going on, and perhaps also of how many they have lost.

Why Penny loves them I am not sure. Could be that she is quite depressed, or simply just likes them without taking into account what they usually represent.

[Aerogems]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

Originally posted by Aerogems:

You're probably overthinking it. Put yourself in the shoes of the developer. You have a limited selection of things in the game,

flowers have significance. and there are thousands to choose from to put in the game. the fact a flower related to death is a hated gift is unlikely to be a coincidence.

People love to attribute meaning to things where there is none. It's a very human thing to do, but it doesn't follow that there's a meaning behind everything. Sometimes there's the "happy coincidence" where two things just happen to go together even though it wasn't planned. It's called apophenia, or sometimes patternicity. Specifically in this case, the clustering illusion sub-variant. Maybe there is a connection, maybe there's not, none of us knows for sure what was going through Ape's head when he made that decision.

[Little Horn]

Originally posted by Aerogems:

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

flowers have significance. and there are thousands to choose from to put in the game. the fact a flower related to death is a hated gift is unlikely to be a coincidence.

People love to attribute meaning to things where there is none. It's a very human thing to do, but it doesn't follow that there's a meaning behind everything. Sometimes there's the "happy coincidence" where two things just happen to go together even though it wasn't planned. It's called apophenia, or sometimes patternicity. Specifically in this case, the clustering illusion sub-variant. Maybe there is a connection, maybe there's not, none of us knows for sure what was going through Ape's head when he made that decision.

The selection of items isn't limited. Instead fo poppies, it could be those blue spring flowers, or powdermelons, or whatever else.

[ChrillBill]

Originally posted by Aerogems:

People love to attribute meaning to things where there is none. It's a very human thing to do, but it doesn't follow that there's a meaning behind everything. Sometimes there's the "happy coincidence" where two things just happen to go together even though it wasn't planned. It's called apophenia, or sometimes patternicity. Specifically in this case, the clustering illusion sub-variant. Maybe there is a connection, maybe there's not, none of us knows for sure what was going through Ape's head when he made that decision.

That's not what was done here though.

It's actually a quite logical conclusion based on the combination of what I mentioned is going on in the game and also the significance those particular flowers have. Just because you couldn't see that doesn't mean people are overthinking it