<<SPOILER REVIEW WARNING>> Concerning the final plot twist and our reactions

[Bravozuluf]

Do not continue to read this discussion as a heads up because it concerns how one as a player feels about the plot twist reveal at the very end!

I said, stop while you can!!

Okay, but for all those who finished the game, what do we feel about the sudden reveal of C's identity as Crow Armbrust ? Of all things, I think the final reveal actually took away from Crow's character instead of adding or enriching his character. Beforehand, I thought of Crow Armbrust as a trendy, too-lazy-to-be-ambitious, and an incorrigible flirt. His character was as distinct and original as any of the other teammates. On top of that, he added a real flare to the crew. His dorm room even had pin up swimsuit models. What a bro (and a great game to have added that little detail). There was a real depth and sense of bond between Rean and the others with him, such as when he quite unselfishly aided Rean in rescuing his sister, and when he stayed up at all hours with Class VII rehearsing them to perfection. You ask anyone, that's a real solid bro there! A real pal! Real depth there.

I thought he would be way too lazy to be C. His battle catchphrase is, "See? I don't slack off all the time!" or "Handsome and strong. I'm the whole package!" Of course, he's just being facetious there. His facade of being lazy and carefree was so thorough, that there was never an instance of when he let slip even once that perhaps he was more than meets the eye. One could say that's just how thoroughly C covered his tracks, but on the other hand, one could say that in order to brace the player about something being off about his character, the writers would have thrown us a bone here and there. This happened back in 'Sky FC' and 'The Third' in regards to Joshua Bright and Father Kevin Graham by peppering in tidbits and instances where though they were reliable allies, something was off about them. C's reveal and then his betrayal felt almost out of left field. I thought, "You mean, C was the same fool who frittered away hours on Blade with ten-year-olds and hours at the horse races?? What the Hell?"

On top of that, the plot twists from FC and The Third for comparison felt different because the betrayers were just as heartbroken to betray the team as the team felt to be betrayed. Joshua fled in tears in SC and Kevin went through his 5 stages of grief in The Third to deal with the repercussions of their actions. But, upon facing Rean in the last confrontation, Crow is indifferent to betraying all his friends and doesn't give a damn. That's puts a really weird feeling into me. I dunno if that was the point of this game.

The rest of Class VII was in brief denial that of all people Crow was C . At least, how thorough the Falcom writers are, Rean addressed this in his final duel against C by demanding answers "All those moments, helping us... was it all for NOTHING??" C's answer was a hesitated but indifferent, "Yes." Wow.

What that means is that the overarching villain of CS 2 is a whole lot less intimidating than for example the Third Anguis from SC because I suppose I know what makes him tick. Or, so I thought. I guess that means zilch now. But, oh well. And this kinda awkward plot twist drops my supposed score for this game from a 98% to a 95%. Regardless of all this, I'll still give this game a 5 star rating. I will play it again. But I won't give Crow the time of day on my second play through. That's the real damn shame. Cuz he was so much fun to hear his antics about girls and gambling. Really entertaining. He'd remind me in real life that all that is actually for naught.

So, what did everyone else think of the reveal?

[Cold_Reverie]

One quick thing I need to point out before adressing your post: the last game in the Trails in the Sky Trilogy is called "the 3rd" not "Third Chapter" or "TC". This is an important and intended decision on the part of the developers, as the last game in the Sky Trilogy is not so much a "Final" or "Third" chapter so much in the same way SC is to FC, and because of the unique nature of the game. I just thought I should point this out to prevent any misunderstandings.

Anyway:

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

I thought he would be way too lazy to be C. His battle catchphrase is, "See? I don't slack off all the time!" or "Handsome and strong. I'm the whole package!" Of course, he's just being facetious there.

That's kinda the thing, though. That is why he is always slacking off.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

Okay, but for all those who finished the game, what do we feel about the sudden reveal of C's identity as Crow Armbrust ?

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

His facade of being lazy and carefree was so thorough, that there was never an instance of when he let slip even once that perhaps he was more than meets the eye. One could say that's just how thoroughly C covered his tracks, but on the other hand, one could say that in order to brace the player about something being off about his character, the writers would have thrown us a bone here and there.

Except it wasn't sudden. In fact, there are quite a few people who were able to figure out C was Crow before it was revealed in-game. There are multiple hints throughout the game. He shows up out of nowhere in Heimdallr right before the terrorist attack because he needed to show up as C in the catacombs.

When you arrive at Gerrelia Fortress you can find Crow and Machias, who had just got back from their field study to the Jurai SEZ (which is where Crow is from), who are talking about its people, and Machias mentions that the people seemed happy with being annexed by the Empire. Crow responds, almost bitterly, that it was the Chancellor that annexed the place and that it was probably to "fatten his own pocketbook".

Also, that whole incident with the miners in Roer. He volunteered to be the one to take the miners back and then got "blocked off by a cave-in" so he couldn't make it back to the team until after he fights Class VII. It was very suspicious timing.

And, of course, right before the reveal, when he suddenly vanished and went to Heimdallr. I'd say that was a about the most blatant hint you could get. Him paying back all his debts and clearing out his dorm and dissappering after essentially making peace with everyone.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

C's reveal and then his betrayal felt almost out of left field. I thought, "You mean, C was the same fool who frittered away hours on Blade with ten-year-olds and hours at the horse races?? What the Hell?"

I don't think it came out of left field. Some people put it together after he was absent in the fight against C in Roer. Crow's name also starts with C, so some people guess C's identity from that, although I think there are a lot of people whose name starts with C that he could have been.

Oh, and one other interesting thing regarding blade: there is a bonding event you can do with Crow where he says he's feeling "sentimental" and then gets Rean to play Blade with him. He says after that Rean should really have "figured me out by now". I'd recommend seeing the event again or if you hadn't already. It's worth a watch.

You can see his event here if you skip to about 8:15.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

But, upon facing Rean in the last confrontation, Crow is indifferent to betraying all his friends and doesn't give a damn. That's puts a really weird feeling into me. I dunno if that was the point of this game.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

The rest of Class VII was in brief denial that of all people Crow was C . At least, how thorough the Falcom writers are, Rean addressed this in his final duel against C by demanding answers "All those moments, helping us... was it all for NOTHING??" C's answer was a hesitated but indifferent, "Yes." Wow.

Actually, I think Crow did feel bad about betraying them. Before going into the Old Schoolhouse for the Final Dungon, Crow's ARCUS unit glows blue and he responds sadly "Mine is too.". Crow also tried to distance himself in a few different instances in the game and when Rean would reply that he was his friend, Crow would respond in ways such as saying "Heh. You're a funny guy." and etc.

Crow had just made peace with his decision and knew what he was about to do. And even then, he hesitated to say "Yes.". I'm not so sure Crow means that. Crow clearly cared a lot about Class VII and Towa, Angelica, and George. That examples you gave of him being a bro do a pretty good job of showing that, I personally think.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

What that means is that the overarching villain of CS 2 is a whole lot less intimidating than for example the Second Anguis from SC because I suppose I know what makes him tick.

The Third Anguis was the villain of SC, not the Second.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

Regardless of all this, I'll still give this game a 5 star rating. I will play it again. But I won't give Crow the time of day on my second play through.

That would be the worse thing you could do. You would miss all the forshadowing and hidden details that were not obvious or couldn't be noticed on the first playthrough with regards to Crow.

Crow is one of my favorite characters, and I thought him being C was very well done.

[Bravozuluf]

If you don't mind, I will make a few edits to my original post since you pointed out some things and seem to know your SC stuff.

[Bravozuluf]

Do you think the reveal was really that obvious? I speculated surely, but I came up with weird names and hadn't though of anyone from Class VII to have been C before it was revealed. Crow's act of distancing himself somewhat from the others of Class VII I took as a few reasons, not including that he was the mastermind of the Liberation Front:
He was a second year, and already had his friend group figured out for the most part. He showed up halfway through the year because he was held back (not exactly a badge of honor, but the others were accepting of him anyways and he was cool enough to take it). Like a cool kid, close-quarters relationships were too much for him (the same feeling as hugging your parents in public during teenage years). He had his own pasttimes that were different from the rest of the class (not into studying, swordsmanship, etc) and to me he made you really have to go out of your way to find and spend time with him.

I'd have rathered see a tidbit of him discussing and suddenly getting worked up over politics with Rean for example which to me would have added intrigue about his character. I'd have seen that in addition to being a gambler, he'd be a student with an opinion on political manners. That would've thrown me a bone so to speak about his eventual betrayal ("Wow, I knew he disliked the Chancellor, but I see now he acted on that). He never mentioned politics to Rean which made me wonder at the end, "wait, he had an opinion about politics?".

I think that the reveal made him much more an enigma than straightforward. He's still too likeable for me to dislike. I'm only thinking of the good times I had with him. That's why I dislike him!

What the plot twist means for the next game is that like the rest of the flabbergasted Class VII, my crew will search far and wide for Crow, and slap him around for a good five minutes to remind him of what good he had going for him and then left behind!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

Do you think the reveal was really that obvious? I speculated surely, but I came up with weird names and hadn't though of anyone from Class VII to have been C before it was revealed. Crow's act of distancing himself somewhat from the others of Class VII I took as a few reasons, not including that he was the mastermind of the Liberation Front:

When it was revealed that all of the ILF leaders followed the same naming convention (first letter of their name), it became only a matter of narrowing down all of the characters who's name started off with C.

- Duke Cayenne (Unlikely, because he had only one scene in the entire game up until that point and seemed more like the type to lead from the back than actually fight)
- Claire (Was in the same room as C at the same time, so no)
- Crow


Crow had by far the most reasons to suspect him. If C was going to be a main antagonist, then he would be a character we were very familiar with, and Crow was a major recurring character. Furthermore, we could see that Crow was sleeping in Class and had a tendency to disappear off of campus for extended periods of time, so it seemed pretty likely that he was actually involved in a very time consuming activity and used his class time to catch up on sleep. He also conveniently nearby whenever C showed up. In Celdic, he could've easily caught a train ride to meet with Gideon after classes were dismissed. In Heimdallr, he simply would've had to split up from Towa and Angie, change his clothes and enter one of the many tunnel entrances. Roer was the nail in the coffin for me, when his return route was apparently blocked by a cave in and he was unable to meet up with the party... then shortly after, C shows up and is able to identify Angie as Marquis Rogner's daughter, despite living in a time where photo identification isn't a thing. What threw me off was reading that C's body was recovered from the wreckage at the bottom of the mine, so I briefly thought that it was actually nobody... until Crow started giving all of the things he had been loaned back to their owners and saying goodbye to his friends...

On my second playthrough, I noticed more hints. Besides his truant behavior lining up with escapades in the ILF's rebellion, he also admitted to being a manipulator. In one of his bonding events, he sits at his desk in the empty class homeroom appearing contemplative, luring Rean into the homeroom so he can actually start playing Blade with him. He admits that being all quiet and sentimental when he's normally a joker was a trick to get people.

At Garrelia Fortress, he is not surprised at the turn of events, while the rest of Class VII is. When Neithardt gets the phone call, everyone except Crow has an exclamation mark over their head.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

He was a second year, and already had his friend group figured out for the most part. He showed up halfway through the year because he was held back (not exactly a badge of honor, but the others were accepting of him anyways and he was cool enough to take it). Like a cool kid, close-quarters relationships were too much for him (the same feeling as hugging your parents in public during teenage years). He had his own pasttimes that were different from the rest of the class (not into studying, swordsmanship, etc) and to me he made you really have to go out of your way to find and spend time with him.

Crow came to Thor's Military Academy in the first place to find Valimar, the Ashen Knight. He's been working with the Azure Abyss to secure power for ILF (and by extension, Ouroboros). He knows that the DK is somewhere around there, probably in the Old Schoolhouse. However, he's on a time limit to find it: Thor's is a 2 year academy, and the only way to access the Old Schoolhouse without raising suspicion is to get the Principal to authorize excursions into it. Thus, Crow doesn't have that much time to make friends; he needs to find a way to get into the schoolhouse and find the DK as quickly as possible. He manages to get into thanks to being apart of Class VI's testing session, but doesn't have enough time to make it to the bottom. Class VII is formed, and by this point Crow is a second year. He flunks the midterms so he can buy more time, and takes advantage of Ms. Valestein's hospitality to get in on the class that's regularly exploring the Old Schoolhouse.

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

I'd have rathered see a tidbit of him discussing and suddenly getting worked up over politics with Rean for example which to me would have added intrigue about his character. I'd have seen that in addition to being a gambler, he'd be a student with an opinion on political manners. That would've thrown me a bone so to speak about his eventual betrayal ("Wow, I knew he disliked the Chancellor, but I see now he acted on that). He never mentioned politics to Rean which made me wonder at the end, "wait, he had an opinion about politics?".

The thing, is that Crow DID do this at Garrelia Fortress. In chapter 5, Crow is apart of the group that went to his annexed homeland of Jurai. At Garrelia, Rean meets up with Machias and Crow up at the helicopter/airship pad, and Rean asks them how Jurai was. Machias says that he thinks the people of Jurai were happy under Imperial rule, while Crow immediately stiffens up and - for the first time - becomes somewhat hostile towards Machias, and hits the nail on the head about Osborne being a bloody absolutist who strongarmed Jurai into submission, killed those who resisted and steals their money to support more Imperial expansion. Machias is dumbfounded.

Crow is absolutely one of my favorites from ToCS1; I do not believe for a second that his time at Thor's meant nothing to him. The grimace on his face and the intonation of his voice when he says "Yeah, I'm afraid so" do not line up with his words. Of what we see of him at Thor's, he's clearly enjoying his time there. Just look at how interacts with Angie, George, Towa, and Class VII. That said, he came here to free his homeland, and he's going to put his mission ahead of his friends, even if he doesn't want to.

EDIT: Cold Steel III got here before I did! Not sure if there's anything left that hasn't been said, but I'll leave this up just in case.

[Walke_893]

There was a comment I read online once that recontextualizes the C reveal from the standard villain reveal, though I think it also depends on whether you have a strong connection to the character.

The jist of it was that the reveal of C was less a "It was me all along!" moment and more of a "no, that's not true, that's impossible!" one.

The player was suppose to like Crow, then when hints started dropping via main story and free time events you were suppose to start feeling this growing anxiety over this possibility.

The intended goal of Falcom I think, was to make you love Crow, and agonise over the fact that you can't hate him, even when on opposite sides. That you are friends, who now find themselves as enemies, and what that means when the two confront each other once more.

[Bravozuluf]

I'd think I'd spot most of what you guys are pointing out upon a second playthrough. Well, time to reinstall...

[jlawleraz]

Originally posted by Valyrian:

At Garrelia Fortress, he is not surprised at the turn of events, while the rest of Class VII is. When Neithardt gets the phone call, everyone except Crow has an exclamation mark over their head.

.

That is fantastic! I missed that completely. I was always amused by the scenes when everyone got their exclamation marks, but I didn't even notice when they gave me additional information.

[myhr2]

Also, it's not directly linked to Crow's betrayal, but Awakeners are albinosis : Crow has white hair and red eyes, and so does Rean in Fury mode. So in a sense, Crow very physical appearance is a big tell, even though it is only if you've finished Cold Steel first and realized that Rean is an awakener. And it raises a whole lot of questions that I hope will be answered in the future, like :
- what are Awakeners?
- why are Crow and Rean different? The former is always albinos and has incredible strength, while the latter seems to have a more powerful but also more unstable albinos state. What does Rean's scar has to do in all this? Maybe his awakener status is artificial? (my hypothesis, but we'll see)

As far as I can tell, Crow didn't expect Rean to be an awakener, since he seemed genuinely surprised during Elise's rescue, which seems to not be the case of Emma and Celine that have specifically come to Thors to watch over Rean.

I've not yet played Cold Steel 2 or 3, so no spoiler please, but I thought I'd share this remark here.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Originally posted by myhr2:

Also, it's not directly linked to Crow's betrayal, but Awakeners are albinosis : Crow has white hair and red eyes, and so does Rean in Fury mode. So in a sense, Crow very physical appearance is a big tell, even though it is only if you've finished Cold Steel first and realized that Rean is an awakener. And it raises a whole lot of questions that I hope will be answered in the future, like :
- what are Awakeners?
- why are Crow and Rean different? The former is always albinos and has incredible strength, while the latter seems to have a more powerful but also more unstable albinos state. What does Rean's scar has to do in all this? Maybe his awakener status is artificial? (my hypothesis, but we'll see)

As far as I can tell, Crow didn't expect Rean to be an awakener, since he seemed genuinely surprised during Elise's rescue, which seems to not be the case of Emma and Celine that have specifically come to Thors to watch over Rean.

I've not yet played Cold Steel 2 or 3, so no spoiler please, but I thought I'd share this remark here.

On that same note, I'll bet that the Azure Abyss came to Trista specifically to assist Crow in getting the DK in the Old Schoolhouse.

I am surprised that despite hanging out in town all day, Celine never noticed her evil counterpart Grianos or the Azure Abyss herself traveling to and fro from the radio station.

[myhr2]

Originally posted by Valyrian:

I am surprised that despite hanging out in town all day, Celine never noticed her evil counterpart Grianos or the Azure Abyss herself traveling to and fro from the radio station.

Well, it is implied that Vita did use her magic to skew the chances of her being unmasked, like a ward making her unlikely to be confronted by Emma or Celine. In fact, her coming to Trista to broadcast as Misty is probably her toying with them, just to mess with them after her reveal : "she was there the whole time?"

[SpartanWolf]

Well, i really liked him as the silly talking char and to be honest i don t like that he (propably) won t be in the party any more. Sure they planned this and they planned it well.
After the first scene with C i looked through the summary of chars in the menu after each name starting with C and you know what Crow wasn t in it. They introduced him later and delayed his entry in the ingame guide. Still i think the way C and Crow acts and talks is so different it s hard to believe that this is the same person. It s a great build twist, but at the same time it feels odd.
One thing, please no spoiler here for the next games. It could ruin these games (at least for me).

[Craig78]

About the reveal i think the main flaw is the build-up between the boss and when you are back in the classroom to listening the radio.
Even if i didn't try to guess who C is, all of this become too obvious, so when his room was empty i was like 'oh ♥♥♥♥'. So when millium say her famous 'i suppose crow earns this victory' it didn't have a big impact on me ( well ofc all the other events left me with a big 'WTF' moment )

Trails in the sky FC in comparison did the reveal better, the first time you finally meet weissmann you have to laugh until the music play differently. You learn the truth at the same time as the character.

Then if you do a ng+, in sky fc you'll laugh again because you didn't see it coming whereas it was SOOOO obvious.
but in cs1 , yeah it's fun to watch crow talk with macchias in the fortress about jurai, but in the game you don't have the ' omg it was so obvious '. i think the C = crow coz crow commence with C is cheat. See ? Why not Cassius then ? And the end of chapter 6... well i think the timing is still weird... be absent, bring back the worker, go back to fight the group, destroy the airship, ran away and be abble to catch oliver's group. Well played crow even sharon is astonished.

Originally posted by SpartanWolf:

One thing, please no spoiler here for the next games. It could ruin these games (at least for me).

Don't worry the sequel is soft with the reveal. Trust me.

[Cold_Reverie]

Originally posted by Craig78:

About the reveal i think the main flaw is the build-up between the boss and when you are back in the classroom to listening the radio.
Even if i didn't try to guess who C is, all of this become too obvious, so when his room was empty i was like 'oh ♥♥♥♥'. So when millium say her famous 'i suppose crow earns this victory' it didn't have a big impact on me ( well ofc all the other events left me with a big 'WTF' moment )

Trails in the sky FC in comparison did the reveal better, the first time you finally meet weissmann you have to laugh until the music play differently. You learn the truth at the same time as the character.

That's not a flaw as they are two different kinds of reveals. Walke_893 pretty much summed it up. The Crow reveal wasn't supposed to be some big surprise. It can work as a big reveal for those who didn't figure out that C was Crow, but it was mainly done in a way that made you want Crow to NOT be C. I mean, if Falcom wanted to make some big reveal, you know they could do it. Just look at the Second Anguis. Or, as you already pointed out, Weissman's reveal. ;)

[Taxexemption]

I really can't comment on this very well because it was ruined for me when I first started the game. I was a chapter or two in when I saw a list on the front page of gamefaqs of top ten characters that are in your party but later betray you (or something like that, I don't remember the name but from the way the list was named it was very clear what it was). I wasn't even going to open it except his face was right on the cover of the list, and so it was immediately spoiled for me.


I might have put it together, I might not have. Crow had some suspicious behavior. I think this may make more sense in the second game.

[LrdDimwit]

I didn't really connect with any of the Cold Steel characters the same way I did with the Sky characters. That's not to say I didn't like the game. I liked it a lot. But something about Cold Steel just didn't quite click for me. Personally I think it's the way it tells, not shows, a lot of its character development. You hear about what happened during all those time skips; you don't see it. You don't see Rean and everyone else growing to like Thors over time. It happens offscreen. I think that was a mistake.

The reveal kind of fell flat for me, since I never really cared very much about Crow to begin with. He wasn't around around long enough for me to get invested in him, and for most of that time he was kind of a jackass.