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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:And what about Johann? Wasn't he supposed to testify? Well, the point I think they are trying to make isn't so much that TCM isn't a terrible person, he is and they all know that, it's whether or not they should fling him down the well. There are literal mountains of evidence that TCM was enslaving, torturing, etc. But there is no physical evidence that he personally killed or ordered the death of anyone. Even Bigby wasn't around for that one. When Nerissa shows up, however, and says "On top of ALL THAT OTHER STUFF, I ALSO heard you personally order their deaths!", it was the straw that broke the camels back. They have all the physical evidence they need to convict his morality, but a witness to a conversation ordering his goon to kill is sufficient on top of that. That being said, it's a good thing we didn't fling him down the well, even if he probably deserved it, because we find out Nerissa actually heard no such thing and lied, making her testimony invalid. On an unrelated note, does Auntie Greanleef insinuate that she is going to take TCM to the farm and let him go? Doesn't that seem like a horrible idea? What if he retains enough intelligence to find a way to reverse the spell? Seems like you're just asking for trouble at that point.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:48
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That trial was a sham. The jury was composed of a relative and a friend of one of the murdered girls and a bunch of disgruntled former employees of the TCM, Snow was acting like a prosecutor, and Bigby is the cop who arrested the accused. The only unbiased person there was Bluebeard. No wonder the fables don't trust their government. TCM did no wrong.
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Apr 28, 2015 21:38
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Bacter posted:I do remember getting frustrated about that. Either we're going off of testimony or we're going off of evidence. If it's evidence, then Nerissa doesn't change anything. If it's testimony, then Bigby saying "literally everybody you have come in contact is afraid of violent reprisals from you or themselves giving out violent reprisals on your behalf, people directly under your hire have attempted to murder me half a dozen times, and when I came to fetch you for trial, you told your sociopathic serial killer lackey to murder me" should... have some weight? The whole trial structure is either nonsensical or horrible under any theory of justice: the prosecution is/are also the major witness, judge and executioner yet are constrained by some need to demonstrate guilt via evidence to an ad hoc and biased jury which publicly and individually declare their verdict in front of the defendant. There is no impartiality at any part and either Bigby and Snow as the ruling body should be able to do as they wish (potentially based on the will of the crowd if they wish to appear benevolent to the downtrodden masses) or they should allow almost anyone else apart from the people actually there to adjudicate proceedings as a sop towards liberal theories of justice. The most honest part is the pseudo-trial by combat right at the end, come to think of it. Oh and the Bloody Mary duplicates? Have to be called Shards.
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Apr 28, 2015 21:39
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I do hope Bloody Mary returns in season 2. After all, how do we know for sure that Bigby didn't just kill a bunch of clones while she ran off?
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Apr 28, 2015 21:46
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Well, even if she did die, didn't someone say Fables sometimes return to life under the force of the belief in them? I don't claim to know anything about it, but somehow I doubt that inherently being a supernatural horror is going to HURT your chances of reviving from severe injury, and yeah, if the series is willing to entertain the silliness of 'BUT THEY WERE REALLY IN VIRTUALLY-INFALLIBLE DISGUISE AS THIS OTHER PERSON ALL ALONG', why not have Mary secretly back off once she saw things were going to poo poo? While I agree that appealing to the noir elements is a nice note to leave off on, it does still bother me a bit to have a detective story set in a world with abundant, powerful magical disguises. Narrative causality or no it asks an awful lot of faith from the audience.
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Apr 28, 2015 22:40
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 In defiance of tradition, I found the Big Bad run to be funnier this chapter, by sheer dint of how cartoonishly over-the-top they let you be. THRILL as the story desperately, wildly tries to find some kind of redemption or moral or point to Jerkby's insane reign of violence and terror. CHILL as we slap away its healing hands, time and time again! CRINGE as you remember that at one point, a distraught Toad Jr asks us to give a gift to Snow, and TECHNICALLY we were given the option to refuse, and then you remember what Jerkby is going to do!
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Apr 29, 2015 10:41
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I actually don't have a problem with Bluebeard cutting the line. He is after all funding the government, and could very well be going there for such reasons. I do have a problem with him being an abusive nitwit, but at least he's not setting himself up as a despot. Instead he's using his position to back a democratic (?) government where he's actually staying out of the important decisions, even in those cases where he doesn't like how they go. He could threaten to retract funding if decisions don't go the way he likes them to, but he doesn't. He voices his opinions but does not enforce them. He could be better, but he could also be way, way worse, especially in this setting.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:16
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Yeah, it seems like Bluebeard lives up to his Fable-world existence in as much that he is reclusive and an rear end in a top hat, but as long as you keep him out of the abattoir (or the interrogation room), he's mostly just a surprisingly generous rich guy who mutually hates everyone who hates him.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:59
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Do note that he'll later (in the comics) attempt to hire an assassin to kill both Bigby and Snow because he gets mad at Bigby.Dooky Dingo posted:On an unrelated note, does Auntie Greanleef insinuate that she is going to take TCM to the farm and let him go? Doesn't that seem like a horrible idea? What if he retains enough intelligence to find a way to reverse the spell? My impression was that he was to be kept caged, though it's absolutely not beyond the Fables' modus operandi to let absurdly dangerous, actively malevolent Fables loose to roam around. Like, oh I don't know, the adversary. Bacter fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 13:09
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Bacter posted:Do note that he'll later (in the comics) attempt to hire an assassin to kill both Bigby and Snow because he gets mad at Bigby. Suddenly lethal fits of reactive anger are ALSO well within his Fable characterization.  Also, yeesh. I actually think the visual presentation frequently falls a bit flat in the Tell-Tale games, but haha, drat, here I thought the Crooked Man was ugly alive. Strangulation ain't pretty.
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Apr 29, 2015 13:19
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 So interestingly, while Jerkby was a positive end (not in the sense that anything actually positive happened, but positive in the sense that Telltale did in fact design several final chapter possibilities that play out very differently depending on how you make your choices throughout the game), Starewolf is... kind of an indictment, really. Look at this mess. We walk into TCM's lair, and, without saying or doing ANYTHING but smoking, the whole train wreck of throwing Georgie under the bus, him rebelling, and us brawling with everybody just HAPPENS. Georgie and Vivian both confess to everything and get offed exactly the same way. The trial... well, the trial is it's own brand of special. I don't think Telltale ever expected anybody to do a pure Starewolf run (and why would you!), because it REALLY highlights how on rails the story is. I wasn't exactly DOWN on the big brawl with Mary, but I thought the trial was by far the most interesting part, and the Jerkby run actually heightened that for me - we achieved our ends either through persuasion or intimidation. Those are two very interesting choices, and might have different outcomes. Starewolf, though... Starewolf reminds us that beyond being some muscle, we really aren't required for any of the big talky sections. Well, to be fair to Telltale, there's no reason anybody would go Starewolf besides just for fun, so I can't fault them too much. Still, it's one place the game really shows its seams, at least by my standards. So: that's it! I'm gonna write up a little thing about what I think the moral of the story was, but this Starewolf marks the last video of The Wolf Among Us - thanks so much for following along everybody! I've LP'd two games in a row about Noir Werewolves, which I guess makes me the official expert. If I find a third, heaven help us all. I hope you join me for my next LP - I've got some games in mind that will be a blast. While I'm basically planning on jumping into some more LPs more or less instantly, I usually have two going - a big one and a smaller indie style one. I'll get the indie one going very soon, but as for the bigger one - well, there's something I've left undone, that I need to do. I need to finish what I started. Heaven help us all, prepare for punchin'. See you around, goons! You're exactly as bad as everyone says you are! (which is great)
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Apr 29, 2015 14:33
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Those final stats... (For the Bad run that is)
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Apr 29, 2015 14:39
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Bacter posted:See you around, goons! You're exactly as bad as everyone says you are! (which is great) https://twitter.com/telltalegames/status/562915894649958402 Hopefully that means what I think it means
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Apr 29, 2015 14:40
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The Moral of the Story Fables is a series about fairy tale characters who come and live in the Real World. They're a blend of their old selves, which were static characters who had predefined roles to play (think of Crane: "Our stories used to be so simple. They had a beginning, a middle, and an end"), and their selves in our world, where things are ambiguous and messy. There aren't neat morals to stories here, not always. Things happen, and we react as best we can. So in that sense, it's extremely interesting to see how these creatures, who are all about clear, defined stories, react to this world. Appropriately, The Wolf Among Us is two things: it's a noir soap opera, a simple chronicle of the happenings of the residents of Fabletown, a record of murder and deceit and revenge and pudgy guys with shotguns and mean guys at bars and a hairy sheriff man. It's also partly an old-school story, and I think there's a point to it. In my opinion, this is a story about bad faith (potentially pun intended?). Bad faith is something Sartre wrote about, and in my estimation, it boils down to the idea that we've all got freedom, in every situation, even under incredible pressure, but, unable to cope with that responsibility or external pressure, we sometimes attempt to act as if we have no freedom. None of us are condemned to act a certain way by external forces - even a person in a country conquered by a harsh external force could comply, resist, commit suicide, etc. Not that that's even a comforting thought. In fact, Sartre writes of the anguish of freedom. In order to escape from that freedom, which is overwhelming and frightening, we subsume ourselves in an identity. Georgie was a prime example of this: he denied his freedom to defy The Crooked Man, claiming he had no choice, that he was merely an agent of TCM. The point is, he's not merely an agent, he's a free being. He always had the choice. Rather than accepting that he was making a decision as a selfish man, he tried to change his identity and deny his freedom. In fact, almost every character, when confronted about their bad deeds, claims they lack agency. Snow couldn't go above Crane, Crane said the job forced you to do horrible things, Beauty and Beast claimed their hand was forced by their lifestyle needs. In fact, Fables are perhaps the best possible lens to view bad faith through - they actually USED to be static characters without freedom, but are not those any longer. Some cling to their pasts, when things were, like Crane said, simpler. When people talk about the pressures of New York, they're usually referring to the fact that they must now decide for themselves what to do. The winners in the story - Bigby (as played in the good run), Nerissa, Snow to some extent, all are interested in putting "the past" behind them, and changing the way things are done, and their identity. Bigby knows he's no longer "just" The Big Bad Wolf, and wants to act as a free agent. Snow struggles between subsuming her freedom in the idea of The Deputy Mayor and using her freedom to make correct choices for Fabletown, but at least doesn't feel as constrained as Crane did. Nerissa doesn't accept her role as prostitute and agent of TCM, and that acknowledgement of her freedom and ability to resist ends up freeing her. They're humans (or sentient animals, same diff.), and their actions are NEVER determined by outside forces. They can't honestly claim to be just objects in the world - any role that they take on is temporary - prostitute, sheriff, deputy mayor, at some point they'll stop acting like one of those and start acting like something else, or at least they'll want to. And that's where moral uncertainty creeps in. Lacking certainty over the moral choice, it's very tempting to accept a certain code or system in place of your morality, and then to justify immoral actions by it. Georgie "had no choice" in killing the girls. Snow tried to pretend that wanting Greenleaf's tree burned was "just part of the job". Jerkby said the same probably a dozen times. Taking on personal accountability for your actions, acknowledging your personal freedom which is absolutely always also accountable to Morality, capital M: that's super intimidating. But the only other choice is Bad Faith. With that comes moral decay, and eventual atrocity. And that's true for all of us. No matter our external circumstances, we are all responsible for our decisions. There is no "I had to". That's terrifying, but anything else is self-deception. Any role we take on, any code we adopt that gets in the way of claiming responsibility is illusion, and a bad one. Choose. You have to, you currently are, so admit it, own it, and adjust accordingly. Also, the well-worn rumpled business suit never goes out of style. That's the other moral. Bacter fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 15:01
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Roman Reigns posted:https://twitter.com/telltalegames/status/562915894649958402 !!!
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Apr 29, 2015 15:27
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I still maintain Starewolf is the best detective.
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Apr 29, 2015 16:02
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Bravo, Bacter. That was some good analysis.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:01
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Well I'm a bit late in this, but I wanna throw in my own two cents. Firstly, I have to say that I disagree with this Sartre fellow. While he is right, that there is most often when people speak of "no choice" in fact a choice available, ie they are not being physically forced to do something, I think speaking as though social pressures are unimportant is less than honest. Yes, you have a choice to not give the man holding a gun to your head your wallet like he's demanding. And doing so will probably result in cessation of your ability to be free or choose at all, along with your vital signs. Yes it is a choice, but it is in, haha, bad faith to act as though that pressure is not a determining factor in what actions people choose. Georgie murdered those two women, it's true. He owns up to it. He says he had no choice, but does that mean he thinks it wasn't a bad thin? I don't think so. I think Georgie, and most people who aren't the sort of psychopath that Bloody Mary is, recognize that what they did was bad. Barring severe mental abnormalities, it's quite obvious. And he does try to escape responsibility for it, as most criminals do. Rarely does one want to be sent to prison or killed, after all. But I do not think he for a second thought what he did was right, that it would look good on a morale standing. Indeed, if we look at it as a case of simply accepting responsibility, then things can lead down just as bad a path. Someone who accepts that they could have not done a bad thing, but did it anyway. If they can reconcile this within themselves, then what's to keep them from doing it again? Indeed, it is the sociopath who acknowledges that they do terrible things but simply do not care that often are the most dangerous. In this very game, we have Bloody Mary. I'm sure she not only takes responsibility for her work, but pride as well. I suppose this may all be coming across as defensive, and simply proving Sartre's very point, that I do not want to think about the things that you posted, Bacter. And it's true, I'd rather not think about them, because it is a really, really uncomfortable thing. But I still do feel that it's disingenuous to act as though mental pressure, that of society, our peers, and even ourselves, is not a force that must be taken into account. I would posit that it's most often waved away because it's not a visible, tangible, measurable thing. And that which we cannot see, we are often wont to ignore or dismiss, which could segue nicely into a discussion of myriad topics on the state of mental health and the treatment, study and perception thereof but I will restrain myself. I certainly agree that we should all strive to take responsibility for our actions, however I also feel that the events and situations surrounding our decisions should not be ignored or discounted. We don't make choices in a vacuum. I mean unless you're an astronaut but you know what I mean. ---Actual talk of the ending starts here--- So, I was incredibly disappointed in the ending overall. I won't retread the ground others have covered, about Georgie, Vivian, the trial, the side-switching to a comical degree. Instead I'll touch on something that hasn't really been brought up: dislike of the fight with Bloody Mary. The fight is certainly action-packed and over the top, with a final physical obstacle to Bigby's goal, and the final form of the Big Bad Wolf. And it is for those very reasons that I think it falls flat, for me anyway. At this point, I don't think we need a big huge action-y fight, and it really served to undermine things for me. That Bigby would have such trouble with Bloody Mary just doesn't seem to fit what I've come to know about Fables, vis a vis mortal renown and thus resilience. The urban myth of Bloody Mary tells of a madwoman who murders those who say her name three times in front of a mirror. Her talk when we first meet her corroborates this, and seems to peg her as a psychopathic bully, tending to go after children or teenagers. Hardly the kind of target that one needs a great deal of martial prowess to overcome. I think showing that her threat came more from the tools she has (the Ax, silver bullets/knife, etc) and that, stripped of them, being an easy target would have made for a much more interesting and meaningful encounter. At this point, Bigby's one of the biggest, baddest forces around in a straight up fight. What this means is that, to have an interesting, meaningful, tension-filled encounter it can't come down to just a matter of brute force. They've managed to do that so far, with Woody, Jersey, the Tweedles, but looking back you can see that none of those really would have ended with Bigby's loss if he pulled out the stops. Thus, I think the challenges facing him need to be of a different nature to be more meaningful, and indeed they are- we're the Sheriff trying to solve a murder case, not a dude in an underground fight club or something. I think I'm beginning to ramble, so here's what I'd propose in place of the current Bloody Mary fight. It starts with arriving at the room with the bullet molds. Bloody Mary appears behind Bigby and taunts him, as is her wont. She then dashes out of the room when Bigby moves to meet her. In the main area of the warehouse, she's nowhere to be found. Suddenly, a bullet hits the walkway in front of Bigby. Then another to his side, from a different angel. Bloody Mary taunts him. "Only a few of the round I've got loaded are silver. Let's see if this one is." The next round actually hits Bigby, but doesn't really do anything. It wasn't silver. Continued taunting as Bigby slowly makes his way around the warehouse floor until Mary comes in to try and stab him with a silver knife or something similar... at which point Bigby quickly grabs her arm and quickly incapacitates her. A cat and mouse scene like that I think has more weight to it- we know in a straight up fight Bigby's gonna win, and making Bloody Mary somehow be a big enough badass powerhouse to pose a legitimate threat to him feels like a cop out to me. I think her undoing instead being her own arrogance and overestimation of herself being what allows her to be undone, would provide more satisfaction. That's all I've got. Thanks for the great LP Bacter, can't wait to see what you do next!
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May 2, 2015 22:07
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Sort of echoing Shoeless's thoughts: The ending (the trial sequence for most people) fell flat for me, mostly because if you don't pick exactly the right options, people start wandering over to the Crooked Man's side, even if there is no reason for them to do so (like BB starting to question Bigby even though they asked him outright to kill TCM.) Jurors taking this approach may have worked if it was - well, an actual jury, Fables who weren't involved with the case who were questioning the merits of the case. Instead though - it's this weird mix of people who mostly didn't like him before he walked in the door, from Holly who thought he was involved in her sister's death to BB who were being shaken down by him to Bluebeard who just doesn't like anyone. Though Auntie Greenleaf is there even though she was pretty high up in his organization and I don't think the game says outright that she was a victim? I'm not quite sure what logic Snow used to recruit the jury outside of "these are the voice actors for major characters who weren't in TCM's sitting room at the end of act 4" though a few are missing like Nerissa and Toad. While I may have rolled with it if that was the stated reason for the jury makeup, you'd think that more of the characters at the jury would not be swayed by TCM's arguments of non-involvement unless you were a jerk to them (earlier or at the trial) so they'd think that maybe you aren't that much better than him. Portraying TCM as someone who can squirrel his way out of anything would have worked better if the most of the people on the jury weren't his victims in other matters and knew what he was capable of, and had some strong motive to throw him down the Witching Well.
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May 3, 2015 06:59
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I think I read somewhere that episode 5 was rewritten in mid-development, maybe it's caused by this? I agree that when you stop and think about it the court sene has plenty of stupid to go around but on the other hand... When I watched it, the pace was quick enough for this not to come up.
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May 3, 2015 12:49
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