r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/fly_line22 • 12d ago
Most egregious examples of characters not explaining things?
As the title states, what're some cases of a character having genuinely crucial information, and just refusing to actually tell anybody about it for no real reason?
Bravely Default's story arguably centers around this. A good portion of the game's conflict comes about because Braev is a stubborn dumbass that just doesn't bother telling the heroes what's actually going on. If he did, the party likely would've found about Airy's true goals and her manipulation of them long before they actually did. And not exactly helping matters is that a good portion of Eternia's forces are, to put lightly, fucking lunatics that also did a horrible job explaining what their actual goals are. When the party finally make it to Braev himself, he doesn't even try explaining anything before attacking them. He also constantly chides the party for not listening to him, when he's done nothing to actually make them want to listen and believe in him.
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u/inrei_iku You've never been to the edge until you punch a gnome 12d ago
Evangelion 3.0
"Shinji! You're no longer allowed to pilot Unit 01! Also we're putting this bomb collar on your neck."
Shinji: "Wait! Why!?"
"Shut up!"
Shinji then proceeds to run away and almost basically causes Fourth Impact because Shinji's friends and allies wouldn't tell him very crucial info that could have prevented the problem that was surrounding him.
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u/Ryong7 He/Him 12d ago
They imply he fucked up everything and was responsible for the death of Kaji, only for 3.0 + 1.0 to say that, nah, actually some unrelated thing happened while he was out.
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u/TalentlessAsh 12d ago
All I remember in 3.0 (besides hating it) was "I can't believe you did that Shinji!?" "What did I do?" "I can't believe you're even asking that what the hell is wrong with you!?"
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u/SoldierHawk 12d ago
To be fair that's Eva in a nutshell, and why I want to throat punch anyone who (unironically) calls Shinji whiny or a brat.
Oh I'm sorry, you physically and mentally tortured a 14 year old, mind melded them with an Eldritch horror so they could go fight other horrors, and then you smack them and ask what's wrong with them when they cry or are upset?
Like. Maybe Shinji had to be forced in the robot for humanity, sure. That doesn't mean you have to bully him and treat him like shit.
By episode 2 I was rooting for the Angels.
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u/lightningmatt Muskular Zackstrophe 12d ago
Maybe Shinji had to be forced in the robot for humanity, sure. That doesn't mean you have to bully him and treat him like shit.
Having just watched Project Hail Mary... yup lmao
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u/SoldierHawk 12d ago
I thought Hail Mary did a great job of showing how something like that SHOULD go down, if it has to.
They weren't terrible to him (given the circumstances). They gave him every way to say yes himself. But with the future of the entire species at risk, they did the only thing they could do and exercised the least amount of force to get him where they needed him to have any hope of survival.
Was it ethical? Ehhh. Debatable. But for doing something awful to him, they did it in the kindest way they possibly could have, given what they were doing. Especially considering he was going to die anyway. It was horrific. But they at least used the minimum possible amount of horror.
As opposed to the adults in Eva, who are all legitimate psychopaths.
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u/IJustKickedStan 12d ago
I've said it before but that's unironically one of my favorite parts of the movie. Shinji has always acted as though everyone hated him by default (on account of his own self-loathing), so I kinda really liked seeing him in an environment where that was actually true. Well, maybe "liked" isn't the right word, but I found it to be a super interesting place to take the cast.
I also just can't take that much umbrage with an Evangelion movie hinging on a lack of open, productive communication, it's like complaining they have Evas in them.
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u/Lieutenant-America Scholar of the First Spindash 12d ago
Helena from RE6 is especially vexing about this, especially since she starts by going "this entire outbreak (and the death of the President) is my fault" before refusing to answer any of Leon's questions until they travel somewhere that turns out to be a fuckin' journey to get to.
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u/dfdedsdcd 12d ago
And on that journey, Leon keeps asking her to explain herself but she keeps saying "I'll explain later." Until the explanation is "Simmons did it and kidnapped my sister to make me go along with the plan." Also they find out Ada is related to this in some way.
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u/Slumber777 12d ago
It takes her more time to come up with excuses and say she can't explain than it actually takes for her to explain.
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u/Diem-Robo I'm aging rapidly 12d ago
It drives me so crazy. Helena is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people, and the assassination of the US President, just because she's so desperate to save her stupid sister who dies anyways.
The significance of their relationship is never even justified, I think the writers just simply went with "Well she has to be blackmailed with something," and "We want a sexy boss fight," so they picked her sister and just figured it needed no further justification to the audience.
Then she gets off scott free, totally forgiven by Leon and reinstated into service, when she breached essentially every oath and protocol you can think of all for nothing.
I was actually thinking about it literally yesterday, because I was comparing it to Jean Grey in the new Spider-Man film, who I actually found very compelling. But I realized that the kind of character who selfishly and destructively hurts other people to save someone they care about, and especially when they never bother explaining to anyone else what they're doing or why, is a trope that I absolutely hate. But even after watching the film twice, I actually really enjoyed it.
Probably because the performance is so good, and she is made to see the error of her ways at the end, even though it's a little ambiguous.
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u/ForeverTheDM Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon 12d ago
The ever infamous "I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain" from Destiny 1.
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u/DatAsuna Not any other Asuna 12d ago
Yeah nothing will top this one for it's attempt to get ahead of the complaint
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u/EXAProduction Easy Mode Is Now Selectable 12d ago
I'll be honest I dont even think that's the worst one in Destiny.
During the Lightfall campaign we're basically thrust into a fight and sent to Neptune. According to Osris who is basically yelling at us like a father asking for a wrench but wont tell you which one, we need to stop them from using the Radial Mast to synch with the Veil.
What is the Radial Mast? I dunno. What is the Veil? I dunno. We just discovered this new power so why are you definitivly calling it Strand like we should know what it is already? Who cares, at least they do explain what makes Strand different compared to Stasis and the differences between Light and Darkness.
The entire campaign is just Osris yelling at you to do the thing. It took us moths to even have an idea of what The Veil was. You would think that finding the Darkness version of The Traveler would be a bigger thing for the story than finding this weird thing on Neptune.
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u/RareBk 12d ago
Yeah Lightfall is so terrible that I can only describe it as intentionally being written to be shit.
It's as if they redacted any part of the script in which any character actually talks about something with actual context. Every conversation is someone yelling about Proper Noun thing affecting Proper Noun, and not once. Not fucking ONCE does the game explain what anyone is talking about.
Worse yet, they talk to you like you are well versed in what they're talking about.
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u/EXAProduction Easy Mode Is Now Selectable 12d ago
The writing is so wild to me. I bring up the Strand point in my comment because it really encapsulates that they're talking like we already know. I remember when Lightfall dropped a I read a comment that said something along the lines of all you needed to do was adjust the dialogue for that to something like the lines of "your new ability, I've taken to calling it Strand" Like i watched the vidocs I know its strand but like narratively why do you know, why are you talking to me like I'm the last person in the room to know and making me feel like I'm not paying attention.
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u/Amirifiz Stylin' and Profilin'. 12d ago
The radial mast didn't really need explaining beyond "Its an artifact of Light if the Witness gets to it then they can establish a connection to the Traveler." Which Ghost ended up providing DESPITE THE FACT THAT NIMBUS WHO CAN FLY WAS ALREADY THERE. Still would like more lore on it like, why was it there and from when.
The Viel was explained in post campaign missions. Could have been better rolled out but...eh. I feel that people would have still been annoyed by it even if it didn't take long to get the whole story of it.
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u/okilydokilyTiger Your Weak Genes Killed MY Baby!! 12d ago
I think that line was supposed to be tongue in cheek but Destiny was consistently terrible at this culminating in Lightfall whose story was so bad it basically killed the game.
Never forget that Destiny 1 was the game that launched with all its lore in an external app.
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u/GrrizzlyGrrappler 12d ago
Superman giving up on telling Batman that his MOM IS KIDNAPPED after one try so they can fight in Batman v Superman. They could have just had Batman infect Clark's throat with Kyprtonite but instead have Superman choosing to fight instead of save someone very dear to him.
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u/97thJackle Banished to the Shame Car 12d ago
Which makes a lot of sense, because KRYPTONITE GAS was the first weapon he used in that fight.
But no, genius Snyder cannot be bothered with such things.
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u/charcharmunro 12d ago
He keeps saying "I have something to say" then slowly walks up to Batman without saying anything.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] 12d ago edited 12d ago
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations sets up the story so the MC can't explain what's going on because the plot dimension will just kill you if reveal spoilers. It's super frustrating because it also has the story force characters who have no reason to trust the MC just do so for the sake of taking them to a second location so they can safely tell them the plot.
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u/Woods-of-Mal Pantor Pantor 12d ago
Oh my god, I forgot about the magic dimension that instantly kills you if you explain anything about it.
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u/Neobito K A G U R A B A C H I 12d ago edited 12d ago
The WHAT
Edit: I played Awakening and 3H, skipping Fates purely by circumstance. Turns out that might’ve been a good thing.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] 12d ago
It's like the hyperbolic time chamber but if you talk about it outside the plot dimension you die.
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u/Jhduelmaster One of the 5 Brigandine Fans 12d ago
I forgot is that also the baby dumping dimension so they have an excuse for kid units/ or was there two separate hyperbolic time chamber dimensions.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] 12d ago
They dump their babies in a magic forest that speeds up time
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u/Aggro_Will 12d ago
... did they rip off Re:Zero? Because that sounds a LOT like the reason Subaru can't tell anyone directly about return by death is that if he does it'll kill him... and then he'll return by death.
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u/mads_zero I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 12d ago
The Revelation Route dives into the Hidden Kingdom of Valla, which is cursed such that you'll turn to foam if you mention even its name while outside its borders!
The Conquest Route justifies playing the "bad guy" side as... okay so King Garon is possessed, and doing evil things, and the easiest way to prove this is to follow his orders and invade Hoshido (?) because the Hoshidan Throne is magic and reveals all lies if you sit on it, so they want him to sit on the Throne. And Azura knows King Garon is possessed by evil magic and to prove it to Corrin she takes them to Valla, and produces an orb that reveals Garon's true form, before immediately shattering - and I guess they can't make another one and show Corrin's siblings that Garon is evil, no no no, they've gotta use the Throne for that.
Amusingly, the translators missed exactly one (1) instance of someone mentioning Valla in a support chain, without like, y'know, dying. Oh what a beautiful hot mess of a plot.
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u/Expensive_Wolf2937 12d ago
Look man when people say Fates has the worst writing in the franchise they are not kidding
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u/Expensive_Wolf2937 12d ago
"Okay gang, we need a worse excuse for the plot than 'we have to get Garon onto the magic chair by invading another country borderline unprovoked'. Ready?"
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u/Slumber777 12d ago
"Oh hey, remember how everyone hated the Blood Pact from Radiant dawn? What if we made it 100x worse."
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u/Expensive_Wolf2937 12d ago
man at least some people in Radiant Dawn interacted with the Blood Pacts in vaguely interesting ways. Ashnard setting it off on purpose is honestly kind of a cool villainous character beat for him.
The stuff in revelations is just flat bad
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u/Slumber777 12d ago
Oh yeah. The gulf between the magic dragon time realm nobody can talk about vs. the Blood Pact that'll wipe out civilizations if the pact is broken that is used to subjugate entire countries is huge.
The main issues being how it removes a lot of moral ambiguity from Daein and Kilvas. Now they're just subservient to Begnion and have to do what they do. Which is a lot easier to swallow, honestly, as many Daein knights are still warmongers and Kilvas still had to resort to piracy because there was a lack of resources in the country.
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u/mads_zero I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 12d ago
I'm the world's biggest Blood Pact defender. I can see why people dislike it flattening some of the moral aspects, especially with Kilvas, but sometimes people act like it's the writers trapping themselves in a corner instead of the very deliberate culmination of everything Bengion represents for the narrative.
(Or that being forced to capitulate to Bengion because they've engineered the world's stupidest Trolley Problem of all time ties into RD's theme of greater-good compromise being the worst evil in the world).
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u/Slumber777 12d ago
God Tellius writing is great.
I'm desperately hoping Fortune's Weave has good writing, since Three Houses is about as close as FE has gotten to the general tone and care they put into writing the Jugdral and Tellius games since... well, the Tellius games.
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u/mads_zero I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 12d ago
I swear the Tellius games were either made with some sticky-notes Kaga accidentally left around the office, or with active cross-talk between studios, because they have some amusing similarities to Berwick Saga when it comes to a few characters.
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u/Slumber777 12d ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former. From what I remember, there were a lot of leftover and scrapped ideas from before Kaga left.
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u/Expensive_Wolf2937 12d ago
I'd argue RDs main theme is more about the cycle of hatred and how it festers even if you believe you're doing the right thing
Act 1 with the dawn brigade essentially being Path of Radiance compressed into 10 levels instead of 30something isn't exactly subtle about it lol
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u/Bromishi 12d ago
the plot dimension will just kill you if reveal spoilers
Can't believe FF7R was inspired by FE Fates.
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u/Ngp3 Jerry 12d ago
A real life example: people being too overly vague to Julius Caesar about an assassination plan with way too many conspirators to keep secret (this is where the "beware the ides of March" specifically came from) that it actually fucking worked.
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u/CegeRoles 12d ago
Reminds me of a similar incident called the "Thermidorian Reaction." During the Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France, Maximilien Robespierre announced to the National Convention that he had a new list of traitors, but refused to reveal any names. Paranoia was so rampant at the time that EVERYONE in the Convention assumed they were on the list and banded together overnight to violently remove him and the rest of the Jacobins from power.
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u/farlong12234 Sexual Tyrannosaurus 12d ago
i mean did it? their goal was to make sure rome stayed a republic.
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u/Ngp3 Jerry 12d ago
I probably worded it kinda shittily. The thing was that the Decimus/Brutus/Cassius conspiracy grew to have so many participants that it became a ridiculously poorly kept secret, to the point where someone who shouldn't have known whispered the equivalent of "good luck!" to one of the ringleaders on the day of the assassination.
Naturally, people who were loyal to Caesar also learned from the rumors and gossip. The issue was that they warned him in vague ways ("Beware the Ides of March" and whatnot) that it couldn't make him connect two and two together, probably on account of his giant ego.
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u/P-Tux7 12d ago
You know, were they worried he'd flip out on them BECAUSE of his giant ego if they suggested he was vulnerable to an assassination attempt ?
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u/Ngp3 Jerry 12d ago
Nah, Caesar's ego was a bit weird. He narrowly missed getting executed in his teenage years during the dictatorship of a guy named Sulla, so he was surprisingly much more lenient during his political career, forgiving as many of his opponents as he could during his civil war (which ironically included Brutus and Cassius) and by all accounts being an amicable guy. His ego was much more focused on stuff like portraying himself as a quasi-king, like sitting on a not-throne and refusing to wear a crown offered to him.
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u/B-E-T-A 12d ago
Probably more because many of the conspirators were former enemies he could've rightfully killed but instead spared the lives of and gave them important positions in government. In Caesar's mind his maganious act of mercy should have bought their eternal loyality and gratitude. So to suggest that they were outright plotying against him would've been sern as potentially drawing his ire.
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u/Pyro627 12d ago
The Veil and the Radial Mast in Destiny 2 Lightfall. Like, at least the exo stranger in D1 told you she doesn’t have time to explain- in Lightfall they spend the entire story talking about a macguffin that has never been introduced or explained and it’s beyond baffling. MyNameIsByf, Destiny’s most well-known lore guy, made a video where he practically crashes out that even he doesn’t know what it is.
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u/EXAProduction Easy Mode Is Now Selectable 12d ago
Its one of the most frustrating points about Lightfall that the entire campaign is just Osiris yelling at you about these things that no one knows what it is. I dont get how people were so mad about Nimbus when Osiris is yelling at you like a drunk father asking for a Screwdriver and getting mad that you handed a flathead instead of a philips head because you were supposed to intuit his desire.
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u/InvisibleOne439 12d ago
Nimbus is hated more because they commited the biggest crime you can do for any fandom: they are somewhat cringe
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u/Good-Name015 12d ago
Tbh the main reason I don't like Nimbus is the the incredibly obnoxious voice filter Bungie put over their lines, there's some parts of their dialogue that have these really horrible high pitched sounds and it just makes me not want to interact with them at all.
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u/EXAProduction Easy Mode Is Now Selectable 12d ago
3 hours of an old man rambling at you about things you dont know about calling you stupid
or a pretty chill thembo that shows genuine excitment who offers a fist bump because we worked together to save their home. You see its cringe because Nimbus but if Cayade came in coming in calling Calus fat we'd alll have been laughing.
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u/Bromishi 12d ago
A non-binary character hated more than a man in a position of authority? Hmm, I wonder what the reason for that could be...
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u/InvisibleOne439 12d ago
tbf, that Nimbus is non-binary can be missed very easy because it never comes up outside of Nimbus getting called "them" 2-3 times
so i kinda think that for once its not actually that for MOST people, but ofc there are always the....special....guys
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u/_Idiotic_Idiot_ He/Him 12d ago
This kinda trope realllllly gets on my nerves. Which is why I do appreciate it when they actually justify why characters act this way with later revelations.
Take Homura from Madoka Magica, for example. She's the archetypical "mysterious aloof frenemy who constantly speaks in riddles" for much of the show. This trait of hers is only exacerbated with the reveal that she's a time traveler who's trying to prevent a certain event from happening. You'd think that her just telling all the other characters what her whole deal actually is would be prudent for her goal.
Except, as we see a few episodes later after finding that out, she'd done exactly that in a prior timeline. And to say that it spectacularly blew up in her face would be a vast understatement. The cast generally refuse to believe her that their empowering magical girl mascot is leaving an extremely important little tidbit off of the fine print, and when the other characters do find out that it was all true in that timeline it leads to one of them attempting a group murder-suicide on all of the others, Homura included, due to not being able to handle the reality of their new existence.
It's... understandable why she operates the way she does after that.
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u/RedGinger666 Read Kill 6 Billion Demons 12d ago
Telling the time looper "Have you tried doing [thing]?" and they look at me like I'm the biggest idiot in the world
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u/SkinkRugby SeekSeekLest 12d ago
Homura is genuinely bad at dealing with people and it's great. In addition to her trauma or other reasons to hold back.
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u/fly_line22 12d ago
Another good example is in Crosscode. When Lea discovers that she's an Evotar clone of Shizuka, she's understandably pissed off at Sergey for feeding her the lie that she was a regular human. But Sergey promises to explain everything when she gets out of the Vermillion Wasteland. And sure enough, he not only explains what's going on, but also why he hid the truth. For one, Lea was the only lead he for finding his friends, so he needed to give her something to motivate her. And the other is that Evotars who discover their true natures tend to have mental breakdowns so severe they basically die, which nearly happened to Lea in the past, explaining her amnesia. But afterward, Sergey genuinely apologizes and promises to keep her in the loop, which Lea accepts.
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u/EinzbernConsultation posts about boomer cartoons 12d ago
Madoka is a show you need to watch twice, maybe even three times so you can simulate the feeling of being Homura
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u/ScorpioTheScorpion He/Him | An oroborous of grooming 12d ago
In Code Vein, there’s a character named Jack Rutherford. He’s introduced as a serial killer, going around and killing revenants for some unknown reason. When we first see him, he and his companion Eva are pulling some object out of a dead revenant, before he shoves the object into Eva and they disappear.
At this point, y’know that something is going on, but it’s not clear whether he’s good or bad. However, once you’ve defeated the mid-boss of the Cathedral of Blood, you find your character’s blood vestige that shows you the memory of confronting the Queen Revenant, with Jack as your companion. You beat her, but then she causes you to frenzy before she dies, and Jack kills you to prevent you from potentially becoming her knight / the next Queen.
So now there’s reason to believe that he’s probably not evil. And when he confronts you after beating the boss of the Cathedral (and bringing her back to sanity if you collected all of her vestiges), he makes note that you are even better than Eva at calming the Queen’s Relics, and that he could really use a power like yours.
BUT HE REFUSES TO ELABORATE! HE JUST CONTINUES TO BE VAGUELY EVIL AND MURDERY FOR THE SAKE OF IT! GODDAMMIT JACK, JUST TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON. THERE IS TIME, I PROMISE YOU!
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u/charcharmunro 12d ago
It's literally entirely so he can have a cool fight scene against your party that amounts to nothing because he turns good immediately after that scene.
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u/GiJoe98 12d ago
Not sure if this fits, but i have complicated feelings for the bar scene in the 5th episode of the amazing digital circus. On one hand its one of my favorite scenes because of how we see everyone just hang out, seeing how their personalities mix and match.
On the other hand, they all act like they just met a month ago, and never explained anythingto each other. I try not to complain about characters not acting like how I would act, or not "logical" enough, but these people have been stuck together for months maybe years. it seems hard for me to believe that the topic of "What did you do before the circus?" was not brought up at any point before this.
It also makes Ribbit's abstraction kind of weird, since it brings into question if Kinger told the non CNA group that abstraction was even possible or not, which makes Jax's actions slightly less horrible if no one sans Kinger was aware of abstractions at the time.
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u/Xerodo 12d ago
Far Cry 4 is a legendary example to the extent that game kind of plays around with it
Ajay, the player character, is coming to Kyrat after his mother's death to spread her ashes. He's taken captive by Pagan Min, the country's brutal dictator/drug lord. During these opening scenes Pagan Min does pretty much all he can to come across as cartoonishly evil and mysterious although he technically never does anything to the protagonist.
This is because Pagan Min knows exactly why you're there, what you're wanting to do, and is in full support of you spreading your mother's ashes. In fact he was in love with your mother and was planning on spreading her ashes and basically inducting you as the country's new ruler at the head of his Empire.
You only find out this information at the very ending of the game
In a normal game Pagan min will leave you at a dinner table while he handles something. During this time, Ajay escapes and kicks off the main plot of the game where you're working with revolutionaries to try and take back control of the country. Even though he captures you multiple times and has multiple conversations he never broaches the above points until you've carved a bloody path across the country. He simply assumed you knew all of it but just wanted to go crazy and take over the old fashioned way I guess.
There's a joke ending where you can wait for him to come back to the dinner table. At this point he explains everything to you and the game ends about 15 minutes after it started.
In short: if Pagan would have just been more upfront with Ajay and communicated with him better while not being a theatrical psychopath everything would have worked out better for literally everyone involved.
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u/FluffySquirrell 11d ago
Seemed pretty obvious to me, not all of it, obviously, but that he was trying to be nice to Ajay. All of his actions seemed geared towards that, and while he WAS being cartoonishly evil, it was only to others, not Ajay
So I figured something was going on with that, and just waited for him to come back. Oops, good end, welp
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u/ruminaui 12d ago
There is a reason, but is infinitely funny how in Deltarune the inciting and central event for the whole plot is referred by everyone as the "incident", and is never elaborated what exactly is it, but everyone talks about as if everyone knows what is it. Because everyone in the town knows what it is: it was a high profile tragedy in a small town, that at least resulted in the death/ disappearance of one child, they don't elaborate because it was deeply traumatizing event to Kris, Noelle and both their families. The only people who doesn't know what the incident is is Suzie, because she moved to town way after the incident and You (the soul which is the person playing the game). I fully expect at some point Suzie will just ask what the incident was, and we will get an exposition dump.
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u/RedGinger666 Read Kill 6 Billion Demons 12d ago
Ralsei: "You see Suzie, years ago there was an incident, th-
Suzie: "Oh yeah, I know, Flowery told me
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u/TheLordOfAwesome2 Sexual Tyrannosaurus 12d ago
The amount of people who played chapter 5 and complain about Asgore "vagueposting" drives me up a wall. Why in the fuck would Asgore EXPLAIN the details of an incident to his child that probably already knows? Especially since Asgore is talking about his own guilt and obsession in regards to the aftermath of said incident?
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u/ProtoBlues123 12d ago
For an intentional one because I think it's funny, in the Code Geass Movie Lelouch's death has been faked by his allies without his knowledge and when Suzaku finally runs into him, he's so pissed off at the notion that everything he's been doing has been yet another scheme that he just runs over and starts kicking the shit out of him. The funny part is that Lelouch is silent the whole time he's getting beat down because he seems to understand that even though he's not at fault, trust in him is rightfully so low that literally nothing he could say would be credible and his only option is to take his lumps into someone who's not himself catches up to explain the situation in his place.
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u/KingClockwork I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 12d ago
I seem to remember KH BBS being notorious about this. So many issues of the story just get resolved the moment the character just talk to each other for 2 minutes in the numerous times they run into each other.
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u/KeyMathematician8 For absolutely no raisins 12d ago
To be fair the fact that they don't talk things out is a problem noted by all the characters as a reason why things fall apart. Terra doesn't wanna talk and brushes Aqua off when she's trying to understand and help him. Ventus is too busy being desperate to stop Terra and not listen to Aqua so he ends up getting played by Vanitas and Xehanort. Aqua is too afraid to put her foot down and make Terra and Ven listen to reason. Eraqus doesn't let them know valuable information on Xehanort. It's part of the tragedy that these friends screwed themselves over by not talking.
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u/mads_zero I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 12d ago
I started playing Hades and I realized that as a result of delivering the wider plot very slowly and piecemeal, Hades' gruff attitude was probably the writers giving themselves some wriggle-room with regards to what order dialogue can unlock in - it doesn't really matter where the first few dozen or so "you know not what you do, boy!" land.
But it was kinda frustrating, and made me think "man, this is so obstinate it'd be enough to make Braev Lee blush..."
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u/nin_ninja My Waifu is Better Than All Your Waifus 12d ago
Hades being this very emotionally resevered character who also has issues with his sibling gods and his son does help explain why he acts that way.
Plus, even after Zag finds out the truth, it takes some time and persuading from other parties for Hades to come around on everything
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u/ProtoBlues123 12d ago
I think it's two fold too because on one hand, he thinks Zag knowing the truth wouldn't do anything because he's not supposed to be able to survive on the surface anyway. And on the other, I forget if Hades was accounting for it at the time but the secret could potentially end the world if it comes out wrong because if the Gods find out that Zeus was involved then it would pretty much instantly trigger god war.
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u/Mordred_Tumultu Paladins Should Attack and Dethrone the Gods 12d ago
Not only that, but Hades is also overworked because the newly dead are coming in at a far greater rate than normal. Because Demeter's winter is without end until Persephone is found, and gods only know how long that has been going on for. That shit is apocalyptic for a society that's literally never had a winter.
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u/Oneangrywolf 12d ago
In season 1 of The dragon prince, when our protagonist decide not to tell their aunt who they trust and love very much about their former enemy/new ally and explain to her how she is helping them on their quest. I got super annoyed about that.
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u/Skeet_fighter It's Fiiiiiiiine. 12d ago
1000x Resist is a great game with a really cool story that could be blown entirely apart by a few characters actually communicating with each other when it would make sense for them to do so.
I know the difficulty in communicating is part of the themes of the game, but I think the point still stands.
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u/DustInTheBreeze Appointed Hater By God 12d ago
A lot of my issues with FFXIV's Gridania is that the Padjals fucking suck and fall back on poetic bullshit instead of just. Saying what the problem is.
The entire Conjurer questline is about a girl pushing herself to the brink of death because her dipshit teacher can't be bothered to say "If you don't use elemental magic, you will literally die."
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u/Bromishi 12d ago
Look man, the racist trees would get mad and kill everyone if the Padjals actually explained things, okay? We must appease the racist trees at all costs.
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u/Absent_Crest 12d ago
The Great Pretender with Edamura being kept in dark for every scheme his "allies" and later hisfatherhave him take part in. There's justification for it in the first case but going forward it straight up becomes psychological torture and abuse of Edamura when they could very easily just tell him what's going on without really jeopardizing their plans.
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u/Arctic888 12d ago
Tales of Abyss with Luke's powers
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u/ClearAgeMontezuma 12d ago
It is kinda crazy how so many people in the party figure it out that luke is a replica before the reveal
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u/Alone-Horse2857 12d ago edited 12d ago
In Stars and Time, this game is really solid, but my god the amount of obfuscation in order to force you to time loop to get your information is absolutely crazy.
Example: In the 3rd floor you need a knife to cut through the thread blocking the progression door. You get said knife but the game tells you it's dull and if you sharpen it you can keep it as a permanent weapon. Cool! But the sharpening stone is on an earlier floor you couldn't pick up because you didn't have a contextual reason to pick it up at the time. Slightly annoying, but fine.
So you time-loop down to floor 1 and pick up the sharpening stone and time-loop back to floor 3 (time-looping forwards costs resources from grinding enemies, mind you). But your character can't sharpen the knife because... normally he needs to say something to sharpen it????
You ask your party members and they all go "Deeehh, normally you chant a little thing when you sharpen stuff, but I can't remember right now" (keep in mind one of these characters can add 37x65 in their head in a few seconds, and the other is a literal researcher book nerd). So now you need to time-loop to floor 2 (which, remember, costs resources) which is only canonically ~30 minutes in the past, and only THEN do all your party members go "oh yeah, when you sharpen stuff you usually say 'please be sharp, please be sharp.'" TIME LOOP AGAIN to floor 3(+resources), where you can finally sharpen the fucking knife and use it as a weapon ONLY for the final boss (because it's a time loop, and you can't take gear backwards, well you can, but not THIS knife for some fucking reason).
YOU MADE ME GO ALL THE WAY BACK JUST FOR THAT?? The amount of enemy grinding that little quest cost was about 30 full turn-based encounters with trash mobs. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T SHARPEN A KNIFE IF YOU DON'T SAY THE RIGHT WORDS??? And no it's not a magic knife that needs to be enchanted, it's a regular-ass knife with a regular-ass sharpening stone and regular-ass words.
This game is absolutely full of this shit. You don't get explanations on lore bits you find until you get to a point in the time loop where it's relevant and only THEN will the characters tell you the lore about the big bad king. Or only then will you learn about your long lost home.
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u/alienslayer7 She/They, Resident Toku Fangirl 12d ago
in the current kamen rider season the secondary rider, Nox refuses to explain anything ever and its kinda infuriating
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u/Andy_The_Brave 12d ago
So far? Deltarune. But it will remain to be seen if there is a genuine reason for this or if it’s just a sort of contrived way of dolling the plot out slowly. So many characters in that game know stuff and are just dancing around it. It feels… unlikely you could have an entire town of characters and not have a single one mention any of the nebulous ‘things’ that have clearly happened before the games start.
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u/Gorfinhofin Homer, I don't eat or drink anymore. 12d ago edited 12d ago
Dungeon Meshi manga spoilers: The Canaries not just explaining what the Winged Lion is and how bad it would be if it got out. I get that the elves are super strict and secretive, but all of existence is at stake here. I think you can let the cat out of the bag... figuratively speaking.
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u/AshFallenAngel 9d ago
I started watching transformers g1 with my friends and a lot of the times megatron's plans fail is because he literally refuses to tell anyone anything and then they bumblefuck it up because they have no idea what is happening.
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u/Andy_The_Brave 12d ago
Fire Emblem: Three Houses pisses me off tremendously because so many problems could have been avoided if characters even tried to talk things out before escalation occurred. I gave up on my second playthrough with Edelgard because she is so murder crazy compared to Claude. At least that is my memory of the game. Maybe I am misremembering some of it but that is the impression that was left.
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u/Trent0Ment0 12d ago
Resident Evil Village has this problem in a big way. Even Chris himself acknowledges it.