The Last Guardian

[Dark Jaguar]

Wow...

And the secret? The REAL secret? The true last guardian? It's not the beast, /whisper it's the boy.

/squeel OOOOOHHHH!

[Great Rumbler]

-The boy dies
-The griffon dies

Those are the only two possible endings.

[Dark Jaguar]

You forgot the Penny Arcade comic link there.

<img src="http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2009/20090608.jpg">

Here's my thing. Griffin? Doesn't look much like one to me honestly, more like a luck dragon. Also, the video made it look like it's a mother whatsit rather than a baby one.

[A Black Falcon]

What about the third possible ending, though?

You know, the one where both of them die...

But yeah, it does sound somewhat predictable doesn't it. It would be nice if they could come up with something... we'll see. :)

[Great Rumbler]

You know, the one where both of them die...

Won't happen, the audience needs an avatar to feel the sadness vicariously.

[A Black Falcon]

So introduce some other character who actually does survive, then. Would that cover it?

[Dark Jaguar]

Don't be insulting. The audience isn't so stupid as that. In a video game at least, I myself get much more attached to characters directly than through another character's interactions with them.

Ever seen Grave of the Fireflies? Yeah, that ending didn't give us the benefit of a survivor to experience sadness "through".

[A Black Falcon]

I wasn't saying that I thought that would be a good ending. I don't like "it's depressing and they died" endings. I like happier ones. I was just saying that going by what happened in their first two games, something like that wouldn't surprise me... they clearly like depressing plots, for sure. You could do something as great and artistically brilliant as those games without the sad plot, I think... making a plot more depressing shouldn't be considered making it better.

Of course Ico and SotC have very well done stories, but still, the point should stand.

[Great Rumbler]

Ever seen Grave of the Fireflies? Yeah, that ending didn't give us the benefit of a survivor to experience sadness "through".

And just think about how much more sad it would be if they had a survivor that's like "Look at what you've done to my country!!" and then he cries, but he's also mad too and that's important. So he takes up a machine gun that he finds lying on the ground, goes to Washington DC, and kills the President, thus saving Japan from shame.

Makes the emotions that much more potent, I think.

[A Black Falcon]

On an only slightly related note, Japan focuses on its own suffering, but ignores what it did to others in that war, which was a whole lot worse... it's natural, every country does that kind of thing pretty much to some degree, but it is a problem.

"We suffered so much!" ... Yeah, but what about all the millions who died because of what you started, and what about the war crimes? Oh right, those things weren't really wrong...

Of course getting past upholding national pride is very difficult, but the Germans did it, and look at all the good it's done them in truly integrating with Europe and trying to finally get past WWII.

[Dark Jaguar]

And just think about how much more sad it would be if they had a survivor that's like "Look at what you've done to my country!!" and then he cries, but he's also mad too and that's important. So he takes up a machine gun that he finds lying on the ground, goes to Washington DC, and kills the President, thus saving Japan from shame.

Makes the emotions that much more potent, I think.

Of course! Though for the record I really don't think that movie was trying to make some point about how evil Americans were, just something much more basic, that hurting people hurts them, you know, war is bad for all involved and hurts more than the combatants.

It's true that their schools need a more frank open discussion of WW2 than what their education currently provides though.

For example, when I was taught about the trail of tears in Oklahoma history, they didn't skip any of the details. By the end I acknowledged there is no pride to be had in my state's past.

...Incidentally that lesson was more or less undermined by a "sooner rush" type event where everyone ran around "claiming land" in a rush to have a picnic, more or less for fun.