relic.nt

I dunno how much curiosity there is over the girl in the coffin, but in Central Fiction we learn:

Haha... "My little sister says you're hurting her, old man." Even though the main story was pretty serious, there was a good amount of humor. Here were the scenes I noted: Actually, I wrote my personal thoughts out as I played the game. Do we normally create a thoughts and impressions thread? In case anyone is somehow interested...

Why is the AU attached? Who is Ragna talking to at the end? What does it mean that Ragna is the dream? The game isn't explicitly clear about any of that, so the answers are all heavy speculation. They should probably moved to the speculation thread. Here are my thoughts on the matter: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/index.php?/forums/topic/12979-central-fiction-speculationstheories/&do=findComment&comment=962392

Two related questions I've been putting a lot of thought into: 1) Who was the Saya that Ragna was talking to in the end? 2) What does Ragna mean by saying he's Saya's dream?

Who knows? I don't think it's clear. There's been mentions of: Age of Origin War, a smaller scale war hundreds of years ago, Prime Field War, Dark War, Ikaruga Civil War. The first two wars come from Phase Shift 3 Chapter 1, the remainder from the games. It sounds like the Hihiirokane was from the Age of Origin War. And it sounds like Izayoi was from the smaller scale war. That's why I lean more on the side that the Prime Field War was the smaller war. That could be completely wrong though... maybe the smaller scale war was just a previous loop of the Dark War. Or both wars were completely different things. Or, like I said, maybe the two wars were retconned. But I really like the idea of a huge reality spanning war between gods and humans as the first war. Also... it's interesting that they pointed out Takamagahara could only rewind time at the start of the Prime Field War. But in Chrono Phantasma, it seemed like Takamagahara could do additional Interventions. I don't remember XBlaze, but does anyone know if the T-System could do anything or if it was completely inactive? I'm trying to throw in a lot of facts... but maybe this discussion should be moved to speculation.

I don't think it's said that the Master Unit created the other ones, but maybe that's true. Do you remember the source? The Original Units seem to have equal status. Also, rebelling against creators is such a common theme. Even in real life, if you count parents. But as far as media goes, anything where humans fight AI has this theme: Matrix, Terminator, etc... Lots of JRPGs end up with the protagonists fighting some sort of god. As far as the yin and yang between creation and destruction... it's another really common theme. It usually is explained as (1) That's the way it is, (2) You need to destroy things in order to create things. The thing I'm really interested in is Susanoo gaining a will. BlazBlue touches on this a lot (The Origin, Izanami, Noel/Mu, Nu and Lambda gaining independent souls.) Are souls just hyper compressed Seithr or something more? Is there some deeper secret to the Drives? Clavis seemed to hate them. It seems to be a major theme. I'm also really interested in Susanoo rebelling. I'm wondering if this is a hint to the Age of Origin war, although it's possible that war was the Prime Field War or Mori forgot about the two wars completely. I really wish some dates were given for (1) When Susanoo left his body and if it was voluntary, (2) When humanity found the Susanoo Unit, (3) When The Origin contacted the Master Unit, (4) When the Prime Field War began. It would make such a huge difference to the timelines... *crosses fingers for another Material Works timeline.* I have my own suspicions, but this isn't the speculation section.

1) Arakune's fate was ambiguous. Bang was about to kill him when people started turning to Seithr and Arakune isn't mentioned after that. 2) Relius said he had to do "verification" since he was done with "observation." 3) It's fine to speculate, but it's not certain Tsubaki has the Susanoo armor. Her body was hidden by a tree, none of the armor was shown. just her Okami and her hair were shown. The sword isn't part of Susanoo and she had no voice distortion. Maybe "Tsubaki Yayoi" was a nostalgic name because she's "Tsubaki Kisaragi" now. Maybe they just hid her because she looks really old. Likewise, the game never specifically mentions Saya Terumi, it just hints at someone matching some of her traits. 4) He almost certainly didn't die. Naoto is initially adamant Hazama survived, his backtracking sounds like a lie. Hazama shows up in the epilogue of BE2, but doesn't do anything. In arcade mode, Naoto says Hazama made his life hell, but Hazama doesn't recognize him. Amane said Ragna created "Hope in the form of possibility, extending from all directions, in the past, present, and future... I've never seen a world reconstructed on such a large scale before... So this is the True Azure..." Even if Naoto comes from the "past", it could easily be a recreated past due to CF's events, maybe this time with a happier ending. If Saya Terumi really is the base of No. 5, the original ending seems tragic. 5) Relius said something like he gave his Eye to Carl. I don't think it was stated Carl was blind. I think it just shows that Carl can now see the structure of the world.

I guess... but neither of those characters got anything they wanted. In that case, you could see Roy (and probably Hazama) won too. I actually thought the story concluded well and was a pretty happy ending overall. The cast shown in the ending cutscene all seemed pretty happy.

Frankly, I don't understand either, so I just repeated what the translation said. I wrote a full guide of my playthrough here: http://blazblue.kumodori.com/cfdigest.html. Whenever I was confused, I just transcribed what I read. This happened a lot. Here are my notes regarding that: Since this is the speculation section, I'm going to veer from facts now... ... ... When talking about the Origin's dream, I wrote down multiple topics, I don't know if they're separate or all the same thing: 1) In Ragna's "memory sequence", humans give the Origin (or maybe it's actually Takamagahara? But the CGs showed them putting a Prime Field Device into the Cauldron and they had been talking about the Master Unit) the dream of a world of eternal peace. Someone later says this got warped into a world where nothing exists after the Black Beast destroys it. 2) Nine says the Prime Field Devices just wanted to be recognized as humans. The Origin herself just yearned to exist, yearned for a human world. This matches Noel's dream of just wanting a normal life. As proof that this world is that dream, Noel asked what people thought of her. Everyone within reason saw her as a human, but those outside of reason (Rachel / Terumi / etc) saw her as a doll. Noel suggested it was Intervention that caused everyone to see her as human. 3) Ragna is Saya's dream. I guess this means he's what Saya (and by Saya, I mean The Origin) focuses on. Like you, I originally thought this was because Ragna could be used to destroy and reset the world by becoming the Black Beast. But later, in the final conversation with whatever Ragna talks to at the end, she says she was destroying the world because they "told" her to, but really, she just wanted to be together with her brother. So does this mean Ragna was actually her desire? So my big question is, who was Ragna talking to at the Master Unit? After Noel is done with all her merging, he asks to talk to The Origin, but Noel gets all dodgey. Later, Ragna goes to the Master Unit and talks to someone he refers to as Saya. He says Kushinada's Lynchpin was modeled after the Master Unit. His experience with talking to Tenjo let him know to talk to "Saya." Saya complains how she was lonely, how Ragna tried to kill her, and how he even turned into a black monster. Ragna said he didn't know another way to stop her. She asks why he wanted to stop her, she was just doing what she was told. She hated that world she was making, she just wanted to be with Ragna. Also, at some point Terumi teases Ragna about the Noel that he failed to save. I originally thought that last Saya was spouting Nu's memories, but I think that's wrong now. My current theory is that The Origin's soul is that "monster" No. 5 was based off of (who seems to be the original Saya Terumi.) She had the powers to amplify seithr, devour souls and use their power. My theory is that she absorbed the soul's memories too, similar to what Ragna is doing. Ultimately, her brother (probably the original Naoto) turned into a black beast and swallowed her. When the First Prime Device contacted the Master Unit, it gained a soul. My theory is that it gained Saya Terumi's soul, with all its baggage. So from all the souls, she wants destruction, from her Prime Device feelings, she wants peace, and from Saya Terumi, she wants her brother. Ragna is the same existence as Naoto, somehow, so he really does have some relationship to this story. So The Origin has multiple dreams, but it still leads to a dead end of no possibilities. Anyway, that's my current theory, I might change my mind in an hour. Blow holes through it guys. But I like it because it gives a reason for Relius giving that whole big infodump in the middle of the game. Come on Mori, give us another Bloodedge Experience!

Regarding Ragna's "death"... First of all, it's clearly an intentionally open ending and you can't say anything definitively. Anytime a protagonist dies like this, fans will endlessly debate whether they're really dead or not or whether they'll come back, like with the space cowboy, flower girl, or cart driver. There's no definitive answer until more official information is given. I do like the argument that if an author wanted to kill their hero, why leave an ambiguous scene at the end? Anyway... first, the facts. Is Ragna in the Master Unit or not? Like most of the major story mechanisms, I don't think it's clearly spelled out either way. Ragna says that as long as he exists, Saya's dream will never end because Ragna is the dream. Ragna collects up all the qualified's dreams. Then he very cryptically speaks to "Saya / The Origin" who is still in the Master Unit like how Tenjo was still in Kushinada's Lynchpin. Ragna says he's sorry and that they'll be together from now on. It's implied he takes her dream and then he clearly activates the Master Unit. He commands it to erase this "nightmare" from the world and from all memory. Amane ensures Ragna is wiped out of Takamagahara's system. Ragna says he'll return everyone's dreams to the Azure. "The world that'll be created won't be affected by intervention from Amaterasu or Takamagahara." Amane says, "Hope in the form of possibility, extending from all directions, in the past, present, and future... I've never seen a world reconstructed on such a large scale before... So this is the True Azure..." Ragna and Amane vanish and Ragna's sword is left in front of the Gate. The End of Ragna's scenes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember anything else being said about it. Does that mean he's not in the Master Unit? I don't think so. But I also don't think it means he's in the Unit. In either case, I don't know if it matters. Even if he's in the Unit, I think it's clear he won't actively shape the world at all. And if he's not in the Unit, can he stay alive in the Boundary / Azure Horizon? I don't think Ragna can just hang out incognito. Earlier, Jin tries to tell Ragna they can just erase Ragna's existence as "Brother" and then Ragna can just be "Bloodedge", but Ragna says that idea won't work. Nothing seems definitive. So all fans can do is make fun theories. Maybe he just erased himself from the world's memory and still wanders around with no identity. Maybe he's out in the Boundary, watching over existence. He could be the one that grabs his own sword. Maybe he's in the Master Unit, actively shaping the world. Or maybe he's just letting all the dreams he's collected fight it out and he himself provides no input. I think there's good suggestion that Naoto and Ragna are the same... something. Maybe this means Ragna is reborn as Naoto. Of course, it could be the other way around too, but I think the dialogue makes that sound less likely even if it makes more sense. If Ragna's soul is reborn, maybe that person takes the sword. Maybe he completely wiped himself out of existence and is completely gone. He was looking pretty bad when he talked to Amane. I think my most pessimistic theory is... remember at the end of Chrono Phantasma how Rachel said, "If Ragna dies before you [Tsubaki] can kill him, then you must kill me [Rachel]. That's the only way we can completely eradicate the evil within him." I don't understand what that means at all. But Ragna left his sword behind and Rachel ties her ribbon to it after talking with Tsubaki about Tsubaki's unfinished business. The sword and ribbon are gone in the after credits scene, just leaving the grave marker (is that Celica's?) Maybe Tsubaki killed Rachel and that wipes the last remnant of Ragna, his sword, out of existence. Or maybe all these details or that after credits scene get retconned in the next work. The scene opens a world of "possibility."

It's part of the ending cutscene, maybe you can find the subbed version somewhere. But... Hakumen's sword appears behind Rachel and Rachel says she was waiting. Tsubaki says she came to fulfill a promise. Tsubaki asks Rachel whose sword that is. (Rachel tears up.) Rachel says she doesn't know, but the will to 'never give up' remains. It's proof of possibility. Tsubaki says something like Rachel will fall into the Hell of possibility too, Rachel says even if it's Hell, she'll choose it. As long as hope remains, she'll choose it. Then she says, "I shall find you, I promise."

I added more detail to my summary regarding the last fight with Hazama. Since I think it could lead to a lot of theories, I thought it would be better to be more detailed. I'm not sure what it says about Kazuma being Hazama, but I think it really does suggest that this Hazama will take a large role in BE: Also, Ragna's earlier conversation with Hazama:

The other two are: - *sigh* Big breasted girls against flat chested girls + Trinity who has talking breasts. It is Magical Girl Trinity, so at least there's more Ding Dong Dash. And there's a part with Nine being sweet with 'Jubei.' - Naoto is stuck in a dating sim game and Raquel (using the Rachel sprite) is guiding him through it. Lots of parody of gal games (nonsense choices and unrealistic scenarios.) Naoto ends up getting the bad end and presses the reset button, which ends up showing the Take-Mikazuchi blast and Naoto asks what kind of game resets like that. I hope there really is an extend version, I'm always up for more Gags.

I re-read it and thought about it... I guess you're right. His values didn't align with my own even in the beginning, so I guess I judged him harshly. I saw him as a guy who still didn't know his own likes and dislikes, but would have liked hurting people once he tried it, even without Terumi. And as soon as he talked to Terumi, he became evil really fast and never put up any resistance, as though he was discovering his destiny. And I didn't see his relationship with Trinity as anything more than 'school friends.' You know, like casual acquaintances. But... I find relationships are portrayed weird in BlazBlue (Litchi/Roy didn't seem that close to me in the Extend stories, Celica became eternally devoted to Ragna after a month long trip) and characters are corrupted really easily (Tsubaki, who is clearly portrayed as a good guy, decides to try to defeat Makoto for Jin's sake really, really fast.) So in the ultra-selfish BlazBlue universe, I guess Trinity and Kazuma were really close and Kazuma might have become a decent guy.

It's not clear? They have the same Drive though. And when Naoto activates his Drive, he looks almost exactly like young Ragna (his hair turns white and eyes turn red.) They have a ton of parallels... sibling issues, relationship with a vampire, bloodedge name... Earlier in the game, Rachel says that they're the same existence.