In the very recent Part 6, I nearly lost my lunch and/or my sanity several times. To clarify, we had a wanky ChoadChat, a wanky Mary Sue wankst session, some enormously repetitive dialogue involving some stupid flying eyeballs, and some even more enormously repetitive dialogue involving Samara’s desire for everyone’s happiness. Speaking of eyeballs, Samara has a big ol’ evil one stuck in her forehead. What a “shocking” reveal!
So now the party is on their way to Sandra and Samara’s house, where all hell has broken loose. Literally! When the party reaches the house, only Sandra remains, still crumpled in a heap on the ground. Everyone else has moved over to the mountainous area near the cave. Leaving both Tidink and Ludo behind to watch over the unconscious woman, Ryudo confronts Selene along with his lamest party member. Great.
Unfortunately, this is where things take a turn for the nauseating. You see, Ryudo — the guy who has made it very clear that he despises both adults and children — suddenly does a complete 180 and decides that children are miracles and must be protected at all costs. This makes no God damn sense. I mean, even if you like kids, you’d probably think twice about risking your life for one that’s spooky, not to mention possessed by the devil. So this is ultra contrived.
This means that Ryudo has a total cow over these buttholes ganging up on a little girl. “This girl doesn’t even know what’s happening. Look at her! A servant of Light should be extending a hand of redemption, not raising an iron fist!” he lectures. Well, I’m willing to admit he kind of has a point — hypocritical religious zealots suck. I’m kind of torn here. On one hand, Selene is a fanatical beeyotch. On the other hand, Samara is a creepy, soulless child, and I seriously doubt that her creepiness is completely the fault of Valmar. I’m not a kid person, okay? In other words, I can’t really pick a side, and I feel dirty agreeing with anyone’s position here. I think the game designers need to include a character we can relate to, such as an angry and bitter individual who likes to randomly punch people out.
Selene, like many religious higher-ups, is a master manipulator, so she plays the “servant of Granas” card and asks Mary Sue to deliver the little hellspawn to her. Mary Sue begs and pleads for mercy. You know, indulging in my geeky programmer side for a minute, I bet that I could seriously save time if I defined a few variables to hold pieces of storyline. Like “Selene wants to purify Samara.” “Mary Sue begs for mercy for Samara.” “Samara says she wants everyone to be happy.” “Ludo POLE POLISHES evil.” Then I could write a randomizer to combine these in various ways and still end up totally accurate to the plotline. Or, I could just give myself an icepick lobotomy to make it all go away.
Ah, the sweet, sweet temptation. Anyway, Selene comments, “Impossible. There is no salvation for one possessed by Valmar.” Obviously, we are supposed to get that this is meaningful to Mary Sue on a whole different level. And not in a good way. I imagine that hearing this statement from one of her admired Granas folks is the equivalent of me hearing the statement, “Hi, my name’s Tidus, and I’m your new roommate!”
Selene continues to play the High Priestess card, chastising Mary Sue for not doing her job as an anti-Darkness church person. Just as Mary Sue looks like she might cry, or at least wankst a bit, Ryudo gives her a pep talk. This includes the phrase, “There’s no wrong in protecting the helpless!” This brainwashed transformation is seriously creeping me out. He goes on some more about how Granas sucks ass if he’s really into all this killing of the children.
Only if they’re the type of crappy neighbors who play loud music at 3AM.
But that’s not enough. Oh, no. Now that he is a Crusader of Justice and Light, he must lecture the townspeople on their morally reprehensible behavior toward one or two of their own. This from the guy who won’t help anyone out unless he gets paid for it, the fucking hypocrite. All this loud wanking has awakened Sandra. I never thought I’d be so happy to see the woman. Just as her daughter runs forward to see her, Sandra gets this horrified look on her face. She’s all, “Holy shit, that is one fucked up eyeball!” She then does the smartest thing anyone’s done for the last several hours — she backs away from the creepy little fucker. “You are a…” she begins.
We don’t really know what she was about to say, but that’s what scary little psychic girls are for. According to Samara, her mom thinks she’s a monster. Girl, you’ve got Valmar’s eyeball in your head. If the shoe fits…
Before Samara can go all batshit and call upon her powers of Darkness to smite the entire town, Mary Sue has to intervene. It’s part of the Mary Sue job description. “[Samara]! Please! Be calm! Your mother is just a little… shocked!” she understates, throwing her arms around the girl yet again. She can’t keep her hands off the children for two seconds, can she? Samara isn’t buying into her load of bullshit. Immediately after screaming at Mary Sue to back the fuck off, Samara disappears in a ball of light.
No means no, Mary Sue.
Unfortunately, this blast knocks Mary Sue onto the ground, setting up another prime opportunity for her to look like a giant wuss and get attention. The remaining three party members rush over to her, irritating me. “What has happened?” Selene wonders, approaching with her Cockthedral Knights. She must have been taking a potty break or something, because this whole scene took place about ten feet away from her. Or maybe the stupid is contagious.
Right away, Selene figures out what has happened, thankfully saving me from fifty million repetitive explanations. It’s like Christmas day. And of course, she isn’t going to let their transgressions slide. Rightfully blaming them for Samara’s escape — though it’s not like they could’ve prevented the teleportation — Selene orders the Cockthedral Knights to search the perimeter until they find the “demon-child.” Wow, this Selene is a lot cooler than the other…Celine. Yes, yes, religious zealot and everything and that blows, but I’m such a sucker for people who aren’t all, “OMG PWESHUS MIRAKUL BAYBEEEEEEEEEEEEE YAYYYYYYYYY” over kids. It’s a weakness of mine.
Before following her Cockthedral Knights into the town, Selene basically tells Ryudo that she knows who he is and she knows where he lives. And she’s totally going to fuck him up the next time they meet.
Ryudo, surely shaking in his boots, turns his attention to the TurtleNinjaed Mary Sue. He’s not at all gentle or polite when he tries to wake her up, which is a total relief. After his “Save the Children!” speech, I totally expected him to be all, “Honey? Wake up, dear. I love you, snookums.” Great, now I’m ill. Suddenly, Mary Sue is enveloped by a white orb of light and transforms into Millenia. Yay! “Oh drat! Ouch, ouch, ouch. That eyeball really let me have it,” she bitches.
Sandra, a few feet away, doesn’t even bother to ask why Mary Sue just morphed into a redhead with a killer rack. That’s because she’s totally caught up in her own excessive wankst. If Mary Sue is a wankst fountain, Sandra is a wankst geyser. Steamboat Geyser, to be exact. “Oh, poor me. Poor poor me, I fucked up my kid,” is the gist of her whine. Like hello, welcome to the world of parenthood.
Millenia is all, “What up, yo?” “I thought something was wrong when she said she took Nicolas to the [Creepy-Ass Garden]… It was there she discovered the ability to know what others were thinking and feeling. But not only is she able to do this, she can also see what others are doing and where they are. Even I grew afraid…” Sandra explains. Wait, so she knew about all this crap and lied to my face about the Creepy-Ass Garden being a fairytale? Oh, but she was just trying to protect her spawn! She laments that while she prayed for Samara, Valmar was listening in. “You have done no wrong… Any parent would have done the same,” Tidink contributes. Well, that’s a shitty defense. Don’t get me started — we’ve got plenty more childcentric ground to cover, and I don’t want to go off on twenty million rants along the way.
Ludo backs up Tidink, adding that Valmar is the dickhole in this situation. I agree. In fact, I think that Sandra probably knows this, too, but just wants to be the center of attention. I get that vibe. “Please… kill her,” Sandra begs. This is supposed to parallel Mary Sue’s wankst-o-rama from earlier. And I can’t tell you how awesomely glad I am to sit through this bit of drama queenery twice. In one piece of footage! Oh, the joy!
Ryudo thinks she’s one sandwich shy of a picnic, but that sure doesn’t stop Sandra from stating her case further. See, she wants this all to stop, and figures there isn’t any hope for her possessed daughter. Or maybe this is Grandia II’s version of “Oops, I ‘accidentally’ left my kid in the hot car!” for parents that change their minds. Yeah, I said it.
Unfortunately for my sanity and my stomach contents, this is where Ryudo puts his “I WUV CHYLDRUN” hat back on. He makes it all about himself as he points out that he didn’t save Samara’s ass from that bitch Selene just to turn around and become a kiddy killer. He swears upon all that is decent and good that he, Ryudo, smiter of the wicked, shall find a way to save the innocent child! Millenia, my hero, has a suggestion: “I know. How about we rip that Eye right out of her? Sound good?” Ryudo likes this idea, as long as Millenia is up to the task. With a giant grin on her face, Millenia says, “Sure. I can! Of course, [Samara]’s soul will shatter and fade. So it goes.” Heeeeeeee.
She ignores Ryudo’s subsequent irritation as well, turning her back on him. Millenia is totally my video game girlfriend.
Sandra realizes that the attention is focused elsewhere, so she decides she must act. “I am completely to blame for her suffering. If there is no way to save her, then please, put her out of her misery…” Millenia is in total agreement, only she’s not all whiny about it. She’s like, “Okay, let’s just kill the kid and get on with our lives.” Awesome. Ryudo is all, “You’re Valmar and you must hate babies, so you suck!”
Hopefully, this annoyingly long scene will end sometime in this century. If recapping this dialogue doesn’t kill me, the cloying violin music in the background certainly will. Sheesh. Millenia doesn’t care about Samara or her problems, and here’s why: “The one who should do something is the girl’s mother, right? And she’s given up! End of story!” When Ryudo looks like he might cry over this child he doesn’t even know, Millenia attempts to comfort him in her way. And I’m not talking sexually. “Look, I don’t blame you, Ryudo. It’s perfectly natural for people to want to run from reality. They just can’t face life. But we don’t have the time to run along after you. Stop chasing after your silly nonsense. There’s no other way to do this.” That smackdown was brilliant, so I obviously had to include it.
And then…and then…I’m having trouble typing this. After I foolishly got my hopes up that maybe Ryudo might shut his trap and just move forward with the plot, he…doesn’t. Instead, he throws the world’s hugest fucking hissy over the fact that Samara is frightened and lonely. “You ever suffered alone, Millenia?” he snots. She ignores this retarded question.