LIVESTREAM UPDATE:

The next livestream will be this Friday, June 13th at 7pm est!  This will be the first of two remaining livestreams before I’m gone for the summer, so if you’ve wanted to catch one but haven’t managed to, time’s running out!

Keeping up with last time, I think I’m leaning towards more Cards Against Humanity for the games portion.  It was really fun playing with you guys, and I figure it’ll be a good game for the last two streams!

You can view the stream here or here.

See you then!

END LIVESTREAM UPDATE!

I finished up Tales of Symphonia on Twitch recently, so there was bound to be a ToS strip sooner or later.  First off, the dialogue in the strip is lifted right from the game…

appreciate the beautiful clunkiness.

Seriously, while I absolutely adore Tales of Symphonia, the dialogue can get pretty… awful.

…especially everything Regal says, that guy is the lamest supporting character ever.

Anyway, I’m going to go against Lloyd here and claim that it’s not a good idea to hang on to broken glass, no matter how symbolic you might think it is.

Totally swept under the rug in that scene, by the way, is the villain’s totally understandable position regarding being the target of racism.  A quick, spoiler free synopsis:  The villain who’s name is [totallyspoilers] spent his entire life on the receiving end of racism, leading him down a path that eventually led to performing some pretty heinous acts.

While it’s easy to say that no amount of negative attention and persecution justifies his later crimes/murders/what-have-you, it’s hard to argue with his base philosophy.  In the scene referenced in the comic above, the villain shows Genis and Raine some imagery that plays to their own insecurities regarding their racial background, causing them to question their motivation.

Lloyd helps them break through the illusion, and they quip about how they let their weaknesses get the best of them.

The villain looks on, and laments to himself, “Is it a sin to be weak hearted?  Not everyone’s strong.  Not everyone can stand being despised.”

Again, the villain is a bad guy first and foremost so nothing excuses his crimes, but his final line in the scene introduces a thought experiment that the game never resolves, or even addresses.

Fortunately, more recent Tales games have done a better job attempting to tackle areas of moral ambiguity.

Total side note: whenever I’m doodling something, I’ll usually google an image to make sure I have the right colors.  While getting the correct (ish) colors for Genis, this image popped up in the search.  I totally get that some folks are into that kind of art and I absolutely encourage them to keep doing what makes them happy.

I did, however, do a double take when I saw it.