Insane Difficulty: Questions about Celes's character post IMTRF - Insane Difficulty

I'm a dumbass, so forgive me if these are obvious, and I hate the whole Locke/Celes relationship, so forgive me if I'm biased. That said:

1) Why does Celes keep running away from Terra and Locke? Is she supposed to be mad at Locke for accusing her? It reads more like guilt/embarrassment to me, but I'm not sure why she'd feel either if she really wasn't working with the Empire. If she's supposed to be mad, a stern walk away seems more apropos.

2) The falling to the ground after Locke snubs her on Crescent Island seems excesive. Isn't she trying to forgive him at this point? Getting that snubbed seems anger inducing, not despair inducing.

She played the "I'm a traitor to the empire, let me prove to you I'm on your side." card and when Kefka spun it as though she betrayed the Returners and Locke actually believed it, it showed Celes that the man she liked didn't trust her. Hence the cold shoulder. Then cue some lover's angst between them that really isn't resolved in Celes' mind until the World of Ruin.

I've never really liked it either, but my main issues are more with how quickly everyone believes Kefka.

Locke: "Oh hi General of the Empire, why are you locked up here being tortured by the Empire?"
Celes: "I went rogue because they're evil."
Locke: "Cool! Here, let me help you, then you can help us, k?"
Celes: "No thanks, I'm good."
Locke: "You can't walk. I'm gonna help you."
Celes: "Uh ok I guess."
They then proceed to romp through South Figaro killing any number of Empire troops and destroying some elite experimental magic weapon thing.

Later on, Celes has given them no reasons to doubt her and has fought with them directly against the Empire a number of times. Kefka, a man known to be evil, manipulative, and all kinds of bad goes, "Hey Celes, nice to see you again. Thanks for being a spy!" and everyone goes "WHAT CELES HOW COULD YOU BE SO EVIL AND BAD TO US?"

I'm kind of with Think on this, namely because I think the original game was VERY unclear and I just tried to clear it up the best I could. I agree that her falling to the ground is really overdramatic and also confusing given her situation. Would probably make more sense if she just bowed her head.

I think her bowing her head instead helps, and if it was me I'd change her walking speed or give her a line in the nighttime scene. Right now all the scenes read "Celes feels guilty" and not "Celes was betrayed/doesn't feel like Locke likes her and not Rachel", which seems to be the more accurate thrust.

Well, Celes is sort of the strong, silent type, so it kinda fits. I also like the duality between that and Locke's tendency to keep sticking his foot in his mouth.

Then I'd maybe work on making her look more 'strong'? This is pretty much an opinion thing, but that' s my two cents.

Would be interesting to read the Japanese script for it and see if there were some insights lost in the translation during that IMTRF scene and the dialogue in albrook.

when terra and locke are about to go to crescent island i don't understand why locke says "no i didn't mean it like that, celes." what did he say wrong?

Here's the JP script: http://www2u.biglobe.../scenario-j.htm

I don't read more than kindergarten level JP, so I can't nuance for shit.

EDIT: Are you fucking kidding me? JP FFVI had a NARRATOR?!

Edit 2: Looks like just stage direction notes from whoever wrote up the script. Phew.

Edit 3: Even my kindergarten JP can tell you: this scene is barebones as hell, even in Japanese. What we have already goes farther than the original script for explaining their mental states.

So most of my early work on the dialogue was done with the help of the Lina Darkstar translation. Her notes on those scenes are in the following spoilers. She also included a few Woolsey-translated lines for the sake of comparison, but I took them out for this post - I don't think we really need them.

(Note: Blue text is her translation of the game's dialogue/actions, while white is her commentary. My commentary is outside the spoiler tags.)

IMTRF:

Not a whole lot different here, to me, just a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on (side note: I really hate Woolsey's work - there's no reason the English translation should have been at all ambiguous here, but it was). I don't think it adds much to the following scenes at Albrook and on the ship.

Albrook at night:

Not much different. The takeaway is that she's hurt and upset with him for believing her a spy despite all evidence to the contrary, but as someone who was born and raised a soldier and has likely had very little in the way of emotional development, she doesn't know how to handle it or what to say. So she runs.

I... don't really know what Locke is cursing himself for afterward, and it doesn't really flow well with the scene on the ship. The added line here seems to indicate that he's taking responsibility for saying something stupid, while his actions on the ship indicate that he's upset with her for running off on him. It feels a bit contradictory.

On the ship:

Lina had no commentary here. As Think said, it's a pretty barebones scene. My take on this is that she's had the chance to work through her emotions and wanted to talk, but Locke still felt slighted by their "conversation" at Albrook and, well, didn't want to talk.

I always hated that Celes falls to her knees, but I think that's the storyteller's attempt at expressive action within the confines of a very limiting medium, where he may have felt that having Celes simply hang her head didn't quite convey what she may be feeling.

Synchysi, on 23 December 2015 - 12:15 AM, said:

Ain't love grand?

Is it in the mod's wheelhouse to take out the falling to her knees, at least? That's in my opinion the weakest part of the sequence.

Dont touch it not unless there's an extremely compelling reason.

Mishrak, on 23 December 2015 - 09:28 AM, said:

Honestly, I agree with Mish here. There's no reason to touch the "knee-falling" unless there is a compelling enough reason to.

The only compelling reason is "I hate it", which is why I ask if it's in the mod's wheelhouse instead of demanding it. I figure if they're making adjustments to express the characters better, this seems like a candidate.

We've only removed two character actions thus far and that was because they made absolute zero sense with the scene rewrites.

I'll save it for my "Celes dumps Locke's sorry ass" patch then.

Think0028, on 23 December 2015 - 11:28 AM, said:

I want this patch.

KEFKA: "Hahahaha! Celes was a spy the whole time!"
LOCKE: "Hey remember that time you poisoned the entirety of Doma Castle, including civilians, against explicit orders? And then nobody working for you was enough of a dick so you had to do it yourself when nobody was looking?"
CYAN: "Yes."
KEFKA: "Well-"
EDGAR: "Also that time you lied to the face of the monarch of an allied nation about your motives for a diplomatic mission, and then when you didn't get what you wanted you immediately came back and tried to burn down his castle? My castle, actually. You know, the one in the desert that's made of stone and metal. In retrospect I have no idea why you thought that would work even if my castle weren't capable of submerging, but here we are."
KEFKA: "Uh-"
LOCKE: "So basically I'm just wondering why we should believe a word you say when you literally never do anything except murder people and lie."
CELES: "Will you people just shut the fuck up already and deal with his ass? Oh fuck this, WARP!"
EDGAR: "You don't know Warp."
CELES: "I could know Warp."
CYAN: "No, it's not in your natural magic list and you don't learn it from any Espers anymore."
CELES: "Warp Whistle?"
LOCKE: "Can't buy those until Thamasa."
CELES: "Yeah well I got a spell for you, Locke: Fuck. This. Shit."
Celes warps Kefka and his goons away.
CID: "How did you morons even manage to get in here?"
EDGAR: "How did you get in here? We walked in through a door that is only accessible from a staircase at the bottom of a garbage pit."
CID: "I took the elevator that goes down to an area with a random train cart leading directly outside the facility."
CYAN: "Then where did Kefka come from?"
LOCKE: "I'm just gonna push this button that frees the Espers and also makes this place explode for some reason now."