All True Runes Cursed?

[WaterMoon]

Actually, I thought Konami said the two halves of the Rune of Beginning didn't grant agelessness? Riou, Jowy and Nanami would all age and die, thus leaving their two runes to find new bearers and start the fight anew until someone finally unites the two halves.

Considering how Windy and Leknaat each held half of the Gate Rune for hundreds of years before Windy finally died and Leknaat regained the other half (though this is fairly assumed, since Windy's body is never found if I remember right), this is good evidence for even half of a true rune bestowing immortality. Unless the two are somehow unusual, ageless beings like many suspect Jeane of being. Or the Rune of Beginning being unique in that regard. But seeing as Genkaku and Han chose to seal away the halves of the rune rather than bear them and continue fighting, we may never know for sure.

[LanceHeart]

It was more something along the lines of the Bright Shield and Black Sword not being considered True Runes in the first place. Only the victor of the battle would be given the perks (read: curses) of having a True Rune.

[Lemmy Claypool]

It was more something along the lines of the Bright Shield and Black Sword not being considered True Runes in the first place. Only the victor of the battle would be given the perks (read: curses) of having a True Rune.

I do believe it was SARSadmin who described it best on Suikox with his coffee analogy -

Quote:
We can compare this with making coffee. To make coffee, you need ground coffee beans and hot water. Once you mix the two together, you get coffee. If take half of that coffee away--pour half of it into another cup, you just get two 1/2 cups of coffee. You don't get hot water and ground coffee.

That's the difference between the Gate Rune and the Rune of the Beginning. The Gate Rune is already finished coffee, so splitting it only creates two identical runes. The Rune of the Beginning is a combination of the Black Sword Rune (ground coffee) and Bright Shield Rune (hot water). Thus, if the Rune of the Beginning is ever split by a powerful sorcerer, you'd get halves of the Rune of the Beginning instead of the Black Sword and the Bright Shield rune.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

Son_Michel's post about the curses of the Runes make sense, but I'd like to add in my own two or three points from IceGryphon's post...

You don't have to live alone with soul eater. Ted meets Tir and they're buddies.

And as others have pointed out, Ted then gets injured and betrayed by Kraze, puppeteered by Windy, his family are wiped out, he's cursed to live on a Ghost Ship alone, and his friendship with Aldo doesn't seem to continue indefinitely. The point of having the Soul Eater isn't that you can't live with other people, but that the hungry Soul Eater will gobble their souls up the second you care. It might not happen immediately, i.e. Ted, but it will happen eventually. Everyone Ted cares for is either cursed or ultimately hurt by his existence -- The McDohl family is destroyed by Ted's mere presence in the mansion. Similarly so, only Gremio and Cleo seem to escape the ultimate curse of the Soul Eater, Gremio because of Leknaat and the 107 Stars, whilst Cleo just gets lucky, I guess.

Rune of punishment has a curse...until mastered, which lazlo did, so no longer cursed..

And what does Lazlo have to get through to go there?
Plus we don't know how long the Atonement Phase of the RoP lasts -- maybe it will switch back again in the future.

Dragon rune bears responsibility? If you die with it on all dragons die? Well...wouldn't you want to stay alive anyway? I think that's more of a privilege than a curse.

Dragons are dangerous creatures and Joshua has to bear the burden of consequence that dragons wreck upon society. Hence the Dragon Knights. They have to educate and look after the dragons and stop them becoming beasts like the one hidden in Toran Castle. Ultimately, it's a heavy responsibility to create and train a whole plethora of knights. And to be responsible for all dragons.

Rune of the Beginning does not make you fight. Because if you get the "good" ending from suiko2...you go off together as friends.

To get the RoB, you have to kill your friend, and one of your other friends die. And it's pretty much a given that all the way through the game, both half-bearers end up fighting until the Rune is complete. Yes, in the 'good' ending everyone goes off happy la-la, but along the way, Muse is devastated and the Beast Rune kills thousands of people, Anabelle is murdered and the whole country is plunged into despair and chaos for a significant amount of time. Jowy's family is torn apart, and Riou is treated like a vagabond like his people. Make no mistake, their ending may be happy, but the journey is far from that.

And again, who knows what will happen in the future.

I'll post more later but, yes, in my opinion all of the True Runes are cursed in some way. But 'cursed' is a bit subjective...

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who would happily take the True Lightning Rune - yum yum

[Runemaster]

The point of having the Soul Eater isn't that you can't live with other people, but that the hungry Soul Eater will gobble their souls up the second you care. It might not happen immediately, i.e. Ted, but it will happen eventually. Everyone Ted cares for is either cursed or ultimately hurt by his existence -- The McDohl family is destroyed by Ted's mere presence in the mansion. Similarly so, only Gremio and Cleo seem to escape the ultimate curse of the Soul Eater, Gremio because of Leknaat and the 107 Stars, whilst Cleo just gets lucky, I guess.

After the war ends, Aldo follows Ted, as he is worried about him. Later, Aldo will die in a mysterious accident.

Maybe this could be a proof to that.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

Heh heh, I've not completed S IV (Or Tactics) yet so I didn't know that was Aldo and Ted's ending. *Smiles innocently and sweetly*

NVM, I know being on here opens me up for spoilers and the like.

I think your point stands, dude -- it's very clear if Aldo dies, then the inherent implication is that the S.E. causes it.

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who hasn't quite met Aldo yet but is almost there he thinks.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

Sorry, I didn't really have a chance to finish what I posted earlier...

I think 'curses' are mainly subjective depending on the Rune Wearer.

Immorality is obviously a big thing: If you live forever, who cares, right? It's nice. But for those who love people, carve friendships, and are generally good people, living forever would be very lonely, very depressive. Neclord may not have a care about immortality because he can have all of the vampire brides he likes ( ), but someone like Riou is going to have a hard time living if he knows he's going to outlive Nanami (I know there's debate whether he can or not, but he's a convenient example). So immortality is a very subjective 'curse' - it's one of the reasons many evil crave the True Runes. So it's possibly not a good idea to call them 'cursed' because of this.

In Suikoden I, it's well recorded that many people (Ted and Cleo included) called the Soul Eater, 'the Cursed Rune'. So whatever we think about True Runes in general, we have to notice that the Soul Eater in particular is a) considered especially cursed and b) is cursed enough to be a well-known True Rune. Some are obviously public knowledge, like the Sun Rune. But the Soul Eater has belonged to a wandering nomad of a boy who has lived for 300 years in relative obscurity and hidden away from as many people as possible. Clearly Ted hasn't sought public attention, for want of hiding from Windy, but similarly so, even Cleo knows about the existence of the Soul Eater. Yet Kanaan didn't until Kraze tipped him off to search about it. Interesting. But that's a side point. The point is that the S.E. has a reputation of being particularly cursed.

Some of the True Runes appear less cursed than others. By bearing the Dragon Rune, Joshua and Milia bear responsibility for the Dragons in the world, but in theory if they wanted, they could dispense with Dragons altogether if convenient. The Soveriegn Rune, whilst not bonded to a user, doesn't seem to have any problems, but that doesn't say it doesn't. Same goes for Leknaat and Windy's Runes - let's face it, Leknaat nor Windy seem to be particularly peaceful.

I guess the curses, whatever they may or may not be, will affect different people differently. Some Runes seem to be particularly destructive - like the Rune of Punishment (the clue is in the name), and the Soul Eater - but some less so, like the Dragon Rune or the Sovereign Rune. Yuber doesn't seem particularly bothered by his either, does he?

What about the True Elemental Runes? Luc was a tortured old soul, so it seems, but were his problems caused by being a Clone of Hikusaak, with his terrible unbringing? Sarah didn't have a True Rune yet she was equally as tortured as he. Yet, Yuber, part of their unholy trinity, didn't seem particularly cursed or tortured at all. Sasarai didn't seem as tortured, either. I can't comment on the other three Elemental users but from what I understand, the True Fire Rune holder has his own problems caused by having the Rune. But cursed? By the Rune? Or is it the people's expectations?

I'm sure they all have their minor curses due to the sheer amount of astonishingly supreme power at their disposal - power humans should not weild - but I do think whether the users would really see them as curses depends on the users themselves, and occasionally, sometimes the Runes themselves. Even the 'cursed' Soul Eater - would Windy have really cared if she got the Rune and it swallowed up Barbarossa? She didn't seem to give a damn about anything except being uber-powerful. So who knows?

Who knows?

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who likes this discussion. It is good.

[Iesous]

People keep saying that the curses, particularly immortality, are subjective. Here is the only way they are subjective: If you live in the Suikoden universe you're cursed, and if you don't live in the Suikoden universe, it might not be a curse, depending on who you are and how you feel about it, but since none of us live there, it doesn't matter what we think; all true runes are cursed.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

I don't see why living in the Suikoden world you'd be cursed to have them: do Neclord and Windy really feel cursed by their True Runes?

It's only 'good' people like Ted, Lazlo, Tir or whomever who are considered 'cursed' by their True Runes. Actually, I doubt even Neclord or Windy would doubt the 'cursedness' of the Rune of Punishment, but I digress...

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who wonders if there's a True Rune called the Rune of Cursedness...

[Iesous]

Neclord never calls himself cursed, but Windy wants with all her soul to have the "Cursed Rune" as she calls it (Soul Eater). It's still going to be cursed when she gets it. She just doesn't care about being cursed. But that doesn't mean that it's all of the sudden not cursed.

Some people hate the curse: Luc, Flame Champ, Arshtat/Ferid, Wyatt
Most people put up with the curse: Leknaat, Ted, Tir, Joshua, Sierra, Geddoe, Sasarai, Hikussak, Sindar leader, Lazlo
Some people love the curse: Windy, Yuber, Neclord, Graham Cray

What do you notice about all the people that love the curse? They're all the most evil people in the whole series (poor Luca never got to be a true rune bearer). Why would we want to base our understanding off of people who are definitely evil and probably insane?

[Jeremiah Ecks]

Fair point, but that's still to say that some of the True Runes show no negative side effects. Okay, I tried myself to prove that the Dragon Rune is 'cursed' but my reasoning was flimsy, at best (And it's not so much a curse in that case as it is a burden of responsibility which you may or may not care for).

Leknaat nor Windy seem particularly 'cursed'. Windy might called the Soul Eater 'the' Cursed Rune, but a few people seem to point that out as particularly cursed. As do people referring to the Rune of Punishment. In both cases, they call those two runes the Cursed Rune, as if there weren't any others. Yup, it's a translation thing, but...it does seem as if that exclusivity means that the average person doesn't see a True Rune as a generally accepted 'cursed' thing, but rather it's only attributed 'cursed' to some TRs only.

Thinking about other things... there's no evidence that the Sindar leader did or didn't find their True Rune a curse. And no matter what else happens with Yuber, whether he would care about a curse or not is irrelevant - he doesn't seem to be particularly cursed.

Most of all is Riou - in the (realistically non-canon) ending where he gains both sides of the Rune of Beginning, the Rune seems to have no curse at all. If it is cursed, it's only in the way it brings Riou into combat with Jowy but from a character POV, if Riou gets to the level where he kills Jowy or allows Jowy to die, I don't think it's that big a deal for Riou overall. One day Riou is not going to care, and if it's a True Rune, he's immortal. So in other words, what possible curse could that Rune have?

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who thinks some of these conversations are fascinating.

[Iesous]

The point I'm making is that immortality is a curse. Some true runes might have additional curses, and I would say that all of them probably do, we just don't know what they are.

But that doesn't matter in this question. All of them grant immortality, so all of them are cursed. Some people enjoy that curse, but those people are evil and insane. Every normal person calls immortality a curse. (It's possible that non-true rune bearers might want to be immortal, but it's noteworthy that every sane true rune bearer calls immortality a burden and a curse.)

[Jeremiah Ecks]

I'm normal -- well, that has been known to be debated from time to time -- but I think immortality is a blessing. Especially in Suikoden, where it's only conditional immortality. You may be immortal but only as long as you have a True Rune. And as Ted has proven on several occasions, you can actually give up a True Rune on whim, should the need be there.

Yes, the T.R's are sentient to some degree, and can choose their hosts but they don't seem to be able to stop their hosts shoving them off in a different direction - they can stop being taken but they seem unable to stop being given. So surely, living until you get bored of immortality isn't so much of a big deal?

Yes, I'll outlive my loved ones, but I also have the chance to find some new loved ones. And I can make for myself a fortune and in later life live quite comfortably and happy, and I can experience pretty much anything I want to. Added with the power of a True Rune I can't be easily killed, so... What's the problem?

Maybe I'm a maniac.

-Jeremiah Ecks,
mwa-hah-hah.

[Icegryphon]

I'm currently playing Suikoden 3 and this quote will give people more to discuss.

Jimba/Wyatt: Sometimes, I regret our immortality. I hope that there will come a day when we'll think of it as a form of freedom rather than a prison.

Geddoe: I hope that day comes soon.

[LanceHeart]

That's probably referencing the "ultimate outcome" of the Suikoden world. It's been stated a few times that the end of days would come and the 27 True Rune bearers would be alone.