Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Ask questions about the events that take place during the Suikoden games themselves.
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WaterMoon
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Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by WaterMoon »

So, I've been replaying a lot of the games of late (already finished I and II, got III going at home, Tierkreis while on the bus to school, and trying to get Gaiden going for on my lappy at school), and I've started noticing a trend of plot holes the games fail to address. Thought I'd start a list of em here, see if we can't find more. This list will also include areas where there's a story/gameplay disconnect.

- In Suikoden II, when Kiba attacks the fort to draw out Leon, we later receive a missive that tells us both Leon and Kiba were mortally wounded. However, Leon shows up later to be caught in Shu's trap and attempted sacrifice and is also the one that summons the Beast Rune at the end of the game. Why are we receiving reports that he's been mortally wounded, yet he remains quite active in the story after this point? It's not like Highland has any amazing healers (we have Huan/Tuta plus the Bright Shield rune, Liukan is in the Toran Republic).

- In Tierkreis, Sieg (the hero) has a bit of back and forth about his origins throughout the story. At first he just seems to be someone who can't travel through gateways to other worlds, then it's revealed that he was originally from another world and has to go back through the gateway he came through to leave. We see this theory being tested during a side-quest when Marica? comes over to attack a renegade, but ask Sieg to try and kill it himself first. When he fails, she assumes he must be from this world. Yet much later on, Atrie suggests that Sieg is the child of the leader of the Starbearers seen within the Chronicles, and that his world was destroyed. This explains why he can't enter gateways to other worlds (there's no gateway back to his world as it no longer exists), but fails to address why he can't kill renegades.

These are the couple I have off the top of my head, but I'll add more as I come across them. Any one else have any?
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

WaterMoon wrote:- In Suikoden II, when Kiba attacks the fort to draw out Leon, we later receive a missive that tells us both Leon and Kiba were mortally wounded.
That's a translation error not a plot hole.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Antimatzist »

- In Tierkreis, Sieg (the hero) has a bit of back and forth about his origins throughout the story. At first he just seems to be someone who can't travel through gateways to other worlds, then it's revealed that he was originally from another world and has to go back through the gateway he came through to leave. We see this theory being tested during a side-quest when Marica? comes over to attack a renegade, but ask Sieg to try and kill it himself first. When he fails, she assumes he must be from this world. Yet much later on, Atrie suggests that Sieg is the child of the leader of the Starbearers seen within the Chronicles, and that his world was destroyed. This explains why he can't enter gateways to other worlds (there's no gateway back to his world as it no longer exists), but fails to address why he can't kill renegades.
There are several logical "errors" in Tierkreis which is just a thing of games that feature time travel or inter-dimensional stuff. For your theory, you're right, it doesn't make sense. Maybe he wasn't born yet when he came to the world, was born in the new world and then his mother died, so he is some kind of zwitter-inter-dimensional or something.

There are several plotholes in the game, though.
- The chronological order in which places appear is.. off. Basically, no Starbearer should know the non-human races, but they are pretty ok with them (it's adressed with the Crbark arc, but not with the Porpos, e.g.). The destruction of Janam should basically set the world on fire, because everybody had to do with them and all their history books are changed etc. It's just confusing.
- Dirk is a walking plothole. He doesn't accept his friends bearing the mark of the stars or that stuff is chanigning, but is ok witht he Order? He shouldn't be able to notice the differences in the world as well.
- The Wanderers... argh. They get Starbearers early but never notice that their world is destroyed? If you don't know, Rarohenga is the Wanderer's world and Diadora is a Wanderer herself.

Had some more on my mind, but basically, the whole plot is just convolutet if you think about it. Especially later Starbearers don't freak out because half their world was just created/changed and all their knowledge is wrong.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by WaterMoon »

Raww Le Klueze wrote:
WaterMoon wrote:- In Suikoden II, when Kiba attacks the fort to draw out Leon, we later receive a missive that tells us both Leon and Kiba were mortally wounded.
That's a translation error not a plot hole.
Plot hole caused by translation error then.
Antimatzist wrote:
- In Tierkreis, Sieg (the hero) has a bit of back and forth about his origins throughout the story. At first he just seems to be someone who can't travel through gateways to other worlds, then it's revealed that he was originally from another world and has to go back through the gateway he came through to leave. We see this theory being tested during a side-quest when Marica? comes over to attack a renegade, but ask Sieg to try and kill it himself first. When he fails, she assumes he must be from this world. Yet much later on, Atrie suggests that Sieg is the child of the leader of the Starbearers seen within the Chronicles, and that his world was destroyed. This explains why he can't enter gateways to other worlds (there's no gateway back to his world as it no longer exists), but fails to address why he can't kill renegades.
There are several logical "errors" in Tierkreis which is just a thing of games that feature time travel or inter-dimensional stuff. For your theory, you're right, it doesn't make sense. Maybe he wasn't born yet when he came to the world, was born in the new world and then his mother died, so he is some kind of zwitter-inter-dimensional or something.

There are several plotholes in the game, though.
- The chronological order in which places appear is.. off. Basically, no Starbearer should know the non-human races, but they are pretty ok with them (it's adressed with the Crbark arc, but not with the Porpos, e.g.). The destruction of Janam should basically set the world on fire, because everybody had to do with them and all their history books are changed etc. It's just confusing.
- Dirk is a walking plothole. He doesn't accept his friends bearing the mark of the stars or that stuff is chanigning, but is ok witht he Order? He shouldn't be able to notice the differences in the world as well.
- The Wanderers... argh. They get Starbearers early but never notice that their world is destroyed? If you don't know, Rarohenga is the Wanderer's world and Diadora is a Wanderer herself.

Had some more on my mind, but basically, the whole plot is just convolutet if you think about it. Especially later Starbearers don't freak out because half their world was just created/changed and all their knowledge is wrong.
Well, if we REALLY want to talk about massive plot hole games... Suikoden IV, so bad it needed a spinoff sequel just to try and address all the plot holes. Giant space flea tree from nowhere?
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

I don't think you know what a plot hole really is. Something appearing out of nowhere is not a plot hole, it's bad story telling, but it's not a plot hole unless it contradicts itself. Without someone saying "There's definitively not a giant tree at El-Eal" there's no plot hole there.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Antimatzist »

I agree, like in FF IX. The Final Boss just appears, but it's not a plothole per se, just very badly written.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

It might qualify as a Deus ex Machina of sorts. It's doesn't really exist to solve an unsolvable situation, but from a game perspective it's a giant final boss for the sake of having a giant final boss. Though a Deus ex Machina is very much the epitome of poor writing so it comes back to that.

A better plot hole is in Suikoden I when Windy says that Ted hasn't changed a bit in 300 years when he clearly has gone from a child to an adult and they've never met between the two events.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

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WaterMoon wrote: It's not like Highland has any amazing healers (we have Huan/Tuta plus the Bright Shield rune, Liukan is in the Toran Republic).

You are jumping to conclusion too fast here. There is no reason to assume that Highland does not have amazing healers just because we don't know their name. Liukan and Huan are not the only surgeons around. Liukan is named as a specialist in poisons, and Huan just happened to have been there when we needed him to join. THere is absolutely no reason to deduce that they are the only two doctors in the entire continent and Highland is devoid of anyone capable of curing a wound.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by sticky-runes »

In Suikoden 2, you can ask Georg Prime "why would you do that?" regarding why he rescued you from the zombies, even if you didn't choose to abandon Tinto during the Neclord invasion.

And you can create a plot hole by heading to Mt. Rakutei early and using the Bright Shield rune to clear the fog, even if you haven't received the Bright Shield rune yet.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

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In Suikoden 2, you can ask Georg Prime "why would you do that?" regarding why he rescued you from the zombies, even if you didn't choose to abandon Tinto during the Neclord invasion.
That's either a mistranslated line or they simply forgot to add that you could chose to run away. Maybe they added the part that you don't run away later or something.
And you can create a plot hole by heading to Mt. Rakutei early and using the Bright Shield rune to clear the fog, even if you haven't received the Bright Shield rune yet.
Of course, a glitch creates a plot hole. ;)
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

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Raww Le Klueze wrote:It might qualify as a Deus ex Machina of sorts. It's doesn't really exist to solve an unsolvable situation, but from a game perspective it's a giant final boss for the sake of having a giant final boss. Though a Deus ex Machina is very much the epitome of poor writing so it comes back to that.

A better plot hole is in Suikoden I when Windy says that Ted hasn't changed a bit in 300 years when he clearly has gone from a child to an adult and they've never met between the two events.

That's a general plot hole for the series. Unless he aged some during the time when he didn't have the Soul Eater while on the ghost ship. As for the tree, it's not a deus ex machina. As I called it before, it's a giant space flea from nowhere (yeah, I just ruined someone's day).
BrucePrintscreen wrote:
WaterMoon wrote: It's not like Highland has any amazing healers (we have Huan/Tuta plus the Bright Shield rune, Liukan is in the Toran Republic).

You are jumping to conclusion too fast here. There is no reason to assume that Highland does not have amazing healers just because we don't know their name. Liukan and Huan are not the only surgeons around. Liukan is named as a specialist in poisons, and Huan just happened to have been there when we needed him to join. THere is absolutely no reason to deduce that they are the only two doctors in the entire continent and Highland is devoid of anyone capable of curing a wound.
I didn't say they're the only two doctors on the continent. I said they lack any AMAZING doctors, ones that are renown for being specialists.
Raww Le Klueze wrote:I don't think you know what a plot hole really is. Something appearing out of nowhere is not a plot hole, it's bad story telling, but it's not a plot hole unless it contradicts itself. Without someone saying "There's definitively not a giant tree at El-Eal" there's no plot hole there.
The definition of a plot hole is "those gaps in a story where things happen without a logical reason." As such, suddenly having a magical tree that is tied to the source of all rune cannon shells (which have not even been a question during the game) is most certainly a plot hole, something that needed an entire other game to address.

Another good example of a plot hole from II is during the battle when Luc shows up to use his wind rune to decimate the forces that Sasarai and Yuber brought with them, Sasarai's rune suddenly fails to work. The whole elemental rock-paper-scissors hadn't been established yet within the series, and both characters possess true runes, so how did one manage to force the other to not work?
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Antimatzist »

That's AGAIN a mistranslation. Maybe you should visit Raww's website, http://klueze.com/. :P
Sasarai

At a certain point in the game Luc will appear and blow away the Harmonian forces with his True Wind Rune. Sasarai responds to this with "No... How could my True Rune fail me...".

Unfortunatly the original exchange goes more like this; when Luc prepares to blow the Harmonians away Sasarai says "By the power of my True..." and escapes before he's hit.

So as a result in the English version Sasarai runs away with his tail between his legs after being hit (before the actual strike to boot >_<) and in the Japanese he used his True Rune to escape in the nick of time.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

WaterMoon wrote:That's a general plot hole for the series. Unless he aged some during the time when he didn't have the Soul Eater while on the ghost ship.
No, the plot hole is Windy saying he hasn't changed when he clearly has. The fact that he aged isn't a plot hole as True Runes don't grant agelessness before bearers reach maturity.
WaterMoon wrote:The definition of a plot hole is "those gaps in a story where things happen without a logical reason." As such, suddenly having a magical tree that is tied to the source of all rune cannon shells (which have not even been a question during the game) is most certainly a plot hole, something that needed an entire other game to address.
No, the definition of a plot hole is "a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that creates a paradox in the story that cannot be reconciled with any explanation", it's not just a hole in the plot. Something appearing out of nowhere does not create any paradox, it just leaves it unexplained.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

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WaterMoon wrote:
I didn't say they're the only two doctors on the continent. I said they lack any AMAZING doctors, ones that are renown for being specialists.
You have absolutely no reason to assume that Highland is lacking in amazing doctors. Just because we never heard of them doesn't mean they don't exist. There is no reason why the name of all and every competent surgeon would be publicly known to everyone. So yes, you are jumping to conclusions.
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Re: Plot Holes Throughout the Series (Spoilers, Obviously)

Post by Calvin »

In Suikoden, it is said that Leon Silverberg spends the remainder of his life in his hometown (in the ending text), however after Suikoden II we know this to be untrue.

I also seem to remember Windy being declared dead, and then MIA, but I think that was through other media and not the games.
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