Tales of the Abyss 5 - At this point, complaining gets me nowhere…
October 28th, 2008 by Jay
Oh ho ho ho, why not whore ourselves?
More terms that are impossibly hard to get familiar with unless I was actually playing the game, but at least we get some answers.
Instead of a picture of some shapes that represent isofons, I thought this would be more appropriate.
Lorelei is explained to be the theory of the collective consciousness of Seventh Fonon’s (collective consciousness shit AGAIN Sunrise!?) and it’s awareness when a certain number of Seventh Fonon’s gather together, but as such has not actually been observed (meaning it’ll probably be important later when we DO see it). There’s also some story behind “fonic frequencies” that are found on all materials, and that no two fonic frequencies are the same, and that the data on the disk included some information about isofons, where two fonic frequencies are the same, but that they can only be created artificially. Here’s where things get tricky, I don’t know if there something lost in translation, or if Shinsen Subs didn’t word it right, but apparently the science of creating isofons, Fomicry, is limited to only creating replicas, and can’t actually create isofons, so I’m entailed to believe that isofons haven’t actually been created yet…
Instead of a picture of my brain imploding at all of this, I thought this would be more appropriate.
But wait, what the hell am I talking about? They don’t even explain what isofons do, why are they so important? I just simply can’t wrap my head around this dialogue at all, I had to rewatch this scene a few times just a write these two paragraphs. Honestly, why can’t they make this stuff easier to understand, or better yet, explain it later when it’s a bit more relevant; sure, a sudden explanation later might seem like they’re making this up as they go along, but since this is a game adaptation, we’ll at least know it wasn’t the case here! Gah, my brain hurts just thinking about this, I’m not even sure the seiyuus knew what the hell they were talking about. If anything, this is probably one of the best things that the players and Luke will have in common, because they both don’t know what the hell is being said! If there are any of you who have better knowledge of this having played this or other “Tales of…” games, please do elaborate!
Whatever the reason is, since Luke was somehow involved on this experiment, there’s probably great amounts of subtle foreshadowing there, seeing as how Jade dreads that Luke will want to kill him should the intent of this experiment get out. Dun dun dun!
It’s super effective!
Cut to a Dist coming in, thank God after all that talking. Such a nice battle too, even if most attacks were futile and it was just about 2-3 minutes, it practically screamed “Boss Battle!” during this fight, and I’m inclined to think this probably is a boss battle in the game. Good to see that elements work into here to, you’ll notice that Jade and Van both use Water and Thunder spells (Artes, whatever) to take down Dist’s machine, something most RPG fans should find very pleasing. Dist seems to have the standard superiority complex most mad-scientist characters have, but his child-like reactions towards insults make his narcicism more tolerable. What he does to keep his chair floating is a mystery to me though, even if it’s magically levitating, there are no sounds or FABULOUS magical powder to indicate anything, so it just ends up looking like a normal chair. But I digress…
Hyper Beam! (Pokemon references FTW)
We get some answers on why Luke was confined, other than the belief that he may be kidnapped again: Luke has the unique ability to generate a hyper ressonance on his own, something that usually requires 2 Seventh Fonists. A hyper ressonance itself has the ability to destroy and recreate all matter (and transport two people from one country to another, don’t forget that), and if Luke practiced it’s utilization, he could be used as a weapon to turn the tide of this war. I could’ve sworn I’ve heard a plot like this before, but it’s a JRPG, all this stuff is generic one way or another.
He just has “child molester” written all over his face…oh God, Ion nooooooo! ;_;
Mohs makes his debut, looking every bit as sinister and ugly as when we first saw him. Of course, he denies having trying to encourage the war with the Malkuth Empire, and replies stoically to Tear’s questions of whether or not what she’s heard is true or not. I’d think of him to be a nuisance later, though not quite final boss material…
The party’s next stop will be Akzeriuth, whose town is being destroyed from toxins from the earth’s miasma, and is the final step in realizing this peace treaty. From the 6th Fonstone is read the prophecy Yulia Jue spoke during the first episode, only with a continuation and no mention of the destruction of Hod: that in ND 2018 (which I assume is this year in Abyss), the boy with red hair will lead his people to a miner’s town. However, when Luke later leaves, Van stops him and tells him that there is more to that Score than meets the eye: the part that’s chipped off continues on to say that the youth will “turn power into calamity and be as a weapon of Kimlasca.” The Score has never been wrong either, thus Van thinks that the only way to avoid this war is to have Luke save the lives of the people in a different way: rather than moving the people from the location as the prophecy states will happen, Luke instead must find a way of neutralizing the miasma using his hyper ressonance; once that is done, he will run away to Daath with Van and join the Oracle Knights. The biggest surprise comes here: it’s revealed that Luke apparently was the subject or had knowledge of hyper ressonance research before he lost his memory, that he had previously wanted Van to take him to Daath to escape it, and that Van is actually Luke’s kidnapper.
Now it’s painfully obvious that Van is a bad guy as well, and that he most likely has his own agenda for all of this. If the score has never been wrong, then there’s bound to be some technicalities or other causes for pushing it’s inevitable fate forward, unless there’s some moral in this story that says you create your own fate or something. Based on all the evidence that’s here, I would say that the real red-haired youth that’s in the prophecy is actually supposed to be Asch. If you think about it, Van mentions that Luke could become an Oracle Knight like himself after they escaped; recall that Asch is part of the Oracle Knights as well as a God-General. Although we just found out today that Luke can cause a hyper ressonance as well, we’ve yet to find out if Asch can do the same thing, but it’s definitely a possibility. Since the OP and ED stress the relationship between Luke and Asch so much, save for a long lost brother or some crazy revelation that there might be a Luke that was also born in Malkuth, I don’t think my theory is far off. The other problem in this link is why Asch would rebel against Van to go against his wishes, and that Luke right now is the only confirmed person to initiate a solo hyper ressonance, but the more I think about that and my broken understanding of that isofon stuff, the more it’s starting to look like a viable theory.
PREVIEW
“Surprise batches!”
Despite the King saying no, Natalia’s joining the group next week. It looks like Asch and the Six God-Generals have captured Ion again (maybe for more than one episode!) and Luke and Asch finally meet face-to-face, so maybe we’ll get more answers or maybe we’ll at least get information to supplement my theory. And Largo’s back, I fucking called it!
-Jay
9 Responses to “Tales of the Abyss 5 - At this point, complaining gets me nowhere…”
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I haven’t seen Shinsen’s sub of this ep, so I’m not too sure how much they cover… sorry if I say something redundant, or reveal too much before I should have… and a DEFINATE sorry for everything I’m about to say. If I sound pedantic, I’m even sorrier. I don’t know when to stop talking. (I’m also one of THOSE people who scour the game libraries for explanations and comes up with their own theories as to what goes on after reading said libraries. Yes. Laugh.)
Fomicry is the usage of seventh fonons (and seventh only, I’ll leave you to wonder what that might mean) to create an exact replica, an exact copy in every way but fonon frequency, of the object being replicated, which can be animate or inanimate. Think of it as cloning, in a way. But Show ▼
The thing about isofons… well they’ve already explained that the seven fonons, vibrating at different frequencies, create all matter. Or something like that. Everything vibrates at a different frequency, a fonon frequency. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the actual ’scientific’ explanations ingame for fomicry, but I think… Isofons are two or more of the exact same thing, I think; so a replica.
But, the case they talk about here are perfect isofons, which aren’t different from replicas, but actually are a very special type that are extremely rare, and at this point haven’t been created yet (or at least not to anybody’s knowledge). Perfect isofons are two objects(replica/original) that have the exact same fonon frequency. They CAN be created through fomicry.
…so uh, scientific blather over with, Perfect Isofons are Isofons are Replicas, but not all Isofons/Replicas are Perfect Isofons. Like a square is a rectangle but a rectangle isn’t a square or something.
From what I remember, this came up because of Lorelei’s fonon frequency on the disk… They actually do explain more later (be prepared for this, Abyss has a lot of scientific jargon for its world if you haven’t already noticed) Show ▼
Fomicry is veeewwwyyyy important.
You need to stop blogging the unimportant parts of this show like fonons , the main character, the plot etc and just concentrate on the lolis.
In that respect, I should say I am very disappointed in the loli/ plot ratio in this week’s episode as well as the series in whole.
“Lorelei is explained to be the theory of the collective consciousness of Seventh Fonon’s (collective consciousness shit AGAIN Sunrise!?)”
Woah woah woah, that was part of the game already, don’t bag on Sunrise for that one lol. Not to mention it’s not referring to humans specifically also at least. Least from what I remember playing the game heh.
@Mauyn Eign: Okay, that makes sense. Thanks very much for your input and clarification, you don’t know how much aspirin you’ve spared me in doing this for me.
And it’s okay, you don’t have to worry about overstating too much information, I reckon it’s better to understand it a lot more now than later anyhow, since I’d feel cheated if they went and explained it better later on as opposed to now. Show ▼
@Roy Mustang: Just know, I put that new poll there just for you!Show ▼
And you’re right, I found the lack of Arietta disturbing.
@Axel Daemon: Yes, yes, 2005 Game Vs. 2008 Anime, don’t get all panicky. Sunrise, however, made the decision to pick it up and develop the animation, however, so there! -500 Points!
Ha ha, least you have a sense of humor about it XD; I just wanted to make sure you didn’t misunderstood why that was there heh.
If anything, I think that’s the only direct relation these two would have. It’s probably a freak coincidence that the two would have something about “collective consciousness”.
I’m not sure if it was this blog, or some other area that mentioned it was thanks to the “Pizza Hut” sponsorships that future shows like this has a nice fat budget to work with, so production values would be good thus far. That true?
-now I need to catch up with ep. 2 - 5-
One thing I definitely wish for is for this scene to occur is this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXCPgOV4BkI&fmt=18 PETAPETAPETAPETA.
“Fomicry” sounds like a word 4chan would invent to describe some despicable weeaboo meme.
And I love these “The prophecy has never been wrong! So let’s do something that we foolishly believe will change the prophecy but is in fact exactly what was predicted thus fulfilling said prophecy.” plots. And by “love” I mean, “hate”.
I also am hating the word “prohpecy” … damn! did it again.
Well, I’ve played the games a few times over, and the story is still a little vague, to me at least.
Isofons are two existence that have the same frequencies, while replicas aren’t necessarily isofons.
And the seventh fonon is sound, right? And its the basis for all things.
Hm… hey, it seems like I do have everything figured out.
Actually, even inside the game, they use a lot of technical concepts without actually explaining all of it right away, just like they have been doing here on the anime.
Overall, the reason is quite simple, most of those more detailed explanations have to do with the actual plot and twists of the story, so if Luke doesn’t seem to understand something to well at any given point, it’s likely that the gamer (and now the viewer) at that point has that same vague understanding of it, with just the little information given.
A clear example of this comes with a better understanding of fomicry (the science of creating a replica, which is pretty much a clone, except that the process can be used for both non-living and living things) and isofons (which are pretty much this world’s variation of real world isotopes), which as someone else already explained, are two things with the same “fonon frecuency” (think of this as two atoms with the same atomic number, that is, the same amount of protons). In the case of these two concepts, they are very related to both the real connection between two characters (which will be revealed not to many episodes from now) and part of the schemes of the “final boss”.
As a little extra explanation about Lorelei and the fonons, since it isn’t really relevant to the plot, I can say that the concept of Lorelei being a collective consciousness is closer to it being some kind of “gaia” (the “soul” of the planet) than to what we have seen on other recent sunrise anime (cough*Jupiter*cough). And besides, while Lorelei has never been “seen” and therefore exist only in theory, the other six embodiments of fonons have all been observed, being pretty much elementals of said fonons. Shadow for the dark fonon, Gnome for earth, Sylph for wind, Undine for water, Efreet for fire and Aska/Luna for light (don’t remember exactly). While they never appear or are relevant to the game, they are actually the summons form other “Tales of” games (with the exception of Lorelei, which is exclusive from this game).
Also, about the seventh fonon, while it is indeed the element of sound, in-game (both gameplay and story wise) it’s used mainly for healing, with seventh fonist being both rare and for the most part healers, though it may (I suppose) also be used for special attacks. People are born with the capacity to use different fonons, tough their ability to use them must be trained to be effective (the concept is similar to that of using Ki on DB or different Chakras on Naruto), which is why seventh fonists are so rare, as one has to be born with that power.
As for the party, the seventh fonists are Luke (he never really uses it, although one could say he does use it on his special/magical sword techniques), Tear (healing, and maybe some attacks) and Natalia (healing, and maybe some bow skills), though they do have some skills of other elements; Jade uses all “normal” fonons (except for dark, though he potentially could), Anise uses dark (but not much, as she’s mainly melee, so it may never appear on the anime) and Guy (like Luke) is pure melee, even if some of his attacks do have elemental properties.
And, that came out much longer than expected, so sorry about it, hope it helps Xd