Chapter 31: Discussion

[dg86]

LOL.  Maytag completely called him out on it.  Maybe that portal wasn't such a good idea.  Or maybe it was so Maytag can get to the bottom of this, ya know, Maytag being all Maytag-y and all.

[Flipthecannon]

Yeah which should have been the most obvious option but I overlooked it.

[Kiran]

Nice, I guessed it correctly

[Azure Priest]

I rather think he simply sold it to some pawnbroker for cash for booze and the girls and maybe he seems to be a bit ashamed about it
Maybe Polly will help Ben here since she knows this land much better in current times than them.

Maytag agrees with you.

[parameciumkid]

Can't pull anything over on the MT.

[ducky_worshiper]

Bern's reaction here really bothers me.  Who is she to demand that her father do something or act a certain way.  She "thought the swords were important"?  She was handed them by some old guy who had just helped get her kicked out of the Knights and told "oh yeah that guy who gave you some training tons of years ago was your dad and has the matching sword."  She's reading a LOT into this situation and is, frankly, behaving like a child.  She had some ideal in her head of what she thought her father would be like and now that he's an actual person with his own troubles and life, she's upset that he didn't fit neatly into the way she expected him to be.

[Flipthecannon]

Bern's reaction here really bothers me.  Who is she to demand that her father do something or act a certain way.  She "thought the swords were important"?  She was handed them by some old guy who had just helped get her kicked out of the Knights and told "oh yeah that guy who gave you some training tons of years ago was your dad and has the matching sword."  She's reading a LOT into this situation and is, frankly, behaving like a child.  She had some ideal in her head of what she thought her father would be like and now that he's an actual person with his own troubles and life, she's upset that he didn't fit neatly into the way she expected him to be.

I understand this comment but I have trouble blaming her.  She based her whole life around her vision of who he was and now it's being shattered around her.  Considering that, she could be acting a lot worse right now.

[ducky_worshiper]

She based her whole life around her vision of who he was and now it's being shattered around her. 

She based her entire life around what she assumed someone was like.  Now she's learning that he's an actual person and not this crazy ideal she's built up.  It's her own fault for building up someone she doesn't know at all into this paragon of what she wants to be.

[Kiran]

She based her whole life around her vision of who he was and now it's being shattered around her. 

She based her entire life around what she assumed someone was like.  Now she's learning that he's an actual person and not this crazy ideal she's built up.  It's her own fault for building up someone she doesn't know at all into this paragon of what she wants to be.

Try to put yourself in her situation she's a little girl raised and living in a brothel where she sees all ugliness coming from people, since that's not a pretty place for sure to be for a little girl.
Now she is visited and trained by some guy who is acting decent enough for her to admire him as a father figure, then we can also assume that her mother too speak higly about the guy enforcing her daughters visions, wanting to give her daughter some kind of moral compas figure in life.

So Bern build her life upon this idealised version of perfect father knight wanting to follow in his footsteps, she already got a cold shower from the Knights where she had to rearrange her ideals in life, now to fully shatter the picture she meets her father who was not a perfect knight at all, who now is just a fallen knight, who drinks, and has everything in the ass, and now will tell her the real story.
Life changing much?

I can't blame Bern here, she is desperately holding to last good moments from her childhood, even if they were not real, they were real for her.

[Brion Foulke]

If she handled it too well, I think it would ring false.

[ducky_worshiper]

For clarification, just because her reaction upsets or annoys me doesn't mean I think it should have been written differently.  This is definitely how I can see someone reacting in real life, and I'd get just as annoyed with someone in real life for expecting someone they've never really met to live up to some idealistic standard in their head.

[9_6]

"What's happened to you" suggests there to be some sort of grandiose event that instantly turned him this way.
You know just like atheists all have that shining epiphany that instantly turns them away from religion and you can precisely put your finger on when it happened.
I bet her father had an exact moment like this instead of it being gradual or actually there all along. We have no idea how he actually was years ago besides berns obvious idealizations.

[Azure Priest]

"What's happened to you" suggests there to be some sort of grandiose event that instantly turned him this way.
You know just like atheists all have that shining epiphany that instantly turns them away from religion and you can precisely put your finger on when it happened.
I bet her father had an exact moment like this instead of it being gradual or actually there all along. We have no idea how he actually was years ago besides berns obvious idealizations.

"What happened to you" can be one incident, many sequential occurrences, or a long ongoing process.

Spending decades trying to drown your sorrows with wine and whores (because you think your daughter and her mother died in a fire) qualifies.

Bern's reaction is quite realistic here. She IS human, after all. Plus her father, if that is who we're seeing, would tend to turn into... THIS, after a decade or two of trying to drown his sorrows with wine and whores happened to him.

[Kiran]

Yeah loosing Bern and her mother had to be the final impact, but maybe the guy gradually started to dislike knights much earlier(cause from inside he saw the true faces of some of knights), where that Bern plus lover loose simple pushed him into dropping everything and do what he does now...

Problem is that Bern needs the sword too to be able to fight with mages, so let's hope that this father after sleeping a bit will awake a bit more sober to talk properly or at least try to recall to who he sold it.

And also he would tell them his real story.

[ducky_worshiper]

He clearly liked whores from the beginning since Bern's mother was from a brothel...  This might not necessarily be some huge personality change.

[Flipthecannon]

She based her whole life around her vision of who he was and now it's being shattered around her. 

She based her entire life around what she assumed someone was like.  Now she's learning that he's an actual person and not this crazy ideal she's built up.  It's her own fault for building up someone she doesn't know at all into this paragon of what she wants to be.

Well you certainly are a negative person. I'm sure you at one point had someone that you looked up to. Someone you thought was perfect or as close to perfect as a human being could get.  You were probably lucky enough to see enough on this person either in the news or in your life that you eventually realized slowly that this person was not the perfect figure you once thought he was but put yourself in Bern's shoes where she had someone like that only instead of being able to slowly realize that he was not the person she thought he was it was all dropped on her all at once.  I think you'd be more than just a little upset yourself.

[9_6]

Problem is that Bern needs the sword too to be able to fight with mages

Yeah... what gives anyway?
Why would she need that? There is no sorcerer that urgently needs slaying.
Did she just, like, want the second sword "just in case" she needs to slaughter some mages or something?
That's weird for someone whose whole shtick is counterattacks only, isn't it. Why the hell does she want that sword at all?

[ducky_worshiper]

She based her whole life around her vision of who he was and now it's being shattered around her.  

She based her entire life around what she assumed someone was like.  Now she's learning that he's an actual person and not this crazy ideal she's built up.  It's her own fault for building up someone she doesn't know at all into this paragon of what she wants to be.

Well you certainly are a negative person. I'm sure you at one point had someone that you looked up to. Someone you thought was perfect or as close to perfect as a human being could get.  You were probably lucky enough to see enough on this person either in the news or in your life that you eventually realized slowly that this person was not the perfect figure you once thought he was but put yourself in Bern's shoes where she had someone like that only instead of being able to slowly realize that he was not the person she thought he was it was all dropped on her all at once.  I think you'd be more than just a little upset yourself.

I'm getting really frustrated at people acting like I ever said this was an inappropriate or unrealistic response.  Does the response make sense from Bern's perspective? Yes of course it does.  Do I think she should be an adult and accept the fact that maybe her 5 year old (or whatever age) vision of a person was incorrect?  Someone who clearly was already a person who visited brothels and whatnot since he, y'know, had a child with a woman who worked at a brothel (probably).

So to sum up the same thing I've said in however many posts... yes, this is a realistic response, but it is still a frustrating response and a childish response.  Bern needs to grow up and accept that people aren't perfect.

Edit to add the following:

First, you probably shouldn't make sweeping assumptions about the lives of people you've never met or even talked to.  Second, I think it's untrue to call me a "negative person" because I believe Bern should accept her father for who he is and not for who she wants him to be.

[Kiran]

Problem is that Bern needs the sword too to be able to fight with mages

Yeah... what gives anyway?
Why would she need that? There is no sorcerer that urgently needs slaying.
Did she just, like, want the second sword "just in case" she needs to slaughter some mages or something?
That's weird for someone whose whole shtick is counterattacks only, isn't it. Why the hell does she want that sword at all?

Cause one sword doesn't work at all and it's need it's pair?
Also remember that the old guy said that this trip will help Bern to grow up but also she would need to learn some new style cause her current one is childish, and let's face it if Bern wants to be May knight then she needs some counter weapon against mages.
Or the whole sword thing is just a big fat lie which that old guy fabricated just to push Bern into looking for her father and learning the truth.

[Azure Priest]

Problem is that Bern needs the sword too to be able to fight with mages

Yeah... what gives anyway?
Why would she need that? There is no sorcerer that urgently needs slaying.
Did she just, like, want the second sword "just in case" she needs to slaughter some mages or something?
That's weird for someone whose whole shtick is counterattacks only, isn't it. Why the hell does she want that sword at all?

Cause one sword doesn't work at all and it's need it's pair?
Also remember that the old guy said that this trip will help Bern to grow up but also she would need to learn some new style cause her current one is childish, and let's face it if Bern wants to be May knight then she needs some counter weapon against mages.
Or the whole sword thing is just a big fat lie which that old guy fabricated just to push Bern into looking for her father and learning the truth.

In case you've forgotten, Bern very recently got OWNED because a couple of schmucks were using enchanted weapons on her and her friends, and their sorcerer companions could not cast spells or use enchanted items of their own because of Mr. Flower Power.

Besides, these swords are an important family heirloom and she KNOWS that the schmucks who the party JUST finished arresting worked for "the Thin Man," a rather nasty sorcerer who performs dangerous and illegal experiments on women (willingly or otherwise), which she just happens to be.

She NEEDS those swords badly. And doesn't look like May or Bern are going to stick around waiting for Mr. Drunk to wake up.

[9_6]

In case you've forgotten, Bern very recently got OWNED because a couple of schmucks were using enchanted weapons on her and her friends, and their sorcerer companions could not cast spells or use enchanted items of their own because of Mr. Flower Power.

Besides, these swords are an important family heirloom and she KNOWS that the schmucks who the party JUST finished arresting worked for "the Thin Man," a rather nasty sorcerer who performs dangerous and illegal experiments on women (willingly or otherwise), which she just happens to be.

She NEEDS those swords badly. And doesn't look like May or Bern are going to stick around waiting for Mr. Drunk to wake up.

All that happened after she set out for her quest of the sword of greyskull because of it.
She didn't need enchanted swords at first at all. She didn't need enchanted swords for the entirety of book 0.
Just now the plot conveniently gravitated to a situation in which she just so happens to.

[Brion Foulke]

Bernadette says herself that the trip was more about meeting her father than getting the sword.

[parameciumkid]

Blackbird: "I am your father." Dun-dun-DUNH!

[Azure Priest]

Well, Blackbird now knows who the "girlfriend" is. This could go bad very quickly.

[Flipthecannon]

Well, Blackbird now knows who the "girlfriend" is. This could go bad very quickly.

Oh that was Blackbird...wow...for some reason I thought it was Melter. *Facedesk*

[Kiran]

Just DAAAWWWW seeing the scene...

So now Polly will enter the scene trying to help Bern?

[Azure Priest]

So she went back to "snoring drunk" ALONE.

Geesh, Bern. That is a dangerous level of stupid.

[Ardanis]

I wonder if this is what Orransong meant in Ch.11, p.28 about children's fighting style. That Grant hadn't grown up to what it takes to be a knight. That he thought being a knight meant just shiny armor and flashy swordfighting, and couldn't accept the reality.

I also happened to notice that May's drawing has become much better in last chapters, close face shots in particular - she looks actually pretty there. Probably due to detailed eyelashes.

[Flipthecannon]

So Suspiria's acting a bit funny. It may be just that she doesn't want people worrying over her (simple solution) or it could be something more devious (complex solution).

[Azure Priest]

Oh yeah. Melter DID do something to her. He messed with her brain a bit, literally. Good job catching that scar, Crest. It certainly wasn't there when they first met Suspira, so it couldn't have been there "ever since she was a little girl."