Well, i loved Revenge but i still dont see any connection with Morgan´s scene.
I think this was a first time for Monkey Island and saying "this is what Monkey Island was always about" its incorrect.
Just go and point me a scene (in Revenge or anywhere you like) like this with Morgan.
I think what it is meant is that despite Monkey Island being a comedy game, it has a good amount of Drama in it also . The end scene in Monkey Island 2 had me really sympathizing Guybrush's character and felt sorry for him for trying to escape LeChuck but still end up getting caught by him and sent to the carnival of the damned. I felt the same sympathy for Morgan's character in Chapter 4 and felt a little sorry for her as well, seeing how she realized she messed up and tried fix it, and ended up dying. That's what seemed similar to me.
i loved all 4 episodes so far but episode 4 was a bit depressing. a lot of the scenes lacked mood music (or was that a bug?) such as in de singe's lab after morgan dies. the number of deaths in one MI game was just surprising, considering nobody really dies in the other games (except maybe ozzie and the other characters who were already dead to begin with).
i don't know. i just think MI should be more light-hearted...i couldn't really relate to the parts where guybrush couldn't say anything funny or nice to morgan. i just think his anger could have been...i dunno...wittier? it just felt like a completely different guybrush in this one. don't get me wrong, i still loved the game, i just felt that some of the charm was lost.
I'm not sure if it's been brought up yet -is a little sick and she can't sit up to read so well- But who's to that that
Guybrush's death
wasn't actually necessary?
I mean, after all, the next chapter is called "Rise of the Pirate God".
Who's to say that
Guybrush dying is part of the Voodoo Lady's plan to raise teh pirate god from the afterlife and get rid of LeChuck once an for all? After all, she said that everything she's been making us do is part of a larger picture.
The only thing I really don't want is
some sort of cheesy, "Guybrush is the pirate God" deal. I think some of us had enough of that when Pirates of the Caribbean 3 came out.
But yeah, I really liked the drama... even if it did make me upset afterwards. Now I'm craving chapter five like a pregnant woman craves pickles. XD
I have no complains about mixing drama and comedy, but there are two aspects of the drama in Ep. 4 that left me unsatisfied.
The first surrounds the death of Morgan. I have no problem accepting her death, but at that part of the game I was thinking "if they decide to let her go, then let her go; don't find a cheap excuse to bring her back". Death is a powerfully emotional plot device precisely because it is irreversible. But then at the end of the episode, Guybrush also dies. As I don't think they will simply kill off the hero of the franchise, the natural assumption is that they will find a way to resurrect him and Morgan. This ruins the drama and I felt cheated out of my emotional investment.
The second is the way LeChuck blows his cover. Granted, I fully expect LeChuck to revert to evil, perhaps as an effect of voodoo, before the series is over, but there is something wrong about the revelation that he has been an evil plotter all along, successfully deceiving even the initially incredulous Elaine and Guybrush -- guile is not one of LeChuck's strong suits; and if you consider that he can be duped by two monkeys in a wedding gown, this is positively out of character. Also, I had expected that by making LeChuck human and (seemingly) good, TT had tried to suggest that there is more to LeChuck than a single-minded force of evil driven by a desire for Elaine and revenge, that after all there is a nugget of humanity beneath the thick, festering cloud of voodoo. But no, LeChuck is just evil, pure and simple. Making LeChuck an elaborate betrayer does not add depth to his character; if anything, it makes him even more one-dimensional.
Randulf: I partially agree with what you're saying... I mean... I never woulda pegged LeChuck as being able to pull of that disguise. In the 4th game, he even waved his disguise around at Elaine and Guybrush the WHOLE TIME. He's rather arrogant when it comes to his evil schemes... and not too bright either.
In the 3rd game, he had a great opportunity to kill Guybrush once and for all... yet cursed him as a child because you make him angry via a lot of dialogue and whatnot.
The only reason why I can see LeChuck's disguise as plausible would be that at the end of MI2 when you "kill" LeChuck and he reveals that he's Guybrush's "Long-lost" brother, you see a crafty side of him that allows him to take advantage of Guybrush's sentimental side in order to trap him in the carnival of the damned.
So yes, I do agree that LeChuck would have blown his cover SOMEHOW before this especially now that we know that he was faking it all along... but I guess I can't totally refute the fact that he MIGHT be able to pull it off like he did in the game.
I have no complains about mixing drama and comedy, but there are two aspects of the drama in Ep. 4 that left me unsatisfied.
The first surrounds the death of Morgan. I have no problem accepting her death, but at that part of the game I was thinking "if they decide to let her go, then let her go; don't find a cheap excuse to bring her back". Death is a powerfully emotional plot device precisely because it is irreversible. But then at the end of the episode, Guybrush also dies. As I don't think they will simply kill off the hero of the franchise, the natural assumption is that they will find a way to resurrect him and Morgan. This ruins the drama and I felt cheated out of my emotional investment.
The second is the way LeChuck blows his cover. Granted, I fully expect LeChuck to revert to evil, perhaps as an effect of voodoo, before the series is over, but there is something wrong about the revelation that he has been an evil plotter all along, successfully deceiving even the initially incredulous Elaine and Guybrush -- guile is not one of LeChuck's strong suits; and if you consider that he can be duped by two monkeys in a wedding gown, this is positively out of character. Also, I had expected that by making LeChuck human and (seemingly) good, TT had tried to suggest that there is more to LeChuck than a single-minded force of evil driven by a desire for Elaine and revenge, that after all there is a nugget of humanity beneath the thick, festering cloud of voodoo. But no, LeChuck is just evil, pure and simple. Making LeChuck an elaborate betrayer does not add depth to his character; if anything, it makes him even more one-dimensional.
I don't have any problem with characters dying and coming back. I like the drama at the time of death. It doesn't have to last permanently for me - the story and where it goes next is what I'm interested in. I'm not playing Monkey Island looking for a shocking death that is permanent!
Plus, nearly all the characters die in Sam & Max Season 2 and come back. That didn't make it any less enjoyable.
And LeChuck has always been about evil and deception. To say he can't be devious enough to come up with an elaborate scheme pretending to be good is silly. Even in SoMI he was disguised as the Sherrif, and in Escape he was pretending to be a politician. LeChuck is all about lies.
And LeChuck has always been about evil and deception. To say he can't be devious enough to come up with an elaborate scheme pretending to be good is silly. Even in SoMI he was disguised as the Sherrif, and in Escape he was pretending to be a politician. LeChuck is all about lies.
I agree, and I want to add something. In EMI was really simple understanding that Charles L. Charles was LeChuck. There were many clues about that. But in TOMI was really difficult really understanding if LeChuck was evil or not.
Obviously many of you built his own opinion about the TOMI LeChuck, but it was a gamble, because really there were no clues about this thing, and the game this time was really written much better than EMI...
We all know better the all powerfull voodoo LeChuck, the one confident enough to belive he can kill pretty much everyone who comes near him.
But human-mortal-not-powerfull-at-all LeChuck sure is gonna be different. And we can see a little of this different personality on Curse, when (as LeChuck told us) he cheated first Ron Rogers to steal the Big Whoop map (by being all friendly and buying drinks) and then he cheated Minnie Goodsoup (by being more than friendly) Of curse, evil voodoo LeChuck would just kill his way out of any situation, but not human LeChuck.
My point is that i loved how all turned out in the end, it was what i was expecting from him.
LeChuck IS evil. Could not have killed everyone on its way before becoming a demon, but this was because maybe it's an evil pirate with a brain, not some sort of pointless serial killer
But after FIVE MI chapters it would be a ridiculous villain if, having again and again Guybrush, his main nemesis, in front of him, tries to kill him but never suceeds.
So, for me, this Guybrush's death gives also a new charisma, and a new sense to the LeChuck's character, charisma that was great in Mi1 and Mi2, and partially lost in the last MI chapters (and I, that love Mi3, admit that), chapters in which he became more similar to some sort of bad cartoon villain. Still acceptable in "Curse", and totally lost in "Escape", in which is the playful slave of an old Australian man :S
LeChuck : "Please, can I kill him ??"
Ozzie : "No LeChuck, whe could need an hostage"
LeChuck : "Pretty pleeeaase ?"
Indeed. LeChuck before has always been the type of villain that leaves his victims in some sort of death trap before finishing them off.
It also shows how the LeChuck with a soul, the human LeChuck, is pretty much heartless. We all knew Undead Poxed Voodoo Zombie Demon Ghost Pirate LeChuck was a cold-blooded bastard, but him being able to pull this off without flinching after he regained his humanity truly showed what an evil bastard he really is.
This episode actually marks the coming of a new LeChuck, a LeChuck that would just outright kill somebody, even without demon powers.
From what the characters in the Scumm Bar in MI1 said about LeChuck when he was alive and trying to get Elaine to love him, I figured something was up with him. Turning him dead didn't make LeChuck an obsessive monster, he was already like that. So when he got a second chance in tales, I always wondered "Just cause he's not undead anymore, doesn't mean he's good now". He put on a good show in ch2 when he was trying to get the clamshell thing together and really appeared to be your friend. But besides that I was always really suspicious. And getting you to do all the dirty work with La Esponga Grande? Bravo. That was Brilliant. I'm not rooting for LeChuck, but that was down right devious. Makes me wonder if anything LeChuck said about the Voodoo Lady was true.
LeChuck IS evil. Could not have killed everyone on its way before becoming a demon, but this was because maybe it's an evil pirate with a brain, not some sort of pointless serial killer
That was my point! Dont know why the ¿? , maybe i didnt express well.
There really isn't any drama because we all know nothing is permanent.
At the end of Chapter 5 Guybrush will be alive with his hand again, so will Morgan, and LeChuck will be defeated. It's only drama when changes are permanent.
Indeed. LeChuck before has always been the type of villain that leaves his victims in some sort of death trap before finishing them off.
I guess he didn't do that, because his victims always escaped from such situations in the past. This time, he wanted his revenge to be served cold and fast.
To answer the OP's question: Absolutely yes. I think MI has always had one toe in the door of "We could take things more seriously if we wanted to and pull it off without ruining everything." Stories that mix drama and humor tend to be my favorites, and I have no qualms with believing that Telltale managed to do this without betraying what makes Monkey Island, well, Monkey Island. I can understand others feeling differently. What happened in Chapter 4 is a pretty big dramatic leap from what's occurred before, although I would argue that Chapter 3 (and the first third or so of 4) set us up for what was coming. Personally, I loved it.
Whether the drama was done well is another point of contention. What I wrote above pretty much gives away how I feel, but for the record, I lean towards "Yes, they pulled it off." Was it perfect? No -- there were little directorial quirks in Those Two Scenes (well, Three, if we count the opening one) that had a whiff of "We're trying something new here, so please bear with us while we get a handle on this." Was it a bit cliched? Yes. IIRC, Rather Dashing noted in another thread that the deaths felt like "stock death scenes," and I think he has a point there. They could have been much, much worse in that sense -- an unironic use of "[totally in denial]Just hang in there while I run and get help/You're gonna pull through, I know it![/totally in denial]" in either scene would have annoyed me to no end, for example. But they could have been better.
What makes the difference for me is that I tend to care less about whether something is cliched than if it's carried off with sufficient skill to ensure I don't care much (or at all) that it's not the most original idea/plot device/whatever in the world. Quirks aside, I thought the dramatic scenes were well directed and emotionally resonant. There was enough build-up leading to them to justify their existence, IMO, and I didn't feel like I was being jettisoned out of the MI universe as I watched them unfold. The drama fits -- not perfectly, but well enough that it earns both my applause and emotional investment.
FWIW, I'm okay with knowing both deaths will probably be undone. I didn't feel like Morgan's death was cheapened when her body disappeared and when Guybrush bit it, or that Guybrush's death itself was cheap from the get-go. The other characters made me believe that they believed Guybrush and Morgan are gone for good, so it works for me. Still, I'd be more pleased if they didn't return from the afterlife unscathed. Maybe one or both of them will have to strike a Faustian (or reverse-Faustian?!) bargain with The Powers That Be. There's still a slim chance Morgan will still be dead when everything's said and done. The more permanent and drastic the cost of returning, the better, I say.
tl;dr - Yes, MI can have really-for-real drama and still be MI. The things about Chapter 4 which dissenters have pointed out either don't bug me at all or not enough to leave me disappointed. I'm fine with how the deaths were handled, though I'm still hoping the last chapter will surprise me on the "We've killed characters people care about but not for good!" front. Also, it's good to remember that bathos (as opposed to pathos, the good stuff) is in the eye of the beholder.
... Okay, I didn't really talk about that last point, but I felt it was worth throwing out there anyway. For better or for worse and all that.
There really isn't any drama because we all know nothing is permanent.
At the end of Chapter 5 Guybrush will be alive with his hand again, so will Morgan, and LeChuck will be defeated. It's only drama when changes are permanent.
Elaine doesn't know that yet. Nor, before getting shish-kabobbed, did Guybrush. It's certainly dramatic to the characters involved, however much outside knowledge we, the players, possess.
There really isn't any drama because we all know nothing is permanent.
At the end of Chapter 5 Guybrush will be alive with his hand again, so will Morgan, and LeChuck will be defeated. It's only drama when changes are permanent.
It's not about whether WE know death probably isn't permanent - it's whether the CHARACTERS know that. If anyone starts acting like 'dang, they're dead, but I'll probably see 'em next week', or 'this is going to kill me, but that's not a problem', that's when it ruins the drama. Of course, it works perfectly fine for comedy - see COMI for that - but from what Guybrush says and Elaine's reaction I'm sure they don't think he's coming back anytime soon.
I think someone else somewhere said the same thing about any major plot. Yes, the good guys will win, the guy will get the girl, etc. But so long as the characters aren't sure of the outcome, it'll allow us to suspend our disbelief and get really involved in rooting for the characters to have their happy ending, and be relieved when they do.
Comments
i don't know. i just think MI should be more light-hearted...i couldn't really relate to the parts where guybrush couldn't say anything funny or nice to morgan. i just think his anger could have been...i dunno...wittier? it just felt like a completely different guybrush in this one. don't get me wrong, i still loved the game, i just felt that some of the charm was lost.
I mean, after all, the next chapter is called "Rise of the Pirate God".
Who's to say that
The only thing I really don't want is
But yeah, I really liked the drama... even if it did make me upset afterwards. Now I'm craving chapter five like a pregnant woman craves pickles. XD
The first surrounds the death of Morgan. I have no problem accepting her death, but at that part of the game I was thinking "if they decide to let her go, then let her go; don't find a cheap excuse to bring her back". Death is a powerfully emotional plot device precisely because it is irreversible. But then at the end of the episode, Guybrush also dies. As I don't think they will simply kill off the hero of the franchise, the natural assumption is that they will find a way to resurrect him and Morgan. This ruins the drama and I felt cheated out of my emotional investment.
The second is the way LeChuck blows his cover. Granted, I fully expect LeChuck to revert to evil, perhaps as an effect of voodoo, before the series is over, but there is something wrong about the revelation that he has been an evil plotter all along, successfully deceiving even the initially incredulous Elaine and Guybrush -- guile is not one of LeChuck's strong suits; and if you consider that he can be duped by two monkeys in a wedding gown, this is positively out of character. Also, I had expected that by making LeChuck human and (seemingly) good, TT had tried to suggest that there is more to LeChuck than a single-minded force of evil driven by a desire for Elaine and revenge, that after all there is a nugget of humanity beneath the thick, festering cloud of voodoo. But no, LeChuck is just evil, pure and simple. Making LeChuck an elaborate betrayer does not add depth to his character; if anything, it makes him even more one-dimensional.
but the first well... only time can tell? and if i know adventure games well... she might be about as easy to get rid of as the pyrite parrot.
who knows
I did love the self arguing this episode but vs the last episode.. meh..
In the 3rd game, he had a great opportunity to kill Guybrush once and for all... yet cursed him as a child because you make him angry via a lot of dialogue and whatnot.
The only reason why I can see LeChuck's disguise as plausible would be that at the end of MI2 when you "kill" LeChuck and he reveals that he's Guybrush's "Long-lost" brother, you see a crafty side of him that allows him to take advantage of Guybrush's sentimental side in order to trap him in the carnival of the damned.
So yes, I do agree that LeChuck would have blown his cover SOMEHOW before this especially now that we know that he was faking it all along... but I guess I can't totally refute the fact that he MIGHT be able to pull it off like he did in the game.
I don't have any problem with characters dying and coming back. I like the drama at the time of death. It doesn't have to last permanently for me - the story and where it goes next is what I'm interested in. I'm not playing Monkey Island looking for a shocking death that is permanent!
Plus, nearly all the characters die in Sam & Max Season 2 and come back. That didn't make it any less enjoyable.
And LeChuck has always been about evil and deception. To say he can't be devious enough to come up with an elaborate scheme pretending to be good is silly. Even in SoMI he was disguised as the Sherrif, and in Escape he was pretending to be a politician. LeChuck is all about lies.
For some reason, nobody else can leave. Thus, Guybrush must say goodbye to everyone (including Morgan) and much undoable drama follows.
I agree, and I want to add something. In EMI was really simple understanding that Charles L. Charles was LeChuck. There were many clues about that. But in TOMI was really difficult really understanding if LeChuck was evil or not.
Obviously many of you built his own opinion about the TOMI LeChuck, but it was a gamble, because really there were no clues about this thing, and the game this time was really written much better than EMI...
But human-mortal-not-powerfull-at-all LeChuck sure is gonna be different. And we can see a little of this different personality on Curse, when (as LeChuck told us) he cheated first Ron Rogers to steal the Big Whoop map (by being all friendly and buying drinks) and then he cheated Minnie Goodsoup (by being more than friendly) Of curse, evil voodoo LeChuck would just kill his way out of any situation, but not human LeChuck.
My point is that i loved how all turned out in the end, it was what i was expecting from him.
LeChuck IS evil. Could not have killed everyone on its way before becoming a demon, but this was because maybe it's an evil pirate with a brain, not some sort of pointless serial killer
But after FIVE MI chapters it would be a ridiculous villain if, having again and again Guybrush, his main nemesis, in front of him, tries to kill him but never suceeds.
So, for me, this Guybrush's death gives also a new charisma, and a new sense to the LeChuck's character, charisma that was great in Mi1 and Mi2, and partially lost in the last MI chapters (and I, that love Mi3, admit that), chapters in which he became more similar to some sort of bad cartoon villain. Still acceptable in "Curse", and totally lost in "Escape", in which is the playful slave of an old Australian man :S
LeChuck : "Please, can I kill him ??"
Ozzie : "No LeChuck, whe could need an hostage"
LeChuck : "Pretty pleeeaase ?"
Please, never let me see LeChuck so again
It also shows how the LeChuck with a soul, the human LeChuck, is pretty much heartless. We all knew Undead Poxed Voodoo Zombie Demon Ghost Pirate LeChuck was a cold-blooded bastard, but him being able to pull this off without flinching after he regained his humanity truly showed what an evil bastard he really is.
This episode actually marks the coming of a new LeChuck, a LeChuck that would just outright kill somebody, even without demon powers.
That was my point! Dont know why the ¿? , maybe i didnt express well.
At the end of Chapter 5 Guybrush will be alive with his hand again, so will Morgan, and LeChuck will be defeated. It's only drama when changes are permanent.
Whether the drama was done well is another point of contention. What I wrote above pretty much gives away how I feel, but for the record, I lean towards "Yes, they pulled it off." Was it perfect? No -- there were little directorial quirks in Those Two Scenes (well, Three, if we count the opening one) that had a whiff of "We're trying something new here, so please bear with us while we get a handle on this." Was it a bit cliched? Yes. IIRC, Rather Dashing noted in another thread that the deaths felt like "stock death scenes," and I think he has a point there. They could have been much, much worse in that sense -- an unironic use of "[totally in denial]Just hang in there while I run and get help/You're gonna pull through, I know it![/totally in denial]" in either scene would have annoyed me to no end, for example. But they could have been better.
What makes the difference for me is that I tend to care less about whether something is cliched than if it's carried off with sufficient skill to ensure I don't care much (or at all) that it's not the most original idea/plot device/whatever in the world. Quirks aside, I thought the dramatic scenes were well directed and emotionally resonant. There was enough build-up leading to them to justify their existence, IMO, and I didn't feel like I was being jettisoned out of the MI universe as I watched them unfold. The drama fits -- not perfectly, but well enough that it earns both my applause and emotional investment.
FWIW, I'm okay with knowing both deaths will probably be undone. I didn't feel like Morgan's death was cheapened when her body disappeared and when Guybrush bit it, or that Guybrush's death itself was cheap from the get-go. The other characters made me believe that they believed Guybrush and Morgan are gone for good, so it works for me. Still, I'd be more pleased if they didn't return from the afterlife unscathed. Maybe one or both of them will have to strike a Faustian (or reverse-Faustian?!) bargain with The Powers That Be. There's still a slim chance Morgan will still be dead when everything's said and done. The more permanent and drastic the cost of returning, the better, I say.
tl;dr - Yes, MI can have really-for-real drama and still be MI. The things about Chapter 4 which dissenters have pointed out either don't bug me at all or not enough to leave me disappointed. I'm fine with how the deaths were handled, though I'm still hoping the last chapter will surprise me on the "We've killed characters people care about but not for good!" front. Also, it's good to remember that bathos (as opposed to pathos, the good stuff) is in the eye of the beholder.
... Okay, I didn't really talk about that last point, but I felt it was worth throwing out there anyway. For better or for worse and all that.
Elaine doesn't know that yet. Nor, before getting shish-kabobbed, did Guybrush. It's certainly dramatic to the characters involved, however much outside knowledge we, the players, possess.
Ultra-long post over. Phew.
It's not about whether WE know death probably isn't permanent - it's whether the CHARACTERS know that. If anyone starts acting like 'dang, they're dead, but I'll probably see 'em next week', or 'this is going to kill me, but that's not a problem', that's when it ruins the drama. Of course, it works perfectly fine for comedy - see COMI for that - but from what Guybrush says and Elaine's reaction I'm sure they don't think he's coming back anytime soon.
I think someone else somewhere said the same thing about any major plot. Yes, the good guys will win, the guy will get the girl, etc. But so long as the characters aren't sure of the outcome, it'll allow us to suspend our disbelief and get really involved in rooting for the characters to have their happy ending, and be relieved when they do.