Yeah the ambiguous timeline leaves a lot of flexibility for creative liberties.
And the character exploration potential you could do with this is something I frankly have invested far too much hyperfixation energy and time into. Because THINK ABOUT IT.
Luigi growing up under Count Bleck’s wing since birth, being sheltered and only knowing what he’s been told by his adoptive family. Having little reason to question or believe their word as anything but genuine or the truth. This “man in green” would not have to be brainwashed/hypnotized by Nastasia to have his loyalty or to serve the Count, as because of his upbringing, why would he not want to help his family? At least, until he’s put into situations that do challenge and have him really questioning things, torn between loyalties and morality, befitting his stance as the determinator of which prophecy prevails.
Count Bleck is also fascinating to dissect on how he would operate as a parent post-loss of Timpani, but pre-start of SPM. Because on the one hand, his main focus is on fulfilling the omnicidal prophecy of the Dark Prognosticus. Raising a child is prob the last thing on his mind (never mind something he’d likely even consider doing without Timpani in the picture). But with finding Baby Luigi and the “man in green” being such an integral figure in the prophecy’s success, this can be used to his advantage to ensure his plan works. That’s certainly how it would start out, and he’d try to maintain some distance at the start as he is a dysfunctional, grieving, certified MESS, but (I might need to look it up again) I believe it was in Garson’s stories that we hear about the Ancients and how powerful their emotions are/how they feel them.
The Pure Hearts/Purity Heart is originally created from the concentrated power and manifestation of their love. And the Ancients’ wild feelings led to many a wild tales, such as Merlumina’s many affairs and misadventures with her many suitors/partners, her sister marrying King Sammer I and having 100 KIDS WITH HIM, but also how Count Bleck himself (the Tribe of Darkness being an offshoot of the Tribe of Ancients) fell so deeply for Timpani then simply could not handle the loss of her that he sought to destroy everything. He’s still a villain and a bad guy for his choice to do so, but if I felt my emotions at the constant 11, 1000% that the stories seem to imply the Ancients did, I see why it drove him so mad.
And I also bring this up because while Bleck claims to have shut off his heart after losing his love, we still see how he cares for his minions. It wouldn’t be out of the wheelhouse to then suggest he’d gradually come to genuinely care for the child he’s raising under him as well beyond for his important role in the prophecy. And not just as a boss to another minion, but a parent for his child. Perhaps he’d alter the plan as a result. Instead of his secret true plan to bring everything to oblivion and leave it in ruin… the “lie” of creating new perfect worlds from the ashes no longer stays a lie. He still wants to punish existence for his pain and loss (bro imagine the angst of this man AGONIZING over the pain of “what could have been”, of Luigi never knowing the woman that would have been his mother, how Timpani would have ADORED Luigi, the family they could have been together, etc), and while he cannot get her back, he can still avenge Timpani and create a new universe devoid of pain so that their son never has to go through the suffering his father has.
Bleck would still be a disaster parent, though. He tries his best, but there’s a lot of messiness going on that would for certain create some unhealthiness. One, he would be controlling and overprotective as shit. Initially because he can’t have “the man in green” turn against him rendering all that time invested a waste (plus it would hurt the others who are also attached), but after getting attached himself, it’s also him going to extremes to keep Luigi safe from harm and spared from the worst of the horrors, suffering and evils in the universe. Look what it did to him, to O’Chunks, Mimi and Nastasia. They’re all traumatized. And remember, Blumiere/Count Bleck’s response to losing his wife was to commit omnicide; if he lost his child after allowing himself to more truly open his heart to someone else again and it was his fault, that would break him beyond salvation all over again.
In line with this, I don’t believe he would be honest to Luigi about a lot of things for most of his life. Obviously, he can’t exactly tell a young child he’s gonna kill the multiverse for good and wants the kid to help him do it in good conscience, but back when Baby Luigi was just a tool, he still needed to start planting the seeds for loyalty to him. Count Bleck has already lied to his other minions sans Nastasia about the true plan, so he’d lie here too, only sanitizing it further for a younger child. Then he got attached, plans change, but he still doesn’t come clean to anyone not in the full loop about it as why would they need to know when it no longer matters? Except it absolutely would come back to bite him in the ass, creating a lot of strain between him and Luigi who’s now questioning everything he’s been told growing up: questioning how irredeemable the multiverse really is to deserve the violent cleanse by the Chaos Heart, if he was kept so sheltered because it was actually dangerous or because it kept him ignorant to a truth he was intentionally kept away from which kept him more “pliable”… questioning if whether his Count/father actually cares about him as a person, if he ever did, or was only ever a tool.
There’s also the other elephant in the room with “the man in red”, the hero of prophecy and the Bleck fam’s biggest op, being revealed as Luigi’s bio twin brother. Did the Count know this? Was he truly “abandoned” at all, as the Count had claimed for so long? Did his twin ever look for him? Miss him? Want him? Did the Count intentionally keep them apart? Was he ever going to learn about this detail? Before or after the Count, or the others, or even Luigi himself killed the hero for the success of the plan? Ever?
Then imagine poor Blumiere/Count either coming to realize or being accused directly of being “just like his father” before him. The father who also imparted very strict rules and expectations on his child to uphold for what the elder wanted of them, going to extreme and even cruel measures to assert that control justified as “protection” and “for your own good”. …Which he does end up doing to Luigi in respects here. That would be shattering.
Dimentio would absolutely exploit all of this to its fullest as well, manipulating both further against each other to draw Luigi to him instead (going in depth with everyone else in Team Bleck’s relationships with Luigi is gonna take a whole nother post). All of this has provided him with more fodder to hurt Bleck with and twist the knife for his up-and-coming betrayal. Taunting him with the idea that his wife is actually still alive and has been with the heroes this whole time now coming to kill him to stop the Void? Effective, sure. But turning his child against him, too? That would hurt.
But when that doesn’t go as planned, imagine he “kills” Luigi/Mr L (another discussion for another post) and leads Bleck to believe the heroes were responsible for it? Making all the Ch8 battles far more ruthless and grueling because the heroes aren’t just facing the villains to determine the the fate of all reality, but a family grieving the loss of one of their own that’s very fresh, and under the impression that THEY’RE his murderer(s). Count Bleck would on a dime fall back to that original plan to destroy everything permanently after losing someone he loved all over again.
Nearly killing the very people he’s grieving over in his madness and nihilistic self-destruction.
Then Dimentio makes him watch as he mind controls his son and weaponizes him into the apocalyptic monstrosity per his destiny in the prophecy to then kill him and all else?
Sorry this got so long, but I have sooooooooo many thoughts with this concept as you can see…
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