I Love My Beautiful Little Ratha

21

[zdusk]

Sometimes I feel like its me and this one Simon png against the world

[xamaxenta]

simon as demanded by my wife who loves him more than me now

[gio-goose]

They make me sick can, they get a room??

[number1elfenthusiast]

yeah so been playing a ton of mhs3 lately and the truth is i fell in love with simon's dead wife eyes since the demo dropped. pensive emoji

[zdusk]

Okay class today we will be studying how Simon mirrors the heir in the intro cutscene and how tfuck man i can't take this anymore I need to push them down a flight of stairs

[dschmatt]

Facial expression practice with these 2

[zdusk]

[zdusk]

Mid-game-I-think spoilers below, final Eleanor companion quest onwards. Very much a bit of a rant over some Strange Writing Choices

I cannot be the only one who was like WHAT! when the protag said "someday I want to have a meal with all the homies– including Queen Clarissa :)" LIKE GIRL???????????? The only time you have ever interacted with her was when she ambushed your ground forces, attempted to murder you, and then killed the most important person to you with a point blank nuke????? You genuinely have absolutely no reason to like that woman at this point beyond the fact that Eleanor cares about her, and I don't even think Eleanor would blame you for having a negative opinion of her when even Eleanor herself is like This Is Not Her Heart.

I don't even think we get enough anecdotal information about Clarissa for it to make any sense that the protag sees her as anything but an enemy, since all we get by that point is "growing up it was always just me and Clarissa", "once I got sick and Clarissa rushed out to make me this evil soup", and "becoming Queen changed Clarissa, she wasn't always like this" and while these are useful glimpses into her past, they in no way reflect her present considering she was willing to put Eleanor in direct danger to achieve her goals in seizing Azuria and Ratha. I'm sure Clarissa has her own reasons and motivations but that's not my point, my point is that its absolutely crazy that the protag would ever want to break bread with her at this point in time. The protag is portrayed as politically naive but surely they're not that stupid– especially, again, when the score is also personal due to Simon's "death".

And speaking of that, I also can't be the only one that finds it mega weird that our side of the Meridian just kind of. Seems to stop existing once we cross the Meridian. There's no news of Arken reacting to us just being Gone– not even a "meanwhile, in Azuria," for the player to see how the protag leaving at the particular time that they did affected Arken and the kingdom. The protag is already held in low respect by the ministers because of Amara, and you're telling me that they literally pull an Amara the SAME NIGHT that Vermeil attacks and we don't get to see the consequences #okay.

It also bothers me, not just as a Simonhead but as a story and lore enthusiast, that Simon also stops existing to the protag as soon as we cross the Meridian. The game makes it very clear that he is the protag's most valued companion, yet as soon as he dies, they straight up just never mention him again. You get like 2 dead wife flashbacks of him telling them to go to the Sacrosanctum and them justifying the journey as "Simon's last wish", and then he just Disappears. The only other time he's even implied to come up is when you reach the Sacrosanctum and the protag gets a little bit emotional, and Kora checks in with them– presumably the emotion is because they're so close to carrying out Simon's last wish, but they can't even say that. Learning his story and his real name also seems to have no real impact on the protag either, when before they were so concerned about not knowing anything about him. You could argue that they don't realise Kris and Simon are the same person but it's pretty clear that they get it by the end of the cutscene, and there isn't even any bittersweet "wow I really did know nothing about him not even his name but its nice to know he was a truly good person" or anything.

They could have made the 'Simon Is Alive' reveal to the protag SO much tastier if they had showed us the process of the protag mourning him along the journey. Mourning the fact that they're finally going on this grand journey and pursuing their mom and his wish but he's not even there to experience it with them. The story flip flops between "the reason we're doing this is to carry out the wishes of a dead friend and also to follow in the footsteps of Amara", until it just completely becomes the latter by the time you get to Galyad. We as players get the reveal that Simon is alive and then the writers just kinda extra forget that the protag ever gaf about that dude by going as far as to have the protag say they want to break bread with his killer.

I mean no hate or anything to any of these characters by the way, I think they're all really good but they're not at all used to their potential at this point. Just some extremely bizarre writing choices going on here. I love this game very very much but if you're not doing your own little behind the scenes patches to the story its honestly a little bit of a mess

[bouncingkadachi]

Discord chat last night was in a “let’s parade our devastated heirs” mode so here are some of my favorite screenshots from Adrean’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad journey across the Meridian.

But he can also look so resolute! I love him a lot.

[shadow3142]

A couple more for the Simonheads out there

[gio-goose]

Sparkle on, Captain!

And well, since someone asked nicely, down here ↓ ↓ are the rest of the days + one without the text so you freaks can stare at him optimally

[tifatori]

wave

hit max lvl on mhs3. must celebrate 🥹🥹

[bouncingkadachi]

Actually unreal how much I enjoy Corbin for how little he actually does lol.

[ladiscope]

Stream of Consciousness MHST3 Worldbuilding Thoughts

Copy pasted from Discord DMs under the cut. As always, spoilers for the full game. This is mostly speculation about revelations at the end of chapter 3.

Basically my brain was kind of nagging at several questions, largely revolving around why Simon ever taught battle binding to Vermeil

Why did a child know the process of battle binding?

Assuming all knowledge of it died out along with the old kingdom, there's no way the Vermeillians would know that Simon SPECIFICALLY knew how to battle bind. And I don't see how a 9 year old would, of his own volition, bring it up as something he could offer, especially if the entire abandoned village understood that it was a grave sin which led to the kingdom's destruction

So my proposal is this: Serathis operated under a caste heirarchy system, and the scholar caste had its own written language exclusive to its caste (similar to how liturgical Latin was only taught to clergy in history, leaving church business exclusively in the purview of the clergy). This can explain why the entire abandoned village all understands battle binding, its sins, and why they specifically stayed behind. Presumably everyone in the village is at least still taught how to read and write this language from childhood.

After the civil war, when Serathis was exiled and split into Azuria and Vermeil, it would make sense if both nations took opposing stances on the past. Both probably had some remaining documents/books on battle binding, but without the members of the scholar caste to translate, they're functionally useless to them. Azuria seems to have gone all in on historical erasure, so I can see them having simply burned the books as a way to forget the past and move on.

Meanwhile Vermeil still has these, presumably also remembers their forces were greater before, though the knowledge of what exactly it was is lost to time as well. When Simon gets there though, that's a major breakthrough. A kid who's from beyond the Meridian? It makes sense they might ask him if he can read their preserved history

If the notes are largely incomplete/scattered then it can also explain how they're able to battle bind but still unable to match the might of old Serathis. Some knowledge is probably legitimately lost to time. I did note that the battle bound monsters we fight in the beginning of the game still behave largely like their normal counterparts, while the two Serathis battle bound monsters are extremely unusual in being able to use attacks/blights from totally different species (blastblight for A. Rath, mudbogged/darkness for Luna). This does match more with the feral monsters too, who I noticed are often using specific moves from other monsters, not just generic water/thunder/etc attack

[gio-goose]

Oh we‘re really in it now, huh

Simon doodles ft. my stories 3 oc, Fiora

[gio-goose]

For myself tomorrow

[lyrecross]

Apparently if you idle on the MHST3 title screen, you know how it's scenes around Azuria? The first time the Bonding Winds leitmotif plays, the camera will transition with perfect timing into a shot of the tree where the heir met Simon. Actually diabolical.