#block rambles

[ccliffjumperr]

I'm not done talking about Romeo yet, sorry.

I don't think his redemption (as in "he realized what he did was wrong" not "he made up for every horrible thing he did", i should find a better word for this) was "out of nowhere". I think that that talk with Jesse on the roof was what started to change his mind about stuff. "Next time" he really would try to be a better person... but he's still going to bedrock over this world. Because why bother trying to fix things that he messed up when he could just have a new fresh start?

So when he lost his powers, he knew he was defeated and there was no point in trying to win. Since he isn't so stubborn about being the one in control now, he could think more about what Jesse said to him, and what he had done and why it was wrong. And why he needed to fix it.

Of course at first he wanted to run from his problems by staying in Terminal Space. Many people that he's hurt would celebrate his death, so this is what he deserves, right? No. This still isn't the right thing to do.

If Jesse chooses to take him with them, he realizes that he shouldn't die to avoid facing the consequences of his actions. So either he escapes from Terminal Space with the others and decides to make an effort to help people he's hurt and make up for what he's done, or he sacrifices himself not to die, but to save Jesse and their friends.

So TLDR- him changing his mind wasn't as immediate as it looks at first glance, Romeo just needed to get past his stubbornness and need to be in control to fully realize that even if he was going to make an effort to be a better person, he shouldn't bedrock over everything just to hide his mistakes from himself.

[ccliffjumperr]

He’s my favorite character, so it’s predictable that I was gonna talk about Lukas eventually. I played early season one episodes and season 2 episodes back to back, so it was really interesting to see how much his character had changed! So here are some Lukas related miscellaneous rambles under the cut. Warning, it’s a very long ramble.

(Disclaimer: A lot of the rambles are thoughts that would be from Lukas’ perspective, so if it sounds like I’m actually saying everything is his fault or something similar, I’m not, unless I explicitly say that. I’m just saying that that is how it feels to him)

First, let’s talk about his bravery and blaming himself.

In the very, very beginning, he’s really just some guy. Everyone (except Petra) is just some guy. They don’t know how deal with an event as devastating as the Witherstorm. So I can’t blame Lukas for freezing up. But he can.

He already feels bad about it in episodes 1 and 2- despite him getting defensive when Axel gets mad at him, he really does blame himself for what happened. He thinks he deserves to be left out in the rain, he thinks he deserves to not have anything to eat (too bad because I always give him the cookie).

Maybe he can keep trying. He can make up for his cowardice from before. He’s trying! He really is trying! If Jesse falls into the endermen pit (I did that because I wanted to see what would happen) he jumps down to help them. But then immediately runs away screaming when the endermen get aggressive.

Him blaming himself gets even worse when Petra (I’ve always saved her) comes back. Yes, he’s happy that she’s alive and okay, but then... we get to episode 3. Lukas knows there’s something wrong, if you watch him in the background of some of the scenes, you can see him looking at Jesse and Petra with suspicion. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, but he knows there’s something. And if anything bad happened to Petra, he believes it’s his fault. More on this later.

If Jesse tells him about the withersickness, it may ease some of the worry of not knowing what’s wrong- but now he knows Petra really is dying.

And it’s his fault.

It feels like he’s done NOTHING to help the team. Yeah, he may have given them an extra slimeball, but that was something small. He got himself trapped in the basement and had to be rescued by Jesse, inconveniencing everyone. He froze up when Petra needed his help. Sure, he did help fortify the base, but it wasn’t just him it was also Axel/Olivia. He ran away like a coward when he and Jesse were in the endermen pit. And he’s been arguing with everything Jesse or the others have said this whole time.

But depending on the dialogue options, Jesse can tell him “if you think that, then this is your chance to make up for it!” and they’re right. He’s being a burden by moping around feeling sorry for himself, he can do better. He can help.

However, being told that doesn’t make everything good and happy again. Because Lukas still does think it was all his fault. He just stops talking about it. So what he does instead is try and put other’s needs before his own. He can take care of himself after he makes sure everyone else is alright.

That’ll be brought up again later, but I’m gonna wrap up this segment with talking about episode 4.

Lukas does step up. He’s a lot braver now. He distracts the Witherstorm, trying to get all of its attention on him. That’s a lot! Especially compared to how terrified he was back in episode 1! And it isn’t like he just suddenly snapped and became braver, it happened over the course of the last few episodes. He helped build things in the path of the Witherstorm in episode 3, he led people through the End (depending on the player choices), he wanted to go out alone to find his friends, etc.

While it may not have started that way, Lukas is brave.

The next segment is Lukas’ way to cope with these stressful situations.

Lukas was the leader in his previous group, it’s what he’s used to. And when a situation feels out of control, he tries to take that control back. Unfortunately for him, Jesse is the protagonist. So he is not getting that control, and that’s stressing him out even more! This is very apparent in episode 3.

So many stressful and horrible things have been happening to him.

He nearly dies in a mob grinder. Axel keeps falling on him (which is a joke, but it still hurts and is still frustrating to him), and even after offering to help him up, Axel either gets distracted or lets him slip and fall back down. Petra is hiding things from him. It feels like he’s doing nothing for the team. Now he’s in the End! With endermen! Which he hates! Nothing is going according to plan, but maybe if he can just see the amulet, he can fix it... but Jesse won’t let him. He keeps arguing with them instead. This journey feels hopeless. They’ve come all this way, and Soren’s been building some weird wool world. And now he’s taking out all this anger and frustration on everyone else.

Jumping forward a few episodes, we can see a little bit of this during the portal arc! But not the same way. Instead, Lukas is coping by writing down everything he encounters, trying to make sense of it. It feels like getting control back in a very out of control situation.

And jumping even further ahead to Season 2 Episode 5, how does he deal with “Jesse”? By once again taking control of the situation, this time by making a new group.

Lukas is a good leader.

Next up- his relationship with his friends.

In Season 1 Episode 1, Lukas mentions that it’s great to see a team that gets along so well. Axel asks if he’s jealous, and Lukas quickly responds that he’s not. I think he is. Lukas may be the leader, but he and Aiden don’t really agree on things that much and argue about it a lot (Gil and Maya just follow whoever I don’t think they argue). But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about them. They’re still his friends, and he’s still going to do everything he can to try and save them from the Witherstorm.

How does he get rewarded for that? By getting kicked out of the group- or at least that’s what happened according to Aiden. If you asked Lukas, he’d say he left.

This isn’t the Aiden ramble, so I won’t derail by talking about him. But I do have thoughts about him too.

Lukas doesn’t want to lose more friends, so if Jesse parted on bad terms with him in the last episode, he goes to apologize to them. Apologize to them. When they were the one who was being so awful to him. I have watched this scene and he does try and make it sound like there were errors on both ends, it still feels like he’s putting the blame on himself yet again.

Luckily, I’ve never been mean to him so I don’t get this scene! Instead, he’s already Jesse’s friend.

And then right away, he’s gotta face his old friends. What he wasn’t expecting was for Aiden to straight up be ready to actually kill him! There was no hesitation when he shoved him over the edge of Sky City.

....I’m glad he got better friends.

In my opinion, Lukas is like me where he’ll make big threats but he won’t follow through with them. Like how I kept talking about wanting to kill Aiden but when I had the chance to push him off the edge, I couldn’t do it. I brought him with me (imo pushing him over the edge is the best option because Jesse is purposely making it so he can’t die by putting him in the water). And later Lukas says “I hope they put them in a deep hole, surround it with lava, and then-”. Again, he makes big threats. But would he actually follow through with them? He holds a grudge for sure, but I think he easily forgives too (he’ll apologize to Jesse if they parted on bad terms with him after all).

But now, he has better friends. Friends who really do care about him. In Episode 6, Petra gets really defensive over him. Jesse throws aside the Redstone Heart just to save him in Episode 7 (if he was the one chipped at the end). Ivor agrees to help Cassie Rose guard the closet he’s locked in so that he can make sure he’ll be okay. Jesse does everything they can to get him and Ivor/Petra out of the mines in Episode 8.

And Lukas cares just as much about them. Fighting as hard as he can against PAMA so that he doesn’t kill Jesse (if he was the one still chipped at the end). Saving Ivor/Petra in Episode 8 (even if that didn’t go so well). Going to Beacontown to help Jesse fight the Colossus in Season 2. And of course, how worried he was about Petra in the first half of Season 1.

Lukas is a good friend.

Finally, his habit of putting other’s needs above his own.

He was always like this, but it was never really that obvious until the Witherstorm. It was from the guilt he felt about not doing anything to help Petra, and then she got hurt.

From now on, he’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.

In Episode 5, he does admit that he’s hurt, but I think he’s hiding the severity of how badly his arm got hurt. As soon as Jesse and Isa are looking away, he looks like he’s in a lot more pain than he had said before (or at least in my opinion. Everyone being blocks does make it harder to tell).

In Episode 7 it’s a lot more obvious (if he’s unchipped at the very end), when Jesse brings up PAMA as they follow Harper, Lukas looks upset, and Jesse apologizes. He quickly says “it’s alright, I’m fine!”

I don’t think he’s fine!! But he didn’t want Jesse to worry. I don’t think he was fine immediately after PAMA’s death as well, but again, he didn’t want Jesse or any of his friends to worry about him.

Jesse also has the oppurtunity to ask him if he’s okay throughout the portal arc, and I don’t think he’s responding with the complete truth every time.

To him, it’s fine if he lies. Now there’s less stress, right??

(There are likely more moments in Season 2, but I have only played through that once and cannot recall the episodes as well as I can with Season 1)

This post was trying to focus on both his strengths and his flaws, because that’s what makes a good character. It did kind of mention his flaws more, but that’s because it’s a topic that’s easier to analyze, haha. Hopefully he can learn to deal with his issues with blaming himself and putting others needs above his own one day.

Yes, it did get a bit rambly, but hey, that’s to be expected with my posts! I just hope it didn’t get too repetitive. I think Lukas is very neat :)

And I think that’s a wrap to this post!! I was gonna add more at the end, but I ran out of time!! And I did not feel like waiting hours to post it because typing long posts on mobile is annoying. Maybe I’ll come back and add some edits later.

If you wanna see more analysis like this, please do shoot me an ask! It’s hard to narrow down one topic to talk about sometimes. And I like talking about mcsm with people.

[ccliffjumperr]

I think it is time for me to talk about PAMA headcanons. Or interpretations. Whatever. Anyway.

I think PAMA knows that what it’s doing is morally wrong by human standards. It thinks what it’s doing is good, but it knows that it’s causing discomfort to humans. But it has a job to do, and it’s for the better of the world! So that its primary function can be fulfilled!

The reason I say this is because of something interesting I noticed. PAMA uses chipping as a threat. As leverage against Jesse to make them do what it wants. In its introduction scene, it says that if Jesse doesn’t agree to answer questions, it will chip Petra. And even says “I am just as upset as you are [about this]. Really. I am.” when clearly that can’t be true! Its main goal is to make people useful, and chipping is a much easier way to get information. So why would it be upset about this? It isn’t. It’s just trying to manipulate Jesse.

PAMA definitely has more sentience than what was first expected, and it does understand human emotions. It sent Lukas and Petra after Jesse and Ivor because it knew that Jesse and Ivor would be more reluctant to hurt their friends.

This computer is surprisingly good at emotional manipulation.

At the end, PAMA says to Jesse “I can’t wait to make you useful, your bravery will be interesting to study” or something similar- but here’s the thing! If you get a game over in that part of the game, it says “you died”, not “you have been made useful.” Which means that once again, it is using chipping as a threat to make Jesse give up.

If it truly didn’t understand human emotions and morals, it wouldn’t be using chipping as a threat.

Do I even need to mention the end where it pleads with Jesse to stop? It was trying to trick them into letting their guard down, but I don’t think it was lying about being scared. A computer can’t even process what death would be like. It understood human emotions enough to try and appeal to Jesse’s forgiveness, especially using one of their friends to beg them to not kill it.

Also I know it can feel emotions and one of those emotions is smugness.

[ccliffjumperr]

You can't argue that Romeo sacrificed himself only because he was too afraid to face the people he hurt. Because if that was the case, he wouldn't have saved Jesse and their friends. No matter if you leave him behind or not, he goes out of his way to make sure that the Colossus is distracted so Jesse and friends can escape.

If he truly only wanted to get out of facing the consequences of his actions, he would have just sat there. Either way he would die or get trapped in Terminal Space. But he didn't.

He really did want to make up for what he did, so he took the first chance he got to help someone he had hurt- even if it meant it would also be his last chance.

[ccliffjumperr]

I don't really like when people say mcsm season 2 has a good and a bad end. It doesn't! Both are good endings, if anything! I've seen people saying that leaving Romeo is the bad ending and getting annoyed because "why should leaving the person who hurt hundreds of people be a bad end?" It isn't a bad end!

All ending variations have good parts and bad parts. Staying in Beacontown means Jesse gets to stay with their friends there, and they do seem to like running the town! And going with Petra means they and Petra get to stick together. Both of those are good outcomes where no matter what, some characters will be happy with the choice and some will be sad.

As for saving or leaving Romeo, saving him could be considered a good ending because no one deserves to be left for dead, and Romeo shouldn't use dying as an excuse to avoid answering for all the terrible things he did. But it could be considered a bad ending because you're letting the person who hurt so many people and was trying to kill Jesse just 10 minutes before live.

And if you leave him, it could be considered good because now the Admin will never hurt anyone again, but it could be bad because you left someone for dead.

So. Yeah! No bad endings. Just... endings. Different kinds. Each with their own pros and cons.

[ccliffjumperr]

Cassie definitely escaped from the endermite pit. And I'm not just saying that because of the letter, I have other proof. Very simple proof, actually.

Cassie was trapped on a 2x3 platform of dirt. All she needed to do to get to the door and reach the lever is break a block, and place it. And then repeat that till she gets there. She has 6 blocks to work with, that's plenty.

And either A) she didn't realize this before Jesse left her and escapes later. Or B) she did realize this, but didn't try to escape because she thought Jesse would try and stop her, and she's at a disadvantage here. So she waited till after Jesse left, and started planning her revenge.