One thing I love and admire so much about last specter that I'd completely forgotten about is
The worldbuilding of Misthallery is fucking hype.
Strap in, this is a long one.
Last spectre does such a GREAT job of explaining the reasons why things are the way they are in Misthallery, and using the environment to the story's advantage very subtly.
To explain what I mean, we'll start with the black ravens.
We know them, we love them, they're our favorite black market running kids.
But why do they run the black market anyway? It's fairly odd for children to be managing everything.
As a kid I never questioned it (mostly because kids running things feels like a cool idea when you are one) but there actually IS an explanation if you're paying attention.
Their parents all used to work at the abandoned factory descole later turns into a hideout, but when the factory got shut down, they lost their jobs and were unable to make ends meet. One of the kids (i swear it was wren or socket but I don't remember well enough to be sure) mentions their mom being so distraught by it she hardly has the energy to do anything.
So the factory workers' kids found more creative ways to earn a living out of necessity. They are the ones feeding their families (which is incredibly sad).
Now then why did the factory close down? Well, because of Evan Barde. Specifically because the factory was polluting the air ARIANNA was breathing in.
Immediately the story has inextricably linked the factory, barde manor and the market to eachother, and simultaneously given you another reason for Evan Barde to be hated by the townspeople, but also for you to sympathize with him, since he was doing it for arianna.
This bad boy can fit so much impact on the story despite never appearing once I swear to god—
Another example:
Misthallery's water system. The water in Misthallery is used to the story's advantage in a lot of ways, the pipes give the melody a reason to be everywhere, the boats give you a reason for quick travel, the mist gives a reason for the specter to be hidden, and the dam gives us a reason for descole's mech to be defeated.
But the ways these are implemented also makes sense in-universe, when you consider it.
The reason loosha was found by the Barde kids is because they live next to the reservoir. The reason the pipes all lead to Barde manor so Arianna can play music into them is the same.
The reason they live next to the reservoir at all is because both the manor and the reservoir make sense to be higher up. A mayor's residence should overlook the town, and a water reservoir can disperse the water evenly over town much easier when helped by gravity.
Luke even mentions people have been getting sick since the specter arrived, WHICH MAKES SO MUCH SENSE IN HINDSIGHT,
because descole has been hiding his excavation machine from the DIRTY ABANDONED FACTORY SHUT DOWN FOR POLLUTION
IN THEIR WATER.
ALSO also, the canals help the grand finale by giving us a REASON for the dam breaking at the end not being of much risk to the misthallery residents themselves. The black ravens are not just breaking the dam so willingly because they're desperate (even if they might be). They're also aware of the fact that the surplus of water will seep into the canals and disappear naturally. Layton himself explains this fact to badger in a later part of the game (who is worried about it until you solve a puzzle for him). Misthallery can't flood for very long due to the canals.
Misthallery's worldbuilding is so good because it does not simply introduce locations. It links those locations to eachother THROUGH the story, and it explains WHY those locations are the way they are at the time the story happens. It makes misthallery feel so much more real and lively. I feel like it could actually exist, like it does exist in some place I haven't been yet.
Instead of just walking through PLACES, you're walking through STORY. The environment in misthallery MATTERS, it's not just something to look at.
Last specter is genuinely my favorite game for many reasons, but this is a big one.
It seems implied Barde was the Mayor before Clark (I guess it's left vague purposely?) because, if mentioned, everyone just says negative things about Barde, he's always referred as land owner.
But Gable's profile/character sheet says he wanted to become the Mayor after Barde's death (and holds a grudge against Clark because of that)
And, while it's not weird that people won't be interested, no one mentions what Clark's job was before becoming the Mayor. I assumed he worked in the original team that was searching for the Golden Garden, but at the beginning of the game Hershel was reading an article about it and his name isn't mentioned (or at least I guess he would have said something if his name was there)
As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.
Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.
Actual theories
Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war
I believe that the world wars did not happen in the Professor Layton canon. It makes sense for them to simply not mention something dark lik
The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.
True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.
Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.
Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee
“What are you on, CT? Of course he’s a bee.” No he is not. The definition of a bee is “an insect of a large group to which the honeybee belo
Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.
Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.
Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.
All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.
Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.
Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun
The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.
Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.
The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.
Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.
Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.
The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.
Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.
Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.
Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.
Memes and references
Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.
Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.
Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.
The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.
Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.
You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.
Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”
Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.
Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles
Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.
Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.
Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)
Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.
Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.
London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.
Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.
Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.
I still have so many questions about Evan Barde from Last Specter.
Why did Descole twist Jakes’s arm into changing Evan’s will so that Clark would inherit everything instead of Evan’s kids? Descole doesn’t know Clark from Adam! What does he stand to gain? Did he do it as a fucking GOOF?!
We’re lead to believe there might be foul play involved in Evan’s death, but it turns out he just... died of being a parent in a Layton game, I guess. We’re told it’s an accident, yet we only have Jakes’s word on that. How the hell would Jakes know? Based just on what Clark saw it might very well have been a suicide as originally assumed.
The whole “Clark was the only witness to Evan’s death and mysteriously inherited everything from him” plot point is set up to make Clark look shady as hell, but once you break down what “actually” happened it doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Name: ‘Clark’... I think of Clarks Shoes but according to this site it’s an English name meaning "scribe, secretary, cleric, scholar, clerk". ‘Triton’ makes me think of King Triton, Ariel’s dad from The Little Mermaid. (He had a long beard, a blue fish tail and he’s a strict parent, hm...) Look at this: “The name Triton is a Latin baby name. In Latin the meaning of the name Triton is: A sea god.” The Triton family live in Misthallery, a town famous for its canals and fog. Also from the same site, I find this relevant: “People with [the name Triton] have a deep inner desire for a stable, loving family or community, and a need to work with others and to be appreciated.”
That’s Mr. Dr. Triton to you!
Character designer Nagano says he gave him a long beard like Abraham Lincoln.
Clark’s sprite looks fine in PL4- he’s meant to look shifty and worried- but I still can’t get over his 3D PL6 sprite. Sorry, Clark.
Our lord and saviour Liam O'Brien voices him- that’s the same guy who voiced Dimitri.
Like Luke, Clark could talk to animals when he was a child. However, in the UK version of PL4, Clark mentions how Toppy (Luke’s ‘little friend’) told him about how Luke was crying in his sleep for Brenda. :(
During Miracle Mask, Luke also mentions to the rabbit how he might have inherited his animal-speaking-abilities from his father.
Clark studied at Gressenheller University with Layton and Brenda (and Claire, presumably).
During AL, Clark reminisces about his archaeology student days. He laughs about how foolhardy Hershel was back in the day and how he would go off adventuring. (Huh, where have I heard that before...?)
I find it funny how Hershel became more adventurous like Randall and now Clark is his more studious friend
Hersh probably broke that oscilloscope when he was poking around for hint coins!
“I learned a lot from him. I learnt that the truly important things in life can’t be found in books or papers.”
Clark is a hard worker. Luke says there’s always stacks of papers in his study.
He has a phobia of typewriters. All his letters must be handwritten!
Clark was Dr Scharder’s assistant on archaeology exhibitions and they donated the museum's fossils. (Thanks, PL Wiki). He’s donated lots of valuable specimens to museums
Dr Schrader was fond of Clark and so was Dean Delmona, who used to bring in his daughter’s riddles from Clark and Layton to solve
Clark, like Layton, wanted to be an elite archaeologist, but after Evan Barde’s death, he became the mayor of Misthallery.
Layton says Clark is quite the geology expert
Clark says that Evan Barde was the only friend in town with whom he could discuss intellectual matters. (The Black Ravens take offence to that.) The only person Evan Barde would speak to was Clark, according to Beth the maid. The Tritons employed Beth after she was dismissed from Barde manor.
Clark was planning to look after the Barde kids’ inheritance until they came of age, though he didn’t think Arianna would live that long...
He knows about the folklore of Misthallery. (Makes you wonder how long Clark has lived there..)
After PL4, Clark moved back to London and started working at Gressenheller.
Some students messed with his department’s machine I can’t remember the name of and ruined its calibrations. Emmy offers to teach them a lesson, but- Heavens, no! Clark believes the students had good intentions... He’s very strict, you see. (Actually, Clark’s the kind of teacher who would get locked in a closet by his students.)
He loves caramel slices and his appetite rivals Luke’s, if Brenda’s teasing is any indication
He used to go fishing with Luke quite a lot.
Brenda likes to visit Clark at work... or is she trying to check out the technology in his department?
We all like to joke about Brenda possibly choosing that rocker jacket for Luke during the AL credit scenes, but Clark’s the one who insists on getting Luke a new jacket since his old one is in tatters
A lot of people have pointed out how, in the anime, older Luke wears a dark blue jacket and a fedora hat. Both can be seen hanging up in Clark’s study during PL4.
Clark has met Flora
Clark is much taller than Brenda. This is adorably important
(Thanks to @cinnamoncandycanes for pointing a lot of this stuff out in their posts!)
