Random PL related facts about me I've been wanting to share but never have (and that changes today). It's only two facts, but maybe I'll have more to share eventually.
One: I've consistently spelled Don Paolo's name wrong. Even after I finished all 6 main games. Guys, it was only when I went on here when I realized, Oh god. His name is Don Paolo. Not Dan Paolo.
Two: I spent about 10 real life years thinking Randall was dead. Maybe more. I only played the games this year. A family member played MM when it came out. I was too young to understand puzzles. But. But when I watched them play. They were at the end of Akbadain. And I saw the whole cutscene. All I knew was I saw a boy fall and that boy Loved Puzzles.
I never forgot him. I kept wondering what happened to The Boy Who Loved Puzzles And Fell. Who Was Also Related To Masks.
Sometime when... idk, maybe around the same time/age, my family members watched Eternal Diva.
I saw it with them, because Oh! Funny Hat Man Who Speaks Weirdly Is On A Ship With My Favorite Blue Character Luke!
And there's—(gasp)—a guy with a mask!
I thought. Guys. For the entire like decade. I thought Randall and Descole were the same person. (This is where TEoA came from btw)
And I thought Randall's name was "Randy". (Remembered only like a year ago. Me wanting to find out what happened to "Randy" (and now being able to) made me play all the games.)
However, I'd like to add what I call "the cutscene that isn't there at all," which probably was a dream or my own made-up reason for "The Boy Who Lost Randy".
Hershel indeed had the mask. My childhood brain didn't understand why "Randy" didn't give The Other Boy the mask. So, in my childhood brain's version, he did. In fact, I think it was a whole imagined cutscene where The Other Boy, after Randy's hand slipped from his, tried again to reach for him. But what was in his grasp next was not the warm embrace of his friend's hand—It was the cold, lifeless mask that doomed his friend. And going back to "the surface" as I thought it to be, The Boy Who Survived went to inspect the mask. To use it. To figure out why it took Randy's life.
Whatever it was supposed to be used for, The Boy didn't know what it was. He didn't know why it didn't work. I knew it had some sort of power—It just refused to activate.
And The Boy was so unbelievably upset: He threw the mask, being within a green-themed office with other archeological artifacts. The mask hit other items, knocked them off shelves, broke some things.
The Boy Who Survived hated it.
He hated the mask—and everything he was doing. Because there was nothing he could do to save his friend. To get answers. To have peace.
The Other Boy may have walked away from it in my childhood brain's version.
But I also could never play it until now. Though, whenever my friends, years and years later, told me: "Let's do an escape room!" or whenever I saw a puzzle…
I thought of The Boy Who Fell.
I was reminded about how passion can sometimes lead to success or victory. Or crumbling defeat. Or loss that was too great to even imagine at a whole, wider scale.
It was only the December of 2023 that I realized I could find out what happened to Randy.
I looked up, "Professor Layton and the Mask". Miracle Mask showed up. It had to be it.
I looked up, "Professor Layton and the Mask Randy".
The Boy Who Fell... never died.
The first thing I sought to do was watch Eternal Diva. It was the first thing I had available.
And then I found out that The Masked Man was NOT "Randy". I went so, so long believing that they were the same person.
That The Other Boy grew up, adopted a kid (im sorry i didnt know the lore but i thought luke was adopted by him), and decided to go on a cruise vacation. On said cruise vacation, an evil guy showed up and was making a bunch of people disappear and fall from inside the ship. He was evil. He was bad.
But The Other Boy Who Was Now A Man With An Adopted Kid cornered The Bad Guy With The Mask. In a room on the ship, btw. The Detragiganto didn't exist.
They were almost the only ones left. They were The Survivors of the Masked Man's Game.
The Eternal Diva—the woman that the movie was named after—flew in the room, because she was a ghost, and absolutely obliterated The Masked Guy Who Was Bad.
She revealed his identity.
She revealed that he was Randy.
The Man Who Didn't Remember Because He Fell.
And The Man Who Survived All The Way Back Then was so, so, so saddened. So betrayed.
I'm quite happy. I'm happy that I can think of puzzles without thinking about The Boy Who Fell and The Boy Who Survived.
That every battle of wits was no longer a battle of life.
Oh, it sounds dramatic, but don't pity me. It's so, so hilarious to me. LMAO
I'm glad I can finally share this.
