It's canon that Quote's hat was Curly's apparently?

Found this on the Acended Fanon page on Tvtropes.

"Cave Story, it's stated once that the player character's hat has something written on it, but what this writing says is never revealed. When concept art of the beta version was released, fans noted that the protagonist's hat said "Curly Brace"—which was the character's name at that point in development. While, in the finished game the protagonist's name is something different—and Curly Brace is instead the name of an important Guest-Star Party Member—fans insisted that his hat still said "Curly Brace" in the finished game. Daisuke Amaya eventually gave his blessing to that particular theory."

I've always liked and gone with this theory but I never heard it was confirmed. Does anyone know where Pixel said this?

 

i've personally never seen confirmation of this, and i wouldn't exactly call tvtropes a shining example of truth - given there's no source provided. however, if there is confirmation, it's most likely on the BBS logs that i still haven't made my way through because they're formatted in a way i can't stand to read

regarding that one line from sue, though, i've always wondered if that was a leftover from a previous design for quote that pixel forgot to change, bc apart from the beta stuff, quote has never been officially depicted with any writing on his hat, including credits art, official art, and drawings from pixel himself. still, it's a cute theory/headcanon, regardless of 'canon' status.

 

regarding that one line from sue, though, i've always wondered if that was a leftover from a previous design for quote that pixel forgot to change, bc apart from the beta stuff, quote has never been officially depicted with any writing on his hat, including credits art, official art, and drawings from pixel himself.

Yeah, I always found that a bit strange too. That's an interesting theory about Pixel forgetting to take that line out or something.

As for the theory of what it says, it's plausible that it says "Curly Brace". What's interesting is that Sue says "The words on your cap there... That's not a language they have on this island." Since the game was originally in Japanese, this implies that everything on the island is in Japanese, and that the words on Quote's cap are in a different language. And in Japanese works it's common to use fragments of English, so it's likely that the words on Quote's cap are canonically English.

As for what English phrase is written on Quote's cap, that's a bit up for debate. In that Beta art image, we see it say "Curly Brace," although that may have been back when Pixel was planning on naming Quote Curly Brace. So, if the purpose of the hat is to have the name of the robot wearing it, it's quite possible that it says "Quote". Now, if we assume the Aeon Genesis translation to be cannon, which sadly it isn't, we could preclude "Quote" because Sue clearly specifies "The words on your cap," implying that there's more than just one word. However, the dry and flat but nonetheless slightly more accurate official NICALiS translation makes it ambiguous when Sue says "The letters on your cap aren't from here." so we don't know whether it's one word or not.

So ultimately, it's up in the air whether it says "Quote," "Curly Brace," or maybe even something else entirely like "Scout Robot" or "Unit #157". That is a very interesting theory that you implied in the title though, Shinypoke. If it does say "Curly Brace," that raises questions about whether or not that hat even originally belongs to Quote. It does seem a bit weird to go around wearing a hat that has someone else's name on it. This is part of why I used to just assume that it canonically says "Quote," but I guess we don't know for sure.

 

You really think someone on tvtropes would just do that? Lie? On the internet?

Yeah I figured it could be BS but wanted to check. Thanks for the resource link! Also I never thought that Sue's diologue might've been partly a beta reference but that's an interesting theory.

Thanks Hayden. I just always assumed that idea was actually the case since I saw the beta images and one or two pieces of fanart with the name shortly after beating CS.

Then I started seeing most people draw fanart of Quote w/o the name on his hat. Like you I did also assumed that Sue's statement meant the the island inhabitants canonically speak/read/write in Japanese. Cool that we both came to the same conclusion there.

Another interesting thing you could figure from that line is this might mean Quote & Curly natively speak english/are from English speaking areas/were built by English speaking people. No clue if there are places like "Japan" exactly on the surface in CS verse though so that's less info abt Q&C than even "they're creators/s are from England" or w/e.

 

Another interesting thing you could figure from that line is this might mean Quote & Curly natively speak english/are from English speaking areas/were built by English speaking people. No clue if there are places like "Japan" exactly on the surface in CS verse though so that's less info abt Q&C than even "they're creators/s are from England" or w/e.

Yeah, that's another interesting theory. The actual nations and languages in the Cave Story universe are never specified, although it's entirely possible that your theory is correct. After all, when Curly gets her memories back, she says that "Back then, a huge number of robots were sent to this island from countries on the Earth's surface." So different cultures/languages is entirely possible.

 

yeah, i figure there were different robots sent by a bunch of countries/governments (who wouldn't want the chance to acquire an all-powerful magic artefact?), but judging by that one sue line + the research team being japanese, it's probably likely that the island is located above or near japan (or the equivalent of it, anyway).

 

This is part of why I used to just assume that it canonically says "Quote," but I guess we don't know for sure.

(I know you said "I USED to just assume" but I'm gonna entertain the thought anyway).

Unless nobody on the entire Island could read the cap, that doesn't really make sense (or would be a very ironic situation). The only way the player (puppeteering Quote) even learns his name is through Curly's memories. She tells you your name while... Looking directly at you wearing a cap that says your name.

 

Unless nobody on the entire Island could read the cap, that doesn't really make sense (or would be a very ironic situation). The only way the player (puppeteering Quote) even learns his name is through Curly's memories. She tells you your name while... Looking directly at you wearing a cap that says your name.

This is really interesting, I don't know why this never occurred to me. Pretty much everyone Quote meets would likely see the words on his hat. And if any of them could read the words on his hat, they would probably assume that's his name. And if such a thought crossed their minds, they'd probably say something like "Is that your name? Quote?" Wonder if all of those Cthulhus were actually able to read it but just didn't say anything... Or any other character you meet for that matter... But that's another really interesting theory, maybe Curly was the only one who was able to read the words on Quote's cap.

 

Unless nobody on the entire Island could read the cap, that doesn't really make sense (or would be a very ironic situation).

maybe between egg corridor & restoring curly's memories in the plantation, quote somehow repeatedly got a ton of mud or something on his cap that blocked the words so nobody realised there was anything on there
i was going to finish this sentence with an explanation involving ma pignon knocking the mud off but i can't think of anything funny oops

 

Unless nobody on the entire Island could read the cap, that doesn't really make sense (or would be a very ironic situation).

Let's just assume that everyone from the surface is equipped with those cool badges they have in Star Trek or something.

The one that comments on the writing is Sue, iirc she says something along the lines of 'you're not from this island', she would know because neither is she.

 

Unless nobody on the entire Island could read the cap, that doesn't really make sense (or would be a very ironic situation).

We could go Futurama here and say that Quote's name is written in French, meaning it's a dead language in Cave Story.