Thoughts on the demon crown

May 15, 2005 at 7:55 AM
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talk about your thought of the demon crown


do you think the red gem on it is Ballos's eye?
 
May 15, 2005 at 3:00 PM
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Hmm, you know, I've never thought about the red gem being Ballos' missing eye before. Though in a way, that would make perfect sense in that the Demon Crown is/was merely a medium of power derived of Ballos' power. When I first fought Ballos and read his dialogue, I was certainly under the impression that he had been watching the whole show from afar. He seemed to know who Quote and Curly were and that they had been the ones who had destroyed the Demon Crown and that they were now here to destroy him. This makes it more likely that he was watching them through his eye in the crown, much like an Eye of Sauron if you are a LotR fan.

-SkyeWelse
 
May 21, 2005 at 5:17 AM
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anther thing i been thinking about is how did balrog become a slave to the crown
 
Sep 13, 2005 at 3:55 AM
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Yes, how did Balrog get enslaved to the crown? Was he, like, friends with Misery?
 
Sep 14, 2005 at 2:25 PM
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balrog is actually a toaster.
 
Oct 3, 2005 at 4:15 PM
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If you look around the entire game, there are references to Ballos' eye everywhere. For example, when a Press falls down on you, it will open its eye which is red. The little eyeball things in Hell are red. In the Sand Zone, the creature/machine which carries the curse of the Sunstones has a red eye, and the boulders it shoots out have red eyes.

My theory is that Ballos sacrificed one of his physical eyes in order to permeate a second vision throughout the island, and in that way he was able to see the entirety of our hero's journey.
 
Nov 14, 2005 at 7:18 AM
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Woooo, plot!

This is the kind of conversation that led me to appreciate the "left up to the fans' imaginations" background-plot-development that Pixel stated regarding this game in his interview. It's ridiculous how many ideas this thread alone popped into my head. O_o

Amoyensis, would it be okay if I took this idea of a 'island-wide permeated second-sight' that you've presented here (though with some tweaks)? With some help from a few chatfriends, I'm boredly trying to write up a 'fanfiction' version of what could have possibly happened in the past regarding Jenka, Ballos, and the creation of the Island, up to certain events such as the creation of the Demon Crown and so on so forth.

I know I technically don't need to ask this sort of thing, especially given my aptitude for 'fic writing (none), which pretty much dictates that there's a huge amount of doubt that anything I write would even get put out into the public. But that's just me, and 'me' is insane.
 
Nov 15, 2005 at 12:16 AM
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Definitely, keep me posted on its progress. I don't 'own' the idea anyway.
 
Nov 16, 2005 at 9:30 AM
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Ohgads!

Keep posted... I have about thirteen MSWord pages (size 10 courier new font, normal margins) so far, but I can't really post any of it because, of the ten 'chapters', I'm writing this out of order, and nothing really makes sense out of chronological context... it starts quite early on in the plot's 'history', and of the thirteen pages I have written, everything is concentrated around chapters five and six, which are already quite down the line.

I have -almost- all the ideas I'd like to put forth in place already, but writing isn't my strong-point... I run mostly on "on the spot inspiration" when it comes to things like dialogue, which is otherwise a weak point of mine. So instead of trying to force my way through from the beginning, I'm writing what I have solid events for first. However, it'd be confusing without the things detailed in the earlier chapters.

If there's anything I can share, it's the general idea: Curly, Quote, and Balrog go to check on the island after they left, to see how things are going. They decide to visit Jenka, but she's not home. Quote goes off to look for her, while Balrog and Curly stay behind at the house incase she comes back before then. In the meantime, Curly finds a journal open on the counter, and the first page is enough to draw her into reading it, despite Balrog's protests that it might be personal. Anyway...most of the story is written in first-person from Jenka's point of view, in that journal. It's mostly about how Jenka remembered Ballos, since now that he's dead and no longer any sort of 'threat', she felt that she wanted to express the way she remembered him before he went psychotic (as a good person), and also the circumstances during which the entire calamity happened, as well as some of the developments afterwards. Essentially, to give a somewhat positive light to someone who wasn't always bad, but has only really been seen by anyone as being dangerous; even 'evil' to an extent.

Yeah, it's a pretty far-fetched idea, but so far it's fun as heck to write. I've been getting help and feedback from some friends to make sure things mesh, so hopefully everything isn't -totally- skewed off from what's presented in the game. XD

In the meantime, I guess I -can- share this craziness: concept art of mine of Ballos when he was a lot younger (I also have some of younger Jenka, but I haven't gotten her to look the way I see her in my head, so I don't have it uploaded on my webspace). I can't find the direct reference point that was used in the Doukutsu Wikipedia article, but the article itself says that the events leading to Ballos' insanity happened some thousands of years ago. Thousands of years is a long time for someone, kept alive by raw magic, to change physically for the worse. This is no exception. It's rare in games or anime for characters to be depicted in the same context as both old and young, though from some examples (such as Howl's Moving Castle), the difference can be quite severe and shocking. I used that idea to craft the idea that Ballos could have, at one time, been somewhat handsome, to a degree. But enough babble. Pic!
http://www.jacat.com/~crystal/snrk.jpg (Yes, I sampled most colors off the sprite. Lazy~! And yes, I do explain the eye in the story. ...Eventually. In a chapter earlier than what I've written so far. Because I'm retarded.)

And, in an effort to assure myself that I didn't BS the idea for a younger, nicer-looking Ballos simply out of a desire to not draw 'ugly'... I did this, too:
http://www.jacat.com/~crystal/ballos-ingame.jpg

*sits back to watch people look at her weird. :p*
 
Nov 17, 2005 at 10:05 PM
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Wait, you drew those? Those are awesome. How long did they take?
 
Nov 17, 2005 at 11:31 PM
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Mip

Er..Ehe, thanks. ^^;

The sketches for both are on the same sheet of computer paper in my clipboard, scanned separately... Probably took a total of 40-or-so minutes to sketch it all up, and maybe an hour to color both in Photoshop (it would have taken -ages- longer if I didn't lazy it up and dropper-sample most of the colors from the sprites, or I'd have spent ages just trying to get the colors to look half-decent). I'm not sure if that's a long or short time in correlation with the picture quality (they -are- just concept drafts), but most of my friends can tell you that I draw pretty fast, especially if inking -isn't- involved. c.c;;;

(Yay for replying from school~!)
 
Nov 19, 2005 at 5:05 PM
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Yes, there are refers to the red eye everywhere, in that too, probably. And, when you eat a demon flower, your eyes get red, like the ones of Ballos, could that be symbolism too? Frenzied mimigas also act a little bit like Ballos in his first stage, and are same size..
 
Nov 19, 2005 at 11:50 PM
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Yup.. Ballos might have created those flowers, himself (Or, at least, in my opinion, he -did-, I've already formed a very strong idea of what I think happened in the past, whether other people agree with me or not). The symptoms are too similar to his own madness, plus the red eyes... they just don't have that magic potential that made -his- psychotic snap so... instantaneously catastrophic.

Ballos knows Jenka won't kill him, and given he wants to die so badly, he also would want to find a way to get others to realize he exists, and that he's too dangerous to keep alive. Sure, the Demon Crown had the potential to create incredibly powerful rulers that are a danger to the surface... But hey! Why not use his own rage and madness to concentrate into a medium with which to corrupt those poor critters on the island to turn them into vicious weapons that can be used by a Crown-owner? Surely it would eventually trace back to him...
 
Nov 21, 2005 at 10:22 PM
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I don't think he was sadistic, I think he was just tortured.

I mean, when you fight him, it seems as though he's only controlling his first form. Every form after that seems to be completely out of control, as though an external force (his own magic abilities) are controlling him through different incarnations of his body. I don't think he would have the control to calculate a subtle attack in the way of red flowers.
 
Nov 22, 2005 at 3:54 AM
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Point taken... and I actually just came to a realization of what happened to my thought process here, by which means I think I should... stop.. trying to argue 'my point' until I finish my story. I'm thwarting my own intents and purposes by saying "Yes, but -this- is why what I said could work." X_x

I had a loooong couple of paragraphs to follow up on exactly what 'my thought process' is, along with 'my own intents and purposes', but given my story isn't even finished, I don't think there's any real reason for me to go saying it, as it means nothing without actually having a complete story to explain. Instead, I merely attached that long babble to the front-end of what I have of the story as a disclaimer. If I ever complete it, it's there. If I never complete it...well.. then you wouldn't have had to sit through that babble had I posted it here. ;3
 
Nov 25, 2005 at 4:27 AM
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I think probably the best way to connect the flowers to Ballos would be to say that they're another unintended side effect of his magic; the negative energy that he released does seem to pervade the island. For instance, destroying the Core causes the island to crash to the ground, a process that is halted only by Ballos' death - to me, this suggests that while the island naturally floats in the sky, the magic that Ballos released caused it to sink (which is why Jenka either created, activated, or brought the Core to the island and set it in a protected location, to keep the island afloat). It would make sense for there to be other ripples from his magic manifesting throughout the island, for instance in the growth of the red flowers (which Jenka also sought to contain).
 
Nov 25, 2005 at 10:37 AM
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but then what about Aruther(the one that fought the red demon (using a red flower i think) he was killed by the doc but but i wondered about that
 
May 26, 2008 at 9:32 PM
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God of Chaos said:
but then what about Aruther(the one that fought the red demon (using a red flower i think) he was killed by the doc but but i wondered about that
good point maybe Arther had really high willpower and that let him not only resist the madness but the crown as well
 
May 26, 2008 at 9:33 PM
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Do you realize you just bumped a three year old topic? XD
 
May 26, 2008 at 9:35 PM
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yes I do but I felt it was a waste to make a topic thats already here
 
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