#754 The Lurking Fear

...Bleh. I still say she's around 6 or 7. That seems to be the average age for young girls in RPGs. Especially considering that most mothers wouldn't dare let their children run off at the age of 3 or 4.

Say, young children in general. Porom and Palom were only 6 themselves.

It's possible that this girl is younger, but I simply can't imagine her being even a year younger. Remember that she is a summoner, and there's a limit to how young someone could be and still be able to use magic effectively.

She isn't using magic effectively. She is using it Willy-nilly as her emotions dictate.


As for Dr. Wily, I remember a comic in the line that clearly had him in the immune to being touched status when Alex went over that.

I refer not to the shard's power, which isn't hers, but to her ability to summon. You'll note she actually cast a summoning spell originally, then dismissed the flowers once she realized they weren't needed.

And Wily isn't immune to being Touched. Alex is.

I refer not to the shard's power, which isn't hers, but to her ability to summon. You'll note she actually cast a summoning spell originally, then dismissed the flowers once she realized they weren't needed.

The Shard of Tears dictates (some of) reality according to the girl's whims, so this isn't really possible to know. We know she was trying to cast a summon spell here, but we don't know if it was successfully cast. It might have just happened because she believed trying the spell would make it work and the Shard made it so. We can't know, yet.

That said, the POMF and colored smoke for Summon Flowers (possibly the Shard) and the monster(s) under the bed(s) (definitely the Shard) are the same. That makes me think it's all the Shard's power, but I concede it might just be what the girl thinks "appearification" looks like based on her own casting power.

There's also still the question of whether magic-users from other worlds could even cast anything in FF VI (before Kefka came back). They might 'bring their magic with them,' but that shouldn't be assumed. If they can, the open question of 'Shard or girl' remains. If they can't, the flowers wouldn't have been possible without the Shard.

I refer not to the shard's power, which isn't hers, but to her ability to summon. You'll note she actually cast a summoning spell originally, then dismissed the flowers once she realized they weren't needed.

And Wily isn't immune to being Touched. Alex is.

No, this comic made it clear Alex Williams isn't immune to the Sovereign's powers but Dr. Wily is. Alex is basically only getting out of most touched situations because others like Bob and the real world cat are messing up the Sovereign's plans.

Evidence, sir! Which comic?

If you're referring to Comic #571, then Comic #585 makes it clear that Alex was merely mourning the loss of Sailor Mercury and used that loss to rally himself.

In fact, if anything, his tone becomes more belligerent towards the Sovereign when the wave hit; if Sorrow energy had the same effect on him as all others, he would have become meek and momentarily surrendered the war (not just this one battle). Also, the subsequent comic shows that Alex was not affected one bit by Mega's release of Creation energy.

Alex and Schrodinger are immune to the Sovereign's power by virtue of being from the (true) Real World. I could allow for Dr. Wily to have created a countermeasure for his own use, but you seem to be the only person to think that such a countermeasure exists; a stasis pod intended presumably for the Shard's bearer doesn't really count.

Light mentions that Wily is the only one he trusts because he never changes.

He is resistant, but the Omega Wave affected him.

Wily was affected by both the wave of Sorrow from Roll, and the subsequent wave of Hope from Retro-Megaman. Alex was affected by neither. I'll grant that Wily was not as vulnerable to Sorrow as most denizens of Videoland, but "not as vulnerable" does not mean he was immune.

Here's a theory. The literary terms "flat" and "round" characters describe characters who have few or many personality traits, respectively. It's possible that, based on what MFD said ("Light mentions that Wily is the only one he trusts because he never changes."), flat characters are not as affected by Hope and Sorrow as round characters.

The old working theory, before we even knew alpha energy was a thing, was that sorrow didn't affect... "pure" characters. Frog and Cecil were pure good, while Wily was pure evil.

...what we know about Videoland has changed an awful lot since then though.

The only two people we can decisively conclude are immune would be Cecil and Alex. Everyone else would just be speculation. Frog only has an alpha-charged sword, Wily survived direct contact with the Shard-Bearer. And that seems to be getting thrown out the window since no one in FFVI is being affected by being so near the Shard-Bearer. Of course, when the coming Sorrow Wave starts, all bets are off.

I don't think we can decisively conclude that Cecil is immune. He couldn't be affected by Edward's sorrow-enhanced powers, but that could be because Alpha energy repels Omega energy. It could simply be that Edward could not bring enough Omega energy to bear in order to affect Cecil, but sufficient Omega energy (such as from the Sovereign) could do so.

It's like how it takes exponentially more force to push two protons together the closer they get to each other. Obviously, Alpha/Omega energy are not a case where like repels, though, but it should be enough to convey the gist.

That may be true...but then, what of Roll? As evidenced by her, Alpha and Omega energy do not cancel each other out. Also, what proof do we have that Cecil has Alpha energy? Was this drawn from the same assumption that Frog has some kind of anti-Omega protection simply because his sword seems to have Alpha energy? Also, don't you think Alex would have mentioned something about it when Cecil resisted Spoony's Voice of Sorrow? Nothing much is known about these energies at all, really. To be truly honest, the only thing we can say for certain about Alpha and Omega energy is that one glows green and the other glows purple.

I said they repel each other, not that they cancel each other out. In fact, I think they can stabilize each other if present in similar proportions.

Alex is buying time until he gets freed. He's only explaining what he has to in order to keep Ryan focused on him. Dealing it out in dribs and drabs, in other words.

So we don't know that Cecil has Alpha energy. We just know of nothing else that can give a Videoland sprite the ability to resist or oppose the Sovereign's power.

Completely off-subject, I just noticed something in Comic #382. Specifically, the side-by-side comparison of the Shard of Tears and Tragedy's Mask.

You mean the likeliness that they are the Sovereign's heart? Bit late to the party, I'd think. I mean, I noticed that the first time I read the comic, and the people around here are a lot more observant than I am.