So, What Was Merlina's Plan, Exactly?

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Being a person who takes an excessive delight in the formalisation of information, I've been tootling along today writing a page on Merlina for the Sonic Retro wiki, which has led me to watch the game's various cutscenes once more, including http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4auU1sYmIFg, just before Knight's Passage.

What it's all led me ot notice is that Merlina dosn't actually do or say anything regarding crazy magical stasis of the land until after Sonic hands her the Scabbard of Excalibur - an item which has a very good track record of corrupting its bearer to evil, which is indeed the whole reason Sonic has to save the realm in the first place.

So I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't Merlina's plan all along to double-cross Sonic and take the power of the Scabbard for herself once he gets rid of that pesky King Arthur. Instead, it's only after she touches the Scabbard and gets One-Ring-esque tendrils of corruption crawling into her brain that she decides to Dark Queen it up.

Admittedly, there's the whole business with that flower near the start, but there's quite a gulf between misery at the impending destruction of a kingdom and trying to pull off some freaky time-stop enchantment using crazy underworld magic.

So there you go. Just a bit of alternative character interpretation for you there.

[Rusty Spy]

So I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't Merlina's plan all along to double-cross Sonic and take the power of the Scabbard for herself once he gets rid of that pesky King Arthur. Instead, it's only after she touches the Scabbard and gets One-Ring-esque tendrils of corruption crawling into her brain that she decides to Dark Queen it up.

During that same cutscene, she seems all to anxious to get her hands on the scabbard, despite knowing beforehand what it's capable of. If she was not going to betray Sonic, she would have been more concerned about possibly destroying the scabbard once and for all rather than simply taking it. I can't imagine what else she'd use the scabbard for.

[Blue Blood]

Yeah. I think Merlina was good guy, but for all the wrong reasons. She was trying to prevent death, and that was obvoiusly her intention all along. It's just that she was a little dense, as Sonic and Caliburn explain to her during their battle and the cutscene following it.

Don't forget that in that cutscene right near the start of the game she kills a flower.

Edited June 20, 2009 by Blue Blood

[Kamicciolo]

What it's all led me ot notice is that Merlina dosn't actually do or say anything regarding crazy magical stasis of the land until after Sonic hands her the Scabbard of Excalibur - an item which has a very good track record of corrupting its bearer to evil, which is indeed the whole reason Sonic has to save the realm in the first place.

That doesn't really explain how Sonic manage to avoid corruption in the brief time he had it, and it looked like Merlina was already unveiling her master plan just before taking the scabbard from Sonic (which actually brings up the question of why Sonic was so willing to hand it over )

Plus, with King Arthur, didn't Merlina say that Merlin created him as something of a front, with Merlin doing the actual ruling and the King Arthur just being the face for the public or something like that? Cause I always took it as the King Arthur being corrupted into the Black Knight was like some kinda reflection of what Merlina was like (chances are I'm wrong and just making up my own story at this point cause I can't remember the real thing )

[Unknownlight]

That doesn't really explain how Sonic manage to avoid corruption in the brief time he had it, and it looked like Merlina was already unveiling her master plan just before taking the scabbard from Sonic (which actually brings up the question of why Sonic was so willing to hand it over )

From what I could tell from that cutscene, Sonic was wary about giving Merlina the scabbard (he was backing away, after all) but he seemed to decide that he was just being paranoid so he gave her the scabbard anyway. Well, that's what I see at least.

Plus, with King Arthur, didn't Merlina say that Merlin created him as something of a front, with Merlin doing the actual ruling and the King Arthur just being the face for the public or something like that? Cause I always took it as the King Arthur being corrupted into the Black Knight was like some kinda reflection of what Merlina was like (chances are I'm wrong and just making up my own story at this point cause I can't remember the real thing )

Yeah, most of that you made up. But personally, I agree with you. I'm too lazy to write out my analysis of Merlina right now, so I'm just going to post a link to a fanfiction I wrote instead: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5090756/1/Taste_the_Day

[Yong]

The scabbard wouldn't corrupt/empower Merlina if there wasn't already evil intent to begin with. That was the whole point of Sonic having to prove himself as a knight before he Nemue would allow him to defeat Arthur for it.

[-Mark-]

The plot in Black Knight was silly and nonsensical. Well, it made sense but it was still silly.

Basically, all Merlina wanted to was to make the world last forever as a means of running away from a bad ending that she knew was coming.

I think the actual ideas behind SatBK's story were good, but they were implemented in such a rushed manner that made it seem rather unexplained and dumb. I sort of assumed that, as a storybook, Merlina had essentially relived the same story over and over again, due to the fact a book pretty much stays the same no matter who reads it or how many times. To try and avoid the bad ending she knew was coming, she wanted to essentially freeze the book on a single page, before the bad things started happening.

Basically, what she's doing isn't really evil as such at all, just a bit stupid. Also, they should have shoved in a moral about Sonic saying that Merlina should have tried to change the ending rather than just run away from it.

[DC111]

That doesn't really explain how Sonic manage to avoid corruption in the brief time he had it

Well, I would assume he didn't get corrupted by the scabbard

for the same reason he didn't get corrupted by Dark Gaia's power in Sonic Unleashed. Chip said he was 'too strong to lose himself.'

Also, what Yong said.

As far as him giving Merlina the scabbard, I think he was confused. He didn't seem like he knew what was going on, so when Merlina took the scabbard and turned all evil, he was like, 'Oh.' I don't know, that's what I saw.

Edited June 24, 2009 by DC111

[True Blue]

Well, I would assume he didn't get corrupted by the scabbard for the same reason he didn't get corrupted by Dark Gaia's power in Sonic Unleashed. Chip said he was 'too strong to lose himself.'

I kinda feel spoiled and not spoiled. I've imagined already how Sonic's werehog form worked and how he was still good. I assumed that Sonic couldn't turn evil, even though werewolves are evil, just because he's a good guy and a big hero. And too willing to give up and stop doing the right thing.

But I feel spoiled because I was expecting to know if it was really that way, only when I got to play the game.

Here's hoping the big twist in the story is not simply discovering Chip's true identity, which I kind of already accidentally found out. (Who put his real name written in that specific place of that specific website anyway?! LOL)

Edited June 23, 2009 by True Blue

[DC111]

I kinda feel spoiled and not spoiled. I've imagined already how Sonic's werehog form worked and how he was still good. I assumed that Sonic couldn't turn evil, even though werewolves are evil, just because he's a good guy and a big hero. And too willing to give up and stop doing the right thing.

But I feel spoiled because I was expecting to know if it was really that way, only when I got to play the game.

Here's hoping the big twist in the story is not simply discovering Chip's true identity, which I kind of already accidentally found out. (Who put his real name written in that specific place of that specific website anyway?! LOL)

Aw crap, sorry about that. I put it in spoiler tags (not that it'll help you now, should've done that earlier I suppose)... guess I just assumed everyone knew the story by now.

I think it was Wikipedia. It was the list of characters in Unleashed, and it said (Realname)/Chip. I got spoiled on that, too.

Edited June 24, 2009 by DC111

[True Blue]

Aw crap, sorry about that. I put it in spoiler tags (not that it'll help you now, should've done that earlier I suppose)... guess I just assumed everyone knew the story by now.

I think it was Wikipedia. It was the list of characters in Unleashed, and it said (Realname)/Chip. I got spoiled on that, too.

Yeah, it was.

I usually go to Unleashed's Wikipedia page to find the links of the official websites whenever I don't have the link with me (another computer). As soon as I get in it, I press the End key to go right to the bottom where the links are. But one time, I found written in the references' part right over the links, Chip's real name. I hope that's not the twist itself, or I won't have that "oh my gosh" factor when I get the game. (LOL One good thing about Sonic games is that usually the gameplay is better than the story, although I hope Sonic Unleashed has the best story since SA2.)

And don't worry about letting that slip. It's OK.

EDIT: More similar to what happened to you, when SRA was new, I went to Wikipedia read Eggman Nega's page. At the bottom of the description I read about

his presence in SRA's story. And I wasn't even thinking about that game.

Edited June 26, 2009 by True Blue