#alear's subconsious memory conspiracy

[yanderefairyangel]

Lumera's first death gets on my nerves

Alright, I think we can all agree that this scene got way too long even if I understand the reasons considering they needed to

1/ Establish that Lumera couldn't be healed and lost all her powers to gave them to Alear and that's also why it weakened the Lythos barrier

2/ Have Lumera teach some of her last lesson and promise with Alear to have their motivation explained

3/ To have a cry moment

But why it gets on my nerves it's because it's genuinely well written yet the scene's length is laughable on first playthrough.

Now I may sound biased because I play with JPN dub on and Aya Endo nailed the performance because it's Aya Endo but damn, do we ever talked about the amount of foreshadowing in that scene ?

" Good. Mommy always wanted to meet with you !"

"You are my mother ?"

This is the meeting between Alear and Lumera. Lumera call herself 母さん/kaasan/mother.

However when asking the question Alear says 母親 /hahaoya/mother. While the two means the same thing, there is some nuance in jpn with 母親 being more polite and formal then 母さん, which is a casual way of saying mother. And seeing how upon waking up Alear immediately used the formal suffix san when talking to Vander for the first time, it's probably a mark of reflexive politeness on Alear's part. However, Lumera calling herself 母さん isn't just to show her love for Alear or their closeness, it's how Alear used to call her in the past and eventually does after her death. So when Alear called her 母親 it immediately triggered Lumera's attention because this appelation made it even more obvious that Alear forgot about her, especially as in japanese dialogue, when asking a question, the characters often repeats the word that the previous speaker just uttered so you would expect Alear to ask : "あなたが、母さん ?" rather then 母親 . Alear using 母親 is translating into their complete loss of familiarity towards Lumera. It's additionally tying to Past Alear's polite tone that coupled by the use of hiragana and their cold tone translated more as an automatism rather then actual and genuine politness since Alear's politeness is being here very immediate almost reflexive.

Now, it's important to point that out but during the entire the chapter where Lumera is still alive, Alear doesn't call her "mother". The first time they call her "mother" is... during the death scene

Ah.. you called me... your mother

In this dialogue Lumera is saying 母/haha instead of 母さん whereas Alear called her 母さん. This create a parallel to this scene with the role reversed. Morover, on Alear calling Lumera 母さん I'd like to point out that while it is still respectuous, Alear is being less formal with Lumera. Normally, seeing how polite they are I'd expect them to call Lumera お母様/okasama which is more formal. For example, Corrin does that with Mikoto. And in Engage's case, Alear calls Sombron お父様 /otosama. And while the way the character refers to their relative as isn't necessarily reflecting their closeness, it's often saying about them : for example, Veyle despite not being very close to Sombron, calls him パパ/Papa which is there to translate Veyle's innocent and a bit childish nature, and to contrast with how her other self calls Sombron お父様. Nel calls Sombron by his first name, and from times to times, call him お父様/otosama too, and this is likely to show her trying to distance herself from Sombron, espiecially as Alear nevers call Sombron "father" with maybe 2 exception : the A support with Veyle and at the end of the game, when Sombron is defeated. Seeing the difference between the way Alear calls Sombron vs how they refered to Lumera however, I think it's translating to how close they are and to Alear's affection towards Lumera. Another example of such case is how Rafal calls Sombron 父上/chichihue which is even more formal and sophisticated, and while it can be used just because of the royals status of the characters (since Diamant and Alcryst calls King Morion 父上 to, despite being on good terms), it's probably more due to the same reason as Alear since Rafal calls Nel/姉さん/neesan which much like 母さん is more casual and shows the Twins's closness and yet another parallel between Alear and Rafal. So Alear speaks more casually when talking with Lumera as a way to show their close bonds. While 母さん can also be translated as mother, it generally is casual and means more mom or mommy and imo the english version settled with mother because of Alear's statuts. And back to my commentary on 母親, it's even rarer and even more formal then if Alear had called her 母上, emphasizing Alear's total sense of strangerness upon meeting Lumera and contrasting drastically with how they end up casually adressing her. Contrasting with how Alear used to adress to Sombron and how polite they are with their allies, this shows that Alear is at ease with Lumera and let the guard down with her, that they can be casual with her.

Now, the interesting bits is that Alear ended up screaming 母さん despite their memory loss and their intial reflexive politeness toward Lumera showing a hint of subconsious memory, you know ? those things that feels vaguely familiar to Alear, and in general they feel this more towards things related to the Fell world. But in this case, they end up feeling this towards Lumera because ... of that one cutscene in chapter 21-22. Lumera, like Alear at that time, is dying in Lythos castle. This is a familair scenery but with reversed role : instead of Lumera holding a dying Alear, it's Alear who is holding a dying Lumera. And this is even more explicit at the moment where Alear begans to cry again, they switch to hiragana

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, current Alear speaks in full kanji, while Past Alear is the one speaking in hiragana. Alear switching at that very moment to hiragana is showing that their body remembers something that their mind don't as they end up speaking like they used in the past : using the same alphabet as a smal child.

Also, I played with F!Alear and at the begining of the game, she speaks with a more hight pitched voice compared to the latter game sounding much more childish as a result, making the immediate politness seems even more like a mechanism and in this scene, it's a striking parallel to the cutscene of chapter 21/22 as Alear speaks with the same tone as their past selves in that very scene. So when the scene switches to hiragana, it makes it like the same scene replays, with the role reversed, as if Alear remembered what happened despite it being subconsious.

And when Alear and Lumera makes the pinky promise/指切りand that Lumera's finger ends up falling, Alear says this

Alears says "kaasan" in hiragana before switching back to kanji

And from now on, each time Alear would refer to Lumera they will call her 母さん using the kanji form. There is one exception to this and it's Lumera's second death and this scene also parallel with Lumera's first death since in both case, the last word that Alear speaks in hiragana before reverting to kanji is "mother".

So my problem with this scene is that in japanese, the lengh and the precense of the dialogue is actually here to foreshadow the whole thing and because the writers wanted the player to notice it, especially as Lumera's death is supposed to feel sad from an hinsight, that is to say that the narrative delivering more about Lumera after her death is here to make us, the audience realize how in retrospective her death created a void in Alear's live, even beyond their amnesia.

And even more clever, the use of the camera. I know we all love to make fun of Alear's hair but here, the switching between their different profile from the camera is so clever because when Alear switched back to hiragana, the camera is focusing on the dominant red of her hair, making it feel like she actually remembers what happens.

This scene is doing an amazing job at justifying Alear's scene even before we learn about how much Lumera meant to them because it's showing how they actually remember things, even if their mind is still unable to recognize it.

But the thing is ... that for the English player, this whole switching isn't going to be noticed since unlike japanese, who have several alphabets, English doesn't have that. Nothing against the translator (at least this time) because the nuance and subtilities of the jpn dialogue between Alear and Lumera are impossible to properly translate and of course, the English speaking audience won't switch to a language that they don't understand, so all that remains is an way too long death scene.

I still think it's too long for it's own good and that they could have shorten it a bit, but the main reason why there is so many dialogue was precisely because of this. I genuinely think that it's unfortunate you can't appreciate the genius of this scene unless you switch to japanese (plus Mitsuishi's voice made me cry in that scene)

Engage has tons and tons of foreshadowing in it's early game that you can't really spot until you have played the entire game, so when you replay the story, it feels like a reward to see all of these little details.