#also feel it was OOC for Saga to be not more empathetic or to at least want to question Ilmo earlier aka during the actual arrest

[koskela-knights]

Ilmo's Arc + Ending

I might've already talked about this a bit, but @zephyrone01 and I often talked about how Ilmo's character arc/story was just... dropped at the end of the game. And in extension, the whole Cult of the Tree part up to the FBC's intervention and Ilmo's arrest.

It's sad because he is literally one of the leaders of the Cult, the mysterious group you spent a large part of the game, figuring out if they're really bad and what their motives might be. But in the end it no longer seems to have an impact on the story.

You probably have watched this silly guy in the funny commercials and, if you didn't have any suspicions, get surprised that he isn't only in the Cult, he is a main member. But in the jail scene, things are dire so you don't have any time to profile or talk to him because it quickly cuts to a cutscene which then leads to you getting chased by Scratch.

His dialogue with Saga after Jaakko's death is purely optional despite him granting the player crucial information about the Cult and it seems many people overlook him or don't know he's still there. When I watched John Wolfe's LP, he even thought Ilmo had also died until he, by accident, bumped into him. Apparently there are also glitches if you reload the chapter, he just doesn't spawn.

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So let's say, the jail cutscene is the last time you see Ilmo and then suddenly he reappears at the eternal Deerfest. Feels kinda odd, to give him a whole scene in that jail together with Jaakko and Scratch/Alan and then he's never seen again.

Now, if you do talk to him after the jail sequence, he will reveal the truth about the Cult: that they were trying to protect their town and BF from the Taken. Ilmo says he will try to round up the Cult or what's left of them and then again, you don't see him until you're playing as Alan in the altered BF. He just stands there because his dialogue and animations aren't triggered properly. He actually talks about the last Return book, hinting to the player where to get the book. Here's Zephyrone01's video showing him talking and gesturing.

What I might've added to give his story a bit more closure than what we got:

Make talking to him after Jaakko's death mandatory. Unskippable. It's literally a narrative piece Saga was trying to stitch together all this time. Why is it optional???

Involve him in the Dark Ocean Summoning fight. He can be support, similar to Estevez and Casey. Honestly, his mental state aside, he was in the best physical position to actually help out, given the fact Casey and Estevez were injured. (Also, I would've loved to see Ilmo's reaction to that stage fight. His barks would've been great.) It would've helped to 'redeem' him, from being the assumed bad Cultist to helping Saga in her fight.

Maybe mid-fight, he gets a call from the other Cultists to help out in BF which explains why he got absorbed into the changed reality.

If he doesn't get involved in the fight, we could've at least gotten a brief cutscene where he and the remaining Cultists head to BF to continue protecting it or something. Again, this would help portray Ilmo in a positive light.

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TLDR: Ilmo's story arc got cut short after his arrest, revealing the truth about the Cult should've been mandatory and not optional and there should've been at least a small cutscene of Ilmo going to BF to protect it before getting absorbed in the changed reality.

[threadsketchier]

Just wondering, is there any way I can eventually go back to Star Wars? Without it hurting so badly? Because The Last Jedi kind of ruined it all for me. I've realised how boring my social media is with everything to do with Star Wars muted/filtered out, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch them again right now knowing that that movie is canon. Even seeing a picture of Luke Skywalker makes me feel like sobbing.

I’m afraid that’s something only you will be able to answer with time, because everyone is different.  The fact that TLJ offended and annoyed the hell out of me didn’t erase what the original six Lucas-helmed films (primarily just the OT for me personally to be 100% honest but I’m cool with the prequels at this point in my life) mean to me.  Heck, Legends EU got quite shitty by its twilight and that still didn’t wreck my faves for me.  Chewbacca was killed off and Mara Jade was fridged and that pissed me off, but guess what?

All of it is fiction.

All of it.  Everything under the umbrella of A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away is make-believe, so any portion of it is salvageable to me personally.  Whatever any commercial authority dictates as “canon” is still a work of fiction at the end of the day.  It’s a bunch of toys in a sandbox.  Someone put them in there and may declare that certain ones are more important and/or valuable, but when I step in there, if I don’t like some of those toys or if they don’t interest me I’m going to ignore them.

Once upon a time Mara Jade - a character George Lucas wasn’t personally invested in but was OK with allowing to exist in his universe - was an ex-Imperial assassin who had to figure out who she really was and what to do with her life when she realized how she’d been exploited, and happened to make some begrudging friendship bracelets with Luke Skywalker, the guy she once wanted to kill.  Fast-forward a bunch of years in- and out-of-universe and they finally hook up and I loved that.  Then several more years later another writer decided to make her operate OOC and she was murdered by her own nephew, leaving Luke a widower and also leaving behind her young son, not to mention also arguably trashing the character of said nephew (who I prefer to call Darth Tassels, ugh).  This stank.

Except as far as I’m concerned Mara never died and she lived happily ever after kicking ass with her family to a ripe old age.  I’m even shamelessly reading fic incorporating her into Disney!”canon” and making her Rey’s mom.

To touch on a character we both love, Disney doesn’t invalidate the man I saw in ANH, ESB, and ROTJ.  To me, Luke is still and will forever be that kind, empathetic, daring, brave, goofy farmboy-pilot-Jedi-dork I fell in love with when I was 12.  Because despite the fact that Lucas did obviously intend certain messages to get across in this saga, whatever happens in this made-up universe is still malleable to each and every one of us.

Luke Skywalker isn’t real.  As Mark Hamill himself has said, he can really be whatever you want him to be.

However, I can’t magically transplant this mindset to someone else.  It’s very easy for me to spout this off while it may be impossible for another person to feel this way about SW, or any other fictional universe that has been tainted for them.  All I can do is say my piece and leave it there; it’s ultimately up to you and what you’ll feel comfortable with.  While the biased part of me wants to say that no one should let The Man™ get them down - aka, why let the Disneypire win in trashing this beloved property - it’s also unfair to act as if you need to embrace SW just because you formerly loved it and because I also happen to think it’s cool.  There’s nothing wrong with walking away from a fandom.  I drifted away from SW myself for a few years after ROTS in 2005.  It might be better for you now, and perhaps in time you’ll find that you can move on and this was just a phase in your life, and you’ll have other interests.  Or after a long break your enjoyment will return and you’ll be able to cherish SW without the pain.  The choice is yours, and should be made based upon what’s best for you.