Topic: So what exactly is the in-game logic behind unlocking Aria's true ending?

[zangetsu468]

The last paragraph of what I wrote literally explained the whole thing in a simplistic and concise way.

I think it's more complicated to assume they fucked it up, particularly that this isn't a game that was made in the 80's. The problem with assuming the game ends in Castle A is that you actually need to equip certain items to open up the floor and proceed to the final room in castle B. This seems very intentional, at the time the structure of the game was taking some inspiration from Sotn, down to the final room room of the game being the centre of the map. If you're saying they simply swapped the texts by accident then that explanation is more plausible, but the real ending has to be in castle B imo.

Juste thinking he's too late to save Lydie could be fluff or for a number of reasons (unless that text was swapped). They should've been clearer with the false ending(s). If ending A had some kind of Dracula returns vibe then it would've made more sense.

Don't know anything about those text alterations.

[Nagumo]

The last paragraph of what I wrote literally explained the whole thing in a simplistic and concise way.

Actually, I also don't agree with the solution you came up with because I think it condradicts the story. In both castles you fight the "influenced Maxim". There isn't ending where Juste doesn't fight an influenced Maxim.  But whatever, if my own theory doesn't work either then all I can do is throw my hands in the air and give up. I might be putting more thought into this than IGA and his team did back in the day.   

[zangetsu468]

Actually, I also don't agree with the solution you came up with because I think it condradicts the story. In both castles you fight the "influenced Maxim". There isn't ending where Juste doesn't fight an influenced Maxim.  But whatever, if my own theory doesn't work either then all I can do is throw my hands in the air and give up. I might be putting more thought into this than IGA and his team did back in the day.

Well you haven't agreed with any of my theories so far, therefore, it's to be expected. I think you've misinterpreted part of what I'd written, ie in the final room you fight Maxim. Both Maxim's are the same entity .. Aye how can I explain this .. Let's say if you go to castle B, castle A's Maxim isn't just waiting there eating a sandwich, essentially the same fight happens on a different 'layer' which determines the ending. It's one castle; two layers. In the ending we see one castle that's crumbled, not two castles, they were occupying the same space in 2 planes - and imo merging throughout the events of the game up to the Maxim battle(s).

Are you okay Nagumo? I know that we don't know one another but in the years I've been on the CVD I don't ever recall you saying that you'd throw your hands up about something.

[Nagumo]

Are you okay Nagumo? I know that we don't know one another but in the years I've been on the CVD I don't ever recall you saying that you'd throw your hands up about something.

I'm just frustrated because I'm noticing all these plot holes lately, and even though I try my best to resolve them, it only seems to result in more questions being raised. I even haven't mentioned all of them yet.

Anyway, I noticed an interesting difference between the standard castle A and castle B endings.

Castle A:



"She lost consciousness but... Somehow I made it in time!"

Castle B:



"She is still breathing but... Dammit! Didn't I make it in time?"

When comparing the dialogue, it really feels to me the best ending should have occured in castle A. Even if there was no programming mistake, I'm going to be arrogant here and say in that case the developers didn't understand their own story. 

     

[zangetsu468]

If that is what you believe though, wouldn't it be more plausible to say they programmed in that one line into the wrong outcome/ Castle? Regardless of what's arrogant I'd say it's more plausible that they misprogrammed one line in the same place(both castles) rather than not understanding their own story.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that [in the event that] everything was as intended in both scripts, the part where Juste questions whether he made it in time refers to him seeing that larval like object (in the background) and believing Lydie's blood has been given to resurrect Dracula/ Maxim as the prospective host body.

What's more is that in the Japanese version Juste questions "Didn't I make it in time?" makes more sense, as opposed to the English translation's "I am too late!", followed by Maxim's "Welcome to the party Juste. You're late." Given the context, the Japanese version makes sense in context as a query rather than a statement.
Here's why:
Influenced Maxim then goes on to state
"Maxim? Oh his spirit no longer lives within me. And I owe it all to that woman. Look at a the strength she's given me".
At first glance this appears it should be the bad ending, however, after the remains resonate, Influenced Maxim states
"As long as I have this power, I have no need for this body! Here, have it!"... i.e. The body that had gained so much power from Lydie.
Dracula Wraith states (to Juste) "I'm not yet stable, but your blood will once again make me whole", Meaning Lydie may have had blood taken, but she wasn't supposed to be dead. Lydie was the initial sacrifice (blood) for Dracula, but suppose when this was interrupted, she was taken to the castle's core instead by Influenced Maxim, who either siphoned her for power or whatever.

So in conclusion I'd assume that perhaps they'd initially written the first piece of dialogue between Juste and Maxim for the opposite ending/ Castle. However, I don't believe the entire script is incoherent. Honestly HoD has shit going on in two places at once and is not the most straight forward story to begin with.

Did IGA ever interview regarding its plot?

[theplottwist]

Alright so here's what I understand from it all. I mean, it was clear as day to me, but I will ask you to point out if there is some problem here.

In summary: For everyone to be saved, the evil spirit must be allowed to grow stronger than Maxim WHILE the remains of Dracula are on his vicinity.

If you approach Maxim from Castle A, Juste arrives in time to save Lydie -- hence his relieved comment. She is not bitten as Maxim is holding off the evil spirit. The ending, too, corresponds to it as no mention of bite marks are made.

However, the huge problem here is that, since Lydie was saved, the chain of events leading the evil spirit to acquire its own body CANNOT be attained. Juste has the relics, but the evil spirit does not have power/presence enough to manifest using them. In other words, if the evil spirit is to be destroyed, it must be allowed to gain enough power to break free from Maxim's body. On Castle A Juste arrives too early for that to happen.

Now, if you approach Maxim from Castle B, Juste is too late and Lydie has been bitten. The evil spirit has now gained power and is THIS close to finishing the deal. Juste fights it, and as we see, now it has power enough (and incentive enough, thanks to the bracelets reawakening Maxim) to break free from Maxim's body and become Dracula Wraith. Remember the story previously? If it dies within Maxim, Maxim dies too. Now that it has its own body, it can die alone by Juste's hands.

So it does make perfect sense for one thing to be attained in one castle and not on the other. On one castle the events unfold before Lydie is bitten. On the other, they unfold after. In one the spirit has not gained enough power to manifest outside of Maxim, on the other it has. On one Maxim holds presence enough to stop the spirit from biting her, on the other the spirit has full control of his actions and can bite her just fine.

[Dracula9]

aren't we forgetting the best ending where everyone lives

aren't we forgetting the almighty power of furniture here

[Nagumo]

Alright so here's what I understand from it all. I mean, it was clear as day to me, but I will ask you to point out if there is some problem here.
 
(snip)
 

I my opinion the solution you're offering contains two problems.

1) Why would Lydie live in the best ending if she dies in the worst ending? 

2) You mention how evil spirit sucking Lydie's blood gives him the power to break free from Maxim. But doesn't that condradict the reason given earlier in the story for why the evil spirit wanted Lydie's blood? He wanted to do it because it would give him enough power to completely surpress Maxim. Therefore, I don't think the evil spirit sucking Lydie's blood has an impact on him being able to break free from Maxim. I actually think the evil spirit has more reason to break free from Maxim's body in Castle A than he would in Castle B. If you interpet the evil spirit's action of breaking free from Maxim as an act of desperation, then he would have more motivation to do this in Castle A because Maxim is still restisting him. Compare this to the situation in Castle B where the evil spirit seems to be in complete control.       

[theplottwist]

1) Why would Lydie live in the best ending if she dies in the worst ending? 

Ignoring the fact that one is literally called "worst ending" and the other "best ending"?

Because the worst ending happens on Castle B, not Castle A. If Maxim dies on Castle A, she has not been bitten. If he dies on Castle B but the spirit doesn't get his own body, then her death is tied to him. The spirit HIMSELF says this, that his death will cause Maxim's and hers. How? No clue. He is not trying to make her into a vampire or something, so I don't know what kinda connection is this that would cause her to die if he dies. The only thing I get from this is that this connection depends on the spirit existing on Maxim's body. Affection? Attachment? Death does imply that Maxim holds Lydie VERY dear to his heart, enough for her blood to be special on this occasion. An attachment that the evil spirit by itself [i.e. on his own body] wouldn't have. Or maybe the spirit commands her death, and does it out of spite on its last moments? But I digress.

2) You mention how evil spirit sucking Lydie's blood gives him the power to break free from Maxim. But doesn't that condradict the reason given earlier in the story for why the evil spirit wanted Lydie's blood? He wanted to do it because it would give him enough power to completely surpress Maxim. Therefore, I don't the evil spirit sucking Lydie's blood has an impact on him being able to break free from Maxim. I actually think the evil spirit has more reason to break free from Maxim's body in Castle A than he would in Castle B. If you interpet the evil spirit's action of breaking free from Maxim as an act of desperation, then he would have more motivation to do this in Castle A because Maxim is still restisting him. Compare this to the situation in Castle B where the evil spirit seems to be in complete control.       

I got nothing. This is one of the doubts that will get us trapped in an infinite loop of me trying to explain it and you saying it makes no sense.

I see no contradiction whatsoever. It wanted the blood to overcome Maxim. It thought it had done it, but when the remains presented themselves, it saw a better use for the power it acquired from the blood. It's changing its goals as it goes along. It couldn't plan to "leave Maxim's body" before because the best plan at the time was "overcome Maxim". As soon as "leave Maxim's body" became a better plan, it changed goals.

I don't really get why the blood either must give him FULL POWER or NO POWER. Why not "power enough to almost override Maxim and to react to the remains, but not enough to swallow Maxim completelly"? He does say that Lydie's blood granted him power enough to overcome Maxim (but apparently not completelly, considering Maxim's comeback).

The spirit says the blood gave him power. He drank her blood on one ending and not on the other. On one ending he gains a body from the remains, and on the other he doesn't. I think the connection is pretty clear. He gained enough power to leave his body and embrace the remains, but not enough that he could completelly erase Maxim.

He can have all reason to break away from Maxim he wants on Castle A. Without enough power to do it (achieved on Castle B), no dice.

[zangetsu468]

aren't we forgetting the almighty power of furniture here

I think I'm in love with you... (Nothing spells love like the smell of rich mahogany)

The real question is

(click to show/hide)

Will they find Milhouse, or will they find him and kill him......

[X]

aren't we forgetting the best ending where everyone lives

aren't we forgetting the almighty power of furniture here

And by collecting all the furniture pieces we get that one little snip-it of animation of Lydie leaning against Juste rather then her standing like a statue in the best ending sequence.

[Shiroi Koumori]

And by collecting all the furniture pieces we get that one little snip-it of animation of Lydie leaning against Juste rather then her standing like a statue in the best ending sequence.

This is the best ending of them all. Since IGA will always go for the best ending as canon, this just proves to us the true power of furniture collecting. 

[Nagumo]

I might have thought of an alternate interpretation that doesn't require the endings to be swapped. What if, in the ending of castle A, Maxim is at no point possessed by the evil spirit and decides to fight Juste on his own accord? He does beg Juste to kill him, and after he refuses, Maxim says something like: "then if will make you change your mind!" and then proceeds to attack him. I always thought that last bit was the evil spirit talking (the fact that they used the portrait of evil Maxim could be seen as an indication of that), but now that I think about, it wouldn't really make sense  for the evil spirit to say that. He has absolutely no intention of losing to Juste. If that's the case, that would also explain why Juste wearing both bracelets has no effect on the ending: despite the fact that Maxim is still resisting the evil spirit, he sees no other option than to get himself killed in other to save Juste and Lydie from the evil spirit. Of course, that does raise the question: "Why doesn't Maxim just kill himself then?" but I think the whole "If you won't kill me, I'll make you kill me" thing is a trope that is used in other stories as well. So it's probably possible to justify it.             

edit: Zangetsu already came up with something similar, right? 

[X]

"Why doesn't Maxim just kill himself then?"

Because suicide is forbidden by God. Reinhardt makes this mention in CV64/LoD. Everyone under the church's influence or teachings would be taught this lesson. Besides which Maxim doesn't harbour feelings of depression which is one the major triggers for suicide. Maxim couldn't kill himself due to his evil counterpart's influence to want to survive at any cost. In order for Maxim to die and save his friends he took the path of least resistance because he knew that the evil entity would also want that as well; to fight Juste. And Maxim  knew that Juste would win against him. He counted on it.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Because suicide is forbidden by God. Reinhardt makes this mention in CV64/LoD. Everyone under the church's influence or teachings would be taught this lesson.

This. So much this. Even in the mid-1700's, people seriously took their faith absolutely seriously. Like, it's often scary how seriously people took it, and it's easy to forget that we live in the most libertarian age since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the 18th century, faith made a lot more demands of your life and if you lived in that era, you listened and did those things. It was still almost heresy to wonder why in some areas of the world, though this would be shaken off relatively quickly after -- "relatively" in this case meaning it was pretty much gone by 1901. Seems like a long time to us, but in the annals of history, it's not really that long.

Another thought:

A case could (and probably should) be made that Maxim is one of the bravest characters in the primary canon. All of that started because he wanted to protect his best friend. So he dealt as best he could with this form of mental illness that he had (essentially), helped his friend where possible, and to the end had unwavering faith that Juste would pull through and save everyone. That kind of rock-solid faith is pretty brave in and of itself, plus it seems to be implied that Maxim had been planning to try something like this to save Juste from his fate since before Juste had inherited the Vampire Killer, which would have put Maxim in his early teens when he'd decided to do this (Maxim and Juste are of similar age, and Juste was 16 when he inherited). While young teens in the 18th century were held to far more adult responsibilities, that's still really young. Goddamn Maxim is stupid yet brave. He's Castlevania's pinnacle of stupidly brave.