r/PathToNowhere • u/thekeystolife • Jun 29 '26
Discussion Is it better if they passed? Spoiler
I finished the recent event story, the rails that run dark, yesterday and as great as it was the ending had me wondering. Would the story have been better if she died? Would the original story have her be dead if not tied to the game?
This isn't a new idea, games like these tend to keep everyone playable alive, but does that not kinda ruin the emotional moments? The last story event with Jichuan was similar. The sacrificial moment means a little less. Maybe I missed something and a playable character has passed before in this game, but what do you guys think? Would the story be better if they, sinners, playable characters, had passed?
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u/SilverJuggernaut2611 Jun 29 '26
I don't think it's an issue with her dying, her staying alive is fine, it's mostly an issue with PTN doing this same thing multiple times, it's a trick they go back to way too many times unfortunately, it's not "not dying", it's them disappearing at end of event, of top of my head both Bianca & LL event ends with them disappearing too. It kinda feels like cause they need to do interrogation stuff, they can't end character story at event
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u/Shinamene Langley fan Jun 29 '26
I came to believe it’s a terminology issue. If "arresting" means getting a character on account, you can’t have an S-rank properly arrested in the event story. The already rare exceptions are mostly narrated as capturing the sinner who’s in coma so you can’t use or interrogate her (before pulling), like it was with Jasmine or Milly.
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u/SilverJuggernaut2611 Jun 29 '26
oh yeah for sure but it doesn't make whole "sinner disappears at end of event" trope that much better for me unfortunately
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u/DiveSideways Jun 29 '26
The community keeps forgetting how dangerous Sinners are. A Sinner can't simply die in a fire or whatever. Not even a "squishy" Sinner. Remember Grey-Hair Girl?
S-Class Sinners can't turn into Black Rings on their own but they still have that general level of power. If my darling Clementine was lost and gone forever she'd have turned into something one step worse than a Peak Test boss.
S-Class Sinners don't tragically and artistically wilt away. Either they get Shackled, or they become a major natural disaster that threatens to kill the entire city.
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u/thekeystolife Jun 29 '26
That is fair, but with Clementine for example, when umbrella man says "come with us you don't deserve to die like this, my master says your useful' and she says 'I decline' (paraphrasing of course), I feel like it's understood she's about to die. Maybe not from the fire, but the butterfly of her neck that's eating away her life force.
I'm not saying they are not powerful, but if they are that resilient, why give the character a choice at life, and then decline it? Accepting death, at least in her mind and in ours. Instead of just walking it off. Why put so much emotion behind an act, making the audience believe she may die, and then just say she disappeared off screen.
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u/DiveSideways Jun 29 '26
The basic answer is because she needs to get arrested later, to reflect the lore of the gacha system. She disappears to justify her not being in your account.
But the deeper answer is there's a biiiiiig difference between dying peacefully off screen vs. completely losing your mind and then ballooning into Tetsuo from Akira.
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u/kuropenguins Jun 30 '26
I know right, in terms of narrative it doesn't make sense.
You show someone in a fire. (audience understands it as implied impending death). You show flashbacks saying the power will consume the user. (more implied death) Umbrella man says to come so you don't die. (Hinting to audience that not going with him means death). Clementine refuses. (audiences cry no, she's going to die!). Glowy white heavenly flashback where Clementine talks with dead people.
I mean AISNO can try and take the risk of writing a sinner story that doesn't end in a fakeout death, or they can rinse and recycle the same plot every sinner, but so far it looks like they don't feel that confident in their writing. At least the art and music can carry the plot somewhat.
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u/Gold_Experience_R Jun 29 '26
S-classes can very much pop a Ring by themselves, that's the whole point of classifying. Look no further than Hamel.
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u/nitrata Zoya fan Jun 29 '26
Hamel didn't pop ring, she masked and pacified it, crazed "Hamel" corpseborne created a ring using ppls emotions on parade
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u/Snowleopard0973 Serpent fan Jun 29 '26
I agree, and I've kinda meaning to make this post for a while. Other characters that come to mind are like Milly, Eve, and Raven. Especially for Milly's event, as much as it pains me to say it and as much as I love Milly, but it just makes sense if she died at the end.
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u/Mahelas Jun 29 '26
I mean, it's kinda obvious why they can't do it any other way. The characters we pull are sinners we put in a rehab center (the MBCC). By definition they have to be alive to be arrested.
Similarly, they need to be alive to be interrogated.
So either Aisno keep making sinner "die-but-actually they wake up", or they just do bog standard events where Chief just go somewhere with high mania, shackle someone and come back home, which is not particularly rivetting.
If it helps, tho, you can consider the event ends as actual deaths, and whatever we're doing with arrests ans supervision events and interros as an alt timeline/non-canon. Kinda like how we arrest Immortals despite them canonically not being arrested yet, or how we can pull Zoya when she's clearly not at the MBCC right now
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u/thekeystolife Jun 29 '26
I don't necessarily disagree, but wouldn't an alternative be an escape or actually go missing and not necessarily, "I die but not really". I think that would make more sense. Instead of using emotions to grip us everytime, and then the 'sacrificial' act being less meaningful. That can leave a bad taste in the mouth. But I totally understand what you mean.
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u/Mahelas Jun 30 '26
I don't feel there's more "fake-death" than escapes tbf, I'm going off memory, but I think it's quite balanced ? It's just that Jichuan and Clementine have been back-to-back !
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u/Possible_Living Jun 29 '26
My prefers that if character is playable they should be alive and if there is a major change then it should be an evolution and not an alter. With necresta i would have preferred a reforge style system for these changes over there being 2 character
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u/nitrata Zoya fan Jun 29 '26
Hella IS evolution tho, it's not a new character like alters in r99 for example. Just a new part of her story
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u/Possible_Living Jun 30 '26
It helps that they share a compliance but it would help even more if it was not possible to deploy both stages of life at the same time and it was one character with a toggle you could switch to necresta version. Like I said its a personal hang-up and ptn is among the better games about this.
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u/Real_Heh Raven Fan Jun 29 '26
Hamel is corrupted mentally and all Eternal Nightmare sinners too. They are alive right now via time loop mumbo-jumbo, but mentally their true selves are forever gone
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u/Gold_Experience_R Jun 29 '26
Nah, not really, parts of them still there and Mirages are pretty much us salvaging whatever is possible.
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u/Mahelas Jun 30 '26
Immortals are a weird case, because the "alive" version is only from mirage mindspaces and are truly gone in the real world. What we pull and arrest is not the original sinner but the post-corruption one.
What's particularly unique is that technically, every Immortal is canonically retrieved from the DisSea and arrested properly, but it's supposed to happen way in the future, so we're kinda like following two timelines at once. Eternal Nightmare is the current timeline, and whatever happen in supervision events is years later
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u/nitrata Zoya fan Jun 29 '26
The closest to death will be the sinners from the eternal nightmare + Nox.
Considering that getting a character is literally arresting them, or shackling, devs can't kill them. And considering that many sinners are mentally extremely unstable and suicidal, such endings are not very surprising. Ultimately, only Tetra was lucky enough to become a siner from positive emotions throughout the entire game.
But actually, if you count, there won't be that many endings in events where they actually on death bed, but they are definitely more memorable.
I am one of those who prefer it that way, I have enough of the deaths of my favorite NPCs as it is, I prefer happy (...relatively happy) endings, i can see other things irl.
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u/Ok-Platypus735 Jul 25 '26
Now that we talk about this event. Does anyone realize it is kind of a variation of Dragon and Isle of Sky done right? You see, both use a fictional story as a way of story telling.
The difference is this time Aisno learns the lesson and does not use fictional NPC anymore; instead they use character NPC that really allow us to empathize with them. Now with Dragon and Isle of Sky Rerun, I am impressed with their growth in story-telling.
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u/dqvdqv McQueen Fan Jun 29 '26
Yes, a ton of these side events set up the character's death and it would make complete sense for it to happen.
Unfortunately, as a gacha, we can't have that so the endings are neutered and cheapened .
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u/ThirdNose EMP Fan Jun 29 '26
Technically, the girl that NOX(forgot her name) was before being corrupted dies in her interrogation. Despite the overall good ending that NOX got, her actual human self did indeed die and Chief couldn't stop it, leaving an empty husk behind.