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Nothing like having a guy sign away his internal organs for one more shot at the dream to get your sympathy. I'm kind of surprised that no one has talked about the Tower in the context of Japanese/Korean roguelikes (Baroque, Azure Dreams, FF/DQ-spinoff's-mysterious dungeons, etc). The whole MMO style class system is pretty obvious as well, so maybe that aspect is just too straightforward to merit explicit discussion. I do find it interesting how there is sort of celestial bureaucracy (the floor guardians) that seems to represent the "natural" cosmology of the tower and which works in conjunction with the political power structure. And for some reason this power structure includes "hell levels" that turn MMO timesinks/skill chokepoints into social and economic barriers in the fictional world of the Tower. On some level there probably is an external tower, but the Tower as presented so far in the text is a fascinating blend of Chinese (presumably actually Korean) mythological and gaming cosmologies, and maybe a degree of actual contemporary. It's like all the attempts to write fiction about online worlds a la Tad William's Otherland, .hack, or Snowcrash but far more successful (well excepting the latter) because instead of adopting "this is an online world" as a trope, the author built a world constructed using actual tropes of online gaming and presents it as the protagonists' actual reality. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Feb 27, 2012 |
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Feb 27, 2012 10:24
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I'm thinking that Love is being set up as a main character. Or maybe that's wishful thinking? He's clearly gained respect for Viole/Baam's talent, and making a friend from a highly principled opponent who is too powerful for you to taken them in a fight is a classic martial arts/manga means of gaining a mentor or making a friend. I'm thinking that Viole will still be holding the flash-drive thing when he gets up. Also, does anything preclude the younger gray-haired ranker from being the killer? Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 11:43 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 11:38
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Freaksaus posted:I really wish they left out their "funny" remarks. They try so hard to look edgy it makes them look like idiots. It's kind of amusing that I can now be grumpy, old man style, about the immature sense of humor of the younger nerds translating my man (Although really I got there with some fan-translation patch of Tales of Phantasia like 10 years ago).
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May 26, 2012 07:17
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quote:Do people think that seeing the sky is climbing the tower as is known or actually climbing to the top? In case anyone hasn't read the notes about it the floors that are climbed typically aren't the whole tower but that the floor guardians above are incredibly powerful and dangerous and don't like people on their floors Climbing the Tower is a pretty broad metaphor for success (material and/or spiritual). The sky is pretty straightforwardly an image of existence after the removal of all external barriers to human potential. So the sky is sort of being used to mean both, it's the goal and the possibility of real movement towards that goal. Wagnan states that he wants to depose Zahard in order to build a society that facilitates, or at least does not impede, human achievement. His motivation isn't realization of human potential, however. A darwinistic society can still achieve that, although this one has clearly stagnated. His goal is allowing humans to strive for success without destroying each other and therefor the affective bonds that connect individuals and ultimately allow society to exist. Which is exactly what Baam had taken from him. Edit: The Tower is also an MMO. Zahard was the hero of a Journey to the West-style mythic narrative of the first organized group to "play the game." Except that they got to the end of the newbie floors (where the guardians are friendly), freaked out, and set up a society to limit access to the first level at which the "game" actually begins tracking player status and started living off the backs of the other players. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 18:30
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On another note, does anyone else think FUG is setting Baam up as a figurehead of opposition to the current regime? It seemed like they wanted him to fight a regular and come out at least okay, so they set him up against one who they knew was too softhearted and rational to kill him. Now the word is out that he actually "beat" a Ranker. And he's been divorced from the stigma of being an Irregular (who people think of as dangerous and foreign), and instead aligned with a more familiar source of opposition to the social order. The goal from FUG's point of view, is demonstrating that someone is able to defy the system and make people start to actively think in those terms.
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Jul 6, 2012 04:34
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According to the high-ranker write-up, FUG's leader is actually a native of the tower who helped the 10 heroes or whatever carve out the Zahard Empire 
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Jul 7, 2012 01:37
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That kind of makes me wonder if FUG wasn't partly behind Wangnan's previous failures to pass the level 20 test. Despite not being a Viole-style ubermensh, he's depicted as quite clever, opportunistic, and competent. If he really is Zahard's heir, FUG may have wanted to keep him in reserve until now.
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Jul 22, 2012 00:47
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Didn't he use his reel to grab the connecter from Love? Blindsiding a ranker and grabbing something they're protecting is rather impressive.
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Jul 22, 2012 02:31
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Some great artwork in this chapter just after Ran lays the smackdown on Novick.
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Jul 30, 2012 00:05
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A few things I've gleaned about Rachel from reading translated SUI posts: - She's his favorite character - She's the anti-hero of the story, whereas Baam is the hero. - Her name is derived from the German rache, for "revenge," taken from the Sherlock Holmes story "A Study in Scarlet." Based on some of Baam's flashbacks, whatever circumstances forced her to live with Baam may have been bad enough that she actually considers killing him to be justifiable revenge. But there is certainly more to the character than we've seen.
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Jul 30, 2012 09:02
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As I understand it: - Regulars are chosen by Headon from amoung inhabitants of the Tower, as per contract with Zahard. (People live in the middle and outer Tower, but climbing the Tower occurs in the inner area). - Irregulars are chosen from the world outside the Tower by the Tower itself. This seems to require having the strength to open the door to the Tower. - When someone opens the door to the Tower, others can join them for the ride. This seems to be the case with Rachel (although Headon could be lying to manipulate her), and with the other family heads who accompanied Zahard when he entered the Tower.
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Aug 1, 2012 22:50
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^^^ Rachel isn't from inside the Tower any more than Baam is. She knew about the Tower as a fairy tale. Cbouncerrun posted:I think it might be possible to be an irregular from inside the tower. You'd just have to not get chosen and open the door yourself instead. Thst dorsn't make a lot of sense. The door an irregular has to be strong enough to open is the one that lets you enter from outside the Tower.
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Aug 2, 2012 02:40
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Sarcophallus posted:Right, she knew about the Inner Tower, with the Guardians - it doesn't necessarily say anything about whether she was from the residential outer tower or from outside of the tower. Her goal suggests that she's from the residential tower; she wants to see the stars but could have easily done so if she'd lived outside of the tower. It's only because the stars she's seen all her life are fake that she desires to see the real ones. Which then also implies that Baam was imprisoned somewhere inside of the greater tower complex himself - probably directly underneath the inner tower. Rachel then discovered him while looking for a way into the inner tower. This kind of rests on the assumption that the stars are visible everywhere outside of the Tower, and therefore anywhere without stars must be the Tower. That is an unfounded assumption, and holding it means trying to redefine terms like "irregular" to fit the your preconception, rather than reading the story being presented. Rachel is show to have a very different view of the Tower than that demonstrated by its residents. She thinks that a guardian is a "fairy" who guides "children" as they climb the Tower. Actual residents are shown as being deeply familiar with guardians and the Ranker system because they form the government that rules their lives. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 12:35
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Sarcophallus posted:That's not a fair argument because literally no one else has talked about their 'view' of the tower in that way before. What's more telling, in my opinion, is that people outside of the tower have no possible way of coming up with accurate 'folklore' about it. They could not possibly know about the guardians or ranker because no one has ever left the tower to talk about it. Baam and Rachel's general ignorance about the rules of the Tower is contrasted with the general understanding shown by newly selected Regulars in the first few 2nd Floor tests. (Another contrast between Regulars and Irregulars is that the former begin in the 2nd Floor, rather than the 1st).
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Aug 2, 2012 20:12
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There are mysterious towers with no windows or doors on Earth in some of the TUS panels that are still around. They're drawn the same way as the Tower in in one of Rachel's dreams of being at the top. However, there is no real evidence that the Tower is one of these. It's just a neat tidbit that shows SUI playing around with the same concept in some of his earlier conceptual work.
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Aug 3, 2012 05:54
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Genocyber posted:What are you talking about? TUS is the larger setting that ToG takes place in. Some of the stories from it used to be available online, but the author pulled them when ToG came out because he wants to refine them and possibly publish them properly later on.
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Aug 3, 2012 09:44
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Yeah, she basically (I dunno why this is spoiler material since it is old old news) is the liaison who brokered both Baam's betrayal and set him back on his path (presumably to FUG) afterwards.
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Aug 6, 2012 10:26
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Thus "liaison." She seems clearly an intermediary to me, but also a hugely important one, since she is entrusted with all the direct hands-on work. Obviously if you're getting your hands dirty like that, you're ultimately low on the totem pole. But only relatively speaking. (Her job when she lost her eye was to prevent Baam from advancing via the Crown Game, she just lost her eye as part of a successful gambit to provoke him into leaving the throne. I don't think she wants revenge, and she hasn't shown any signs of resenting him.) Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Aug 6, 2012 |
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Aug 6, 2012 19:36
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Guides are kind of weird. Its an elite role that seemd to require a special connection to the Tower itself. Evan Edrok is actually in the top 100 rankers, for example, which might actually make him the highest ranked character to actually appear so far. The rank reflects their noncombat abilities, though. I really doubt the Hwa Ryun started her climb at the same time as Baam and Rachel, regardless of whether she is an actual ranker. The important takeaway is that her entire presence as a 'regular' in the 2nd floor tests was shady as gently caress and was arranged to engineer the events of chapter 1. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Aug 7, 2012 |
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Aug 7, 2012 07:08
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It doesn't help that it took the translators awhile to sort out some important terms (they note that they missed the distinctiveness of the term shinsoo until it is actually explained by Lee-Ro, for example).
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Aug 7, 2012 08:48
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Serious Frolicking posted:So, who is Baam? Why was he imprisoned? Even weirder is how Rachel would come and go from a speck of light that he built a pile of rocks to. I'm not even sure if all of Baam's past is meant to be taken as literal, especially since he was essentially a feral child when Rachel found him.
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Aug 14, 2012 20:06
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Well, in the latest chapter it's stated clearly that he isn't from the Tower (since people in the Outer Tower are still residents of the Tower), and not even the most knowledgeable organization in the Tower knows how to leave it. So I don't think his imprisonment is related to Tower politics unless there's been a mistranslation. He could still be the "Prince of Zahard," assuming we take that to mean that he and Zahard share an ancestry or origin outside of the Tower. (Although we don't know if there is a physical location that the Tower must be entered from, or if it even has a physical presence in the outside world, it might be that Baam was being prepared to enter the Tower by people outside of it, for reasons unknown. If there is a physical Tower, Baam's cave might be just outside or even below it).
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Aug 14, 2012 21:07
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Cake Attack posted:I remember the cave he was trapped in having the Zahard ensigna somewhere in it, so that's some evidence that Baam was deliberately imprisoned by Zahard. Zahard may have brought that symbol with him from outside, though. The symbol on the wall was actually slightly different as well: instead of three dots below the eyes, there is a cross with three dots positioned around the cross. Take a look here if my explanation is confusing: http://towerofgod.wikia.com/wiki/Zahard_Family There's a lot of speculation about who the actual Prince of Zahard is, because SUI said something that indicates there might be a twist around that. However, it might also be SUI trolling his fans, because he does that. Edit: It occurs to me that Baam could have been placed outside the Tower if that was the result of the Zahard/Phantiminium meeting. Phantiminium is an exis, who are basically gods in the larger setting. So he probably could get someone out of the Tower. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Aug 14, 2012 |
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Aug 14, 2012 22:25
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Yeah. I doubt he'll even show up, since SUI considers him too powerful to effectively use. I guess he was put there to be a link to the wider setting and help him get some momentum behind his revision of Talze Uzer Story, but if they need a way to have someone leave the Tower he might be convenient as well. (TUS and several other stories set in the same universe were available on the author's blog before TOG started, so people have read the original versions of them. SUI pulled them because they weren't really professional quality and were more like his portfolio in a sense, and he wants to redo the stories professionally at some point).
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Aug 14, 2012 23:02
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Pierson posted:From the text and how far they're going it seems like FUG are just totally backed into a corner. I think that it has been stated that Enryu, Phantiminium, and Urek Mazino were the only irregulars to enter the Tower between the arrival of Zahard and the 10 Families and Baam/Rachel's arrival. Unlike Baam and Rachel, though, those three were already killing machines upon entry to the Tower. So this is probably the first chance FUG has had to get real leverage on an Irregular. It took thousands of years for their chance to arrive, and who knows when they'll get another shot at it?
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Aug 21, 2012 20:33
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For sure. Although Mazino has been building his own somewhat subversive organization (Wing Tree), but that means that 1) he doesn't have the support to take on Zahard directly, and 2) he doesn't want to work with FUG.
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Aug 21, 2012 20:41
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You could well be right. I kind of take that to implicitly mean "get to the real top of the Tower," which is the source of tension with Zahard. There isn't really enough evidence for me to make a strong argument for my interpretation, though.
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Aug 22, 2012 06:15
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I think FUG is meant to be read as sort of like a Yakuza-style crime sydicate. Not cartoonishly evil per se, just utterly ruthless in pursuit of their goals.
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Aug 23, 2012 02:22
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The Company's translation is out. It has some notes from SUI at the end: http://www.batoto.net/read/_/125792/tower-of-god_v2_ch28_by_the-company
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Aug 23, 2012 14:31
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Mazino gives off a definite "Goku" vibe in the Baek Ryun profile as well. Powerful, kind-hearted, but a bit of an idiot.
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Sep 11, 2012 08:00
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I thought the interesting thing was Baam hearing another Irregular who has seen the sky basically say what Rachel has been saying word for word.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:26
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Miffler posted:The fact it's Broodwar is a nice touch. It's competitive Starcraft. Pre-Broodwar effectively doesn't exist.
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Oct 26, 2012 09:54
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In terms of conveying what it seems to mean, I think that Baang would probably be best translated as "object." Myun is normally translated as "size" or "surface," but English word for what the translators are going for is "volume." Soo is shinsoo density within a Baang. So wave controllers vary in how many Objects they can make and control, the Volume of space they can enclose in an object, and how Dense they can make an object.
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Nov 26, 2012 13:00
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You're welcome. I'm just looking for a more intuitive English word that doesn't contradict anything like their translation notes and such, though, not actually translating anything myself or anything.
Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Nov 26, 2012 |
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Nov 26, 2012 21:22
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The endnotes are interesting. The Workshop has something to do with Baam's red skeleton (when Wangnan hit him with the non-shinsoo bomb), it seems. According to the Wiki, the Workshop also exists outside the Tower and (if I remember correctly) can make artificial lifeforms. I think they are explicitly mentioned as not knowing how to leave the Tower, though. Still, if he had been created for the purpose of entering the Tower, it would explain a lot about his living conditions when Rachel found him. Of course, the skeleton could also be something FUG had added to Baam.
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Dec 3, 2012 11:19
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The area on the first floor with the White Steel Eel was similar. The translation might just be awkwardly saying that the tank was another area of unusual Shinsoo density. I guess the lobster thing is an example of what makes Slayers living gods in the eyes of FUG members. I wonder if they are related to the floor guardians? Headon could probably provide that sort of thing, and he seems to be allied with FUG at the very least. (On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out Headon being at the centre of any number of plot twists.)
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Dec 19, 2012 13:56
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This scan had some problems as well. But it was tolerable. Suddenly some pretty big comedy-of-errors type plotting with Koon's team meeting a teammate of Baam's without Baam present. And of course neither even know him by the same name.
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Dec 24, 2012 10:02
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If they figure it out without him being physically present, it will be by describing his personality and the effect it has on people around him. There are only so many shonen protagonists with the Power of Friendship out there.
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Dec 24, 2012 18:22
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Rabbit-ears-girl looks a lot like Rachel. Slightly darker hair, but the right eye color. Maybe she overheard Koon after all?
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Jan 15, 2013 03:51
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Nice payoff, with more promised for next week. Poor Teddy though  Casano is in for a world of hurt when he shows his face.
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Jan 27, 2013 20:52
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