Has anyone noticed that it’s implied that Sword of Mana and Dawn of Mana are implied by Heroes of Mana(which claims the Benevodons including Zable Fahr which resembles Medusa’s Boss Form in Sword of Mana are manifestations of the Echoes of Mavolia which possessed Anise/Medusa) to be happening at the same time?
The fact that the Echoes manifested in a form resembling Sword of Mana Medusa’s Boss Form implies that the Zable Fahr manifestation of the Echoes was possessing Medusa in Sword of Mana while Medusa herself was possessing Ritzia in Dawn of Mana… Imagine how Medusa felt when she was returned to her body only for it to die due to being fatally wounded. No wonder she is so enraged at the world!
This makes the Benevodon of Darkness the Woman Behind the Man to most of the Mana Games aside from Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy Adventure!
But what exactly are the Echoes supposed to be? Heroes of Mana establishes that Anise obtaining the power of the Mana Tree and failing to become a Mana Goddess made her exist as long as Mana itself exists in the Multiverse which if Emperor Vandole in Sword of Mana is to be believed is normal for those who obtain the Mana Power.
Even so this while giving us a reason for Medusa and Vandole to be immortal doesn’t explain what the Echoes are.
There is one hint that could reveal their true nature: The Thanatos. The servants of the Echoes are suspiciously similar to the Dark Lich Thanatos who struck a bargain with Mavolia for immortality so the Demon Realm fulfilling it’s end of the bargain by having him survive his defeat as the Echoes is easily imaginable.
This pretty much makes Thanatos the main villain of Dawn of Mana and Trials of Mana alongside the Kings of Mavolia.
What we need to discover is who was King of Mavolia before Stroud. The Thanatos Servants of the Echoes crowning him King indicates that Dark Lich Thanatos was King of Mavolia but who ran things before him? The deal with Mavolia was for immortality not dominion so Thanatos had to have killed the previous ruler of Mavolia who we know usurped Shade…
Considering Vandole himself made a deal with Mavolia could he have been King? Was the deal to turn the King of Mavolia from a pure Elemental Spirit of Darkness into a Mana Elemental Spirit of Darkness in exchange for gaining the throne of the Demon Realm that serves as the Elemental Plane of Darkness?
Everything seems to indicate that the game order is Adventures of Mana > Secret of Mana(Julius’s failed reenactment of the fall of his father’s Empire) > Sword of Mana(Julius’s reenactment of the events of Adventures of Mana) & Dawn of Mana(Thanatos’s resurrection scheme) > Heroes of Mana > Trials of Mana.
Trials of Mana is the fallout of Thanatos’s failed schemes and Thanatos ascending is the result of Julius Vandole trying in Secret of Mana to recreate his father’s downfall from Adventures of Mana only to be backstabbed at the worst moment.
Sword of Mana of course was a more successful reenactment of Adventures of Mana due to the fact that Thanatos’s Echoes hijacked Medusa while Julius made sure another Thanatos could not arise due to him freezing Dyluck in ice and brainwashing Pamaela.
Of course the whole thing resulted in the creation of a Mana Goddess which of course gave Julius the idea of using her to make sure the reenactment of Adventures of Mana ended differently: by having Ritzia replace the Heroine of Sword of Mana as the sacrifice to the Mana Tree thus keeping the Heroine alive!
Of course Julius didn’t get a chance to use the Mana Power he gained from the Mana Tree to dethrone and sacrifice Ritzia due to Hero and Heroine defeating him after rejecting his offer to release Heroine from her fate of being sacrificed to the Mana Tree.
Changing the destinies of the cast in his reenactment of Adventures of Mana seems to be Julius’s goal in Sword of Mana whether it be by arranging multiple Demon look-alikes of Adventures of Mana’s Amanda to be present to take her place as Medusa’s victim, offering to save Devias or by replacing the Heroine with Ritzia…
Considering Trials of Mana reveal that Fairies can become Mana Goddesses what are the chances that Julius’s next reenactment has him sacrifice a random Fairy to a Mana Tree to create a Mana Goddess so that the Heroine doesn’t need to sacrifice herself to said Mana Tree?
Imagine what a reenactment of Adventures of Mana would look like if Julius succeeded with his plans: Heroine, Amanda(who would probably be a brainwashed Primm just to make sure she can be impersonated), Willy and Devias all alive and well!.. Then Medusa and Thanatos start causing trouble alongside His Dark Majesty(the most preferable Villain to absorb the Benevodons/Echoes of Thanatos)…
i had a tooth emergency last year during the peak of lockdown… but the dentist office was very well set up.
they’d removed most of the chairs, and all the magazines/brochures from the waiting area.
sanitizer bottles everywhere.
don’t mess around with teeth… you may be feeling a little twinge, but nasty stuff could be brewing beneath the surface.
i ignored a twinge once… and it resulted in needing full-blown surgery
(which ended up causing issues with my trigeminal nerve. RIP “normal” life)
… the resulting deaths aren’t counted as part of the pandemic death-toll, and will still be happening for years to come… so it’s hard to say.
maybe years from now when all the death statistics can be compiled and compared to death trends from previous years, we may have more of an insight.
but don’t make excuses.
if you can feel it, that should be enough for you to treat it as an emergency.
if you’re concerned about their covid protocols, a dental office which is well prepared will be willing to discuss your concerns with you when you call to book an appointment.
Honestly, I’m not one for censorship in any form simply because allowing fools to spout idiocy in public where they can be seen and heard allows me to avoid them.
But at the end of the day, Blizz is a business and if they choose to censor a word or words, such is their right as a platform.
What I do wonder though, and only half seriously, is do they realize the pet’s name from Maldraxxus a.k.a. Jellycat violates their own TOS?
Seriously, try to type it and post. It’s hilarious!
A couple of years ago, there was a book written by a gentleman if African descent titled racial epithet which was precisely about the racism he’d experienced growing up.
A bunch of melanin challenged people who were self-proclaimed “allies” of people like this gentlemen had the book pulled from a school library because their precious and lilly melanin challenged children were “offended” and “triggered”.
While racial epithets are horrible things to use, I would rather hear them spoken loudly and clearly by those who use them so I can avoid them.
But again, Blizzard can do exactly what they want with their platform. But idiots are a clever breed and will find away around the censorship with clever uses of already in-game terms.
Back in TBC, I reported a long time friend for changing his name to “Nagaplease” because it was a clear subversion of the prohibition against racial slurs.
But should Blizzard then go back and remove/change every instance of the word “Naga” because a relative few used it to subvert the established rules?
I don’t know the answer but I’d rather have racists out and proud where I can avoid them instead of hiding their hideous inclinations and me, being unaware, associating with them.
And for what it’s worth, Blizzard didn’t deem my then former friend’s name problematic until well into Cataclysm.
Humanity, as a whole, is self-centered and self-important. We tend to forget we are, at best, only animals with delusions of grandeur.
As I told Surfy earlier, life is a dump. Best we can do is keep digging through the trash, cherish the treasures we do find, and hope we can find someone whose company we truly enjoy to dig with.
I guess I’ll hide in here for a while, it’s actually really sad to see these posts.
