rrayaton

Case in point about the item descriptions: Last Resort. For this, really only slight spoilers, if only for everything that the first three chapters imply.

Right of the bat, for reference to people who haven’t played or watched the game:

The Puppet Frenzy is the instigating event of the story, where automated puppets powered by Ergo - crystallized stones which carry powerful energy - have been running rogue and destroyed the City of Krat.

P (or Pinocchio) is the protagonist, a puppet created by Giuseppe Geppetto. It’s implied early on that Geppetto designed him to look like his (presumably deceased) son. Out of all the cast, most refer to him as Geppetto’s puppet, but Geppetto himself always calls him ‘son’, and one character gives you a boarding school uniform that 1) Geppetto gave to them for safe-keeping, 2) has already been worn before, and 3) fits P exactly.

P is never referred to in-game by a name, so don’t try look up if he is ever referred to by name in-game unless you have finished Malum District/Rosa Isabelle Street, where you get almost explicit confirmation that P is designed off of Geppetto’s son, and the first indicators of what Geppetto Jr, the inspiration for P, is named.

YOU WILL GET SPOILERS IF YOU DO.

(In other words, I suspected that P was based off Geppetto’s son, figured we would learn said son’s name later, but I wanted to know if P himself would ever be referred to by either P/Pinocchio. Fucked around with fire and found out. Literally just before watching the Rosa Isabelle street play through.

To possibly save someone else from spoilers/confirmation - no, P isn’t referred to by name in-game. Geppetto’s son gets his name mentioned, eventually, but not P).

Surprisingly, didn’t spoil me as much, as I’m far too used to falling into media where someone gets revived or possesses a doll or something or has an identity/memory-based crises.

I still am not sure if P is himself, with his own ego, or if he is literally Carlos’ soul/memories or whatever actually stuffed into a puppet body.

Focusing back on the lore regarding the Last Resort:

I’m not sure if this is because that implies Geppetto did know the Puppet Frenzy (Last Resort is an insta-death item with a description that says Geppetto made it if his son ever woke up and went into a frenzy, needing to be insta-brought down so more adjustments could be made) was going to happen or what caused it, which he hasn’t ever denied outright.

He phrases his words in that he makes it clear how ludicrous the thought of it is - but he never directly says, “No, I didn’t cause the Frenzy”. Only that it upsets him that people resent and blame him for it occurring, for lying that he worked with the Alchemists to cause it.

The other explanation is that, he designed it because P is an experimental attempt, a prototype puppet, at the reconstruction/revival of his son.

Emphasis on experimental prototype and son alternatively.

If Geppetto did know the frenzy was going to happen, because P is a puppet, obviously he would be concerned. All puppets went on a frenzy for unknown reasons (up until Venigni posits its due to corruption or compromisation of their Ergo, as well as the Ergo Wavelengths they run and receive orders on).

On the other hand, maybe it’s because P is the first attempt and is at risk - or even has gone into Frenzy before - each time Geppetto woke him up, to see if he functioned properly.

Or, maybe his son was just Like That in life when it came to battle and would have chosen fight over flight any day, the moment he woke up.

(I have thoughts on that too, Geppetto’s relationship with his son and how that colors every action he makes towards P, because Geppetto repeats some very interesting phrases to P. Frequently.)

Besides the Last Resort and Item thoughts I have, moving to the storyline: therefore MUCH LARGER SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT.

now that that’s out of the way…

—————————————-

GIANGIO YOU RAT BASTARD YOU REALLY LYING ABOUT MORE THAN BEING A PHARMACIST, HUH???

I swear to god, I’ve been suspicious of Alidoro this whole time (who totally isn’t going to turn out to be Eugenie’s secret older brother or something), but GIANGIO??

I knew he was lying about not being an alchemist, but the hell do you mean you can’t touch the Gold Coin Fruit Tree because you have Petrification Disease?

You sure it’s not because you are an Alchemist? Part of the Alchemists who created Gold Coin Fruit Trees, if this isn’t literally the one from Guillaume’d legend that may or may not curse people afterwards.

THE GOLD COIN FRUIT TREE WHICH IS CREATED FRON LISTENERS VIA HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION?????

(Which I’ve known the Alchemists do because I looked at item descriptions, and uh - let’s just say that the Salamander Daggers and Acidic Spears are quite interesting when it comes to details on Alchemist experiments and “purification rituals” of defectors).

(On that note, it had to either be Giangio or Alidoro in the banned foreigner’s interview, which says ALCHEMISTS REALLY FUCKING BAD/RELIC OF TRISMEGISTUS REALLY BAD/HUNDREDS WILL DIE BECAUSE ALCHEMIST CONSPIRACY, with Medoro.

(A lot more than a hundred people died. A hundred people died on the first day of the Puppet Frenzy alone).

Alidoro has acknowledged that he doesn’t use his real name, it’s a nickname. Claims to be descended from a great noble family of Krat, but only he knows whether he’s telling the truth or not.

He saved Eugenie (when she was abandoned as a child or during the Krat disaster is unclear to me). Eugenie - or, her family at least - came from the Krat-universe’s version of Japan, to the far East.

In the foreigner’s report, the ex-alchemist who warned Medoro was originally from the Far East. Which, though we can’t trace it back to Alidoro, we can trace back to Eugenie who was saved by Alidoro.

Could be either coincidence or false herring, but in any game, you generally want to at least consider the possibility that there is no such thing as coincidences when it comes to hiding subtle plot points that will otherwise come and bite you on the ass when you least expect it.

Meanwhile: Giangio is a liar. He’s lying about his occupation as a pharmacist, when he is/was an Alchemist. He claims he has the Petrification Disease, but we don’t know if that’s true. He claims he can’t touch the Gold Fruit Coin Tree, or at least he thinks so, because of the Disease. We can’t ascertain whether that’s the truth or not, given Sophia’s truth about where the trees come from. Alchemist experiments.

He claims he uses the coins we give him to treat himself, but we don’t know that’s true. I’m extremely suspicious of the cure he gives Antonia, given everything that went down with the Miracle Cure and Simon Manus, but he was upfront with the fact that Antonia would die faster - if more peacefully - after taking the cure.

Giangio aside, thoughts on what the Ergo - Petrification Disease mean for P.

Looked at Someone’s Memory (with the M-branded brooch) and how it’s already been worn, and the fact that Geppetto calls P son, from the get-go, have known that P was obviously modeled after Geppetto’s actual son, who was probably dead. The M is an important identifier, and promptly moved on.

Mostly forgot about it until we reached Malum District, and find that Monad Charity House Guide, which mentions it was also called the Rose Estate which was interesting to me because - back at Venigni Works, the Landmark Guide about the Rose Estate was banned and damaged.

(having just read through the part of Pinocchio was hung by Red Fox and Black Cat in the book, I get the gold coin reference and the blindness, now. Here’s hoping they don’t try to hang him in other playthroughs if you refuse to help them).

On the guide, we get to learn about how the Monad Charity House was a home for the impoverished and orphaned, and had the Rose Estate attached by sponsorship of the Monad family to train kids as Workshop Technicians, Stalkers, and Alchemists.

Given the Estate Landmark Guide was destroyed -

Totally doesn’t bode well for the likely dead Geppetto Jr, (who looked peevish in his portrait commissioned by his father already, aka annoyed as hell), and by sheer courtesy of the fact that it is a collectible, I was thinking - “so the unnamed kid being called a donkey is obviously going to be Geppetto’s kid, and he was friends with a kid called Romeo, and maybe we’ll met up with Romeo at some point.”

(Even if the unnamed kid wasn’t Geppetto’s son, this Romeo kid was still obviously going to be important to the storyline).

If the school uniform belonged to a boarding school, with an M-initialed brooch - Geppetto’s son had to have attended the Monad House boarding school and lived in the Rose Estate, and was friends, or at least acquainted with a kid named Romeo.

(I DID NOT YET KNOW OF THE KING OF PUPPETS. Nor did I think we’d get to learn P’s ‘real’ name - Geppetto’s son’s name - at this point. Which makes Geppetto’s sheer intensity of: we need to take him down + I’m so proud of you for taking him down + someone got to you Very Interesting to Me).

Go back to Hotel Krat, and if you speak to Antonia after getting to Rosa Isabelle key, she’ll tell you that she knew about the Gold Coin Fruit Tree and had sealed it away - because the Krat Disaster caused Alchemists to begin arguing amongst themselves over it.

Many people died or went missing, which Antonia calls the real tragedy of the Rose Estate disaster.

So: I can’t tell if she’s referring to them as separate incidents or if it coincided with the start of the Krat Disaster, but - whatever went down at the Rose Estate/Monad House (the boarding school that Geppetto’s son was raised at and went to), meant that a lot of people died or disappeared. Including Alchemists, probably.

Likely, including Geppetto’s son (sure that’s not why you stopped working with the Alchemists, Antonia? Because Geppetto’s son died or disappeared?).

Then we reach Rosa Isabelle street, and find that book on the Rose Estate incident:

There was a mass outbreak of the Petrification Disease at the estate, with No Survivors. The paper implied that some sort of mutation in the victims took place, which authorities pinned on the disease - which we know isn’t exactly the case, if you’ve found the Miracle Cure/Doctor’s Confession and Slum Resident’s scribbled notes.

Shore stole the recipe for his Miracle Cure from the Alchemists. Though he doesn’t say what happened to the people who took it (the immediate indicator that, oh no there be mutations/zombies afoot), once you get to the Frangelico Cathedral and there are mentions of refugees there with the Petrification disease - oh, would you like at that, strangely mutated people who attack on sight?

Couldn’t be the cure recipe that Shore stole - from the Alchemists - which, though he recreated it perfectly, likely wasn’t perfect in the first place. In the Malum District, the resident recalled how ‘everything changed’ when the man passed out blue medicine - most likely leading to the appearance of Carcasses, and why the resident might not have been able to positively ID his deceased brother. The man had blue hair in his cane, which - Sophia? Sophia?????? Giangio also has blue hair I think, can’t tell. Maybe him. Was an alchemist. If he really ever left the alchemist’s and wasn’t just trying to get to the tree on their behalf.

I’m assuming that this ‘mutation’ references Carcasses, at least. Authorities shut down the investigation to keep the disease from spreading through the rest of Krat. (Totally not for the Alchemists - whose own leader ended up dying, and is potentially Sophia’s dad or relative, courtesy of that concert flyer listing “Isabelle and Sophia M.” Because ISABELLE MONAD WAS VALENTINUS’ WIFE - to cover up that they caused a pseudo-zombie apocalypse in miniature).

(We aren’t told when this happened prior to the storyline. Touched on above how Antonia’s statement confused me about the timing.

I’m fairly certain it happened well before the events of the game - the Krat Disaster that everyone brings up, which I assume is the Frenzy and the current epidemic of Petrification Disease. Because that’s city-wide and not just trapped within a single location (Rose Estate). Also it probably took forever for Geppetto to design such a human like puppet as P. Which…doesn’t bode well for whatever happened with Romeo, who still looks just as lifelike…

It was probably obviously to a lot of other people, but it still confused the hell out of me when people started saying the Krat Disaster because then I started wondering if the Rose Estate incident had occurred at the very start of the frenzy).

IN OTHER WORDS:

Geppetto’s son was likely killed in the Rose Incident. Given that Romeo was his friend and likely also attended Rose Estate (no clue what his in game dialogue was about, other than he’s obviously warning P about something + plus his play with Geppetto), this is probably also whatever led to him being turned into the King of Puppets (I saw those experiment notes!), as well as the death of Valentinus Monad - previous head of the Alchemists (possibly Sophia’s dad or some other relative).

This means:

He caught the Petrification Disease and died.

He caught the disease, was given the ‘cure’ and turned into a Carcass.

If had been trained in combat, might have tried to help fight those who had been turned into Carcasses, and ended up being killed in combat.

That said, Geppetto is seeming more and more of a rat bastard (this is before I get into his speech patterns still).

90% sure he (maybe) knows the King of Puppets was Romeo. As in, his son’s friend, Romeo. Or at least would have known his son. Which concerns me because Geppetto was so adamant they needed to take down the King of Puppets. Who was his son’s friend.

Very interesting, as Romeo drops a Monad House Graduation Necklace (as told by Sophia later). And the item description says that Romeo’s friend ‘C’ gave it to him as a present, because:

“The boy resented his father for not showing any interest in him.”

(GEPPETTO).

When we get back to Hotel Krat, when talking to P about the necklace, Sophia notes that P doesn’t look well - and, after a moment, P can hear someone call him “Carlo”.

Given we just fought Romeo, who is repeatedly calling P by some sort of name you can’t read, and the necklace he dropped is initialed with a C, AND the fact that P was designed after Geppetto’s son - this indicates the voice was Romeo’s, when he had been human, and he was referring to P as “Carlo”.

(Interestingly, pretty sure this happened back when P first met Geppetto. You could hear whispers in the cutscene when he’s looking over himself, and before the screen cuts to Geppetto, the word “son”.)

So, we now have:

P(inocchio), Geppetto’s puppet, designed off his son.

Carlo Geppetto, Giuseppe Geppetto’s son. Deceased ar the Rose Estate in 188X or 189X.

(personally I think the game takes place around 1889 or 1899.

The game is loosely set during the Belle Epoque era of France, and Krat takes a lot of inspiration from France (though Pinocchio is an Italian fairytale with Florentine influences, and that’s going to lead me down a rabbit hole, probably).

The Belle Epoque lasted from 1871-1914. In game, one of the Grand Exhibition signs at the central station has the year on it (the middle scratched out to leave a timeline ambiguous) ending in a 9. Also, telephones exist in Krat, but they’re fairly new, and phones were introduced to irl France around the 1890s.

Hence why I think the game is most likely to take place in either 1889 or 1899. The former is close to the earliest days of telephone introduction, and the latter the later.

This doesn’t clarify Carlo’s date of death much, other than he had to have died before the game takes place, and Geppetto would have needed an unknown about of time to construct P in his image).

To expand on Carlo and Geppetto.

Clearly, even though Geppetto mourns his son (or the idea he has of his son) to the point of trying to recreate Carlo by creating P (and there’s however Romeo was turned into a puppet, which - ERGO ERGO ERGO), there is no love lost for Carlo considering his father. 

He is annoyed by sitting for a portrait his father had commissioned, and clearly, Geppetto was the type of father who favored his work over spending time with his son - leading Carlo to, presumably, come to the conclusion that due to a lack of interest in him and his activities, Geppetto didn’t care for him at all.

He likely resented his father for it.

And now,

GEPPETTO’S SPEECH PATTERNS.

“Always be a good boy to me.”

“No resentment, no lies.”

“Precious”.

This has ticked my fancy from the moment I realized it is a recurring motif in the way that Geppetto speaks to P. He wants P to be obedient to him, to be a good boy, to listen to his father.

Even if he sends him into danger, to not build a resentment towards him, to never lie to him, as lies can cause a person unbelievable amounts of grief (he never outright says he doesn’t know what caused the Frenzy, though he implies as much in the way he speaks about. The question is if he’s telling the truth).

And he always, without fail, tells P to be careful because he is precious. His precious son. Someone as precious as you.

Precious, precious, precious.

P is precious to Geppetto…but in what way?

Not sure if he’s precious because Geppetto literally can’t differentiate P from his own son, or if something else is in the works for P as a possession, as a tool, as a precursor to a better model puppet to truly revive Carlo - memory and all. Because even if Geppetto calls him his son, because P still isn’t fully Carlo (the Carlo that Geppetto remembers).

And it’s very interesting to have said on repeat over and over from the instant P wakes up, as it could be interpreted as:

Geppetto’s regret for not saying that to Carlo as often as he could have. For neglecting his son for his work, to the point where it led said son to resent him for the absence of his father in his life.

Conditioning. Conditioning P to know he loves and cares for him, so that he wouldn’t disobey Geppetto as Carlo might have in life (maybe he has trauma regarding Carlo not listening to him and that led to his son’s death at Monad House. Or maybe it’s just cause he Is actually Planning Something and needs P to be loyal and willing to die for him at a moment’s notice.

Could be either or both or neither and more.

And now: we get to the whole ergo-Petrification disease things.

Simón Manus, new head of the Alchemists, says that Ergo is produced by the Petrification Disease. It is the purified, crystallized form of the essence of human life. The Miracle Cure, perhaps once intended to treat the disease, had instead been reformulated to try and produce the same effect in people to create evolved super humans.

Presumably, he had someone spreading the cure around to fine-tune the elixir’s formula, leading to the spread of Carcasses at the Frangelico Cathedral and Malum District (Black Rabbit Brotherhood was selling corpses and Ergo to the Alchemists in a bid to escape Krat).

The exact process of disease->stone-like cadaver->ergo is not clear to me. Doesn’t explain how raw ergo crystals sprouted in the Relic of Trismegistus (perhaps bodies of the farmers and animals killed in the initial collapse of West Krat by in the c. 1270s-1290s), or now mined in the modern day without committing genocide via intentionally spreading the disease and throwing bodies into the Relic to crystallize completely.

Does their whole body eventually crystallize or just their organs (Giangio mentions the disease leads to organ failure). Is Ergo literally harvested from the cadavers directly? As much as it is oroduced via Petrification disease, does it also occur naturally (plants, animals)?

All that aside, Sophia also tells P that this is why Puppets will sometimes develop their own egos, sometimes speak of memories that don’t belong to them, or even ‘regain’ their previous sense of self.

All Ergo was once human. It carried the lifespan of a human person, as well as their memories. All puppets run off of Ergo (crystals are set in their chests. You can see the cavities on in-game models, and Geppetto setting a Ergo crystal into a puppet in the opening movie).

(And I’d love to see how that actually works, how they convert energy within crystallized ergo to energy without destroying the crystal itself, unless the crystal needs to be replaced like a battery, or if it absorbs ambient life essence or other ergo spores, and the technicality of how the puppets absorb that energy - especially because Ergo can be measured in wavelengths when used as energy…)

Puppets run off of crystallized life essence and memory.

Which. Means.

If Carlo Geppetto died of the Petrification Disease, he, too, would have become Ergo along with every other person dead of the disease.

If Geppetto had the Ergo crystals that originated from Carlo, the purest form of the essence of his son’s life taken from - or even all that was left - of his son’s body, not yet converted into energy and wavelengths and merged with every other bit of Ergo already used in Krat’s technology, he could try to bring his son back to life.

Of course, he’d need to see if it was even possible - and here: enter Romeo.

When Romeo is defeated, he also drops the Burnt-White King’s Ergo.

When the boy opened his eyes, he found himself sitting on a throne that he had not asked for. When he sought his friend of the past, he clung to his memories even though he knew there was no going back.

Romeo who, even as a puppet, still clings to and maintains his memories of when he was alive as a human.

Geppetto created the puppets. Romeo, revived as a puppet, or even experimented on in the near-end stages of life and transformed into one, is an incredibly detailed and like-life model (compared to Polendina, Pulcinella, the late Melody, etc…)

In other words, I think Geppetto brought Romeo back as the King of Puppets, experimenting and trying to find ways to revive Carlo and ensure that it would be his son that came back.

Would check the box willing to become god or the devil. P has been called the devil’s puppet. Also. GEPPETTO USED TO WORK WITH SIMON MANUS.

My suspicions of Geppetto are not helped by the fact that Simon said they used to work together; even if they differed in opinion on whether to cure or utilize the Petrification Disease.

Simón. Who is actively spreading the disease and turning people into Carcasses via the cure, developing the elixir for the sake of ‘evolution’. And whatever that huge machine he has, presumably on the isle, which absorbed the ergo from the first four bosses.

My wilder theory on top of that is: Romeo was trying to warn P/Carlo about Geppetto’s control over him, whether or not he’s in leagues with the Alchemists/whatever caused the frenzy (because given the low quality ergo, the absorption of ergo from the bosses, the foreigner report that totally wasn’t from Alidoro (he rescued Eugenie in the past, Eugenie is from the far East, the foreigner ex-alchemist was also from the far East, having changed his name for his own safety, and Alidoro himself this isn’t his real name but a nickname….…)etc - I do think it was the Alchemists who caused the frenzy.

(On the other hand: it is questionable if P is Carlo or not. If he has his own ego, separate from Carlo’s, or if it is simply Carlo with a case of amnesia - the identity crisis you could put him through as he becomes more human is fun.

He could only partially have his memories, via Ergo, either way the ego goes - hence why Geppetto assumes that P does have some memories of the way Krat looked before the disaster, but doesn’t remember much beyond Rosa Isabelle street).

Listen:

Romeo showed Geppetto pulling the P-Organ out of P’s chest and placing it into a blank puppet.

In other words, Geppetto was killing P by removing his heart, in order to place P/Carlos’s Ergo and the P-organ into another blank puppet, in order to bring that other puppet to life.

Last Resort was a kill-device that Geppetto made for P, if he woke up and went on a frenzy. Was a necessary evil with adjustments were required for P.

Whose to say that it hasn’t been used on P before?

If P doesn’t, in Geppetto’s eyes, remain a good boy to him - if his son, if Carlo, goes down the same path of resenting and not listening to him, if P is not Carlos in the end - That’s lights out for P.

Hit reset on Carlo. For as long as it takes for Geppetto’s son to come back the way he remembers him. The way he idealizes him.

Always a good boy to him. No resentment. No lies.

For my full detail thoughts:

It’s so baffling to me that they are hiring AI “artists”. When people use AI for their creative works, it’s because they are too lazy to hire actual people to do the work themselves, like people using AI for their games instead of hiring an artist, or people using AI for their books to edit them instead of hiring an editor, amongst other examples. Of course all of those are wrong, but what I’m trying to say is why would you ever hire someone to do AI for you? Are you even more lazy that you can’t type a bunch of words on a computer?

It’s peak laziness, literally anything just to not work with real artists.

Now something more nuanced is that we have to think of who made this decision, because I heavily doubt this was a decision that was agreed upon by everyone in the company, it’s possible this is the choice of higher ups and that the creative part of the team has nothing to do with this decision, and why we need to remain civil and not make assumptions.

To put an example of a similar situation. Overwatch is a game that had planned a PvE mode for its sequel, the people behind the PvE gave all their passion and hard work into the project, but because Blizzard didn’t think it would give them enough sales, they cancelled the work. The creative team behind it got harassment and threats over a choice that wasn’t theirs, they were blamed and demonized when more than anyone else, they wanted that project to happen.

Like think of the art book that was released a while ago, where it shows all the passion that went into creating the art direction on this game. Does it seem that the people who worked so hard on it would suddenly be a-okay with their hard work being replaced by AI?

Which is why I think it’s very important at the moment not to make assumptions. Sure it could be true that maybe everyone was on board with this choice, but if that’s not the case, then innocent people are being hurt and blamed over something they had no control over.

I think (and hope) the best case scenario is that they don’t use AI and that they make an apology. Thought even in that scenario, I think I wouldn’t blame anyone for still not wanting to support them and not thinking that they would be true to their word and not use AI. They have broken the trust people had in them and I don’t think that it’s going to be an easy thing to repair; honestly it shouldn’t be an easy thing to repair because even in the best case scenario I don’t want them to simply get a slap on the wrist for doing something that should have never happened.

I can say that I’m proud the fandom has very vocal on the official discord server and other places that they are against AI being used. Glad to know we are not one of those fandoms we’re people are either indifferent or supportive AI.

Lastly it feels needless to say but I’m saying it anyways. Support real artists, there are so many talented artists, writers or other creative types in this fandom that deserve all the support for the things they create.