#plot inconsistencies

Analysis and criticisms

Ever since her debut, Verdona had changed something fundamental with the Tennyson family. Because she was Max's old partner, that would make their two sons, Carl and Frank, half-anodites, and in-turn, that would also make their grandchildren quarter-anodites. But, just because they're half-anodite or quarter-anodite, it doesn't mean that they immediately possess mana-based powers. A descended anodite would have to inherit an anodite spark in order to grow and inherit their powers, and Gwen was the lucky child out of her generation to possess one. So, long story short, Verdona is Ben and Gwen's magical grandma, and the Tennyson family is now presented as a strange family of regular folk, plumber agents, and magical energy beings. Everything's fine and dandy, right?

Here's the thing: I think Verdona is a huge timeline inconsistency. Let's go back to the Ben 10 episode, "The Visitor". According to the episode, Max met Ben and Gwen's grandmother in St. Louis, hence why he looked so melancholic in the beginning of the episode, either that they split up or something bad really happened to Ben and Gwen's grandma. That immediately contradicts the Ultimate Alien episode "Moonstruck", where a young Max met a runaway Verdona in a diner in the middle of the desert. Sure, you could say that they probably had a later date in St. Louis, or maybe they broke up with each other in St. Louis, but still, it felt kind of contradicting whether or not Verdona was planned to be Ben and Gwen's grandma. It makes me wonder if UAF was intended to be a soft reboot or not. And speaking of the episode mentioned above, where does Xylene fit in this? I could try to pry into it further, but that's a can of worms I don't want to discuss about now.

Here's another thing about Verdona: she's a confusing, frustrating character to understand. Verdona had only appeared in three episodes throughout the course of UAF and in the game, Vilgax Attacks, and two of these appearances depicted most of her negative traits. For example, in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made of?", she harbored huge favoritism of Gwen over her grandson, Ben, due to Gwen's anodite spark and potential to become a full-fledged anodite, especially after Ben presented his Omnitrix to her. She wanted Gwen to become an anodite and take her to her home planet so she could train her into becoming a powerful, free-spirited energy being. When Gwen politely declined, Verdona takes matter in her own hands, strips herself of her old human disguise (as in she removed her human skinsuit), and battles against her own kids (and Kevin) so she could transform her granddaughter into an anodite by force. To think that a free-spirited anodite like Verdona would respect Gwen's personal choice to remain on Earth with her family as a human, but no, she had to go ham on her own kids. Later on in the episode "Girl Trouble", after dealing with her rebellious granddaughter, Sunny, Verdona continued to express favoritism of Gwen in front of the rebellious anodite, and she still expressed her desire for Gwen to come with her to Anodyne after all this time. Grandmother of the year, ladies and gentlemen.

You would think that Verdona is a good enough character to impact Ben, Gwen, and the Tennyson family, and yet, all she left them were a few bad impressions and generational pressure. I mean, sure that Verdona helped her kids out with dealing with the rambunctious Sunny in "Girl Trouble", and sure that she helped the main trio teleport towards Anur Phaetos during the events of Vilgax Attacks, but that's about two things she done some good for our main characters. If Max hadn't made his sacrifice in "Max Out" and wound up getting teleported to the Null Void, I wonder how would he react towards Verdona's attitude towards Ben and Gwen. Hmm, I wonder if that's how he and Verdona split. Maybe there were tensions between the two after Max found out Verdona's carefree, yet near-selfish attitude towards normal, non-powerful people. Maybe Verdona tried to make anodites out of her own kids, Frank and Carl, but later realized that they didn't possess the anodite spark and gave up on them. Maybe Verdona realized that she couldn't live such a normal life in an average, simple world like Earth, and so, once Frank and Carl are old enough to fly the coop, she decided to split from Max and leave Earth, at least that's how I see it.

What could have been...

You know, I feel like Verdona could have been an actual antagonist (not entirely a villain, though) in the series had her actions and attitudes weren't just waved off in a whim by the narrative. If so, there probably could have been a family member in the Tennyson rogues gallery. Imagine if Verdona didn't hold herself back in her episode debut and revealed her true nature and attitude towards non-powerful beings. Imagine if Verdona actually tried to transform Gwen into an anodite by force (which is something that I would call "forced anodization"). Imagine if she were to constantly encounter her granddaughter multiple times throughout the series and push her into becoming an anodite, probably saying something like, "This world is holding you back, Gwen," or something like, "You don't need them anymore. The only family you'll have is me." Long ago, I looked at a deviation of Verdona being surrounded by rebel anodites (something that I mentioned in my last post on anodites) and how the artist talked about her potential as an antagonist in Gwen's small rogues gallery, as well as Verdona being a member of a rebellious, yet radical group of rogue anodites. I'd figure that, similar to Charmcaster, she could have served as another foil to Gwen, being a representation of unlimited, unrestrained power and potential, yet holding a disregard and attitude towards regular, non-powerful sentient life.

My initial idea for Verdona were to have her revamped into a siren/witch-inspired antagonist. She would have lived for a hundred years and woo a dozen men into making love with her so that she would conceive a child. And afterwards, she would then train her child into becoming a full-fledged anodite throughout their childhood, and once they're fully grown and well-trained, she would then forcefully transform them into an anodite and assimilate them entirely (both their whole body and their very power) so that Verdona herself can grow even more powerful. Wicked, ain't it? I was largely imagining her as some sort of witch, particularly one who has a physical disorder that weakens her and her very energetic structure, so she would have to rely on assimilating other fellow anodites in order to rejuvenate her body. Then, it got worse when she realized that younger anodites are twice as powerful than adult anodites. She's basically like Spectra from Danny Phantom except that she relies on positive psychological manipulation.

Here's how I imagine her backstory with Max could have played out. Back when she was young, she wooed Max with her magical charm, and he let her into his life. Little did he and his kids know, she was planning on making Carl and Frank into powerful anodites so that she would gobble them up like a hungry witch. Thankfully, Carl and Frank didn't possess the anodite spark, so she saw no use in absorbing them whole. I imagined that Max also soon realized that Verdona was actually an energy-absorbing witch and then had a nasty argument with her when he found out about her true intentions with their kids. Eventually, they split up, but not before another nasty argument involving laser guns and mana blasting. Many years later, she discovered that her granddaughter, Gwen, possess the anodite spark and is recently a wiz at her magical abilities. The events of "What Are Little Girls Made of?" would play the same, except that not only is Verdona presented as more vicious and more apathetic, but Max is also there, as I would have have him not sacrifice himself in the events of "Max Out". In fact, I would have Verdona use her anodite charm to condition him into a happy, loving grandpa who likes to bake sweet, fruity cherry pies and cook scrumptious spinach casseroles. Does this sound like something Max would cook? After Max is freed from Verdona's charms, he would then use a prototype teleportation bomb that would send Verdona far away from Earth. During the climax of the battle, we would see Verdona's true, gangly form wither into view while trying to pull herself away from the portal. After these events, Verdona, Ben and Gwen's grandmother, is now officially added to the Tennyson rogues gallery. Like I said, this is my initial idea for Verdona's revised character, of which I decided to recycle for a different character.

Alternatively, Verdona doesn't need to be a former lover of Max, and by extension, she doesn't need to be related to Carl, Frank, and Ben, only Gwen through her mother, Natalie. I was thinking about Verdona's biological relation with the Tennyson family and their anodite heritage, and I feel that it's a bit unnecessary for Ben to be quarter-anodite, same goes for Carl and Frank being half-anodite, especially since neither of them don't possess the anodite spark. So, why not make Verdona Gwen's maternal grandmother instead? It would make more sense for Natalie to be super distrustful with Verdona, considering the indication of her own mother pressuring her into becoming a full-fledged anodite during her childhood, but not to eat up, though. Once again, the events of "What Are Little Girls Made of?" would play the same, and Verdona still wants to transform Gwen into an anodite regardless of her feelings. So, what if Natalie swoops right in and uses her anodite powers against her own mother? After that, she and Gwen perform a magical spell to summon a large portal to banish Verdona far away from Earth. They then reconcile, and Natalie apologizes to Gwen for not being honest with her anodite heritage or her grandmother. Like I said before, Verdona is officially added to the Tennyson rogues gallery after these events.

Alternatively, Verdona doesn't need to be an antagonist at all. In fact, she could also have character development once she understands better of Gwen's personal choice to remain on Earth. Let's say that she would learn from the perspective of non-powerful beings and their own norms and limitations, like from her own family. She could still remain free-spirited, but she could still learn from her own attitudes and feelings, realizing that there's more to life than maintaining your free spirit or lording over your inferiors. She could even grow as a proper grandmother to Gwen and Ben, and she could still train Gwen with her magic, just not in Anodyne. Heck, she could also reconcile with the rest of the family, including Max, and be the mother she could have remained after her kids were grown-up. Or, if you choose for Verdona to be Gwen's maternal grandmother, she could make amends with her own daughter, Natalie, and apologize for being so rough on her throughout her childhood. Maybe there ought to be a rogue anodite (or a group of rogue anodites) that Verdona and the main trio would encounter, and during the battle, the rogue anodite asks Verdona why she chose to remain here on Earth and help the less powerful humans, the type of inferiors the council leaders concern about, only for Verdona to reply, "That's my family you're talking about!" And then, she pulls the biggest magical spell we see from her and blasts away her opponent, thus earning her role as Ben and Gwen's grandmother.

This is the “prologue” of Star Fox Adventures and while it’s all good and dandy, I want to point out three very important things-- 1. Peppy retired at this point, not after Krystal showed up. I mean, this is relatively minor but I thought it was noteworthy that our Barrel-Roll Loving Team Dad was already going to be retired before the “next SF game”-- whatever that would have been, though I’m fairly certain Assault’s development launched right at the heels of Adventures, if not while Adventures was in late development still. 2. Slippy apparently traded in his pilot’s wings to become a mechanic, which is... blatantly ignored in both Assault and Command because while he does mechanic-like stuff (playing off of his role as the “team smartie pants”), he still very much is a pilot. 3. Falco left because he was bored is only a rumor.  I know “Farewell Beloved Falco” tackles this to a degree. I want to also note that this inspired me to re-read Farewell Beloved Falco on Monday and there’s no real point in the manga that says Falco left because he was bored (I have my own speculation as to why he left but I’ll save that for later).  I find it really odd that the manual says Falco “simply disappeared”, when he very clearly left with great bravado at the end of the manga.  He didn’t vanish into the night or anything, like this would imply.  He said he was going to go solo for a bit and flew off after the Titania Incident.  It... feels like maybe there was a miscommunication here between who was giving the person writing the manual details.

This is the Character Bio page, which, to my secret admirer’s glee, does contain the info that Krystal is the only survivor of Cerinia.  It also name drops Cornerian Weapons R&D, which has also never been heard of before or since this manual. I actually searched excessively for more mentions about this and yielded no results.  Curious.  I had never noticed that and assumed Slippy had just been tinkering on stuff for fun.  Also oof, my heart at ROB being considered a full-fledged SF member.

I’m going to skip over the parts I don’t have any commentary on.  

So it’s pretty clear from the final product that Rareware had no idea what they were doing with the SpellStones.  They clearly absorb magic from the planet to keep the planet from falling apart (which says to me that this is not the planet’s natural state but I’ve talked about that before so I’ll spare you the ramble).  But what was going on with them is really unclear.  I understand that Dinosaur Planet gives a better explanation of the SpellStones but that purpose does not seem to be canon any longer.

The text here implies that Scales has every single SpellStone in his possession (the Queen EarthWalker ALSO states he removed the SpellStones himself).  Yet, when you make it into the game...

(Special note: I found this pic on Google and the file was called “Asshole”, which, tbh isn’t inaccurate but it gave me a chuckle so I thought I’d share it.)

Scales doesn’t possess all of the SpellStones.  Drakor, a mutant in Scales’s army, guards the one at Dragon Rock-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  The King RedEye has been fitted with one in his head-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  But past that? We find Scales in the CloudRunner Fortress treasury with the first Ocean SpellStone, which he has clearly just found.  And the entire point of DarkIce Mines, the entire reason the SnowHorn are enslaved, is because Scales is looking for the SpellStone.  Which says to me that the SpellStone wasn’t even removed by him.  He wouldn’t have had to enslave the entire tribe to go digging for it otherwise.  He wouldn’t have had to lay siege to CloudRunner Fortress either.

So this entire plot point is absolutely inconsistent to what’s in the manual and even... in the game. What is the reasoning behind this?  Probably the innumerable plot changes during SFAdv’s development.

With the fortunate release of the Dinosaur Planet ROM and the creation of the Warlock Engine by Hugo Peters, a lot has been uncovered in terms of how Dinosaur Planet would have originally looked like.  Dark Ice Mines, for instance, was actually meant to connect via the SnowHorn Wastes (or, Northern Wastes) via a small cave entrance on the other side of the river near where one finds Garunda Te.  The cave still exists in the finalized version of the game but leads to no where.  

However, with Star Fox being added in, I think Rare felt the need to add in things that made the game feel a bit more in line with the Star Fox series.  The planet pieces being torn apart was a way to shove in Arwing sections of the game.  And the devs needed a reason for the change in the planet’s state... and what’s a better throwaway reason than “it’s just magic, bruh”?  So the SpellStones, being focal points in the game’s story, were changed to being part of the reason for the planet falling to pieces. That led to DarkIce Mines, despite having a basically completed map, getting yoinked from the planet’s surface and tossed into space, meaning the entrance was sealed.  The reason for all of this was handwaved into “Oh, Scales did this because he removed the stones” without... the game actually reflecting much of that at all because most of it had been made with a different story in mind.

I think Rare did this hoping that no one would look at the plot too closely but uh oh, that didn’t happen.  And if you need further proof that this was all a bit of an “oopsie” on Rare’s part, you need not look much further than DarkIce Mines once more.  Belina Te has a small throwaway line about how her father hid the SpellStone in the mines.  She says something to the effect of “He didn’t say where he hid it, only that it was somewhere safe” which is code for “Yeah lol I stuck this important object crafted by the gods into the claws of a giant monstrosity but it’s w/e”.  Maybe he was hoping that Galdon would protect it from Scales.  I mean, it’s not a bad thought, really...

But the fact that the game seems to imply Scales has all the stones is still technically wrong.  Now, because I think about these things a little TOO much, here’s my theory as to how this could have technically worked: All the SpellStones are placed in the same spot, you just traverse different routes (The Force Point Temples) to reach that spot. The only way I could see Scales making out with 2 out of 4 SpellStones is that there was a battle between the SharpClaw and the other dinosaurs at the central point where the SpellStones are located and General Scales was only partially successful.  Which could very well be the case, but, unfortunately, the manual and game seem to not act as though this is the case...

tl;dr for that section: This literally makes no sense no matter how you slice it and sure, you can come up for reasons that things ended up this way but ultimately, the game is conflicting with itself about its own story.  But let’s move on.

Apparently atmospheric conditions are so powerful on Sauria that it can interrupt communications, which I thought was a neat lore tidbit.  

So I got 2 things from this tidbit about Saurian.

1. This language is called “relatively new”, even though it’s existed for thousands of years, which feels like a contradiction?  A quick Google search estimates English has been around for 1400 years, to put that into perspective and I think English is considered to be fairly new compared to other languages, but I’m honestly not too terribly learned on that.  Of course, that’s only viewing this through the lens of someone who lives on Earth.  Having a language around in the Lylat System only for “a few thousand years” makes me wonder how long the older languages have existed?  It’s quite possible that a few thousand years isn’t a long lifespan for a language in this universe.  

2. Who were these off-worlders?  And boy do I have theories.

Theory 1. The Krazoa.  They are seemingly the gods to the dinosaurs and speak the same language.  This could mean that they taught the dinosaurs this new language.  It would fit the bill for their portrayal in this game. They are godlike entities, the dinosaurs do revere them... it makes sense.  

Theory 2. The ones who taught the dinosaurs how to talk were the Cerinians. There is mild evidence for this with Krystal understanding Dino Speak without a translator despite being new to the planet (evidenced by the fact the CloudRunner had to explain the Krazoa to her/some dialogue bits about her learning of General Scales/the brief exposition we get about her searching the Lylat System for answers).  You could argue this is due to her telepathy - she could just simply be talking in a way that the dinosaurs can understand but I don’t think Krystal’s telepathy had been firmly established as part of her character at this point (she had the ability to leave telepathic messages onto her staff and she could channel magic into Andross, but her true telepathy powers weren’t really shown until Assault).  Krystal’s staff also seems strangely in-tune with Sauria, which I’ve theorized about previously.  I’m mostly thinking on the Magic Caves that are conveniently scattered on Sauria.  It could be that Cerinians had built the shrines within the Magic Caves to help their descendants out if they ever showed up to Sauria.  So, I guess the tl;dr version is “Maybe the Cerinians had previously been on Sauria and had established the Magic Caves and had taught the dinosaurs their native language?” 

To summarize my thoughts, the manual is a reflection of SFAdv itself- riddled with weird plot inconsistencies that you can almost fudge reasons/logic to cover but some of it feels like stretches for the sake of making plot make sense.  There’s some contradictions in the lore/story but despite that, there’s still interesting tidbits to be found.  

If anything, this booklet kind of validates my feelings from the post I made about canon awhile back.  Not all of the canon makes sense when you nitpick it to death.  When the source material conflicts with itself, you’re not going to win a “this is canon because x and y, etc” because... well... the story itself doesn’t even seem to know what’s canon.

Additionally, canon is something derived partially from people’s own experiences.  Two people can consume the same media and come to different conclusions and that’s fine.  We don’t need to have these tired debates about whose interpretation of canon is better.  We just need people to understand that while their interpretation may fit them but it may not fit everyone.  And that’s why, as I have begun doing Fanon Hot Take posts, I keep that disclaimer up.  I don’t wanna say “My opinion of how to interpret canon/fanon is the best opinion” because that’s stupid. There is no definitive “best” because it’s all subjective.  But people get into their own feelings so much about their interpretations and that’s when we have these debates of “well, my idea is better than yours”.  Then people try to dismantle each other instead of just appreciating the different ideas being brought to the table.  And it’s exhausting.

Frankly, I don’t ever think Panther being Cerinian will be canon.  But Nintendo has not, as of this date, said he’s not.  But that’s my interpretation of his character until Nintendo gives us more to go off of.  And if my interpretation bothers someone enough that they decide to send me harassment over it, then that’s on them.  I will not be apologizing for my interpretations, even if they do go against the grain.  It’s a pity people like that exist, that would rather tear at others than try to just enjoy the content that appeals directly to him but alas, they are not the first person to be like that and they will not be the last.

On a lighter note, while I am still bothered by this person going out of their way to be so spiteful, I want to thank them for inspiring me to look at the text.  It validated my feelings further and it made me realize how stupid the canon debate is.  I actually had a blast going back over this book and re-reading everything.  I hadn’t gotten to lay eyes on this booklet in years!  I really hope I get to do this for other SF games because a lot of these manuals have such hidden gems.