#streetbeat

Let’s just jump straight to the point and get to what’s probably on a lot of our minds: Lance’s new look and his--the book writes him as a ‘he,’ so don’t jump me over pronouns--description as the maestro of the Balan Theatre.  This flies in the face of everything we’ve already seen from promotional material and gameplay.  Whereas, in these, Lance clearly takes an antagonistic role by trapping inhabitants within their own hearts and turning them into monsters, the Lance presented in the book is much softer in both looks and personality.  He’s described as being “mild-mannered” and seems to assist inhabitants when they have some request about their own stage, like when Leo/Streetbeat asked him if he could have some more props.  His appearance is much more human, the tendrils on his back gone and the ones on his head replaced by flowing, silvery hair.  Please note this, as silver hair in Japanese media is often an expression of mystery, otherworldliness, or magical ability.  Think of characters like the Undertaker from Kuroshitsuji, Tomoe and Mizuki from Kamisama Kiss, and Shiro from Deadman Wonderland.  All of them were allies to their protagonists, but with much more to their characters than what we initially saw--often with darker backstories or motives that went against the main characters’.  

I don’t think the book is trying to change Balan’s and Lance’s positions as helper and obstacle: I think the book is forcing us to change our perspective through Leo’s/Streetbeat’s and Emma’s/Fighter’s eyes.

Even how we’re introduced to the theatre is different in the book compared to the game.  Following the game’s cinematic, Leo/Emma enter the theatre and are soon spotted by Balan, who briskly introduces himself before spiriting them away to Wonderworld, landing us in the Isle of Tims.  However, when Leo enters the theatre in the book, the story immediately cuts away to him on his own stage--a feature we haven’t seen in the game so far.  How would Leo have a stage? Well, what if he didn’t see Balan like in the game?  What if Lance got to him first? 

We only believe Leo and Emma would see Balan first because that’s how we’re introduced to things in the game’s cinematic. However, we ultimately can only play through one character’s eyes at a time: The cinematic may just be alluding to that choice.  It’s similar to how we can choose to play as either Elliot/Claris in Nights Into Dreams and Helen/William in Nights: Journey of Dreams: They’re two stories taking place at the same time.  We know that Balan can make duplicates of himself, but it seems more likely that he met one child first while Lance met the other.  Another point against this idea would be that both of those other games I mentioned didn’t have anything that would cause either of their main characters’ independent journeys to greatly shift the final, overarching narrative as this would; however, give me the chance to bring up some additional points.

Getting back to the fact that Leo has his own stage, we could view this as Lance having already trapped him within his own heart.  This would fit in-line with gameplay, as we’ve only seen a stage come into existence after he’s done this--turning the inhabitants into Negi bosses.  Leo has no idea how long he’s been there and there’s no indication of him even realizing how he got there.  He doesn’t even remember his real name.  There is no one in his stage except him and “a shadowlike creature at his feet,” a negati, of which he’s seen several that show no hostile signs toward him.  Then, Emma/Fighter shows up out of nowhere in a vision with Balan and Lance soon arrives before he can think too hard on it--with a clear awareness that something is on Leo’s mind.  How convenient!  Despite Leo’s insistence that “this was his stage and his alone,” he already knows this version of Lance and welcomes him as a friend who’s visited him regularly.

If Lance can trap people inside their own hearts, why wouldn’t he be able to visit them and control how he appears to them within that mindscape?  There’s no reason a warden wouldn’t have keys to his prisoners’ cells.  Meanwhile, we could see Emma taking on the player’s role as an intruder to Leo’s walled-up paradise, with her and Balan trying to break him out.  Lance only arrived by Leo’s side when something about Balan and Emma got through to him, and immediately left when he thought Leo was pacified--back into a comfortable, but unaware state.         

Lance’s behavior and dress paralleling Balan’s, his stealing Balan’s identity, is likely a way to ensure the inhabitants’ trust him: He’s their friend who allows them to stay and perfect their stages; idealized, little places based on their memories/desires--far away from their problems or anyone that might bring them up.  We can also infer that the inhabitants likely don’t  know what Lance truly looks like, given how the farmer, Jose Gallard, had his back turned to Lance when the latter appeared and turned him into a Negi in the game. 

We can question why Lance would allow inhabitants to visit each other’s worlds, but we have to consider that he may not care so long as the inhabitants don’t do something that breaks each other from their heart prisons.  After all, The Clocktower Kid/Cass Milligan is still shown to be hurting despite how many people she knows from other stages and she trusts Lance just like Leo does.  She also explained to Leo that she was able to travel to other stages through hidden passages and that “she’d found a whole bunch of secrets like that.”  The doors are “invisible,” found only by movement.  This could mean that inhabitants aren’t supposed to be able to meet each other at all, which Leo seems to instinctively know as he “felt like he should’ve asked Lance’s permission.” This could even play to Lance’s benefit at times, since they could keep each other enough company to satisfy their social needs where their own illusions and the negati cannot.  He never tells the inhabitants about others as a precaution, but if they find out, he can play it off.       

As a final point, based on the book’s emphasis on “forgetting” with both Leo and Cass’ situations, it seems like Lance’s method of “healing” a heart is really by just suppressing emotions and negative experiences.  I don’t entirely think I could call this something done out of malice though: He might just be following the idea that ignorance is bliss.  Sure, the inhabitants don’t have their memories and nothing gets resolved, but they’re kept “happy” in places literally made by their own design--a process Lance shows a genuine joy toward.  Wonderworld clearly thrives when people expand their various stages, and Lance taught both Cass and Leo how to do so.