#the lumberjack

ofc if you read my post yesterday you that the big twist that he’s also the werewolf you fight in the end.  The second fight is definitely more of a challenge.  The werewolf has regenerative powers.  His main gimmick is that, on each turn, you have to pick one of seven cards, each with a different effect.  Two of them actually benefit you but most of them are a pain in the ass.  I recommend using the 90% heal and the ‘you can’t use cards’ option while you have a lot of health.

“I don’t know if it’s because he is young and shy or because he’s a werewolf, but the carpenter won’t tell Little Red Riding Hood how he feels. He was worried that on a full moon night he will turn, lose control and harm the villagers. The werewolf planned to go and spend the night in the Black Forest, but he did not expect to be pursued by hunters. He was injured and finally fell at Little Red Riding Hood’s hands...he didn’t even get the chance to say anything.”

So yeah, this is another downer ending.  Honestly, idk what is worse- killing your grandma or your childhood friend.  This is another weird instance of the text going into first person for no reason.  Who’s talking here?  The Infected?

The Carpenter description is quite a bit longer, but it summarizes to:

He’s adopted

His dad is the lumberjack

He makes beautiful furniture

He’s well liked

He’s got a secret crush on his friend, Red

He’s a werewolf

He’s kept that secret from everyone

He does not remember when he got cursed

He’s worried he might harm people when he’s a wolf

I would like to know how the heck he managed to keep the werewolf thing secret from his dad, who he lived with.  This isn’t like, oh, he has a certain opinion.  Nah- this is his body transforming every month.  How does his dad miss that?

Him being adopted also kind of hints that his bio parents are werewolves, as does this.

This is the picture you get when you toggle Jerry’s class to hard: a crying werewolf leaving a human baby at a lumberjack’s shop.

Since there’s a full moon and the werewolf is, well, a wolf, and the baby isn’t, I’m going to bet that werewolves in this world don’t start transforming until a certain age.  Jerry would be old enough to know that he has to hide himself once he starts.  One does wonder, though, why the wolf needs to leave their baby.  Does it have something to do with the arrow in their leg?

Maybe this will be like Red’s set.  Maybe we’ll get all kinds of Jerry classes and each one will display a scene of him a little older to tell a story.  

Here’s another theory: This wolf is the Cursed Werewolf, who Jerry might fight as a boss.  I mean it works just as well as Red fighting her grandma.

I must say, fighting as Jerry is pretty fun.  It feels as chaotic as a card game can be, yanno?  Like you really are a rabid wolf.  I especially love the cards you can get, though.  A lot of them have Jerry- as a wolf or a human- on them.  And they sort of humanize him a lot.  He has this whole range of emotions, whereas the cards Red appears on always makes her look like a badass.

I especially love that one.

Anyhoo, I’m gonna give Jerry 🌕🌕🌕🌕 four full moons.  He’s a cute kid, and as a werewolf, and challenging fight.  It’s clear that they’re planning to embellish on his story more.  I just do not care about the romance angle, tho, and I hate that the game does so much.

The Lumberjack

When Red encounters the Lumberjack, he’s wondering what she’s doing out so late, but isn’t really trying to stop her.  If you defeat him, he’ll tell you about Jerry going missing and ask if you’ve seen him.  He even sees he goes missing every full moon, and yet he still hasn’t put the werewolf thing together yet?  Oi.  

One bit of interesting trivia is that his dialog actually changed.  He used to say, “Who are you?  What are you doing here?”  So, I guess he used to be just, a guy, but then the programmers decided to make him important.  That’s cool.

His description tells us that the Lumberjack found Jerry in the woods, so it clashes with the illustration we saw earlier, but I’m willing to forgive that.  Also it was snowing when he found the baby.  Either it was winter or the curse was in affect even waaaaay back then.

I’ll give him 🌲🌲 two trees.  He’s a good solid character for what he is.  Obviously he is just there to be a part of Jerry’s story but he does as best as he can in a support role.  He’s just, not terribly memorable?  I’ve fought him several times but I’m struggling to remember what cards he uses.

The Crocodile

The Crocodile is a boss, so you could find him in any of the three chapters.  He makes good use of attack cards.  He also has some great lines.

“I’m more like drift wood.”

“Family means hope.”

“Crocodiles don’t cry only because...they’re never sad.”

“I could never lift an axe...”

I haven’t talked about the voice artists yet, but I feel like the crocodile gets one of the better English ones. It’s too bad these people aren’t credited! Honestly, why?

But yeah, he really does a good job of making this character sound like a real person. There’s a sense of trying to put on a brave face with self-effacing jokes while honestly being miserable.  

So anyway, this guy

“This powerful-looking crocodile was once a lumberjack. Once he learned that the identities of Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother had been exposed, he tried to help them hide. However, the church patroller had other ideas. Things didn’t end up well for the lumberjack, but Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother made it out. Now he still waits for the curse to be lifted from the Black Forest, for it afflicts many innocent people, including his out son: the carpenter, Jerry.”

Is Jerry’s dad.

Jerry’s dad in, another timeline?  This whole thing about Red and Grandma needing to hide for a while- that’s not really referenced in the other character bios.  Usually it’s just Grandma going out into the woods and Red needing to find her.  The human Lumberjack doesn’t seem very protective of Red.  He seems totally understanding of her quest and only asks if she’s seen his son.  So it doesn’t make sense for him to get turned into a croc while trying to help her the same night when he was on his own mission.  But this bio kind of gives the impression that this guy has been trapped for like, months if not years.

I can tell you that Jerry’s line got changed too.  It used to be ‘One day, my father went into the dark forest, and never came back”.  Now it’s “There are those who go into the forest and never return.”  

It almost seems like the Crocodile being Jerry’s father is something the creators want to retcon out of existence.  So far this description hasn’t changed, but I keep watching it.  

It would bum me out, to be honest, if that were the case.  The Crocodile is, honestly, my favorite character.  He’s the reason I got so swept up into the lore of this game.  Not only does he have the best lines, but his voice actor is really good.  You get the sense of a guy who’s losing hope because he lost his family, and at the same time hates himself because he wouldn’t be able to provide for them anyway.  But he’s also proud, and doesn’t want Red to know he’s cursed, and certain not a person who cries!

I also love that these two sometimes-animal people are both cursed but also both taking pains to keep the other from finding out about the curse.  Wonderful irony, there.

The obvious way to fix this situation with the two lumberdads is...with two dads.  In fact, in my fics Jerry does have two dads- a red headed guy who’s still there, and another one who’s missing.  He’s supposed to look like this.