Chrono Trigger Inquiries/Review

[ZeaLitY]

I found an interesting page on name origins.

Lucca could be named for the Italian city which flourished in the 15th century. It's the root word in many light-related terms in European languages, like "lucent".

Ayla: In the book series "Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel, there's a character named Ayla. She's from the prehistoric past, but is semi-intelligent, just like CT's Ayla.

Kino: ('ki no) German for 'cinema', or stressed another way ("kinou"), Japanese for 'yesterday' - undoubtedly coincidence! Also, the main character in John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" is named Kino.

Cyrus: In the 6th century BC, Cyrus the Great unified the Persians and the Medes, and went on to conquer all of Babylon. Maybe the CT character is named for him.

Pahoehoe (pa-ho-ay-ho-ay): This is a kind of soupy lava which flows from volcanoes. Thus it has a volcano-like form.

Barghest is a frightful goblin that portends misfortune. I'm not sure which mythology it's from, though.

There's a skeleton'like enemy named Macabre; this comes from the French word for death. You may know it from Camille Saint-Saens' famous 1875 musical piece, 'Danse Macabre', in which Death plays his violin in a graveyard at midnight; eventually dawn comes and he is chased away.

Kajal, spelled Kajar in the American CT, was a real city in the Middle East. I'm not sure if it still exists.

Some historical stuff... I don't think that the date 65 million BC was chosen arbitrarily. A while ago it was shown by Luis Alvarez that a meteoric impact in the Yucatan peninsula around that time may have been what triggered the global climate changes which caused the dinosaurs to become extinct and indirectly paved the way for mankind to rule the earth much later. And in CT, Lavos arrives in a meteor at exactly that time! Of course, it was artistic license on the producers' part to have human beings alive at that time. And having them speak semi-intelligible English...

12000 B. C. is supposedly when Atlantis sank, which ties in perfectly with the sinking of the kingdom of Zeal. There are several theories about where Atlantis once was; one of them puts the great civilization on the island of Thera.

Also, the "Day of Lavos" comes in 1999... and in the 15th century, Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus, predicts the end of the world to be in July of 1999. He wrote a quatrain that began "In the year 1999 and 7 months... Mars shall reign at will." [Mars is the war god in Roman mythology.]

Dictionary.com: Barghest: A goblin in English folklore, often appearing in the shape of a large dog and believed to portend imminent death or misfortune.

The Kajal -> Kajar thing seems permissible, considering the Japanese often mistake Ls for Rs, such as seen in anime -- anyone for a pubric disturbance in Cowboy Bebop?

I especially enjoy the Atlantis meaning, as it relates to one of the first theories for CT/RD/CC/CB, the root of the Compendium, that dictated Zeal is a symbolic Atlantis or Alexandria.

[Radical_Dreamer]

I did some Googling, turns out the Kajar spelling works fine, as does Qajar, not surprissingly. With these spellings, it refers to a Persian Dynasty that made Tehran the capital.

This is their flag:



The Kajal spelling refers to a traditional Indian substance (creme, perhaps) that is used for eye care.

[ZeaLitY]

Is that a gryphon? They appear in Radical Dreamers as an enemy on and Porre's flag in Cross.

[Chrono'99]

mmhh here's another version of the flag:


like, it's a lion with a sun behind...

...mmh!? the Japanese name of the Masamune is Grandlion hey!!

[OathoftheTimeTraveler]

Howdy all, this is my first posting on the board. I've been visiting the site regularly for a while now, but didn't sign on until recently.

If Marle entered the gate, as soon as she disappeared within it, the effects would have instantly manifested themselves;

I always held the belief in Chrono Trigger, that the reason it was unchanged is the rate at which time transpires. When our heroes time travel, they don't travel to a specific day/time, but rather on a similar path to their present time. (Although, it has always appeared to me that the time periods are experiencing different seasons). Time seems to transpire at the same rate, and the reason it took a while for Marle to disappear, is because the event that solidified the end to Guardia's search for the Queen hadn't happened yet. My guess is that at the moment she disappeared, the last search party was returning to the castle, or something simliar to that.

On a seperate note, Kajal, or rather Kajaal has a personal meaning to me. When I was young, my grandfather made a little amusement deal, a path in the woods behind his house. It had things to amuse his young grandchildren, and since it was made for us, he named it after the three grandchildren who were born at the time, Katie, Jaime, and Alex. I know this has no bearing, but I had to tell someone, sorry you guys had to bear it, heh.

[chronotriggerfreak]

Personally, I think everyone just way overreacts to this Marle disappearing situation. Honestly, I don't think the writers put that much thought into the quantum mechanics of the game as they did the dramatic aspects of it. I think it's interesting to debate the reality of the games, but the situation that a teenage girl's disappearing has created is ridiculous. Anyway.

Dalton's Fate - In Chrono Cross, we have the Bend of Time, where monsters from all over seem to appear. In that OVA thing, I've heard someone discuss how monsters seem to just appear at the Millenial Fair from all over the world and from all different time periods. I think, and so does that poster, that the Bend of Time is the source of these monsters. Sort of like the End of Time, the Bend of Time seems to be a method for all monsters to travel far from their origins and assail adventurers, and the Bend of Time must therefore have many entrances for these monsters. As such, and in the case of Cross's Bend of Time being in the archipelago whereas the "Bend of Time" apparent in the OVA is near the Millenial Fair, it is wise to assume it also has many exits. Although, unlike the End of Time, the Bend of Time is more likely a Gate with branched paths than any one location outside of time and space. Anyway, if we believe that such a Bend of Time exists as I have described, it may be safe to assume Dalton "summons" the Golems by calling them from the Bend of Time to either many many exit points all of the kingdom of Zeal, or he possibly knows how to create, divert, or in some way bend (an) exit point(s) to his liking. But, the real stretch comes now - let's say that, in theory, exit points may also serve as entry points, or vice-versa. In fact, let us just say that they are one in the same. In this case, Dalton gets consumed by his own exit/entry point, and therefore, he reaches the true Bend of Time. There, one can only assume what happens to him. Do vengeful Golems and other monsters destroy him? Or does he rally the monsters of the time-space continuum to his hand, waiting to reappear in a convenient location at the convenient time and dominate the world?

I, personally, think he deserves no better than to be mauled by dozens of pairs of Golem Twins.

[ZeaLitY]

Interesting correlation between the fair being overrun and the Bend of Time. Although it depends on whether the writer had visualized such a place existing when the OVA was made, it's nonetheless interesting and a consistency we can hold.

[chronotriggerfreak]

I can't take the credit for that, though, so I went and found that it was actually Chron '99 who first suggested it in this topic.

[Chrono'99]

Thanks CTF  

Also, it could then seem less weird to see Ozzie, Slash and Flea in the BoT; they may somehow have fled 600AD because Mystics were loosing the war.

[ZeaLitY]

Constable Toad: OK, before you fight Magus in 600 A.D., there is a statue of him in Medina Village, 1000 A.D. After you fight Magus, it turns into a statue of Ozzie. Here's my inquiry - what is so darn different about history that made the idols change? I mean, even if you hadn't shown up, Lavos would have appeared and killed Magus anyway, right?

ZealitY: Well, something may have pacified or eliminated Ozzie in the Lavos timeline. Since he did not have to preoccupy himself with defense, he may have taken part of the summoning. I meant in my earlier statement that perhaps fighting the party provoked him in some way to maintain his own force after the defeat of Magus; prior to that he was unchallenged, and tasting defeat may have awakened stubborness within him.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Think back to Ozzie's Fort. In the timeline where the party interferes, Magus falls from grace with the Mystics. Ozzie figures out that Magus has been using them for over a decade. Naturally, they would stop dedicating statues to him.

[YbrikMetaknight]

Plus, Ozzie may have seen Magus summon Lavos, or helped him do it as ZeaLitY suggested.  (However, since Ozzie never really shows any considerable magic power, I think that he probably played no real part in the summoning...he probably just saw it.)  I think that since Ozzie VIII* and all the other Mystics in Medina knew about Lavos, Ozzie I probably saw Magus perform the summon.

Ozzie probably saw Lavos kill Magus and ran out of fear for his own life.  He probably thought Magus was a martyr, dying while attempting to further the Mystics' cause.  That's probably why he was worshipped.

And this may have been asked in another thread, but why didn't Lavos attack everything after Magus summoned him?  That is, why did he just go back to sleep?  He didn't after Queen Zeal awakened him in 12,000 B.C.  So why is it that no one in Guardia seems to have even heard of Lavos?

*This leads me to another question...why is Ozzie the only character line with generations that differ from the rest of the game?  Could VIII have been a typo of XIII?  Or maybe does Ozzie's particular species of Mystic have a longer life span?

Hmmm...one question answered, two more asked.  Not a bad post, if I do say so myself.

[Hunter X]

Ozzie having a longer life span seems to be the only real possibility.

As for why no one in Gaurdia knows of Lavos there are a few possibilties.

We don't know the circumstances of the summoning. It is know, though, that he was not summoned in the same way that he was in 12,000 BC. This is obvious for he would have emerged from the ground and laid seige to the world. So if he wasn't summoned like that how could he have been summoned? The fight obviously didn't take place above ground in 600 A.D.

It is possible that instead of summoning Lavos, Magus summoned himself to Lavos, and the fight took place in the pocket dimension. I beleive this to be a very likely possibility.

Also, it is possible that Magus warped to 1999 and faught Lavos then. This may be possible, since it is rumored that Magus figured out how to travel through time on his own. If this were true though, why would Magus need the gate that was created after the battle with Chrono to return to 12,000BC? So, if Magus does know how to make his own gates it is most likely that he learned how after that event. For that reason I don't beleive this to be a very likely theory, I decided to include it though. Although the next theory could make the battle in 1999 true.

Another possible theory is that Magus could have only disturbed Lavos, and instead of Lavos surfacing, he may have made a gate similar to the one that was made by him after the battle between Magus and Chrono. Where this gate may have taken Magus, is really un-answerable. It could have taken Magus to Lavos in either the pocket dimension or in 1999. Or it could have taken him to just about any point in time.

The final theory I could think of, is that Magus was not successful in the original summoning. This is somewhat unlikely since Magus was supposed to disapear, but there are other ways that he could have disapeared. For example he may have just left the mystics. Why would he do this? The answer is quite simple, the may use for the mystics was to give Magus the time to summon Lavos. After realiseing he wouldn't be able to do so, he just left. There would be no reason for him to stick around if he couldn't summon Lavos, since the mystics obviously lost the war. Thus making this a somewhat likely theory, besides the fact that someone would probably see Magus eventually or he might not of given up on trying to summon Lavos.

Those are some theories I could come up with. You may have noticed that I said it is unlikely that theory 2 happened without the aid of theory 3, but I said theory 1 is likely even without the aid of theory 3. The reason I believe this is because traveling through time is obviously different then traveling to Lavos in his pocket dimension, since the pocket dimension is in the same time. Although the pocket dimension is still only a theory, but a very likely one at that. If there really is no pocket dimension it would still be different then warping through time.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Something fundamental, if we want to compare the event in 12,000 BC to the one in 600 AD is that Lavos was intentionally summoned in 600 AD, where as in 12,000 BC he was merely woken up, rather irritated it would seem, by the Queen and Schala trying to draw too much energy. It makes sense that he would behave in a different way.

[GrayLensman]

Lavos only wants to destroy the world in 1999 AD; to act prematurely would not suit its ends.  The other times Lavos surfaced, it was in response to a threat to its existance.

In 12000 BC, Lavos destroyed the Ocean Palace because the Mammon Machine was draining its energy, but the Kingdom of Zeal was also a threat.  Zeal was too powerful, and it could threaten Lavos again in the future.  The destruction of Zeal was a defensive move on Lavos' part, and not a random act of destruction.

In 600 AD, Magus is the only threat.  Once he is eliminated, it is in Lavos' best interest to leave the "cattle" as they were.