Author Topic: Gaspar Collection: A Look back  (Read 6452 times)

ZeaLitY

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Gaspar Collection: A Look back
« on: March 26, 2005, 02:53:09 am »
The Gaspar Collection was a significant event in my tenure as a Chrono fan, and I feel I need to illuminate more of its background, and note the themes and feelings that went into its creation. I’ll admit that it’s a flawed work, but it nonetheless captures my passion for the series. Firstly, I. The Empty Dimension was originally intended to be a standalone story about Gaspar, planned to complement another work Ybrik Metaknight was writing about Belthasar and the founding of Chronopolis. Gaspar was to be originally sent to a dimension that somehow existed within the Darkness Beyond Time; as the Compendium’s understanding of the Chrono series improved, I realized this was no longer feasible. Whereas originally, only the planet would have been in the Darkness Beyond Time (explaining the absence of stars), I wrote it in that the atmospheric nature of the planet in this new dimension simply did not allow stars to be seen, or space travel to occur (note Mitsurugi’s comment about rockets). The transition was sort of rough, and hints of the old plan can be found.

The other hurdle I had to jump was within the introduction; I had Gaspar coming from the Ocean Palace. I rectified this by suggesting that the pull and anomaly of time caused that to be remembered as he was displaced. After these mechanics were worked out, I began thinking of a second Gaspar piece, possibly involving other characters. In order to maintain the story, I wanted to have Fiona and Gaspar have some kind of attachment. Gaspar’s assumed lack of romantic experience allowed me to claim he loved her, and the fact that Fiona’s only salvation laid through a fond old man allowed her to like him. Nonetheless, the relationship is tenuous, but the reader may have faith in love at first night. Before he escapes, I had to resolve Mitsurugi’s dilemma somehow; I cast him as a buffoon, and probably as much as a boyfriend to Fiona as would be champagne to a light drinker. His idiotic outcries allow him to be killed instantly by the Lavos anomaly before the story wraps up.

II. The End of Time is analogous to the Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps you can consider it the best. When I opened it, I had two ideas for a plot in mind; firstly, Fiona would be found, but secondly, the fanfiction would become a version of Chrono Break, in which the space time continuum suffered a breakdown of some sort. I had no real ideas for this, so simply wrote out the meeting between Magus and Gaspar. A little bias against scientists comes out in this part, as the premise is that Gaspar, not a man of much action prior to the first chapter, cannot handle the burden of his problem, and would rather submit to the sands of time. The colors and tastes of his world have fled, now that he has been introduced to love. Before he can finally lay his head, however, Magus arrives. One of my great fears was that I would not write Magus correctly; though he is written time and time again, and is revered hugely, it’s nonetheless difficult. Magus speaks succinctly at times, withholding his breath at others, and rarely, sneering coldly. I had to evaluate each situation and decide how to handle him.

A neat contrast ensued – both men have obvious dreams and goals, yet Gaspar is near giving up, and Magus is eternally perseverant. I took the opportunity to write about it, and this set up the theme of the second chapter (the first was like Chrono Trigger, an action-adventure movie). That theme would be humanism, free will, choosing one’s own destiny – whatever you wish to call it, but overall the taking of matters into one’s own hands, without fear of the unknown. Magus has no problem with this, as his interesting resolution and conflict are to come in the third chapter. Gaspar has to assemble this will to achieve his dreams from scratch, and he does throughout this chapter.

Nothing pleases me more than to visit old places and see old faces in sequels. Rather than have the two dine in a simple, militaristic belly-of-the-beast Porre setting, I had them eat in Truce, where the old conflicts with the new, and a subdued honor lies sleeping. When I penned the lines of the merry cavorter, I decided I would write something for the next chapter, and any after. Immediately following was a profound scene, in which Magus reminisces of Zeal. As the focus is on his sister entirely in the game canon, I wanted to shift it for a short while to his idyllic home, and cast it as a safe place he could return to – almost a temptation to lead him away from his quest. This led into the quote that Gaspar and other time travelers are bastard children, wandering time without a home; I hope this has made a few fans think.

At the time of the Belthasar diary entry, I had decided that the climax of things would be at Chronopolis, neglecting the fact that Chronopolis would not exist in the Ideal timeline. This caused rewriting of a few sentences, but did not impact anything serious. Also, the idea of the Magus vs. Serge fight crept in; it was thrilling to think about, and would also lift the story out of the thematic quagmire that was forming due to all the long passages and weary dialogue. Gaspar’s dream is somewhat borrowed from an example fanfiction Ramsus wrote to test the fanfiction capabilities of the first Compendium; it was about the first King of Guardia, who suffered terrible defeat and shame, and was locked in a dead scream. It was only a few sentences long.

As the duo entered El Nido, I started rolling around the idea of resolving Guile’s identity, and even met with a few Compendium regulars to decide it. Guile, a hole in the series due to his originally being Magus and having his story be removed, is quite his own enigma in Chrono Cross. I wanted to illuminate his background in such a way that he had deeper importance to the series, and also retained the qualities that make he and Magus interesting and mysterious. These would be revealed in chapter three, but taunting readers with a glimpse now hopefully was exciting. Also present in Guile’s dialogue with Gaspar is something I brought up a few times to make it understood in chapter three – the fact that only those who sojourned to defeat the Time Devourer would retain memory of the event. I made Kid, without a second thought, Serge’s first companion, and an idea for the second came soon enough. I would like to note that I’m thankful for Guardian of Ages’s comments about my handling of Magus.

The guise that the two hide behind to hire Serge did seem troublesome, leading to my taking the opportunity to throw some taunts and jests around. Gaspar, who knew Janus as a child, cannot resist calling him such, hinting that Magus has accepted his new identity as well. I had to struggle not to cast Serge as a backwater country idiot, later allowing him to emerge from his own disguise as such a person to one genuinely interested in his dreams and memory fragments. Serge brings a vitality to the group, which lacked a young man. Additionally, I wanted to evoke a sense of grandeur; that the forces were uniting – Serge, Magus, and Gaspar, each heroes of time in their own right. I decided that Magus should end his quest in this collection, and scrapped the difficult Chrono Break idea. Its only casualty was a trip to Crono’s grave, for he had died in 1005 A.D. It was to be set within a pocket dimension that contained white, Death Peak-esque mountains and an overcast sky, filled with fog. With the death of this trip came the death of Crono’s demise, however – in this world I’ve spun, he and Marle could still be alive.

The emergence of memories jostles Gaspar awake at the end; he questions the motivations and experiences of Magus and Serge, eventually arriving at an upward spiral that raises his spirits and forges his determination for his dream to find Fiona. My idea of Zeality is also shown, in which struggling for a seemingly impossible, noble goal is a right thing in itself. I carefully avoided having Spekkio magically appear at his side again in order to preserve a slight feeling of consequence. He bid Spekkio farewell, and thus he was gone – perhaps forever to readers at this point.

I had dreaded III. Echo of the Flame for a long time coming, as I had no idea how to start it. Inspiration came from hearing Rellik’s “Winds from Paradise (version 2),” which gave me the vision of an old, tired Frog, who could only see memories when his eyes opened. Touched upon in the large introduction are Cyrus’s friendship, the adventure with Crono and Marle, and the hatred for and later respecting of Magus, the sorcerer. This somewhat helps the reader prepare for what lay ahead in Magus’s future within the chapter; someone suggested that I should have him die to save Schala, but I did not want to purport that all sins are inescapable to a changed person. After writing the first few sentences, I listened to Scott Peeples’s “Requiem for a Green Revolution,” which resulted in a vision of strong wind blowing through Fiona’s forest, animating the scene with countless leaves and greenery. The theme came to me for the third chapter at this point; it would be about realizing one’s dream, and even facing death to become unified with an ideal of love. Frog had made peace with himself, and was now nearly at death, but even he summed up the courage to retain life in every breath; he would not lay down his head until it was his time. Before he made this decision, I listened to “Chillin’ with Sonic,” a removed VGMix track featuring a sax solo against rain and spacious chords. It is available for download (since it can’t be obtained anymore) at the bottom of this article.

After this examination of Frog, the scene is returned to the trio (hopefully, with an added air of complacency). They are now unified; Serge has come to look upon his frightening unknown, and is together with Magus and Gaspar in intensely searching for something. I decided that a small chat around the campfire would work for displaying Serge’s transition to this state. His convulsions also arose; while originally, I had intended him to sacrifice his life to Gaspar, I realized that this idle pondering was totally against the precepts I was championing, and that his actions could be a brilliant opportunity to reinforce and elaborate on my themes. He thus began recalling more and more in preparation for the restoration of his memory.

The poem that appears is made of the first eight lines of a Valentine’s Day poem I wrote for a girl. I consider it among my very best work, and placing it in the third chapter was symbolic of my devotion to finishing the Gaspar Collection. It became a burden and a worry as college approached, but I resolved to complete it.  It was also then that I began to appreciate my adding dimensions to Gaspar’s character. Almost an oddity of a person at the End of Time, he was quickly becoming a fleshed individual – and not because prior actions were being revealed, but because history was being made by his very eyes and hands. Also evident when the ship launches is Magus’s emergent ego; as he nears the possibility of finding Schala, he begins to cast off the armor of darkness that protected him and allowed him to remain resolute and robust in the face of unfathomable adversity. It was a true effort to keep this from being somewhat over the top, but my heart was in it, and having him think of Zeal one last time before setting sail was proper. At this time, Requiem for a Green Revolution was replaced by Disco Dan’s “Green Amnesia,” which was more upbeat, but retained the dreamy qualities present in the former song.

To cap off the themes presented in the second chapter, Guile’s fate was revealed – a clone made by Magus to oversee Project Kid, deliver relevant information, and die. He came to love life, however, and broke his plan to forge his own destiny in the world. This cannot help but encourage Magus as he sails to the Sea of Eden. Gaspar’s reaction hints at a fear of death, something to be confronted later. As a last note of encouragement, the other person to accompany Serge against the Time Devourer is revealed, and it is the Dragoon Glenn. Having sojourned and found and the Masamune after the quest ended, his memory was restored to him; he at once used its power to return to an unknown time, for an unknown purpose – an object of speculation, and something the readers can decide for themselves. Regardless, he accepted his past, and, discontent with the world of fading knighthood and honor and rising imperialism that lay before him, he departed.

The Frozen Flame, according to Chrono canon, lies in the Sea of Eden, where Belthasar will perhaps find it again later. Its connection is maintained with a rotting Time Devourer in the Darkness. I planned long ago for Magus to cringe at the evil insinuations forced upon his mind, and for the rational, scientific Gaspar to take the duty of communicating with the being that had forever changed their lives. Rather than have the Flame simply threaten to take Gaspar’s life, a more interesting deal was struck – his intellect for Fiona. The Time Devourer would find this entertaining, as Gaspar was a principal agent in his original defeat as Lavos. Death, however, is secretly reserved for Magus. I had one last chance for a battle sequence, and appropriately had Magus pull out some of his best moves to get around the Time Devourer, who, unfazed, continued to push for Gaspar’s yield. The reader might have expected a small, quiet ending after this, but while Gaspar’s feeling the effects of mental regression, much is going on around him.

I did not desire a grandiose ending, in which everyone reunites in perfect love. Schala and Magus made it, though rocketed to a strange dimension. Gaspar survives too, his memory regressed to his first transport out of the Ocean Palace. However, Serge and Fiona are near, giving hope that he will recover his memory and, at last, have his dream and future. This turned out to not be sufficient, however; I added in a piece inspired by Darkesword’s “The Beautiful Traveler (Starlight Mix).” The paragraphs mirror what Darkesword visualized when he remixed the song; Magus and Schala journey on a cool, magical eve, and come to a town where a celebration is occurring. Having no mind of the cause, or any circumstances at all, they freely join in and relish in happiness.

My only complaint is that the characters are now dead; there is nothing left for them to attain, meaning that they might as well not have existed at all. I will avoid this mistake in the future, and rather writing the characters out through perfection, I will leave some last objective or lofty business in their future. To achieve perfection is to sacrifice growth, and though that statement may have little real-world application, it holds true for characters who exist in a stagnant Elysium forever. Gaspar, Magus, Serge, Fiona, and Schala will all have their day once more.

Thanks for reading. When the Encyclopedia and other matters are attended to, I may yet write again.

Sefiros - Chillin' with Sonic
http://www.vgmix.com/song_view.php?song_id=1518
Sefiros, Koelsch1 - Chillin' with Sonic (Sax)
http://www.herograw.com/ocremix/Zeality/Sefiros,%20Koelsch1%20-%20Chillin'%20with%20Sonic%20(Sonic%203).mp3

SilentMartyr

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Gaspar Collection: A Look back
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2005, 09:43:01 pm »
Holy super post Batman. When I get back into the groove of school work I am gonna try and either write a new fic or pick my old one back up. Reading other fics will help my writers block for I have hit a mountain in trying to advance my old one.

hiddensquire

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Re: Gaspar Collection: A Look back
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2008, 05:11:17 am »
I realize it would have been more ideal to reply to this closer to the time the fanfic was actually created, rather than 3-5 years after the fact, but, as a new member, what else can ya do?  I'm sure Zeality doesn't mind the feedback regardless.  I'm going to be as honest as possible, and I do hope you take my criticism with a few grains of salt, especially, again, since it has been so long since the original writing.

Compliments first.

You did well with Magus, considering how much scrutiny you were under for writing such a popular character.  I keeled over laughing at the scene with him giving the dead stare to the waitress and replying (in an equally dead tone, in my mind) "A cherry."  Connecting the fruit to memories of Zeal made it all the better, but it would have been amusing even without that.  Magus, as one of his core badass tenets, is the king of making others feel awkward and inadequate.  This is further demonstrated when one wonders whether he actually has need for any sustenance at all, ordering a mere cherry for its enjoyment alone, rather than for any nourishment.  In fact, all he ate during the entire fanfic was a cherry and a sandwich!  (And I thought the sandwich scene was out of place for him, by the way.)

I appreciated how you had Magus touch on the question of what the heck he was going to do if/when he ever actually found Schala, as I'm sure this question has come across the minds of most Magus fans.  I was a little disappointed that you did not fully answer this question, instead only vaguely detailing the first couple hours after rescuing her, merely enjoying the moment in a random party.  Some kind of epilogue as to the actual aftermath of his reunion would have been nice, though I understand this is supremely difficult to write.  Several other questions lingered, such as: how does Schala actually feel about the whole situation, where did she actually come from when Lavos summoned her, and why, if Lavos was able to re-summon her at any time, it did not do so at any point earlier and attempt to re-bond with her.

Casting Magil as a clone of Magus was interesting.  I liked the idea.

Other than those qualities, it seemed to me that the fanfic as a whole was not really a story so much as a platform from which to preach your philosophical ideals.  Now, I understand that a writer's beliefs are going to show through to some degree or another in any of their works, but it was especially transparent in yours.  The bulk of the fanfic consisted of characters trapped in internal monologues regarding these ideals.  The fight with Serge and Magus was a nice little break, but more breaks would have helped - not necessarily a fighting break, but something.  The contents of Gaspar Chronicles 1 were mixed with sufficient non-internal-monologuing, but that piece was pretty much ruined by how easily Fiona not only understood what Gaspar was talking about, but also fell in love with him, casting the entire fanfic in a very contrived light.  If you had not had Gaspar wake up so close to the time at which Lavos would erupt, leaving Gaspar and Fiona more time to fall in love for real, it might have helped.  The fact that Fiona is young and Gaspar is old strongly works against your case; that could also be adjusted.  There is no reason whatsoever for Fiona not to be made an older woman, unless, you know, you're trying to be controversial.

ZeaLitY

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Re: Gaspar Collection: A Look back
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2008, 06:21:52 pm »
Yep, it was pretty neurotic. I'd have a much more dashing story if I wrote another. Thanks for the commentary.

Edit: I suppose we'll all be able to taste my writing again once Crimson Echoes is out...although the overall plot is more Chrono'99's brainchild with input from myself, Hadriel, and Daniel Krispin. I do write 90% of the dialogue, though.