Magus' apparent knowledge of lavos

[Chrono45]

It seems that magus some how acquired knowledge about lavos. Their was the incident with his red staff where he had expected to injure him with some specific attack. Also, their was his knowledge of how to "summon" Lavos. If you remember at the end of you first battle he tells you he was only summoning him. How does magus know how to summon him? why does magus think a seemingly insignificant attack should hurt him? As far as I can remember magus' only interaction with lavos was the brief moment of running to the bridge of the ocean palace and then quickly being sucked to 600 a.d. During which lavos wasn't really even their. So did magus get information by some other means about Lavos?

[utunnels]

My guess.

He studied the ancient knowledge of the Mystics, whose power and knowledge of 'magic' might have been acquired from Lavos. Whatever from the direct contact with the Frozen Flame or passed down indirectly from the relics of Zeal. Perhaps like 'science', magic also has its own self-contained system, which can also be developed and theorized(don't ask me how, I don't know nothing about it ), instead of just inherit. Hence, like we humans have learnt about blackholes and their characteristics before we actually encounter one, the magic users(in this topic, the Mystics) may also learn the mysteries of Lavos(its quality and weakness), although the knowledge may be incorrect or incomplete.

Consider CT is a half fantasy/half scientific story, this theory sounds satisfying enough to me. It is like one tries to figure out where and how Belthasar got the knowledge of time, there may be a short cut for those magic users.


Have been reading Lovecraft for a long time.

How on earth could there be a book which is even older than the history of human?
Where did those cults learn the ritual that summons an Outer God?
Why an incantation has such power which...

Pretty much like such kind of questions. In the beginning was the Word, maybe.

[Chrono45]

I certainly agree that magic (in Chrono Trigger) has some sort of systematic nature. I garner that info from the magic laboratories like enhasa and kajar in zeal. But humans have learned about black holes by "encountering" them albeit by giant radars or what not, we had some means of measuring them. Humans didn't just think up the idea of black holes we saw something strange and decided "hey lets measure that." I dont know how closely scientific discovery relates to magical discovery, but if they are alike magus would have to sense lavos in some fashion.

Also, I wasn't aware mystics had a great deal of ancient knowledge. I was under the assumption they were chumps until magus rallied and organized them. I believe ozzie (assumable when Janus gets ported to about 580ish a.d. the big green jerk that finds him is ozzie) and the mystics were mostly uncivilized until then which would be a good reason for them to just be hanging out in the woods. If you know something about the mystics that I don't please share it.

Lastly, my lore of Chrono Cross is a bit shaky since i have only beat it like twice. But what happened to the frozen flame? as far as i can remember i believe it was discovered sometime before antiquity and possibly brought to zeal. after lavos destroyed the place I presume it was lost until Bethasar came about it? anywho, yeah if you know something about the mystics past, prior to 600 ad that i seem to be missing please fill me in.

[utunnels]

Also, I wasn't aware mystics had a great deal of ancient knowledge. I was under the assumption they were chumps until magus rallied and organized them.

Hmm, maybe, or maybe not.
One possibility is their civilizations are kinda loose or have declined like the Mayan. The Mystics may still preserve the literatures but few can understand the true meaning(in another word, the Mystics worship instead of research and use them, as they are passed down from generation to generation). The humans may treat the Mystics(who barely civilized) as some devilish cults that play with witchcraft and do nothing good.
Janus, however, raised in the magic kingdom Zeal and perhaps already half educated, was surely another story. That's why he became their Great Magus.


Edit*

Not I got these from game scripts, just some assumptions.

[Synchronization]

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[Chrono45]

I suppose it would make sense that Janus was tutored, But I dont think we are exactly sure that magus attacked lavos with dream stone. I suppose i felt Janus to young to have been started some form of education. Also, his general waywardness (he just seemed to run around the palace without any responsibilities) would indicate that he never really had to be anywhere for any sort of education. But it was revealed by I think melchoir (I can't remember though if it was him or a nu or someone else) So that would make sense that melchoir was involved to some extent with Janus. Would melchoir have taught Janus that dream stone would drain lavos' or tell any thing to Janus about lavos? I guess it had never occurred to me but I feel that Magus gathered this information after he got warped.

[Synchronization]

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[Chrono45]

Well, If my memory serves me correctly, Melchoir uses the logic that the mammon machine could be destroyed by the ruby knife because both were made of dreamstone. Since Lavos isn't the mammon machine, the only connection I see is that it could harvest lavos's energy. And I'm a little confused on why you keep bringing up the red rock? Your talking about dreamstone right? At what point did magus use dreamstone?

Also Magus going down an anti-crono path? Could you provide your analysis of this anti-crono characterization and how magus fits this archetype.  And on an anti-path wouldn't magus have to find it out on his own (being told vs not being told). Assuming things (in my opinion) is a bad way to interpret plot as their could very well  be evidence that we could use in its stead (assuming things means you made them up, evidence actually will support an idea). Metaphors aside I know the plot to chrono trigger pretty well, so instead of telling me its to complicated for me to understand, you could just post a well thought out explanation of your ideas on the topic.

[Synchronization]

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[Chrono45]

How are you sure the staff that magus used is dreamstone? being a red staff may be an indication, but other than that i don't know if their is any evidence, or even any mention of the staff. What does magus' status as a magician have to do with interpreting the effectiveness of a possible dreamstone staff?

Also, what part of my question did you think was ill posed? I merely want to know where magus acquired the knowledge to summon lavos and why he thought an attack would be effective.

[Mr Bekkler]

I would assume his knowledge of Lavos has to do with the origin of the Mystics and their magic. I am of the side that thinks that Mystics were born from Zeal in one way or another, and thus some of Zeal's knowledge must have been passed down along with their magic ability. The enlightened seemed to know an awful lot about Lavos, or at least they assumed a lot about Lavos, and perhaps didn't know much at all, which might be part of the reason for Magus' ultimate failure in summoning the beast. After all, before Crono&Co show up, Magus mysteriously dies in 600AD right? He hasn't had any kind of formal education and whatever he has learned he's picked up himself or has been shown by the only other magic users around, the Mystics.

Personally I doubt Magus uses a dreamstone weapon, considering the one weapon in the game stated to be made of dreamstone (the Masamune) has allegedly devastating effects on Magus.

[Chrono45]

Actually, I believe that it is frog who kills him in the time line uninterrupted by crono and co. In one of the endings it shows frog going through magus' castle and then attacking him and possibly killing him I can't quite remember all the details I haven't got that ending for a couple of years. I would tend to agree with you about the staff too. Melchoir made it sound impossible to finding dreamstone in 1000 ad so one might think that the same went for 600 ad. So I dont think magus could have gathered the dreamstone, unless he crafted it as the profit when he was teleported back to zeal. Although the masamune did have detrimental effects to magus' power, i wouldn't think dreamstones presence would. I think there is a difference between being weak to something ripping threw your flesh and holding something made of dreamstone.

I also agree that if the mystics were some form of experiments/mutants from zeal that it would be a very good reason for magus' understanding of lavos, but alas as far as i know their is very little evidence that they are from zeal.

Interesting though I will have to play through that ending again to see what actually happens between frog and magus.

[utunnels]

If so, how did Frog get the Masamune fixed?

[Chrono45]

Do you mean how did crono and co get melchoir to fix the masamune in 1000ad? Or how did frog fix the masamune in the alternate timeline? The first one is obviously they went back in time to 65 million bc and grabbed the dreamstone from ayla. As far as frog getting it in the alternate timeline (if he even did) that's probably a conversation for a new topic entirely. But that ending may happen after you restore the masamune but before you beat magus, so the answer would be crono and co again. Which if thats true then that timeline would have been changed from the original before crono even met frog. If thats the case then whether frog killed him or he summoned lavos and got disappeared in some fashion by lavos who knows.

[alfadorredux]

The ending "The Oath" is available between Frog's recruitment and the fight with Magus, so the Masamune has already been restored there. In the original timeline, Magus pretty obviously succeeded in summoning Lavos and became its mid-afternoon snack, rather than getting killed by Frog.

Personally, though, I don't remember this "red staff" of yours, just Magus unsuccessfully trying to whack Lavos' nose off with a standard scythe attack in the Ocean Palace.