Chrono Trigger's Party Members' Pseudonyms

Aliases are not exactly an uncommon phenomenon in RPGs.  I mean, they aren’t in all of fiction, really, but they prevail especially often in this genre.  And that fact isn’t terribly surprising, either.  RPGs have the usual array of story-related reasons for characters to have multiple names and identities to go by which inevitably work their way into a plot twist later on--taking on a new name to go undercover (like a guy named Ryu beating the shit out of some hermit minding his own business named Baba so he can steal Baba’s identity because damn it all he’s gonna get those backstage passes 1 way or another), or making a clean break from the past (like a guy named Clyde taking on the name Shadow because he wants to avoid the messy business of child support checks), or deceiving the heroes into believing that their new best buddy is not actually a complete shitbag using them for nefarious ends (like a guy named Ghaleon deciding that his name just wasn’t sus enough and to begin moonlighting as the Magic Emperor), among many other examples.

But RPGs are also inordinately fond of of both the Plot-Induced Amnesia and the Rebellious Princess tropes, far more than most other narrative ventures, and these story paths are almost always accompanied by pseudonyms, since the schmucks in question either can’t remember their own names or view being known as royalty as a hindrance to adventuring (hell, sometimes it’s a 2-for-1 schmuck like Legrand Legacy’s Finn doing both routines).  It doesn’t always make a lot of sense--I really don’t know who Tales of Vesperia’s Princess Estellise thinks she’s fooling by choosing “Estelle” as her codename, that’s like someone named Jonathan going undercover as Jon--but it certainly does happen a lot all the same.

Oh, and also, goddesses who have reincarnated as humans and don’t remember that fact.  Holy fuck do RPGs ever love playing that card.  You can even get bonus pseudonyms out of that one--Erim from the Lufia series and Althena from the Lunar series each have (at least) 3 separate named identities, and can you imagine how many different monickers Hylia would’ve collected by this point if she didn’t just keep getting slapped with “Zelda” every time?  Woman would have so many aliases that the FBI would put her on a list just out of reflex.

Even considering how prone to pseudonyms the genre is as a whole, however, Chrono Trigger is a peculiar case.  Because while other RPGs might be content with 1, maybe 2 major characters who have separate names for substantial plot-related reasons, over half of Chrono Trigger’s main characters are known by pseudonyms!  There are, after all, only 3 characters in the party whose names are genuinely their own (Ayla, Lucca, and Crono), while the remaining 4 are known by adopted monickers.  Marle is actually Princess Nadia, Magus is actually Janus, Frog is actually Glenn, and Robo...well heck, Robo ought to count double, because he’s actually R66-Y AND Prometheus.*

And I can’t help but wonder: thematic, or a coincidence?

I mean, it’d be a hell of a chance occurrence to have 4 characters’ arcs all substantially involve adopted names in the same game, without the writers having intended the concurrence for any higher purpose.  Particularly since CT’s writers were all quite competent--it’d be out of character for this to just be a case of some oversight.

And it’s worth recognizing that each character’s pseudonym has different context and reason for its existence, but all could be seen to share a narrative purpose.  Marle chooses to be Marle, for positive and self-affirming reasons.  While the choice to hide her identity of Nadia might have briefly, at the start, been a matter of convenience (as she didn’t want Crono to treat her differently due to her status), after that point, being Marle is clearly a decision she makes for her own sake--”Marle” is who she really is, while “Nadia” is a restriction imposed upon her by people and circumstances she despises.  And while she does reconcile with her father and (presumably to some degree) her position as a princess, she and her character’s arc have made it clear that she’s not giving up the name she gave herself.  “Marle” is an identity, her identity, and “Nadia” a castoff that, at best, she won’t object to being called when her royal life does have to crop up.

Like Marle, Frog chooses his pseudonym--but for him, it’s clearly for negative reasons.  The name is a way of hiding within his cursed form, avoiding acknowledging his past failure as Glenn and hiding that truth from the world, particularly those he loves and respects, like Queen Leene and King Guardia.  While “Marle” is an identity of self-affirmation and freedom of individuality, “Frog” is one of shame and/or fear, an identity created to coincide with the cursed body that serves as a physical representation of Glenn’s failure and loss.  In terms of the identity of “Frog,” Glenn’s story is one of coming to terms with his past and an identity built on its consequences, and bringing honor and self-value back into his life as Frog.  While “Marle” is a positive identity to start with, “Frog” is one in which a healthy self-attitude must be grown--and even then, it’s almost certain that the identity of “Glenn” is the preferable one and would be who the man seeks someday to be again.

Robo, meanwhile, is an interesting variation.  Unlike Frog and Marle, Robo doesn’t choose his pseudonym, instead being dubbed such by Crono, who apparently either has no creativity whatsoever or just didn’t give half a shit.  “Robo” is the name of the character who develops from essentially nothingness from the moment that Lucca repairs him.  Unlike Marle and Frog, there’s not really any conflict of identity for the majority of the game for Robo--he doesn’t remember his previous life the way they do, and he isn’t given a chance, when meeting his assembly line brothers, to decide whether he wants to exist as Robo or as R66-Y, as they turn on him automatically.  While being called a defect distresses him and of course he doesn’t particularly like getting the crap kicked out of him, the incident never offers a choice to Robo regarding which identity he wants--by the end of it, the beings who have saved him are the ones who named him Robo and there’s nothing else left for him as R66-Y, so of course he’s going to be Robo going forward.  The choice only comes late in the game, and unexpectedly, as Atropos reveals that he had another identity as Prometheus before, and that he’d been meant to be an infiltration unit of sorts.  It’s a questionable claim, actually, given that Atropos herself is only being all genocide-y because her programming’s been tampered with by Mother Brain, but at the time said claim is made, Robo has no particular reason to doubt it.  Either way, the identity of “Robo” is the one that’s been given the time and opportunity to grow, and given things and people to cherish, while “Prometheus” is still just a theoretical that can’t be remembered, so the choice, while still significant, is nonetheless probably easy for Robo to make.  Though it was a name given to him, Robo has grown into his identity as such, and now chooses to be that self just as much as Marle does.

Magus, of course, is grumpy and not a team player even when it comes to narrative tools like character development, so we can’t really say for sure what the emotional circumstances are that tie him to his current name.  Maybe it was a name given him by Ozzie that he grew into like Robo, or maybe it’s something he wears because he’s ashamed of what he was as Janus like Frog, or maybe he legitimately only ever started feeling like a person in his own right once he was away from everyone who knew him by his former identity like Marle.  There’s a good chance it’s none of the above and more an edgy new-name-for-a-new-identity-of-VENGEANCE sort of thing.  Could also be something else entirely.  Regardless, we can’t say for sure exactly what the story of “Magus” is, only that he willingly keeps it.  But the absence of an answer is an answer too, in the sense that the mystery still makes it a different case from the other pseudonyms, from our audience perspective.

So the story of each character’s pseudonym is different, but they all clearly work toward similar purposes of showing identity as something consciously chosen.  Marle, Magus, and Robo all arrive at a destination of voluntarily embracing these identities, and even though Frog’s story is a bit different, it still revolves around him using a name to undergo an emotional journey to come to terms with and accept himself--it’s just that in his case, he’s arriving at an acceptance of “Frog” and more importantly a willingness to return to “Glenn” someday.  So there’s certainly a theme to be read here, one of the human will to choose their own self and to consciously defy or own the identity given to them by others.

I just don’t really know if this theme that you can find was actually intended.

I mean...yeah, okay, when the majority of your cast run in the same thematic circle, most often it’s for a reason.  Look at Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, after all.  The theme of ascension, of rising above the restrictions placed upon you by the universe, is all over the place in its cast’s stories, with succubi overcoming the Evil in their natures, and Hell Knights subtly working outside Law’s methods to achieve success, and broken PTSD-suffering fallen paladins being nurtured back to believing that a day might come when they’ll be okay again, and so on and so forth.  It’s all over the place; there’s very few major characters that don’t tie to this ascension theme in 1 fashion or another.
 
But at the same time...well, ascension is a theme that exists within and permeates PWotR far beyond just the main cast.  The story as a whole plays with it, the main villain ties to it, and it’s the very purpose itself of the true ending.  By contrast, as far as I can see, this concept of self-determined identity represented by pseudonym isn’t a part of Chrono Trigger as a whole.  Human will and potential is a major theme of the game, and I suppose that’s at least somewhere in the same ballpark as self-determined identity, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to assume they’re intended to be connected, particularly since the method of the latter (the pseudonyms) doesn’t appear in any other significant part of the game.**

So...I’m inclined to say that the peculiar prevalence of pseudonyms in Chrono Trigger’s cast might, indeed, be more coincidence than contrived.  Maybe it was intended to tie to the game’s ideas on existential will and potential, but I just don’t see enough evidence of it.  Maybe the writers didn’t somehow overlook the fact that the game had so many main characters running around with aliases, but just recognized that what they’d made still works and wisely decided not to mess with it.  Anyway, the point is that I have fully wasted my time and yours considering a question no one was asking, and arriving at a conclusion that requires no shifting of one’s perspective on the matter in the slightest.  Aren’t you glad you read these things?




















* I mean I guess Frog also has a second pseudonym of Mr. Toad thanks to Crono’s mom, but just because all these amphibians look the same to her doesn’t mean that we should humor her blatant and disgusting racism.  Why, she was even shocked that one of Frog’s kind could articulate himself!  Truly disgraceful.  I ask you, where were Nintendo’s censors that day?


** Yes, Lavos is given a name by Ayla (like how Robo was named by the party), but it’s no pseudonym, because it’s the only name he ever possesses, nor is it part of any story of identity.  And yes, Gasper’s name is only revealed late in the game, but until that point he only has a title (Old Man), not an actual alternate alias.  And again, it isn’t used to explore any concept of identity.