Septerra Core's Connor's Death Scene

What was the point?

Really.  Seriously.  What purpose did the scene in Septerra Core in which Connor finally meets his end actually serve for the game’s narrative?

Alright, so, because Septerra Core came out in 1999, most of you who have played the game could most likely use a quick Previously On X-Men refresher on the subject of today’s rant.  And if you’ve only just finished playing the game a couple days ago, like me, you could still probably use a reminder, because I’m sorry but this game does not leave much of an impression in the modern age.  Here’s the deal: our protagonist Maya and her crew have found their way into Marduk’s lost city, and navigated its bland, nigh-featureless dungeon expanse filled to the damn brim with bland, nigh-featureless disposable enemies, because Septerra Core loves grinding more than a lesbian pepper mill doing skateboard tricks while eating a hoagie and listening to punk/heavy metal hybrids.  Maya’s taken this stroll down Slow, Clunky EXP Fodder Avenue in the hopes of gaining entrance to the temple in which legendary hero Marduk enshrined his 2 daemon swords, because they’re the only way to counter main villain Daskias’s special glowy ultra-sword, in spite of the fact that Maya’s standard armament is an automatic rifle, which is already more than a match for Daskias’s ultimate unstoppable blade because it’s a fucking gun.

Anyway, she’s been warned against committing any act of violence inside the temple, because that would be sacrilegious and whatnot.*  So she finds the place, goes in, sees the swords, and suddenly her buddy Lobo runs in to warn her that he’s detected the pirate warlord Connor** in the area.  Right after he finishes telling her, and I do mean 2 seconds afterward, Connor arrives and demands the swords.  Why even have Lobo show up at all?  2 seconds’ lead time doesn’t give Maya any chance to formulate a plan, nor does it allow any narrative benefit of rising tension.  All it does is take a little away from whatever potential surprise there is in Connor’s showing up, and put Lobo on the scene, which does absolutely nothing because Lobo does and says nothing that anyone else couldn’t have.  I get that Lobo and Connor are personal foes, but that individual enmity has no effect whatsoever on how this scene plays out.

So Maya and company invoke the law of Finders Keepers, Connor keeps threatening, Lobo warns him that they’re not supposed to fight in the temple, and Connor makes it clear that he doesn’t buy into all that mumbo-jumbo, which doesn’t pan out for him when a holy spirit thing shows up a moment later and explodes him.  Yeah, you show’im, ghost guy!  A temple dedicated to housing weapons that demands absolutely no violence within its premises and enforces that law of pacifism by causing a guy who merely spoke threateningly to literally explode--absolutely nothing confusing about that message, no sirree!

Why is Connor the first guy the ghost of Megumin targets in this scene, for that matter?  Yeah, sure, he’s the aggressor here, but Lobo’s the one who keeps taking aggressive steps towards Connor and forcing him to keep backing away in this situation.  Not to mention that of everyone in this room, Lobo’s the only one who’s perpetually got his giant sci-fi rifle up and at the ready like he’s trapped in a 90s Image Comics cover.  If I were an anti-violence demolitions phantom first responder, my initial instinct would be to neutralize the guy whose finger is literally on the trigger.

More importantly: why is this scene happening, really?  What purpose is served to the story of Septerra Core, its characters, its plot, its themes, player immersion, anything?  First of all, why make this the moment that Connor meets his fate?  Connor wasn’t a big or dangerous enough villain to require a splashy deus ex machina death.  The guy can only barely be considered a secondary villain, and he’s had his ass kicked twice before this moment, so it’s not like the player is under the impression that Maya and company aren’t capable of defeating him by their own efforts.  Frankly, the last time we saw him was recently, and the way the fight ended seemed laughably stupid--once Connor had been stomped adequately, his escape from the situation was basically just to quietly exit the room, which required him to stroll right past the heroes on his way out, as they just wordlessly watched him do so.***  Adding Connor to the scene here doesn’t really raise the stakes or tension because he’s not a major threat, and even if he were, the whole affair is over and done with so fast that there’s still no benefit to having a villain present to challenge the no violence edict.  Neither Lobo nor Maya give any indication that seeing Connor’s end is particularly cathartic or otherwise emotionally significant, and if the player has any strong feelings about Connor getting his comeuppance, then he or she would almost surely have been more satisfied with simply having disposed of the nuisance by their own efforts in their previous encounter, rather than simply seeing Connor magically exploded because The Plot Someone On The Development Team Demanded It.

There’s no player involvement, so it’s not like this is some test of the player’s memory or commitment to heroism.  Connor’s arrival and demands, Lobo and Maya’s refusal, and finally Connor’s death, it’s all done via cutscene.  It’s not like the player has some agency in choosing to do the “right” thing and not attack in combat, like Cecil vs. Dark Cecil in Final Fantasy 4, or choosing pacifist combat approaches in Undertale.

There’s no lasting lesson that Maya takes from this scene about the dangers of resorting to violence too hastily.  The lore isn’t expanded from the temple being a Nanako No Fighting Zone.  Since it’s wrapped up immediately thereafter, Connor’s arrival and threat presents no wrinkle to the plot.  Nonviolent conflict resolution isn’t a theme of Septerra Core by any stretch of the imagination, at least no more than it might be for virtually any other RPG.  None of the heroes have the slightest difficulty adhering to the temple’s rule (Lobo’s constantly being prepared to shoot a hole in the roof notwithstanding), so there’s no character development here.

This is just a scene that happens, and it’s done, and you go about your business as if nothing had occurred.  Maya could easily have just gotten the swords and been good to go, and nothing about the game going forward would have been changed whatsoever.  What was the point?

















* Which, by the way, seems a little strange to me.  There’s no violence permitted in the temple that specifically serves as the shrine and home to a couple of swords?  Swords are notorious for being linked to violence, and very, very little else.  They’re weapons, they are made explicitly and entirely with violence in mind!  That’s like having a holy cathedral dedicated to housing the ultimate stapler, while also possessing the viewpoint that the act of collating paper is an unforgivable sin against God.


** Look, I have tried to train myself in the last decade to not make fun of names because it’s ultimately a completely arbitrary matter, but all the same, I have to ask: how the fuck am I supposed to take someone seriously as an evil, murderous pirate when he’s named fucking Connor?


*** The Septerra Core cast has a really, really bad habit of just letting bad guys wander off after battle.  Like, I get that sometimes you need the heroes to win a fight, but you’re also not done with the villain in your story just yet, but there are ways to believably extricate your baddie from the situation!  Maya and company just silently, motionlessly gawk as foe after foe hop along on their merry way after a fight, and it starts to get annoying before long.  Finish’em off or attempt to detain them, guys, just stop STANDING there and watching the pirate warlord slowly make his way out the very door you came in through, practically bumping into you as he goes!  I’m almost surprised that Maya didn’t politely give him the “after you” motion!