Talks about otome games, drama cds, and occasionally provides advice? Running away endlessly from my backlog of hobbies.

Ilinox

You misunderstood me, because I was talking about how the dragon symbolism was something that could be sin or heroism. Your example ties the datura to the relationship and not the character himself, so that still doesn't work. I don't want to sound patronizing or absolute when talking about writing, because I believe writers can challenge the "rules" in writing at any time; however, this is predicated on them understanding how the rules work.

So, let's talk about symbolism first, and then I'll clarify what I meant by "lacking coherency".

LEVEL 1 — SURFACE LEVEL

This is taking something at the surface level and connecting it to the character. There's nothing inherently wrong or lesser with this action, because sometimes a writer doesn't want to go any deeper with a symbol.

My example here would be Osborn and how his flower is the iris. Its flower language is conviction, longing, admiration, and hope. These are nice meanings that can be applied to Osborn, but they aren't unique to him either. At most, the Light and Night writers gave him the iris because its color matches his character color, its meanings are appropriate enough for him, and all the men need a symbolic flower.

LEVEL 2 — THE METAPHOR OF THE SYMBOL

This is taking the commonly accepted meaning of something and connecting it to the character.

My example here would be Sariel and how his flower is the queen of the night. The queen of the night is almost always used to mean an ephemeral beauty because it only blooms one night a year. The Light and Night writers gave Sariel this flower because he's a near immortal fox who has lived thousands of lifetimes for most people's one lifetime, and so everything in the world to him would be like a fleeting beauty.

Writers can go against this commonly accepted meaning, but they would have to show somehow that they know what the commonly accepted meaning is and how and why they're going against it.

LEVEL 3 — THE METAPHOR OF THE SYMBOL + WRITER ADDITIONS

This is taking the commonly accepted meaning of something and also adding something the writer wants to connect to the character.

My example here would be Charlie and how his flower is the passion flower clematis. Its flower language is noble, unsullied, and elegance, which suits Charlie because of how he's a selfless phoenix who just wishes to save people. However, the in-game description attached to this flower is "Please forgive me, for I have sinned because of you" which is an intense contrast to its flower language. Charlie has a theme of paradox because his ideal utopia clashes with the state of reality and, at times, his morals waver because of this internal conflict. The Light and Night writers are incorporating both the flower language and their unique writer addition into Charlie.

THE DATURA SYMBOLISM

Now, we return to the datura, a flower that is entirely poisonous. Being poisonous is the nature of the datura and any writer worth their salt would know they cannot ignore this, regardless of whether they want to go against the commonly accepted meaning or add anything else onto it.

To expand on my previous point, Evan was given the datura because its poisonous nature is a key symbol for him. His mere existence, and thus the continued existence of the Blood Clan, makes him a danger to Miss Designer, which he states explicitly (literally, if Evan drinks Miss Designer's blood he would have to "hurt" her, no matter her willingness). Even when Miss Designer says he's not like the other Blood Clan, Evan talks about how a branch growing from a corrupted tree shares the same corrupted nutrients. He and his clan have gallons and gallons of blood on their hands, innocent and not.

A poisonous flower cannot change its poisonous nature no matter how much it wants to, and Miss Designer's relationship with Evan is in acceptance and understanding of this.

This brings me back to my question, why was Qin Che given the datura? The silk ball intangible cultural heritage video added the traits "mysterious" and "elegant" to his black datura silk ball and in his myth the red daturas became black, which is very "what the hell, sure, artistic liberty I guess" since black daturas don't exist, but where is the acknowledgment of the datura being a poisonous flower?

From what I understand, and hear about from all his stans, Qin Che was misunderstood, demonized, and tried to break his horns. He doesn't seem to have a guilty conscience because he has no innocent blood on his hands, and if he does kill people they all seem to be related to shady businesses. He's not even dangerous to Miss Hunter because he's supposedly been protecting her all these years. So, why does he have the poisonous flower then?

If we replaced the black datura with a black lily, would that not also work? White lilies can represent the purity of his soul, his commitment, and they're also conveniently funeral flowers, then after his death they turn black to give him that elegance and mystery. Black lilies actually exist too and they supposedly mean transformation, rebirth, power, and elegance. If this seems like an agreeable replacement, then that just proves my point of the writers having a lack of skill and lacking coherency because they're ignoring the crucial symbol of the flower they chose.

It's like Love and Deepspace writers want to be on level 3 symbolism but they keep screwing up their execution on all levels. (This isn't really related to this post on symbolism and the datura, so I don't want to get too into it, but I have words about how Papergames wants to push the mysterious and elegant angle so hard for Qin Che but it goes against their game design of being able to put the men in panda outfits and whale the affinity to marriage levels in the first week.)

Anyway, as I keep reminding people, I don't care what game anyone plays, I just get annoyed at those glazers using absolute language LOL. It would be alright if I never had to see the writing of a game I dislike, like Alkaid: Lady of a Turbulent Era and Memoirs in Metheus, but these people are everywhere... I can't even look at my Light and Night art in peace.

You misunderstood me, because I was talking about how the dragon symbolism was something that could be sin or heroism. Your example ties the datura to the 

 and not the character himself, so that still doesn't work. I don't want to sound patronizing or absolute when talking about writing, because I believe writers can challenge the "rules" in writing at any time; however, this is predicated on them understanding how the rules work.

So, let's talk about symbolism first, and then I'll clarify what I meant by "lacking coherency".

This is taking something at the surface level and connecting it to the character. There's nothing inherently wrong or lesser with this action, because sometimes a writer doesn't want to go any deeper with a symbol.

My example here would be Osborn and how his flower is the iris. Its flower language is conviction, longing, admiration, and hope. These are nice meanings that can be applied to Osborn, but they aren't unique to him either. At most, the Light and Night writers gave him the iris because its color matches his character color, its meanings are appropriate enough for him, and all the men need a symbolic flower.

This is taking the commonly accepted meaning of something and connecting it to the character.

My example here would be Sariel and how his flower is the queen of the night. The queen of the night is almost always used to mean an ephemeral beauty because it only blooms one night a year. The Light and Night writers gave Sariel this flower because he's a near immortal fox who has lived thousands of lifetimes for most people's one lifetime, and so everything in the world to him would be like a fleeting beauty.

Writers can go against this commonly accepted meaning, but they would have to show somehow that they know what the commonly accepted meaning is and how and why they're going against it.

LEVEL 3 — THE METAPHOR OF THE SYMBOL + WRITER ADDITIONS

This is taking the commonly accepted meaning of something and also adding something the writer wants to connect to the character.

My example here would be Charlie and how his flower is the passion flower clematis. Its flower language is noble, unsullied, and elegance, which suits Charlie because of how he's a selfless phoenix who just wishes to save people. However, the in-game description attached to this flower is "Please forgive me, for I have sinned because of you" which is an intense contrast to its flower language. Charlie has a theme of paradox because his ideal utopia clashes with the state of reality and, at times, his morals waver because of this internal conflict. The Light and Night writers are incorporating both the flower language and their unique writer addition into Charlie.

Now, we return to the datura, a flower that is entirely poisonous. Being poisonous is the nature of the datura and any writer worth their salt would know they cannot ignore this, regardless of whether they want to go against the commonly accepted meaning or add anything else onto it.

To expand on my previous point, Evan was given the datura because its poisonous nature is a key symbol for him. His mere existence, and thus the continued existence of the Blood Clan, makes him a danger to Miss Designer, which he states explicitly (literally, if Evan drinks Miss Designer's blood he would have to "hurt" her, no matter her willingness). Even when Miss Designer says he's not like the other Blood Clan, Evan talks about how a branch growing from a corrupted tree shares the same corrupted nutrients. He and his clan have gallons and gallons of blood on their hands, innocent and not.

A poisonous flower cannot change its poisonous nature no matter how much it wants to, and Miss Designer's relationship with Evan is in acceptance and understanding of this.

This brings me back to my question, why was Qin Che given the datura? The 

 intangible cultural heritage video added the traits "mysterious" and "elegant" to his black datura silk ball and in his myth the red daturas became black, which is very "what the hell, sure, artistic liberty I guess" since black daturas don't exist, but where is the acknowledgment of the datura being a poisonous flower?

From what I understand, and hear about from all his stans, Qin Che was misunderstood, demonized, and tried to break his horns. He doesn't seem to have a guilty conscience because he has no innocent blood on his hands, and if he does kill people they all seem to be related to shady businesses. He's not even dangerous to Miss Hunter because he's supposedly been protecting her all these years. So, why does he have the 

If we replaced the black datura with a black lily, would that not also work? White lilies can represent the purity of his soul, his commitment, and they're also conveniently funeral flowers, then after his death they turn black to give him that elegance and mystery. Black lilies actually exist too and they supposedly mean transformation, rebirth, power, and elegance. If this seems like an agreeable replacement, then that just proves my point of the writers having a lack of skill and lacking coherency because they're ignoring the crucial symbol of the flower they chose.

It's like Love and Deepspace writers want to be on level 3 symbolism but they keep screwing up their execution on all levels. (This isn't really related to this post on symbolism and the datura, so I don't want to get too into it, but I have words about how Papergames wants to push the mysterious and elegant angle so hard for Qin Che but it goes against their game design of being able to put the men in panda outfits and whale the affinity to marriage levels in the first week.)

Anyway, as I keep reminding people, I don't care what game anyone plays, I just get annoyed at those glazers using absolute language LOL. It would be alright if I never had to see the writing of a game I dislike, like Alkaid: Lady of a Turbulent Era and Memoirs in Metheus, but these people are everywhere... I can't even look at my Light and Night art in peace.

I don't think the datura is meant to represent sin or heroism, the context of that scene was a dream and datura is know to cause vivid hallucinations so I think that's why they used the flower to hint even further that Miss Hunter was hallucinating/dreaming of spending time with QC in their separation. Arguably you could could say that's a very superficial connection, and I'd agree to some extent, but I wouldn't say it was on the level of  "lacking coherency". I do wish sometimes the writing would have more depth, I wouldn't mind the writers extrapolating on his connection to datura, but when considering the sci-fi aspects I appreciate them not going too deep. As someone who was never into Star Wars or any other space sci-fi stuff, mostly because any science that isnt health science related is very difficult to wrap my head around, this game is more easy to digest for me. I can, however, understand being turned off by the difference in writing quality.

I'll definitely check out more info about Evan, that connection to datura sounds really unique! The writers sound really talented and your love for them really shines through the way you praise them.

Ilinox

Regarding QC and Datura