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Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.52.0] [Selebus]

4.10 star(s) 337 Votes
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ratmanirl

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Nov 25, 2022
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Ma1phas said:
Too sick to be eloquent, so forgive if I jumble this a bit.
Nodoka isn't written like a smart character, she's written like a caricature of one. The callous, detached, possibly even sociopathic behavior, and general smugness that makes you want to punch her. No focus on any area of study so she just knows everything about everything and reads people like books despite her abject lack of social understanding.
She basically comes of as a character written to be how DeGrasse views himself, and the modern views and associations of morals being dumb and nihilism being a sign of intelligence.
If it's not intentional and she's not actually supernatural, she's a poorly written character, and even then she kind of is.

A general rule, a writer can make a character far smarter than themselves, but they can't really make a character wiser than themselves. Not intentionally, anyways.
Sel isn't STUPID, but he certainly isn't a wise man as we've often seen from his childish, egotistical behavior, and while his writing has plenty of smart points to it, the attempts to be mysterious and deep often dip into pure pretention.
Nodoka, when she really gets going on her views and motives, is the pure embodiment of this.
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Definitely unintentional, or just too lazy to fix it. Like regarding Futaba, the conversation is actually about if you should respect your friend's feelings, even if they are unreasonable, which fair enough is an interesting idea. But the premise to even have that conversation is that Futaba's feelings are unreasonable, or in other words that Nodoka's book has 0% chance of impacting Futaba besides just her feelings.

And Sel does such a piss-poor job of arguing that Futaba won't actually get hurt, with Nodoka just saying "yeah, you won't get hurt because... I said so." And no one challenges Nodoka for this, not even Futaba. So it's like what the fuck is the point of 85% of the conversation when you never even justified the very foundation of it? And why does Futaba just let Nodoka get away with saying that?

There's a glaring issue, but the character is too dumb to address it even though it's obvious. Completely ruins my immersion cuz it seems like an asspull to make Nodoka right. You can say that's kinda the point, after all Nodoka's whole spiel during Nodokathon was along the lines of "I'm right until someone proves me wrong" but I guess they live in a world of idiots who can't argue against Nodoka so Nodoka is always right.
 
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LessonsInDissonance

LessonsInDissonance

Active Member
Oct 1, 2023
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Ma1phas said:
Too sick to be eloquent, so forgive if I jumble this a bit.
Nodoka isn't written like a smart character, she's written like a caricature of one. The callous, detached, possibly even sociopathic behavior, and general smugness that makes you want to punch her. No focus on any area of study so she just knows everything about everything and reads people like books despite her abject lack of social understanding.
She basically comes of as a character written to be how DeGrasse views himself, and the modern views and associations of morals being dumb and nihilism being a sign of intelligence.
If it's not intentional and she's not actually supernatural, she's a poorly written character, and even then she kind of is.

A general rule, a writer can make a character far smarter than themselves, but they can't really make a character wiser than themselves. Not intentionally, anyways.
Sel isn't STUPID, but he certainly isn't a wise man as we've often seen from his childish, egotistical behavior, and while his writing has plenty of smart points to it, the attempts to be mysterious and deep often dip into pure pretention.
Nodoka, when she really gets going on her views and motives, is the pure embodiment of this.
Click to expand...
I like how you are describing Nodoka and not realizing she sounds exactly like how Selebus would view himself and how my theory that she's a self-insert seems more plausible
 
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Ma1phas

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May 18, 2022
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LessonsInDissonance said:
I like how you are describing Nodoka and not realizing she sounds exactly like how Selebus would view himself and how my theory that she's a self-insert seems more plausible
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I'm not disagreeing.

Xiondingens said:
Meh, for a sociopathic character she is actually pretty mid.
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Only in that she's pretty poorly done even for one. She has the moral character and attitude of one, but rather than actually being convincingly conniving and able to imitate emotions long enough to tell people what they want to hear to get her way, she just has "basically scrying" tier perception and everyone around her is just too dumb to go against her puddle deep arguments.
Maybe she's not actually supposed to be a sociopath, but sociopathic/narcissistic disorders run in my family, and I'm convinced she's either A - a failed portrayal of that, or B - In line with LID's theory, how someone with it would write a self insert, with all the casual superiority complex that entails.
 
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Xiondingens

Active Member
Oct 25, 2018
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Ma1phas said:
Only in that she's pretty poorly done even for one. She has the moral character and attitude of one, but rather than actually being convincingly conniving and able to imitate emotions long enough to tell people what they want to hear to get her way, she just has "basically scrying" tier perception and everyone around her is just too dumb to go against her puddle deep arguments.
Maybe she's not actually supposed to be a sociopath, but sociopathic/narcissistic disorders run in my family, and I'm convinced she's either A - a failed portrayal of that, or B - In line with LID's theory, how someone with it would write a self insert, with all the casual superiority complex that entails.
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I mean that in the way that i have read more interesting sociopathic characters with more deepth. So far all what she has shown is barely an inch deep. She is all about manipulating people -and not even good at that i might add- writting her little book, been a pervert and dont give a shit about other peoples emotions. Not that she herself has many of those. She is either pervy, smug, blank or surprised, when she isnt busy to act psychotic. Cant think of any other "emotion" she has shown and with that list i was already generous imo.

And the theory that she is a self insert isnt new. I just dont remember if i already made a post about that a while ago, or if i talked somewhere else about it. Imo, it is a pretty solid theory when we look at how full of herself she is. But then i must wonder, how can someone actually selfinsert themself as they are, with all the unlikeable flaws, without realizing what an ass one is.

I mean shouldnt that cause some sort of self reflection?
 
LessonsInDissonance

LessonsInDissonance

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Oct 1, 2023
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Xiondingens said:
Imo, it is a pretty solid theory when we look at how full of herself she is. But then i must wonder, how can someone actually selfinsert themself as they are, with all the unlikeable flaws, without realizing what an ass one is.

I mean shouldnt that cause some sort of self reflection?
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The irony wouldn't be lost on Selebus not realizing she has unlikeable flaws and thinking she IS the perfect sociopath, precisely because he sees himself on Nodoka
 
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Ma1phas

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May 18, 2022
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Xiondingens said:
But then i must wonder, how can someone actually selfinsert themself as they are, with all the unlikeable flaws, without realizing what an ass one is.

I mean shouldnt that cause some sort of self reflection?
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They're not prone to self reflection. They're very used to being told what assholes they are, and just convince themselves that others just don't get it, regardless of evidence to the contrary. Of the ones I've known, they can have their behavior explode in their face, and they'll still compartmentalize it into parts to so they can blame most of it on others, but take fake blame for tiny parts only where it can make them seem sympathetic.

Like, the part with not caring how her book would hurt others is actually EXACTLY something one of them would do. I've talked to the brick wall of "But how does that ACTUALLY affect you?" many, many times. Where when something they do, or want to do, really upsets someone, they're unwilling or unable to empathize with feelings, no matter how you try to explain it, it won't land if you don't frame it in a way where it will negatively impact them. They simply don't feel like they need to justify themselves. That they want to do it is in itself justification enough, though this obviously is a one way street to them.

The problem with the book scene isn't that it's not something a sociopath would do, it's that it's not a behavior (specifically, simply discounting their victim's feelings instead of trying to bribe, placate or justify), one would do without some way to keep those people close. Be it leverage, blackmail, misplaced affection, financial benefits.
As in, she wants to at least keep Futaba and Akira in her life. Likely for self serving reasons, but she does. She wouldn't do things to make them out and out angry with her without some kind of leverage to keep them around. But she literally just showed all her cards and scuttled her leverage. Blackmail? She just published it in a book. Affection? Akira really has none for her, and it's such a betrayal in Futaba's eyes that she risks total cutoff, despite the old friendship.
For a sociopath to do that to someone with no leverage and then act with dismissiveness would mean they no longer see you as a valid asset. They no longer care if you stick around.
But she kinda does in game, it's just everyone simply keeps letting her get away with it.
 
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Algorist

Algorist

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Jul 18, 2022
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Ma1phas said:
...and she's not actually supernatural...
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I think I'll have to disagree here. Nodoka definitely displays some supernatural elements. However, I agree that she exhibits many traits that give off that "TV Genius" feel.

Most likely, what you meant was strictly that her portrayed intelligence isn't supernatural but rather a caricature/misrepresentation (intentional or not) of an extraordinary genius; and yes—you're right—but I don't feel like her intelligence was ever implied to come from a supernatural source, just that her brain is more potent than regular people's (outrageous memory, raw computational power.) At least Nodoka herself doesn't think so. And amusingly, the fact that her intellect was meant to be "natural" is the most implausible thing about the whole character.

Which (non-super) human can calculate square roots to four decimal places in milliseconds?
 
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hernestojavier621

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Oct 10, 2021
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DeSkel15 said:
Since no one talks about Imani, I wanted to bring up something funny I noticed.

Imani in Chapter 4:
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Sensei in Chapter 3:
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Imani literally got sister-zoned.
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Imani sure has some surprises headed, first that Akira considers her like little sister, but also that even so he'd still fuck her. Rollercoaster of emotions for poor Imani!
 
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4.10 star(s) 337 Votes