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Post by DarthSpearow on Jan 2, 2017 7:29:35 GMT
Good points Luminesce!
LOL the ghosts are weird though. I swear if I put half my head through the window and started shouting it wouldd sound lke the Lavender ghost Tower music.
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Post by DiglettReturns on Jan 2, 2017 8:37:14 GMT
Saw a member called Onixsan over at PS, decided to check it out.
Hi there guys!
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Post by DiglettReturns on Jan 2, 2017 8:47:09 GMT
On the topic, this thread is mre indepth than I'm use to with Pokémon forums! I like it! I don't have much else to say excpt: The original Lavender music has bits that sound like a Pikachu after a while! It's still rumored to be scary! Maybe Pikachu can be scary if you look at it right?
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Post by v)Luminesce(v on Jan 2, 2017 17:37:01 GMT
...Eh, what's up Doc?
Anyway, hey there DiglettReturns! I won't merge your posts, as your enthusiasm is appreciated, but try not to double-post in the future.
Some interesting comments about the music in Lavender Town. Is your point about the music slightly ghost-like, though, DarthSpearow? Inhabiting a situation 'in-between'? I'm sure we'd all be interested in what you might shout, and whom at.
In general, Lavender Tower turns into a Radio Tower in the next games, which might be in part a slightly aggrieved response to the sentiment that Lavender Town is scary more or less just for the music. Obviously, the music in a video game generally relies on a setting which suits it, or it will come across as bathetic. But in any case, that Radio Tower is itself slightly 'spooky' - it can easily be the case that you need to go there to progress, and aren't aware, and even worse that to do so you have to find your way back to Johto and Goldenrod Radio Tower before you can go further. The 'ghosts' of the past can be highly prominent in that place. In addition, 'Mr. Fuji,' a notable resident there who later takes a notable part in transporting and hiding many of the graves (sounds messy...), has a name resembling the Japanese 'Mt. Fuji.' There, the forest of Aokigahara is renowned as a place for suicide and similar things. Well, if you can get in there. It is said to be haunted.
In the early games, if you leave the Mart you'll find a female right behind you, in the direction of the Tower. This might seem slightly disconcerting. Given the room-like structure of the town, where this Mart accompanies a 'bed-like' structure nearby, this might come off as akin to Satyajit Ray's portrayal in 'Teen Kanya' ('Monihara') of a person named Phanibhusan reaching towards something when it's late to find a ghostly female's (Manimalika's) hands on them. Of course, given the 'moni' and 'hara' of the title, the suggestion of a female who desires jewels and extorts her somewhat ignored husband for them to a somewhat sinister extent is slightly humorous. Nonetheless, it might come off as slightly disconcerting to continually be ambushed or taken by surprise, or from strange angles. Strangely, the usual advice, other than concurring with the ghosts and advising you to at least temporarily leave the town and Tower and return later after Celadon, also advises that you might wish to visit the Mart. The problem with this approach for many players would be that the suspense of what Lavender Town involves might increase to the point where they'll be easily taken aback on returning to it.
An interesting point about Lavender Town and the music in it is that Lavender Town itself resembles a room in its general appearance - much more than the cities around it. Lavender Town's graveyard is quite notable in the corner. Weirdly, its music, with its softer notes then intercepted by deeper sounds, also resembles this album which has a cover quite similar in appearance to the town itself:
The album is set in a room. The first track included ends with, 'When the lines are all drawn / What should we do today?' Its opening is slightly sinister, however. The second track included, the final track (you might not wish to listen all the way, for spoilers) also has a very similar lay-out to the Lavender Town music. If you like the one, you might be interested in the other, quite apart from any more pressing similarities.
That kind of thing helps make it feel more personal. Which is important. The 'Ghost-type' is a type of Pokémon, which people are expected to find 'cool.' You can't just have the sound of something ghostly threatening something else, which would be easily identified with by players interested in the type or its aesthetic - a Haunter attacking a Raichu, for instance. The threat has to be so to speak directed at the player for something to seem threatening in this context. Hence, there ends up being a person threatening you with death, people seeking blood, an ambush to start that section, and so on. Along with people warning you to leave.
Really, apart from the personal threat, it's a fairly sparse place with only grave-stones, ghosts, and the peculiar Channelers. You end up in a strange, aggressive distortion of Pokémon so far - instead of being encouraged forwards you are encouraged away, instead of trainers just starting battles they are now highly aggressive and see you as a possible victim. You fight Team Rocket again knowing that they not only kidnap but also kill Pokémon - although amusingly they mostly kill Cubone. If you lose to them up there, how precisely are you always expected to escape with your Pokémon intact? If you leave, things might seem to return to normal, but obviously this changes the land-scape somewhat. The music is part of this inversion, and hence 'unsettling' - but if it was the music of Cerulean or such then it might just come across as cool.
The Lavender Town music easily isolates the listener, or interacts with the room around you. It sends out some basic sounds, in a slightly hollow and separated pattern, which allows for them to 'attune' to sounds nearby. You can probably associate those fairly vague sounds with something in the nearby vicinity. Then they 'constrict' or place this in a certain setting. Hence, through the 'basic' make-up of the work, they can easily hijack the place the listener is in and inject certain tropes into that. This allows them to seem 'creepy' in a direct sense, and hence the general trope of Lavender Town horror is the sense of the game positing a personal threat in lieu of something which remains within the game. The music seems to 'approach' the player, it does not just stay there. What this basic music is then followed up with is a form of music which conveys a 'motion,' not just static. It might come off as pseudo-classical to some. Hence, the basic noises are pervaded with a slightly hidden motion. This can cause a slight sense of a chill. They then have to play off this music, which they do - the music isn't just sitting there on its own. They draw upon imagery resembling this separated opening to the music - an 'ambush' of sorts by the rival as you ascend the tower, multiple floors to ascend, and so on. It might sound a bit like 'footsteps' - although indeed many sounds might, including a reggae beat, and in a sense foot-steps mean little without context. You continually have to change direction and go up to new floors, or different corners of the town, complementing the effect of the music.
The music which accompanies this sounds is as it turns out highly like a 'funeral' - compare Purcell's 'March' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J9b2OvNNKs). Hence, it's essentially taking a few basic sounds around you and driving a funeral straight through them. That's almost a threat, a threat which the game does include as it turns out. The basic pattern is also weirdly similar to the movement of the characters in the game - they are, as we previously noted, static but can do unexpected things from there. This creates a general sense of the eerie. Hence, when this is followed by the 'tone' or the sound of screeching in the background, it functions somewhat like a 'jump-scare' with all of the threats which suddenly show up and are seemingly out of place. Pokémon has spent this long telling kids that this place is sort of like the kids' experiences and these are somewhat like normal people, but then it essentially inverts all of that and hence presumably they are to consider all of these things also to be things they encounter - which can lead to a sense of paranoia. The music sort of conditions people to expect that all of this unease and static-but-dynamic interaction is going somewhere, which the game eventually delivers on. Hence, that tone can become somewhat identified with the danger, or make itself the focus, even though by itself it might not be that much more creepy than the rest of the song.
Other than the threat, another strange theme might be 'possession' or at least becoming another part of the Tower. There is a sound along with the main pattern of the music which eventually leads towards each of these following the other in a sort of ghostly noise. This is almost akin to forced harmonisation, or possession. Hence, a funerary image is followed by an image of obedience or harmonisation. This increases the sense of a threat. Not only are you threatened, but with only ghosts, channelers and threats, there is no way out - and further there is a healing place, so you could just stay in this peculiar clime indefinitely. Hence, you're not only allowed into this zone, but also absorbed into it. This is sort of implicit in the whole movement, though - you are identified at first with the heroic music and the sense of a quest, but then this is distorted into a funerary march.
Other than that, there are further myths. For instance, if you use a Missingno. and perhaps Mew in Lavender Town, you can encounter 'Buriedalive' and so on with canned dialogue. Both Mew and Missingno. are often glitch Pokémon, starting with the same letter. You try to use them against the 'Marowak.' Presumably if you used a Missingno. and possibly Mew against Marowak, the Marowak might as well be 'buried alive.' Of course, the phrase itself is a conventional format of battle in the WWE, where the loser dies - which is similar to this myth. In general, the idea seems to be that there is some way of breaking the game by bringing a non-Pokémon into interaction with these dead ghosts of Pokémon. Which, I mean, is an interesting idea - but just facing the Marowak like that might just seem uncanny rather than game-breaking. Mew from the Mew glitch would also be a transformed form of a Pokémon, but in general Mew isn't available in the game world. There might be some validity to all this. Of course, part of it might just be to link the horror at Lavender Town to the phenomenon of Missingno. destroying and distorting save files, which connection you presume would be made at some point especially after the many speculations around the 'Lavender tone' and Lavender's suicide-evoking effect on people.
Speaking of which, is it strange that the Tower appears akin to a mountain - like Mt. Moon - at its entrance, given what we've mentioned about Fuji?
That said, Lavender is like Missingno. renowned for a distortion rather than a straightforward jump-scare - the music and so on has the sense of a distortion in the Pokémon game. So in that sense their perturbing effect isn't that dissimilar. There is a certain unification to 'myths' and genuine cases of being disconcerted around these Pokémon games.
The Old Chateau is slightly different. It's appraised more in terms of what it features than distortion. However, it's generally found less troubling than Lavender.
The Old Chateau might seem to just be a collection of horror or pseudo-horror tropes, but what then makes these seem at all convincing rather than forced in the context of the game? In general, it does come across as somewhat forced, but still can appear as a scary section in a game rather than just a collection of horror effects. This would imply that it has some sort of link to the game, and how people can act in it. But clearly not how they can usually act in a legitimate way.
Incidentally, if the Lavender Town music is affecting you much, this song can help dispel the effect of the Lavender music:
(Weirdly, it also features a sound at around the 1 minute mark which might sound a bit eerie.)
It's sort of weird, do they inhabit the same field or something? Also interesting is the mention of the 'seal of dog' on an album named 'Times of Grace' (like Growlithe) and featuring a dog with fire around it on the cover. It also appears to be breathing out fire. The illustration is kind of similar to DiglettReturns' suggestion of a Pikachu featuring encircled in other stuff.
Anyway, in general Lavender Town is also relevant to ROM Hacking and whatnot, because it generally works by distortion or seems like a transformation or mutation of the game so far. This kind of transformation is part of the general project of ROM Hacks. Hence, it could be easy for them to be uneasy or poignant, but they often try to be too formulaic and heavy-handed in their approach to general themes and hence avoid an overall sense of the uncanny developing at any point. This can be counter-productive, ultimately.
That said, feel free to continue this kind of discussion, unless you feel that it's turning in a direction too, as the 1996 Psychotic Waltz song says, 'Morbid':
Roses that you bring give to one another. I don't know why they're dying for your love.
In love we sacrifice them How morbid, how morbid. And now our graves surround them How morbid, how morbid.
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Post by Crabhammer on Jan 3, 2017 2:16:53 GMT
Agrree with Diglett, this is indepth! And quite cool.
A bit late, but about the Gyms, isn't another Gym like a front for sellling perfume? I could swear they alsso disallowed males, but they might have edited that out - it is in the game though. The Gyms in the anime (and kinda in the game, but less) can be really weird schemes.
Like Giovanni's Gym is the normal one...
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Post by Onixsan on Jan 5, 2017 8:57:42 GMT
Sure thing, Luminesce!!
I visited this thread and spent a whiile listening to the music. Lol it would make a good music recommendation thread.
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Post by v)Luminesce(v on Jan 5, 2017 9:27:28 GMT
Heh. If you want more music which sounds a bit like Lavender Town's, there's always this:
If anyone else has some suggestions, please offer them to a poor but aspiring Onix.
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Post by Onixsan on Jan 6, 2017 6:32:19 GMT
That is eerie...
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Post by Meowth! on Jan 7, 2017 6:07:57 GMT
There was this obscure song by a poppular angsty band, with a similr pattern except with drums. Creeped me out a bit. It was about flying or Christianity or something
Don't remember the name. Any ideas?
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Post by Onixsan on Jan 8, 2017 13:51:18 GMT
Not a Christian contemporary bannd?
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Post by AltariaFairy on Jan 9, 2017 10:07:15 GMT
I do know aboout Christian music. Does it involve a sparrow by any chance?
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Post by Meowth! on Jan 14, 2017 18:26:51 GMT
I kinda get what's up wth the Lavender Town music aftr you guyss explained it. I always thought it was kinda creepy to have a whole zone with it, but it mostly uses 'scary' thingss which are too simple to work! Puzzled me.
Welcome, DiglettReturns!!
Onixsan, do you want to startt the thread for battles, or should I?
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Post by FlyingMurkrow on Jan 15, 2017 11:48:14 GMT
I guess dolls cld seem obvious, but how they appear is weird! I agree with the thing about distortion, its like a heroic thing becomes twisted into an evil threatening thing.
What if Pokémon hadd something like the Bermuda Triangle?
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Post by RedGyarados on Jan 17, 2017 1:54:24 GMT
Any luck with the music Meowth?
Good question about the Bermuda Triangle! That could dbe creepy. I guesss there is a vanishing island, so you don't want to be trapped there! And Brock is the first Gym leader lol!
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Post by FlyingMurkrow on Jan 17, 2017 1:58:31 GMT
Good point about Brock. that is spooky. Also you keep being dragged back by the guy on the rigght.
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