Tara Coulson's Death

[WackyMeetsPractical]

This was by far one of the darkest moments in the game, when after about a month of panic and worry, and both Don Quixote and Holmes nearby both aware of Tara's danger, Tara is unceremoniously killed at midnight.

I understand that this moment was unavoidable, as one of the echoes reference it after the fact. But was it hard to actually get through? Did you guys intend for her death to cause such a strong reaction from us?

And while we're on the matter, can you guys discuss Deanna Hackins? There's been some talk about how she was never intended to be a major antagonist and that we as metaguards had elevated her to a much higher status than intended, leading to her storyline getting cut short in such an anticlimactic way. Is there any truth in this? Had you had other plans with her? And what was with her imaginary friends? Were they fictional beings, or just hallucinations?

[Ben Plante]

I'll discuss both Tara and Deanna in great detail soon enough. It's kinda long and complicated, so patience, my friends.

[Ben Plante]

Guys, due to a personal issue my participation in the post-mortem will be minimal for 1 or 2 days, sorry. Thanks for understanding.

[Tom]

Deanna was the villain of the Quixote arc, in the same way Holmes and Poirot had little mini-bosses. Somehow, she ended up upstaging the Cabal and the larger conflict, so we had to end the arc a little early. The arc was always supposed to end the way it did, though; her plan never would have worked. The function it was to serve in the story was to make Quixote the hero he'd always imagined himself to be, and it definitely did that. I'll leave the details for Ben, when he gets the time.

[Connor Raikes]

This was by far one of the darkest moments in the game, when after about a month of panic and worry, and both Don Quixote and Holmes nearby both aware of Tara's danger, Tara is unceremoniously killed at midnight.

I understand that this moment was unavoidable, as one of the echoes reference it after the fact. But was it hard to actually get through? Did you guys intend for her death to cause such a strong reaction from us?

As for Tara, the build up was constructed well by Ben, so he gets the credit for that. My main job was to work together with Ben on the murder itself and its solution, and to keep Holmes away from Tara - albeit somewhat awkwardly - so that the murder could take place. But given that, I still got frustrated with not being able to save Tara, especially controlling one of the great detectives. It was sad; but if I may say so myself, Ben and I conceive a pretty good murder plot.

Maybe we'll work again sometime?

[Ben Plante]

Funny thing about Tara, I originally planned to make her entirely unlikable. As I wrote her blog though (In real time, over the course of many months) I started to grow attached, and I realized she was... likable. (By the way, her web site design was supposed to amateur, I lampshaded that with the I AM TECH SAVVY update).

Obviously, in retrospect, her being likable is the far superior choice. I wanted a Player Punch. I wanted you all to assume saving her was Quixote's inevitable act of heroism. But there was no way to save her, failure was the only option.

I was very pleased that you were sad rather than happy, it would've been a complete failure if you'd just been like "About time, gawd". And that would've cheapened Quixote's story entirely since everything ties back to her.

Fun fact, the video message? That was Christine Marie's (Tara's actress) idea. I was originally going to just have Tara send Quixote a message saying all the same things she said in the vid, and there would somehow be that clue in there. But thanks to Christine we got that calendar stuff going and I built the triple-layer puzzle on that. She did a lot of good for us and did a fantastic job.

I've already discussed Deanna in the other thread. What I didn't discuss was whether or not her imaginary friends were a product of her insanity or something legitimately supernatural.

I wonder what the answer is?

[Scarab]

I've already discussed Deanna in the other thread. What I didn't discuss was whether or not her imaginary friends were a product of her insanity or something legitimately supernatural.

I wonder what the answer is?

I suspect she was part of one of Mister A's fourth wall experiments.

[narrativedilettante]

I suspect she was part of one of Mister A's fourth wall experiments.

Ooooooh so Mr. Administrator is responsible for Tara's death after all...

[Ben Plante]

No and no.

[Scarab]

No and no.

Blast.

[Pixelmage]

They were fruit of her imagination.

Otherwise we just learned that Mr. A's experimentation with leaking things through the fourth wall goes way back. Far longer than we had estimated. Or that there are bigger things than him at work.

Also could be a case of a creator's lockdown. She created a story, brewing tropes and plots in her mind but didn't send them to the other side, so they made their own pocket dimension inside her mind.

[Ben Plante]

There is no answer. I don't mean that there is no right answer, I mean there is no answer. I deliberately came up with the idea intending NEVER to think of an answer.

I'll say this, even Deanna herself doesn't know. I don't know. Nobody will ever know the answer, because the answer doesn't exist.

[Pixelmage]

That works for me.

[Dryunya]

Funny thing about Tara, I originally planned to make her entirely unlikable. As I wrote her blog though (In real time, over the course of many months) I started to grow attached, and I realized she was... likable. (By the way, her web site design was supposed to amateur, I lampshaded that with the I AM TECH SAVVY update).

I actually didn't like her at all, as I probably said. Apparently, martyrdom gave her a lot of bonsus points. Or maybe it was not about her, but about Don Quixote. Everyone expected a climactic horseback rescue, and, well, you know what we got instead.

And I recognized the Stylistic Suck in my very first post about the blog.

[Scarab]

Funny thing about Tara, I originally planned to make her entirely unlikable. As I wrote her blog though (In real time, over the course of many months) I started to grow attached, and I realized she was... likable. (By the way, her web site design was supposed to amateur, I lampshaded that with the I AM TECH SAVVY update).

I actually didn't like her at all, as I probably said. Apparently, martyrdom gave her a lot of bonsus points. Or maybe it was not about her, but about Don Quixote. Everyone expected a climactic horseback rescue, and, well, you know what we got instead.

And I recognized the Stylistic Suck in my very first post about the blog.

Honestly I think Tara's website put her across in a way that didn't match the person we eventually met, when I finally heard and saw her talking on the video... she didn't sound like the shallow airhead I'd been expecting and I felt bad for assuming that was just because she wasn't posting intricate thoughts and quoting tv tropes. Anyhow my point is, I decided who she was based on her blog, which was very unfair of me, and I still feel bad for it. I mean, she even made that really obscure calender clue in the first place, so she was obviously much smarter than I was giving her credit for, too.

[narrativedilettante]

I liked her mainly because of her comment about how playing the Ace Attorney games made her qualified for an acting job where she'd be a lawyer. She struck me as someone who's aware of how underqualified and out of her depth she is, and who is desperately trying to find ways to be good enough, but is poking fun at herself for doing so. I read that comment as if it was intended sarcastically, and assumed she was portraying herself as an airhead rather than actually being one.

[Ben Plante]

The Ace Attorney comment was sarcasm, she was never that airheaded.