Jade Empire/Headscratchers

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• The protagonist goes from level 1 to "way overpowered" from the moment he last sees Master Li to the moment Li kills the protagonist. During that time he trains with a bunch of different people, and acquires a thousand techniques Master Li couldn't possibly have any knowledge of. FFS, the protagonist learns how to use firearms and transform into a whole host of demons. The "fatal flaw" in the initial technique thaught to him by Master Li persists to that extent? Unlikely.
  • This Troper likens it to learning how to spell or pronounce a certain word. For example, imagine you were brought up knowing that chronometer was pronounced kroNO-M Eter (like Chrono Trigger), instead of the correct pronunciation of kroNOMeter. You use it every day. It's what you know. Then, someone corrects you. You're not likely to say it wrong again, but until you were told it was wrong, you had no problem with it. Same with the fatal flaw in technique. If you base all your learned techniques on your initial learning experience (as the protagonist did), then you'll make the same mistake with all your techniques. It's not far-fetched at all.
    • This Troper likes the explanation but you should use a different example rather than "chrono like in chrono" that's just elementary! Try something like "crow know" vs the "chron in Walter Kronkite" or what have you.
    • Also, the "fatal flaw" is in defence, not offence, so picking up the ability to throw magic fire-globs or bullets doesn't really help.
  • Against everyone but Li himself it is a strength, not a weakness. A few mention that they wasted effort hunting for how to exploit it and concluded it was a feint.
• The whole concept of the "sacrifice" ending (where you let Master Li kill you) makes no sense. Aside from all the torment Li and his brothers caused you and others there's the fact that Li ALREADY killed you in cold blood, not to mention you'd be letting your comrades down. I mean why go through the effort to fight through several armies worth of enemies and storm the Imperial Palace just to be persuaded to die to let your betrayer rule the known world. Seems like a waste of time.
  • Li's whole point, which leads to the sacrifice ending, is that he would be a benevolent dictator. Some will suffer, yes, but for the good of the many. Even back in Dirge he defends his actions by saying that Sun Hai was only interested in his own personal power, not the empire. Of course, whether or not you choose to buy that...
    • This was established as the dark side of Open Palm right at the beginning of the game, just as Closed Fist has noble interpretations. Just try and ignore how the actual morality system in the game works...
      • For that to make sense, the game should have had a fourth ending, a "good" Closed Fist ending to balance the "evil" one that you actually get, just like the "evil" Open Palm ending (letting Li kill you) balances the "good" Open Palm one (restoring the Water Dragon). With no such balance, the "sacrifice" ending does feel pretty anomalous.
      • It's still a pretty Stupid Sacrifice. You already know the guy is hardcore evil at that point and there's literally no reason to believe him. Plus you dying doesn't even affect it if you let him go (and also presumably let him kill all your friends). It also ignores the effort you took to get there which should be enough proof of your convictions.
      • It would feel like shameless railroading to give you the offer and then not give you the choice to accept. If you did do the stupid thing, you have no-one to blame but yourself.
        • You have no reason to believe him about what? Him making you a huge hero never to be forgotten? I have to wonder if that's really the big draw of his offer. He gives a rather depressing speech about how ultimately everything you do and the Jade Empire itself is meaningless as Time Marches On. If you allow him to win then you can be reasonably assured that his empire will be eternal. After all, the gods can't directly interfere it seems as they waited twenty years until you were ready and took the time to bring you back to life instead of trying a different plan. I think it's safe to believe him that he'll force ghosts to their rests and make everything nice and orderly although it's also a smart bet that there will be an inevitable loss of liberties (though I was surprised by just how much at the end). Li's whole life is built on strategy and control and part of why he despised and ultimately turned on his brother was the fact he couldn't use the power properly and was too chaotic. It has nothing to do with keeping a promise and everything to do with proving himself superior and making the world the way he likes it. Since his problem is being too detached and unemotional and he shows no signs of sadism, he's not going to unnecessarily torture anybody. Going with him offers the promise that there will never be another flood or drought or famine in the Jade Empire and that the gods won't be able to strike it down whenver they so choose. If other areas of the world suffer, what does that matter? Most people would choose that their area is safe while others have problems, I'd say. And since a huge part of why the situation is getting so desperate is that there's starting to become a lack of souls for reincarnation, the world will be overrun with ghosts and the human race will become extinct if Li doesn't force them to their rest so there's another goal of his. He has the amulet so he can take in power easier and safer and honestly if any mortal can hope to control the Water Dragon's power then it's him. It's not an ideal ending, of course, but if what you're concerned about is the guarantee of life and safety over freedom, eternal fame, or mistrust the gods to have the best interests of the Jade Empire at heart then I can see why you'd choose it.
  • Of course it doesn't make sense. It's the last gambit of a cornered man who's about to get his ass kicked in dozens of completely distinct ways. I imagine if you actually take him up on his offer he has to use all his years of practice to hide his shock.
• On that note why did the old man and the children look so deformed in the "sacrifice" ending.
  • I'm guessing for the same reason why all the Lotus Assassins look so deformed. Evil rule is clearly unhygienic.
  • More to the point, Sun Li is ensuring that everyone in the Jade Empire exists to serve his will like the Lotus Assassins did prior to his ascension.
• Why can't Zin Bu, the Magical Abacus, tell you what happened to the Water Dragon? That's a pretty big event, no? Surely the Celestial Bureaucracy would have been buzzing with that sort of news. Does he just not feel like talking with you about it?
  • I myself work in local goverment and am well aware of the clause that allows them to take you outside and shoot you if you go blabbing important infomation. The fact that a mortal managed to slay a God (relatively easily) is not something that anyone wants to be general knowledge.
  • It's also possible that he simply doesn't know. He is part of the Celestial BUREAUCRACY, after all, which if Zin Bu's complaining is anything to go by is extremely convoluted even at the best of times. With the state of the world as it is, Zin Bu may have been so swamped in Celestial Paperwork that he didn't have time to actually figure out what it was for.
• The epilogue assumes that the Empire continued to prosper in years to come. Consider what happened 20 years ago: the Empire was meant to be destroyed/severely weakened by the drought. The Emperor and his brothers disrupted the natural sequence of events and found a alternative source of water. Now our brave Spirit Monk conquered the evil and reverted everything to the Natural order by destroying the only water source. Logically, the drought should have returned and finish the task delayed by 20 years - cause famine and mass deaths. (Yes, any time some fool plays a hero a lot of innocent have to pay heavy price...)
  • I'm assuming a grateful water dragon would at least spare the empire for the remainder of the heroes lifetime.
  • Didn't they say that the Bothers Sun and their "solution" just passed the problem on to someone else? It could be that, in those twenty years, the natural duration of the Long Drought expired, so that when the Spirit Monk put an end to the brutal theft of divine powers, he just set things back to normal.
    • Alternately, since the Spirit Monk could be considered the co-founder of a new dynasty in most of the good endings, than the purpose of the Drought was fulfilled: The end of the Sun dynasty in effect, if not in name.
    • One of the scroll stands in the scholar's garden stated that the drought had three years left when the emperor attacked the water dragon.
  • This troper doesn't recall them ever saying that the drought would (or was supposed to) bring down the Empire or the Sun dynasty. Simply that lots of people were dying, and that it was part of the "natural order."
    • The Water Dragon basically said that things were arranged so that Sun-Hai's realm would have faded and that the issues with the drought were apart of the plan.
  • In fairness, the "evil" ending does let the player take the Water Dragon's powers and become a god, so presumably, the player could simply continue directing the water as needed. Including using it to conquer the entire world simply by denying a nation any water until they surrender.
    • But that's just it, and the whole problem the original poster is alluding to. If you choose the good ending, then the suggestion is that the Jade Empire has become gloriously prosperous again and all is well and good. The evil ending instead shows the Jade Empire being brought under your heel and the suggestion that you've weakened it. This makes no sense. The whole underlying theme of the game is life and death. The Jade Empire is living on borrowed time, that's the whole scheme of the original emperor. If the game had the courage to follow through on its ideas, then it would have ended with you basically destroying the Jade Empire, and in the process letting the restless dead finally slumber, the rest of the world prosper, and the Heavens set right. Or with the Jade Empire stuck in status quo, endlessly prosperous yet devoured at the edges by the rising ghosts. That is, apparently, not enough reward for the player.
      • Remember, you're a spirit monk, I always assumed you could put the Ghosts back in their graves (basically manually doing the Water Dragon's job)
      • Another possibility is that by constantly pouring water within the Jade Empire, the Water Dragon altered the local climate for a few decades, so the Jade Empire would have enough time to prepare itself against the next drought
      • On the subject of the implication that the Empire's weakened under the Steal Her Powers ending: does no-one else remember the comment about corrupting everywhere the water flows when you taint the waters with blood?
  • I'll field this one! See, in Imperial China itself, there was a thing called the Mandate of Heaven - if the Emperor had it, all would be well and there wouldn't be droughts, floods, and other natural disasters. However, if the Emperor's rule was bad, then natural disasters would crop up, because he'd lost the Mandate of Heaven. Perhaps the drought had been caused by the Emperor being a bad one, so killing him (and Sun Li) restored the Mandate of Heaven to Silk Fox, letting her rule in a just fashion, and the drought would be over.
    • Except it had nothing to do with Sun Hai and everything to do with "Heaven decrees that the drought happen and the current Empire fall, because every dynasty must end." My theory is that after the Water Dragon reincarnates, Heaven has to completely redraw its plans from scratch after dealing with the twenty years of back paperwork caused by the Dragon's indisposition, which means that the Jade Empire dodged the bullet that the Drought was supposed to provide.
  • Note that the natural order can be many things. In lieu of a drought, there was the problems that arose during the course of the game. It likely wasn't that there must be a drought but rather that some certain things happen that encourage a certain end. It's not about specifics, it's about interpretation. As well, Open Palm/Closed Fist is more about ethics (order versus chaos) as opposed to morals (good v evil). Open Palm is more about things being the way they are suppose to be and working under that hierarchy. Closed Fist would be rebelling and not accepting that. Take peasant who dreams of being a knight. If they train relentlessly to the point of defying their parents and village elders, to the point of hindering their other obligations, and such, this would be Closed Fist... even if they want to be a knight to help the kingdom and fight an evil army. If they trained to be a knight but accepted that they'll probably never actually be a knight and fulfill their other obligations and respect their other duties, that would be Open Palm. If they were called to fight as a knight by their lord, answering that call would be Open Palm regardless of whether or not they ever trained to be a knight while ignoring that call would be Closed Fist. Or for the matter, ignoring the call and going off to fight their lords enemies on their own, that would be Closed Fist.
  • If you recall, your "fool" hero was trying to avert the empire being devoured by the increasing ghost population as well as the increasingly brutal madmen with god complexes that rule it. The game tells you that no matter how many ghosts you beat down, without the Water Dragon, the restless dead will grow in number. Stringing up the Water Dragon was, at best, a temporary solution to the drought with much worse consequences because a couple of brothers decided they were too good to figure out another way to survive. Even if it weren't for that, the emperor was only going to get worse once they finally finished feeding off the dragon's gutted body. Innocent people were already suffering, you could see it anywhere.
• Not really a storyline issue per se, but with all the astonishing graphics and stunning character designs Bioware put into the game, one has to wonder what they were thinking when they designed Wild Flower. Creepy Child, indeed.
  • Maybe they were trying to avoid charges of Lolicon by making her as ugly as they possibly could. They succeeded. I kinda feel it adds to her woobie status though, I felt sorry for the poor kid.
  • She's a reanimated corpse who had better than a decade to rot. I'd say she looks pretty good, considering.
• If I remember Henpecked Hou's backstory correctly, he ended up marrying his wife as a condition for sponsorship in the arena. What bugs the hell out of me is why the sponsor would ever let said wife (the sponsor's niece) sabotage a promising fighter that he had invested in.
  • Have you met his wife?
    • No. His wife never appears in the game.
      • Considering the stories Hou tells of his wife, the sponsor probably felt that the loss of a promising fighter is a small price to pay for marrying off his niece. And likely cheaper than the dowry needed to tempt anyone not drunk, dumb or deranged into marrying her.
• Let's talk about the Open Palm and Closed Fist paths for a moment. At the very beginning of the game, a character makes it explicitly clear that neither Open Palm nor Closed Fist are exclusively good or evil. A follower of Open Palm can become either a defender of the weak or a tyrant who 'defends' people by not even allowing them to make potentially harmful choices. Likewise, a follower of Closed Fist can either be someone who seeks only to better their own position and power even at the expense of others, or someone who takes great pains to aid others when circumstances are only at their most dire, lest he stunt their ability to take care of themselves and gain strength from hardship. This sounds like a nice break from the simple "Lightside good, Darkside bad" scale of the Kotor games, and adds a bit of depth to the choices you can make, right? Well, no. Because for pretty much the rest of the game, Open Palm=Good, Closed Fist=Evil. Thas sort of soured the game for this troper, because the only thing needed to rectify this would have been some extra dialogue options and different outcomes. This problem seems to have partly carried over into Mass Effect, as well.
  • Yeah, there are problems with this. (the most blatant being a clearly Closed Fist option that gives you LESS CF points than simply being evil)
  • Lets be fair Jade Empire was one of Bioware's first original rpg's it going to take time to make a nuanced morality system. Lets just hope Dragon age does it better.
  • Not to mention who difficult this would be. You would have to have four separate morality values: Good Open Palm, Evil Open Palm, Good Closed Fist, and Evil Closed Fist. This would require four different choices in every situation, but a lot of situations don't really have that many options. Like choosing whether to bind Death's Hand/Sun Kin. Either you bind him (evil) or you don't (good). Sure you could have options for your reason: bind him to use his power to protect others (Evil Open Palm) or bind him to make yourself more powerful (Evil Closed Fist). However, the option to not bind him couldn't really have a Palm/Fist component, it would just have to be good.
    • What also bugs me is why you don't have the option of "Bind death hand now, release him later": yeah the guy suffered quite a lot by remaining undead in his brother's armor for 20 years, but you could say to him "I will let you go after you helped me cleaning the mess you started with your brothers" without being a complete monster.
    • Or what about binding him so that he can redeem himself (as he does when you bind him then choose the OP ending) and so that when the Water Dragon judges him he's not autmoatically doomed. Even if she overlooked the last 20 years of carnage that wasn't technically his fault, his last act was still killing her and partaking in the Spirit Monk genocide.
    • That's no excuse at all. They could simply have had an alignment system with two axes similar to the law/chaos, good/evil system in Neverwinter Nights. In-game actions would get you points for either of the two axes, resulting in four possible combinations of OP/CF, good/evil.
      • Except that it could easily be argued that they didn't do a good job with it in NWN in the first place. There were not nearly as many law/chaos options as there were good/evil.
  • This just seems to be Bioware's style, unfortunately. You can be a saintly hero who selflessly risks his life for others for no reason or you can be a brainless psychopath. Middle ground is not so easy to maintain; in fact, by game's end, pretty much impossible.
    • You wouldn't need all four possibilities every time- the whole point is that the Good/Evil thing isn't as important here. All you'd need is two main methods in most options (plus, possibly, a neutral option).
    • All you really need to pull it off is a "do not interfere" option.
  • At least they've changed a little. In mass effect neither side is all that evil (unless you make a special effort), and they are tracked separately.
  • They should have left more decisions like the one they made in the "free the family from the slavers" sidequest. I felt Badass when that girl took the knife my Closed Fist hero gave her and stabbed the slaver to death with it. "You may have taught my daughter a valuable lesson." Damn RIGHT I did. Why weren't there more sidequests like that?
  • Rack it up to a poor understanding of what the underlying concepts mean and misinterpretations of the philosophies behind them. Lost in translation, as it were.
  • In my opinion there needed to be a lot more options to demonstrate understanding of the Closed Fist than simple thuggery, and some things should not be Closed Fist. The one that leaps to mind is the healing herb quest; the bearded grass painkiller really doesn't teach the girl anything, and it leaves her alive but crippled. That said, selfishness, thuggery and intimidation are very Closed Fist.
    • My characters were generally technically OP because they didn't feel the need to be mindless thugs the whole game but I actually liked the CF mentality better. Really, just passively accepting your place in the natural order just sounds so awful. I'd much rather go with the fighting fate option but not if it means I have to torment the ghosts of small children or murder an old man because his son doesn't feel appreciated.
    • Most of the Closed Fist options were just plain dumb. I don't give a rip how much silver that demon in the tavern is offering, Zu - not when that thing is probably weighing how I'd taste over rice with a side of black bean sauce! And Ya Zaen - suuuuurrrre I trust that thing to keep up its end of the deal. And trying to kill the Water Dragon to pull A God Am I? Well, it did wonderful things for the Brothers Sun in terms of sanity. The Lotus Assassins also made the Korriban Academy look like a bunch of geniuses. If they hadn't been so keen on backstabbing each other, and so utterly bonkers about harming everything (including themselves), they could have nailed your Player Character to the proverbial wall.
      • Actually, while the Emperor did go crazy that was implied to be because he didn't have the amulet and wasn't a spirit monk who didn't need said amulet. Li seemed to be just as sane as he always was (how sane that is is up for debate) even in the epilogue where he wins and you see him at an undetermined point in the distant future. If you choose to become a god, you'll probably stay as stable as you ever were. As for the Lotus Assassins, I think that was really just for something to do. After twenty years, there really wasn't any real dissent anymore and they had to satisfy themselves tormenting playrights. Sure that was the threat of Li but he hadn't done anything in twenty years. Until you showed up, they were efficient enough to do their jobs. And I disagree that them not trying to kill each other would have allowed them to kill you anyway since their trying to kill each other only eliminated a few of them and you still had to fight a ton of them at a time and easily won.
• Maybe this is just me, but as I played through the game again recently, I noticed that the Water Dragon doesn't really act any better than the bad guys. She basically has the exact same plan as Master Li, and lets you get killed even though she knew what would happen and could have told you about it at any time. She also makes a lot of remarks about how lowly humans are over the course of the game and how "her kind" should not have to suffer the same ills. Even in the back story, when she still had her divine powers, she let (or even made) the drought which was killing thousands of people go on without doing anything. And the fact that she didn't help even when the Emperor came and begged her to was what caused the events of the game in the first place. So how is helping her suppose to be the "good" ending?
  • To be fair, she had every intention of bringing the Spirit Monk back to life after s/he died and I seriously doubt things would have played out as they needed to if she had been completely honest. And look at all the damage that was caused because of what happened to her. The dead were unable to rest and began attacking the living, demons and at least one Eldritch Abomination used the situation to come into the world, and it seemed pretty clear that the end of the world was a very real possibility. So yeah, she let thousands of people die (it was pretty clear that she didn't cause the drought, just that it was something that happened and wasn't something she was supposed to intervene in), but the alternative is much worse. As for her statements about humans, well she is a god after all, so she kind of does have the right.
  • But that's kind of my point. She doesn't have a moral high ground over the bad guys beyond being a god. The bad guys made it pretty clear that they intend to fill the gap where she was and fix all the problems they caused, so there isn't a whole lot of difference in who gets the power in the end. Its like all the talk about how just sticking to the order of things in the Open Palm path doesn't necessarily mean its "good". But during the entirety of the game, they beat you over the head with the idea that Open Palm = good guy. So I'm left wondering if the Open Palm ending was suppose to be somewhat morally ambiguous, or if the writers screwed up the plot.
    • I wouldn't say that the writers screwed up the main plot as much as the sidequests. A lot of dialog is spent, particularly early on, on how Open Palm isn't supposed to equate to "good", but there are very few sidequests or choices that point this out. Over and over, we see Open Palm people are good and Closed Palm people are bad. So when the game's main badguy is using Open Palm philosophy to be the villain, it comes off somewhat wrong. Something as simple as reversing the badguy/goodguy in the Black Leapord School would have been, at the very least, a reminder that Open Palmers aren't always good.
    • But who's to say Sun Li or the Spirit Monk (should the player choose to take the Water Dragon's power) actually could have undone all of the damage? Only the Water Dragon could truly be guaranteed to be able to fix everything.
    • Furthermore, the Water Dragon points out that bringing water to the Jade Empire for the last 20 years meant that somewhere else experienced a 20-year drought. It's like decreeing that the United States will never have tornadoes, but all those tornadoes pop up in South America instead. By binding the Water Dragon, you effectively are saying "screw other nations". And I doubt Sun Li planned on making regular pilgrimages to other places to deal with their walking dead. I would say the Water Dragon has the moral high ground, but mainly in a global sense.
      • I agree that he'd be more concerned with keeping the Jade Empire prosperous than other nations but he's going to have to deal with all of the dead. It's not just about stopping the ghost attacks, it's about ensuring that there are plenty of souls for reincarnation. And since the Spirit Monks were located within/near the Jade Empire and so was the body of the Water Dragon, I doubt Li would have to physically travel the world to deal with the dead.
  • The setting is based on ancient Chinese mythology. Status Quo Is God, pretty much literally. There is really no religion where the god can stand up to moral analysis except by being called good by default. Around here that's called the Omniscient Morality License.
  • The mythology of the universe, as established, includes reincarnation. As horrible as the Long Drought may have seemed from a mortal perspective, all of the people who died as a a result of it would have simply moved on into the next life. Since the Water Dragon was responsible for that very aspect of the universal order, she would have known that- as would the Spirit Monks, through her guidance. Her allowing the drought to happen was by no measure a callous or evil act; she bore the responsibility, and her followers helped shepherd the dead. There's no question that she considers herself above mortal concerns and superior to mortals, but in the context of the established mythology, that is also absolutely true.
    • The more spiritual people that the Spirit Monk runs into on his/her travels are shown as accepting that there must have been a reason for all that happened. It follows given the reactions of his/her companions that most reasonable folks would have been deeply offended and repulsed if they knew how the drought was really ended, especially if they also knew that as a consequence eventually all life would end thanks to no souls being able to reincarnate. The death toll of the drought, while horrific in mortal terms, doesn't necessarily make it wrong, and even if it was wrong then at the very least it would have been the lesser of evils. While the Water Dragon isn't interested in sharing her motives, she clearly thought that the drought was necessary. Since she is shown as a kind, compassionate (if aloof and condescending) figure, we can reasonably infer that she would not have done there had been a better way of maintaining the balance of the universe.
  • The Water Dragon is an embodiment of the natural order. What she is concerned about is keeping her power out of the hands of mortals, those who are not meant to have the power of gods, and maintaining that natural order. Her job is basically meant to keep the status quo in effect (So would that make this Status Quo Is Enforced By God?). And she DOES warn you what will happen, plenty of times. But she is unable to be clear - replay and listen to her cryptic comments and hear her spelling things out. But she stays cryptic because the spirit monk HAS to die in order to restore her temple, which is part of how she will be revived, and human nature, when we learn that we're going to die is to fight against it, attempt to find a solution other than death. And she is still a higher power - Kang even says that beings at the Water Dragon's level would not like being forced to rely on a mortal. So of course she is somewhat dismissive of mortals - it's like a child showing off tying their shoe for the first time to an adult. It's this big accomplishment for the child, but to an adult, it's a part of life that they pay no attention to. The Gods are on a different level than the mortals, which is all part of how the world is supposed to work.
• It rather bugged me that there was no way to avoid becoming a Complete Monster if you chose to bind Death's Hand. Up until that point, the game allowed you a rather large amount of leeway. Then suddenly it's a case of soulbind your party members or release Death's Hand. Why not an option allowing those who didn't agree with you to go their separate way and fend for themselves? It wouldn't have been difficult to implement in-game. Just don't allow the party members to follow you to the palace. I mean, you didn't even NEED the blood of your party members! You had just finished offing several members of the Lotus Assassins. Clearly they could have been used to poison the Water Dragon. Or hell, add an extra level of disfunction in there: You bind your party members but AREN'T forced to sacrifice them, and then you get the added bonus of having your sex slave(s) (depending on your romantic choices) at your beck and call! It's an opportunity for the protagonist to be event MORE of a monster an Bioware missed it!
  • You can do that. And once more, once you make the choice to destroy the Water Dragon's body, everyone completely forgets that they're mad about the whole binding thing. But yeah, binding your party members was really stupid. You should have just been able to point out that since the bridge was recently destroyed there would be no way down from Dirge if they didn't go with you and since you were kind of in a hurry, you were heading straight to the castle. The moral party members would be welcome to stay at Dirge, but you'd probably be so busy after overthrowing the Emperor that it might be awhile before you could come back and did they really think they had enough supplies?
  • On the note of binding some party members then poisoning the Water Dragon - did we ever get a good explanation for why they attacked you? Didn't the Spirit Monk just bind these people - doesn't the Spirit Monk now control what they do?
    • The Water Dragon frees them if you're going to attack her. If you're going to do what she wants apparently she doesn't care what you're doing to your party members and it never seems to bother her all that much what you're doing to Death's Hand.
• Why did Master Li bother with the kindly old mentor routine at all? It basically required him to act in a manner completely opposed to his real nature for twenty years straight, all to fool a child who was too young to have developed an independent sense of right and wrong anyway. I don't see why he didn't just skip the pretense of being a wonderful guy and ruthlessly craft the young Spirit Monk into an utterly loyal Tyke Bomb aimed at the Emperor, without all the trickery and without bothering to erect the elaborate charade.
  • Easy. First off, Master Li is Genre Savvy enough to know that Tykebombs can be defused and that people can rebel against their mentors, so it makes more sense to not try to harness the kid directly and instead teach him basic filial piety and the tools to know right from wrong, and then make sure that all MORAL paths lead to the Spirit Monk fighting the Emperor for one reason or another. Secondly, leaving the kid ignorant of his true purpose means that he doesn't make any obvious moves and plans that would tip the Emperor off to the fact that the Glorious Strategist is making a bid for the throne; instead, Li just left a trail of breadcrumbs that his well-trained and prepared student could follow, and the Emperor won't pick up on it because the kid is, as far as he, Death's Hand and Inquisitor Jia can tell, acting randomly. Third, Master Li is simply good enough to make a Gambit Roulette work Just As Planned!!!
  • ^ I agree, and I think the second reason is the biggest factor as to why he didn't just make the kid a Tyke Bomb. The 'kindly old mentor' act was for all the students in his school, not just the Spirit Monk. A large part of why the Spirit Monk and Dawn Star are able to accomplish stuff during the early part of the game is because Death's Hand and the Emperor didn't consider them to be a serious problem, which was caused specifically by Master Li making himself seem like the bigger threat. If the one person Master Li had spent twenty years raising and training started heading to the Emperor's palace to kill him, the Emperor would know that this person was a major threat and send out Death's Hand and an army to crush him/her while the they were still at level three. Master Li's plan has the same basic idea, but disguises it as 'a couple of students from that school they burned down are wandering around looking for their Master'. Instead of being a deadly threat to be destroyed, they seem to be a minor annoyance, not worthy of Death's Hand's attention, which keeps Li's valuable pawn alive until he/she is strong enough to win.
  • The other thing is that Tyke Bombs have an unhealthy tendency to explode when they want to, not when it's best for your plans. Fill someone with rage at the Emperor, and they might run off on their own and kill him before they're ready. And without Sun Li acting as a decoy, they'd be killed off.
• So...that flaw in your technique. It seems that in the cutscene the flaw is "Ooh, ooh, look I threw shiny go get it, go get it!" It's not like he breaks your defenses in a meaningful way, he simply throws something up into the air, and because you trust him, you look up and leave yourself wide open. Which I would be fine with, if previous characters hadn't mentioned left and right about that hidden flaw. Unless they were talking about your penchant to look off into the distance every time you see something sparkle. But then that's pretty obvious.
  • The 'flaw in your technique' is really just a way of Hand Waving how he could kill you so easily. Your character apparently gets rid of it before you fight him again, even though you don't actually change anything about your fighting style.
  • This troper took the 'flaw in your technique' to be a false flaw, left behind intentionally in your fighting style, designed to trick opponents into looking for an opening where there wasn't one, thus allowing you to have an edge on them in combat. Until it became obvious that it was an actual flaw designed to help kill you, it seemed like a great gift from a benevolent and exceedingly clever master. (And I was still surprised)
  • Exactly. Think of Dune; all "proper" swordsmen have a flaw developed in their fighting style that comes from training and dueling with shields. They have a habit of slowing their strikes just before they hit, because a shield won't allow a fast moving object but it will allow a slow one. However, when facing someone who hasn't ever trained with shields and shields aren't in play, they find themselves disadvantaged because they are still slowing their strikes unconsciously. Master Li likely did something similar to the Spirit Monk, putting a tiny flaw into their training that, against someone less skilled, wouldn't mean anything. But against someone who could properly exploit it, it would be fatal.
• When Li talks about Death's Hand at Dirge he says that Hai bound Kin to his armor to taunt him. Since this happened after Li fled, Death's Hand's identity was a huge secret, and it's not like the pair had any contact for twenty years, how does he know this? He knew about it when he went to go resurrect Death's Hand from the ruins of the Lotus Assassin fortress so he couldn't have just asked. Was there some high-ranking Lotus Assassin who knew the secret who just happened to be away from the fortress and filled him in? If so, it wouldn't be a very effective taunt since he didn't realize what happened. If he knew beforehand...HOW? It's hardly an obvious conclusion to jump to and no matter how smart Li was, he'd need a reason to believe that Death's Hand was Kin bound to his armor. Did he just realize it was in Hai's character to do that?
  • Several reasons, really. For one, he WAS the last person to leave the two there after jumping out of his armor, and the resulting "disappearence" of Kin and the corresponding appearence of Death's Hand in Li's own armor would be two events that (for a man who knows what Li knows) would be easy to connect. And he DOES know his brothers, and a man who can predict the motivations and actions of SCORES of people he has hardly-if-ever met can probably guess what someone he has lived with his entire life will do. In addition, even though he himself might not have identified Death's Hand in person to confirm, he might have launched one of his infamous strategies to confirm the fact.
• If you keep Death's Hand but didn't turn your LI CF then you have to end up binding them. They are really REALLY pissed about this and rightly so as there are few things you could do to them that are worse than this. Nonetheless, if you destroy the Water Dragon's body then you still get LI epilogue for them. Why in the world would Dawn Star/Sky/Silk Fox get back together with you after what you did? Sure you ultimately made the moral choice and set everyone on the path to rebirth...but you still turned them into your slave because they disagreed with you on another morally questionable decision.
  • It seems pretty straight forward to this troper. The love interests get back with the spirit monk because he still has their souls bound, meaning they could not leave the spirit monk if said monk did not want them to.
    • Talk about Unfortunate Implications.
• Am I missing something, or are Transformation styles *never* explained? Is the ability to transform into a demon or golem just a Spirit Monk thing? And why does nobody ever comment on it?
  • Possibly; it could have something to do with copying the soul of your target or something like that. Now, as for why nobody ever comments on it, that's easier to explain: "Hey, your powers are weird. Cool." This is the Jade Empire; there's fighters with techniques like the Phoenix Unity Style, Kang the Mad's firebombs, Roderick and Mirabelle, Smiling Tiger's life-eating style...Transformation Styles are a strange power, make no mistake, but people are more likely to come to an opinion of you based on what you're doing than what your abilities look like.
  • Well do recall that magic seems pretty prevalent in Jade Empire, the fliers are run by it and plenty of enemies utilize magic styles. Transformation is basically just magic in the end, after all.
• NPC's going from supposed badasses in cutscenes to barely knowing how to fight in-game
  • Considering how deadly some of them are by description (ESPECIALLY Black Whirlwind) it wouldn't be much fun if they were actually that strong in gameplay, you'd just sit back and watch them kill everything.
    • How does making them them nearly useless help anything?
• You're given a superhyped weapon that's supposed to be awesome but it does nothing against spirits while your weaker teammembers weapons do.
  • Well, in the case of Dawn Star, she's an established special case, she's better at sensing and fighting spirits than you are (at least at first), and your super-special weapon (ha ha) isn't designed to fight spirits. The rest...I got nothing, besides your teammates only having one attack mode each.
  • Actually, Dawn doesn't need her "special case". Its be stated that Dawn Star has been practicing for YEARS with her weapon, and giving her the sword if you choose the staff at Two Rivers actually makes her less effective because practice with "her" sword has practically made it part of her, and allows her to effortlessly use it without thought/focus. Striking spirits with it becomes no different than striking it with hands or feet. It is part of her.
  • This likely also applies to other party members. They have had years to practice with their specific weapon to the degree that they can perform near superhuman feats of skill with them.
  • The PC on the other hand, just got handed the weapon (like a surprise present) and probably never saw that weapon before in their lives. They may have trained with similar weapons in the past, but not THAT specific weapon. Thus, not quite part of them. The PC will probably learn the trick in a few years with practice and mastery though.

• Why is Drunken Master supposedly a good style? It's slow, awkward and doesn't even do that much more damage than any other type and can't even be upgraded.
  • Because it doesn't NEED to be upgraded. If you don't have a fully upgraded style Drunken master deals more damage and costs you nothing. Basically it's a shortcut to the equivalent of a fully upgraded style.
• So what exactly is this "The Flaw", anyway? Inabilty to hold your bladder during combat? Two left feet?
  • Unconsiously leaving visible holes in his defence that everyone can see but no one was able to exploit them except the one person who taught him.

• In the beginning of the game, if you choose the staff as your primary weapon style, you get a staff that's described as legendary. Okay, Master Li probably has enough connections to ensure such a mythical weapon is available to you. But then, not long afterwards, you can buy a better staff from a random street acrobat in a remote town... Eh? Shouldn't there have been at least some explanation of how she got hold of such an unique and powerful weapon? With the equivalent sword upgrade, it makes a little more sense that a professional blacksmith in the capital of the Empire would be selling a powerful sword.
  • Given the rather long history of Jade Empire, its highly possible that "Legendary Weapons" are a dime a dozen.
  • Chalk it up the "Chinese Restaurant Effect" (please bear with me). There seems to be a theme of giving dishes names like "Saint Jumps Over Barriers Stew!", "The 8 Treasures Soup!", "Dumplings of DOOOOM!!!" (heh, made the last one up), complete with history, back story and supposed magical properties. No reason why weapons couldn't have the same tradition. Its "A" Legendary Weapon, not "THE" (original?) Legendary Weapon, which may or may not actually exist or been better/worse than the one the PC can get.

• It seems the Water Dragon knew about Master Li's plan all along, but decided not to tell you because straying from the path Master Li intended for you would have raised his suspicion. But couldn't the Dragon have just told you about the plan, then ask you to act as if you didn't know about it? It's not like Master Li was there to observe your every step. Of course it's possible you would have a hard time believing your beloved master is a bad guy, but at the very least the Dragon could have told you to get rid of the flaw in your fighting style and hide the amulet before you meet Li. Even if it had turned out Li was not bad guy, doing those two things would have been a smart precaution anyway. (For example, if Emperor Sun Hai would have defeated you, he would have gotten hold of the amulet.) Then, when Li revealed his treachery by attacking you, he wouldn't have managed to kill you, nor steal the amulet to channel the Water Dragon's power. With your current power level, you probably could have defeated Li at that point (since you were able to defeat him soon afterwards, even though he had the Dragon's power then). That way the Dragon's plan would have gone much smoother, instead of it relying on you being able to escape the Spirit Realm, get rid of the demons in Dirge, defeat Master Li in a much more powerful form, etc.
  • While it might have been a good to hide the amulet (unless you still need it to power you up to defeat the emperor. It seems to be more powerful lore-wise than the game-play letting you use a few gems) but you have to die. In order to restore the Water Dragon, you have to restore Dirge and you can't do that unless you're dead. If the Water Dragon tells you that Master Li is evil and that you have to go get yourself killed by him (but don't worry, despite how she's apparently too weak to even tell you who she is she can bring you back!) then she either won't convince you so there's no point in saying it or she'll have her work cut out for her making you do it anyway and convincing you not to mention that the Water Dragon is involved and working against him in case he can find a way to counter it. It's just easier for all involved not to tell you. Sure, you might be persuaded go go kill the half-dead emperor so that the man who raised you can mercilessly strike you down and possibly kill/imprison your friends because you need to practically single-handedly restore Dirge so you can be brought back to life and find your way to the palace to kill the man who raised you who is much stronger than even the Emperor is. On the other hand, wasn't it easier when you just thought you were rescuing your master?
    • I don't think it's ever established that you have to die in order to restore Dirge. Restoring it means dealing with a few ghosts and demons, but it's well established that the Spirit Monk can see ghosts and demons and defeat them without being dead herself. Even if dying is for some reason absolutely necessary to do that, why can't the Water Dragon first tell you about Master Li's treachery, then let you fight him while he's still weak, and only after you've defeated him explain the situation at Dirge and what you need to do there?
  • What purpose would levelling with you do? The Dragon doesn't need you thinking for yourself. That would make you unpredictable, you might not believe her, or you might do something odd instead of following Master Li's breadcrumb trai, and it would quite probably tip off Master Li that the Dragon was playing a game of her own. (You know, even if you try to hide what you know from Master Li, he's probably smart enough to know that you're trying to BS him.) This way, all you need to do is die, at which point the Dragon can explain the situation at precisely the point that you're railroaded into cleaning Dirge and have a grudge against Master Li.
• What happened the the PC's dead body? The one that fell in the Throne Room?
  • It disappeared when the Spirit Monk returned to the world, telling Sun Li that something was up.
    • Good idea. Minor change. I'm hoping it actually disappeared the moment the Spirit Monk dropped. On a whim, Sun Li could have beheaded the body and turned the head into a display ornament at the market square (as was tradition in ancient China).
      • That would require making up a story about who you were and why you were a hated enemy whose head to put on display instead of just ignoring the whole incident, though.