Talk:27 True Runes

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No mention of Yuber's Eightfold Rune. This should be added. GotGlassTubes (talk) 03:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Content on each of these runes should be kept on this page until there is substantial enough information on a given rune worth of breaking out into another article. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rune of the Beginning. --Durin 15:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Before anyone undoes the change I made, the True Holy Rune wasn't actually a True Rune. It's a mistranslation and should read as "Godspeed Rune". There are many sources to back this up.--134.117.151.146 06:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The current information on the page was gathered from Suikosource, SARS and the games themselves. I've used the names from the novelizations of Suikoden I, Suikoden II and Suikoden IV, as well as included the information shown in the Suikoden III manga, Successor of Fate. The names of the Runes are from the most recent games, and those that have been used consistently since their introduction (such as Pale Gate Rune) have taken precedence over the old names, and I've chosen to use Moon Rune instead of Blue Moon Rune as the artbook from Suikoden V lists it as the Moon Rune.-- Alkazar 21:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

By the same logic, the "Rune of Life and Death" must be renamed as "Souleater," because that rune has not been mentioned in such ways since back then as well. --SARSadmin

For correctness in information however, Souleater is a nickname of the Rune, not the true name, whereas the (Blue) Moon Rune possesses the actual name. If "Souleater" is to be considered the official name for the list, which I won't change, it needs to be moved on the list to keep it in alphabetical order by the Rune name (not including situations where it reads "Rune of"). -- Alkazar 02:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
"Moon Rune" was originally a mere nickname for the "Blue Moon Rune." However, the long form has not been used since 1999. The same is true with "Rune that Symbolizes Life and Death." All recent publications refer to that rune as "Souleater." On the same token, Rune of Change has also not been mentioned since 1999, so I removed it. --SARSadmin

I also removed the reference to Yuber as a "demon," because he has never been called as such. I'm not really sure what the "domain" entries are, because a lot of those are speculative and not based on any official information. --SARSadmin

The "domains" are based on information from Suikosource, using the word "domain" instead of "representing" as was present in the original document (although some have been extrapolated from the powers of the Runes and not just the original text). Also, there's one line in Suikoden III that refers to Yuber as a demon, but upon re-examining the scene, it's more a "fights like a demon" type of line. -- Alkazar 02:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
The "domain" information at Suikosource is fan speculation. The content is not adequate for Wikipedia. --SARSadmin


Blue Moon Rune or Moon Rune? We have a solution actually. As in any other games, the game itself rank first in canon list. And Moon Rune never, again NEVER, called Blue Moon Rune in Suikoden games. Its simple as it is. IMHO the one who writes the publication miss understand Blue Moon Village with Moon Rune. (125.163.86.100 06:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC))

Careful where you position the responses, and that conversation is over a year old anyway... in any case, we are talking about Japanese publications and the original Japanese game, whose translation was rather... "half-baked" if I were to be excesively nice. Konami is the one with the final word on what is canon or not, and they routinely used the side materials to explain, expand and sometimes even retcon plot points for years. Those weren't written by fans, other magazines or anything like the old Nintendo comics we used to get, these were done by the very same people who wrote for the games, so it's rather unlikely for them to misunderstand their own work. --Ephyon 16:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes i do know about the Japanese publication being write by the same person who wrote the game story. But, let i ask you, in Suiko 2 and 3 Japanese version what the rune called? "Moon Rune" or "Blue Moon Rune"? In English version (whose translation really half baked if not raw) it was called "Moon Rune". (125.163.73.19 04:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC))
To be precise, in the Japanese version of SuikoII as well as in the first gaiden, Sierra's rune is called 月の紋章 or "Moon Rune", with the name of her former village being 蒼き月の村 or "Blue/Pale Moon Village". In the second volume of the Japanese novelization of SuikoII, the latter name is used once to refer to the rune the vampire Neclord possesses. However, in the fourth (and final) volume of the novelization, when Sierra is introduced and the confrontation with Neclord occurs, the rune is consistently called the Moon Rune. As far as I've found in publications such as Gensou Shinsho issues that I have, the name is Moon Rune. In other words, calling it the "Blue Moon Rune" was a mistake on the part of the writer of the novelizations that was later corrected. Remember, even the Japanese are fallible, after all. --ACDragonMaster (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Cyndar = Sindar?

Am I missing something, or should Cyndar in fact be Sindar? Every single game in English romanises it as such. - Hidoshi 07:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I've yet to touch Suikoden V in English, but I used the spelling from Suikoden III as I don't recall seeing a different spelling used in IV. Of course, looking back, the reason I probably used Cyndar over Sindar at the time was that I had been replaying III and had seen it everywhere. --Alkazar 22:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Ah. Well as far as II, IV, and V are concerned, I believe it was romanised as "Sindar", so perhaps for the sake of familiarity it should be changed? - Hidoshi 03:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
As my goal was to use the most recent (and therefore most canonical) translations, if it was used as Sindar in V, then it's probably best to go through and change the mentions from Cyndar to Sindar, yes. I'll go through and correct all of them into Sindar now. -- Alkazar 17:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Teleport Rune?

Would it be safe to add the True Teleportation Rune to the list? Given the length of time that Viki appears to have lived, it might be safe to say that she is a true rune bearer. --Hailinel 20:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Viki isn't a runebearer, nor is she very old at all - She makes it from game to game through direct teleportation. Her Blink rune is the same as any other Blink rune. Confirmed by Konami in both interviews and through game progression - the fact that young viki exists and still has teleportation ability proves that she has aged while in posession of the rune. Therefore, the blink rune cannot be a true rune. --Belmarduk 07:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The rune on Viki is not a true rune. However, as with the Night rune, it's possible that the True Blinking rune took the form of the Blinking Mirror, and it's fragment, the Blinking Hand-mirror (or whatever they choose to translate that as). Being how she appears at times and places where such quick travel is needed (without her consent), and she performs much more sophisticated translocation with it than is possible with the random powers of the normal Blinking rune, it seems plausible that the Blinking Mirror is a sentient True Rune. The hand-mirror, as a fragment, only serves to pull its holder back to the parent rune. I cannot remember which game it was where Viki claimed there was only one hand-mirror, so the hero had to be careful not to lose it, but that sounds telling to me.

A brief counter to the lack of aging in true rune bearers; Luc appears to age between the first, second, and third games. I don't know when he came into the True wind rune, but if he was its bearer since his "birth," it may not be as simple as a plain lack of aging once the bearer gains posession. Though this does not relate to Viki's case, since she wouldn't be a bearer. --Maggie Hemingway 13:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You're basically wrong in assuming that the Blinking Mirror is a True Rune. It's not exactly much of a True Rune if it only teleports you back to it all the time. As for Viki, it's been shown that she teleports through both space and time in a non-linear fashion. LanceHeart 03:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't apreciate the hostile tone. To take only the theory that the function of the Blinking Hand-mirror--a fragment of the theorised true rune--is the function of the Blinking Mirror itself... is a bad argument. Please re-read before shooting the theory down half-cocked.
I never said anything claiming Viki teleported otherwise. --Maggie Hemingway 8:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup?

Does any one see why the cleanup template is still on this article?

I think the article already has good format. So I do not think that the cleanup template is still necesary there. Maybe I'll remove it if that is fine. I am not an admin after all. --{{subst:unsigned|user name or ip|date}} 07:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some changes I would like to implement.

Since I plan on touching up several points that might cause conflict, I preferred to give a heads up here and proceed according to what response I might get (If I get none, I’ll do whatever I want until further notice). They are mostly aesthetic changes. Some might seem irrelevant but please bear with me for just a bit:

  • Doing something to differentiate the (True) Beast Rune from the child Beast Rune (The one Ernst has). The simplest way of doing this would be adding “True” to the name, but I realize some people might have a problem with the rune’s name being changed even that little. I think it’s fairly reasonable though, even if it doesn’t match exactly with Konami’s choices. Then again, Konami has never really put too much effort into setting things in stone so a variation as slight as this, considering it’s “The True Beast Rune” after all, shouldn’t matter much.
  • Switching all instances of "Souleater" to "Soul Eater". Or switching all instances of "Soul Eater" to "Souleater". Or something. To be honest I don’t really care one way or the other, but we’ve got to choose one way to spell it for consistency’s sake. If I get no response, I might just flip a coin to and change everything according to what comes up.
  • Changing the section “Other Runes” to “Special Runes” or “Unique Runes” or something of the sort that sounds better than what’s already there. After which I’d like to add the Dawn Rune, Twilight Rune and Star Rune (I’m not going to bother with the irrelevant ones like the DoReMi Rune or the Window Rune). I’d also like to remove the Blinking Rune from here since it’s not even unique, you can get several of them during the games. I’m actually having second thoughts about whether to make an entirely new page for the special runes instead of leaving the in the 27 True article, but I’m not really sure of that.
  • More importantly, and I realize this might cause problems but it’s also needed, I’d like to switch Bright Shield and Black Sword into the Other/Special/Unique/Whatever category. Most people get very mixed up with this because they mistake the two aspects of the Rune of Beginnings with the two halves of a True Rune. They are not a True Rune but rather the fundamental aspects that create one, and while there are remarkable differences, they are much closer to the Dawn and Twilight Runes that they are to the Front and Back Gate runes. I'd also remove Riou and Jowy from the Current Owners section of the Rune of Beginnings, since nobody actually has it in the canon ending (Well, I say canon because it's what appears in Suikogaiden) or at least leave the mention of Riou being the owner in the alternate ending.
  • Adding “Godspeed” To the title of the True Holy. I’d rather leave it as “Godspeed Rune – True Holy Rune” since Konami used Godspeed in the last game, seemingly making it the new official English name.

Beyond that I might alter the wording in some minor instances to make it look better, but I doubt that could cause anyone trouble. Ephyon 03:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I was trying to create a link to Black sword and Bright shield that's why i made headings for them instead of underline. I wanted headings so i could create links from the Riou and Jowy pages to their respective runes and not the Rune of Beginning.Yayauc90 21:16, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Child Rune

I think this article needs a description of what exactly a child rune is. They're listed under various runes, but no mention of what a child rune is and how its related to the true runes.

[edit] What is Canon

This is a severely shaky issue as far as Suikoden is concerned. Most of the fandom and I believe the people who made these pages work with the same criteria as Suikox and Suikosource when deciding what sources to take as fact. That criteria consists in

  • 1)Game takes priority.
  • 2)Novels/Manga fill in voids such as naming.
  • 3)Other related publications take third place unless they are specifically mean to define or retcon details.

Problem here is that this method, while entirely logical and sensible, is still arbitrary. Nobody is going to protest about the heroes’ names because there is only one sorta-official name for each, however the Suiko III situation is different. There’s three equally likely possibilities for who gets the True Fire. Granted, Hugo fits the role, is the one in the manga and appears as such in most of the official artwork, but that’s still not enough to completely forget the other two possibilities. Unlike the reconciliation ending in Suiko II, which Konami has specifically said was the canonical one, there is no word on who becomes Flame Champion

Therefore, there’s no absolute answer. It’s still an open issue and it should be noted as such, while of course mentioning that certain sources provide a possible answer. Ephyon 12:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In My Opinion

We already take the game as Nr 1 in canon priority, but you can't say that all canon came from the game. As an example : Who became the Flame Champion? We got no answer from the game, then we look into the 2nd in rank from canon list : Manga. And what we got? Hugo was the Flame Champion. So the canon Flame Champion is Hugo. Simple, is it?

Because information that came in Manga don't contradict the game (as the game is the higher in rank), we can take that information as canon. If the information is contradicts the game we can't take it as canon.

Another example : We got information from "another publication" (the 3rd in rank) that the rune Sierra has is Blue Moon Rune. Can we take it as canon? No we cant? Why you ask? Because that information contradict the very 1st source of Suikoden Series (the games it selfs). Even if there hundreds of thousands of millions another publication say that its name is Blue Moon Rune, but the game says the rune name is Moon Rune then Moon Rune is canon.

I hope it can help some people to understand how Canon Hierarchy works. -- 125.163.81.58 (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it's perhaps worth pointing out that both Japanese official publications and fansites alike tend to avoid at all costs ever confirming any of the many ambiguities in canon one way or another. I have yet to ever see the given names of the protagonists of the first two games used in any official Japanese publication outside of the actual novels: they always use "Hero", or other terms like "Young Master" or "McDohl" for the first game's protagonist, but never "Tir". Similarly, the only official answer ever given to the question of "which ending is correct?" for the games is "whatever the player decides it is", and so on. An intentional part of the games is keeping a certain degree of "canon" ambiguous and up to the imagination of the players. So strictly speaking, the only true canon beyond doubt is the games and the games alone, which means that for example the answer to who became the Flame Champion is "Hugo or Chris Lightfellow or Geddoe", with perhaps a side note that in the manga version Hugo is chosen.
Of course there are some things that are mere technicalities: the issue of the Moon Rune's name appears to be just an error that happened once and was later corrected in one of the Japanese publications, and so there's no need to invoke a debate over which source is more "canon" than another. And in any case, as far as I'm aware, there are no real contradictions to speak of in supplementary canons such as the novels and manga versus the games. In other words I really don't see the need to sort out a "hierarchy" for something that is so straightforward to begin with, if you can put up with a little deliberate ambiguity. --ACDragonMaster (talk) 00:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability & References. But mainly References

A Link to the Past has tagged this article as requiring justification for its notability... while ignoring the etiquette of starting this discussion him/herself, but never mind that.

Absolutely justifying notability in cases like these is, frankly, quite impossible. The purpose of this particular sub-article (because it obviously is just that, as it has no value if separated from Suikoden) is, as I see it, elaborate on a general encompassing element in the series that is just too damn big to stick in the article dedicated to the encompassing series. It's, in short, not meant to be a self-sufficient article but simply an aside to avoid overcrowding.

Suikoden does have an issue with having too many damn minor pages scattered, which recently seems to have a solution in sight thanks to the poor sods who took on the Herculean task of creating List of Suikoden III characters and List of Suikoden V characters. Nevertheless, this is one page that always seemed rather reasonable, since it deals with an element relevant to the entire series which can easily be compared with, to name at absolute and complete random, Weyard or Kanto (Pokémon) (I know should have looked for other examples apart from maps, but never mind).

What CAN be done, and actually SHOULD be done regardless of the notability issue, is to cite references for all this stuff. Whether its text in the games themselves, or preferably, someone with knowledge of Konami's publications (that's going to be tough) who can give page numbers, it is absolutely necessary to at least cite some or other source for this clump of text.

I’ll admit, sadly, that I’m completely useless in this aspect.

So, thoughts on what can be done? Ephyon 00:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Said poor sod has been me, actually (though certainly other people have helped clean them up/ add to them). The answer is to tag using unreferenced rather than notability; considering that this is a topic that spans 6+ games, having one unified topic is eminently reasonable. Link to the Past, if you'd like to contest this, you're welcome to, but just dropping a tag doesn't give us much to go on here.
As for references, well, I'm actually not a huge Suiko-nut and am not familiar with a lot of the extra-game material being used as references here. We need someone who is to start referencing it, ideally. Suikosource is a mild halfway house, but ideally we want the sources Suikosource is using, not Suikosource. SnowFire 02:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
To elaborate some more. The Suikoden articles all need cleanup. However, this is actually fairly low on the list of things that need revision. The actual ARTICLES for Suikoden I and Suikoden II need some major work, for starters, along with more character listification / merging. This article is actually somewhat decent, and stops endless repetition of what a Rune does. I hardly think that this article is unsalvageable; hopefully it could end up something like the Mythology of Final Fantasy X section of the Spira article. Plus, while FFX is obviously more notable, Spira only spanned two games; the world of Suikoden spans 6 major games, 3 minor games, a manga, novelizations, etc. SnowFire 02:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, before someone even tries and wastes energy, Suikosource, Suikox, etc will not work AT ALL as references. As I learned working with the Fate/stay night pages, fan sites, regardless of how accurate they are, are not acceptable as per Wikipedia's policy. We need first-hand material. Ephyon 03:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I do not see similar notability between this article and Kanto. Kanto is extremely well-known. It was the location of the biggest game in the Pokémon series (exceeding 30 million sold), is an area in G/S, the second best-selling game in the series (with >18 million sold), and is a commonly mentioned location in the anime, which is one of the top three shows on Cartoon Network. - A Link to the Past (talk) 18:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The criteria for notability, which I assume you know well seeing as you tagged this page as insufficient on its regard, specifically states that the popularity of a subject does not equate to notability. Just as long as the content is acceptable within Wikipedia’s criteria, whether it is hugely popular or completely obscure doesn’t hold direct relevance. One is an imaginary region in a series of games and the other is an imaginary set of fundamental elements in another series of games. That’s about the difference. Ephyon 01:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

...No, there is a big difference between a relatively small franchise and a multi-billion dollar empire. - A Link to the Past (talk) 05:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Undoubtedly, but would you care to note where that difference comes into play in this particular case within Wikipedia's criteria? The notability criteria, once again, disregards that argument, so where exactly does it say that popularity is a key element when determining acceptability? Not to mention Kanto is one of several regions that could actually be summed up pretty well in a few paragraphs (instead of going into such detail that it borders on game guide content), whereas the Runes are major plot elements in all five/six games. In any case, once again, both pages expand on details from the franchises and are not the franchises themselves. That is to say, if both franchises are being covered, while popularity obviously influences priority in which to expand first, it does not determine how well-covered each cluster of articles should be. And if you disagree, I'd like you to show me the exact guideline that states otherwise. Ephyon 11:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The Pokémon series is notable, and by the fact that Kanto is a recurring location (one that holds prominence through the majority of the series), it's notable. The guideline says that popularity does not determine notability, not that popularity is completely irrelevant. Wouldn't you say that the popularity of The Force is one of the reasons it has an article on Wikipedia? - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You are repeating yourself. The Force is a recurring element and primary element (As an aside, quite akin to the Runes) in a series and it has been given an immense amount of spotlight and enough has been written about it in a franchise to the point where there's enough material to consider it a pseudo-religion. Sure it's notable. Your point being?

What you said is still entirely hanging on the argument that because Pokemon is more popular than Suikoden, a specific element in the first should be expanded and a specific element on the second should not. Because, and this is indisputable, Kanto is no more important to Pokemon than the Runes are to Suikoden, therefore any argument has to occur on a more encompassing spectrum, that of the main objects, instead of that of only those to elements. I just said that popularity can and should influence on the priority each article should take, but it does not equate to its notability, and even less, to its acceptability as an article, given how the notability criteria also states that it in itself is not entirely binding when assessing acceptable content.

I'm still waiting for you to do as I say: Show me the policy that states that a very popular game should get insanely detailed coverage while a less popular one should only get superficial information and fundamental elements that can not be crammed into the main article should be voided. Otherwise, this entire argument is pointless. Ephyon 21:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)