Headscratchers / Octopath Traveler

• The fool's bangle doesn't seem to make any sense either as a plot device or as an object in the world. So rich people are able to just slap the brand of a thief on anyone they please, no trial, no jury, no crime? That seems... really open to abuse. But more importantly, does it really make any sense to use, as leverage to get a thief to steal stuff, an object that will instantly expose him as a thief to anyone who sees it? Surely that must've raised alarm bells in the planning phase that maybe they should use a method that doesn't interfere with the thief's ability to do his job?
  • Outside of the Ravuses, it could be used to let regular people know that the person is a criminal, and to subject the person to humiliation from other convicts. Assuming that this kind of tool is mostly used by the law, it's possibly the equivalent of some kind of community service/public confession. Or a "kick me" sign.
  • My point is that apparently there's no judicial oversight to their placement or removal. Something that clearly sounds like a judicial measure is something that rich people seem to be trusted to do to whoever they please.
  • Why are you treating it as if it's some kind of codified, established-in-law thing? The much more likely thing is that rich people just do it, not that they're "trusted" to do it. It's a mark — "This thief tried to steal from us, and he failed. Ha ha." That's it. It's not a judicial system, it's not something that a legislature got together and decided on, it's just something that rich folks came up with and started doing enough that it became a known thing.
  • In a medieval setting... well, yeah, rich people can do exactly that. Most medieval law boiled down to "Rich person dispenses the law in their land and as long as they pay their taxes and sends their levies, the king doesn't give a shit." It's also stated that House Ravus doesn't treat thieves kindly, and in other areas like Quarrycrest we see the local nobility straight up kidnap someone who crosses them and declare their intent to sell them into slavery. This is very close to how nobility tended to operate in medieval times. As long as they didn't do this to the wrong people (clergy, other nobility, or agents of the crown like tax collectors) they could get away with crimes against the peasantry, let alone criminals.
• So at the end of Cyrus's chapter 1 story Cyrus is technically fired for the scandal between him and the princess and the final decision was made by Yvon. Since Cyrus killed Yvon and Lucia, how is he able to have his job back? Granted, the people wouldn't know Cyrus did the deed but isn't it odd how no one bats an eye? Not to mention, who is in charge of the academy now the headmaster and his assistant are dead?
  • He wasn't fired, he took a sabbatical. And even if he was, when he showed up back at the academy presenting an astronomical number of long-lost, long-thought extinct ancient tomes, each of which he could have sold for a mind-shattering amount of money, and just donates them for free, I don't think the king would be in too much of a mood to screw him over.
  • But the rumor that was going around was that Cyrus was having an inappropriate relationship with the princess AKA his daughter. Surely, the king would be wary about the situation even if Cyrus came back with all the tomes, right?
  • There never was a rumor. It was Therese telling the headmaster, with no indication she told anyone else. And none of the four people who knew had any interest in spreading it. At any rate there was tons of proof Cyrus had amassed of the headmaster’s plot which probably helped him smooth over the explanation of where the headmaster went.
    • Still, it does raise the question of who's going to take over the academy now that the headmaster and his assistant are dead.
• Are the people of Everhold really being terrorized by Simeon? Creepy music plays when you enter the town, you speak with the citizens and learn that they're all part of a play but nobody seems to be traumatized or have a problem with their role. Is there any proof that Simeon was forcing the citizens to do his bidding? Even after Primrose's story is done, the people still talk about the theater and plays like nothing changed. Yes, Simeon is an evil sociopath but it just seems odd that the music implies there is something wrong with Everhold.
  • The music isn't there to show that Simeon is terrorizing the town. It's there to show that he's terrorizing Primrose using the town. As far as the town knows, some rich eccentric is paying them to put on this weird performance art piece.
• So why does any party member want to help Therion to break into the Ravus's mansion when they first meet him? The other party members seemed to be too nice or don't care about doing it or won't benefit from such a venture and they just met him.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation. Same could be said about most of the chapters in the game.
  • Maybe Tressa and Cyrus are curious about whatever treasures the Ravuses own, albeit for their own sake rather than to steal them. You could argue that Ophilia and Alfyn are just so nice that they don't want Therion to get hurt on his way in. It's a bit harder to handwave the other three, though...
• Alfyn's visited towns. After completing his first chapter, Alfyn decides to start traveling through the continent. His first destination is Goldshore, which is on the other side of the continent. This isn't anything unusual for chapter 2 destinations. But then after that he decides to go to Saintsbridge, which is located right next to Clearbrook, his starting town. Is there any reason Alfyn couldn't just go to Saintsbridge first before traveling across the continent to Goldshore other than plot?
  • Looking at his journey in full, he is going far to the east and then the furthest west in the land. Saintsbridge is on the path back from the east. He isn't considering going very far north or south on this journey.
• At one point, you meet Kit again in Noblecourt, still searching for his father. He's looking for a group of travelers to journey together with. The solution to this sidequest is to introduce him to an aspiring actor, who then asks him to join a group of traveling performers as a pair. Besides the sheer Guide Dang It! moment, is there any reason you can't let him join your party? It's not like your own party isn't made up of an assortment of random people in the first place.
  • The practical answer is most likely because then they'd have to add a ninth character and a ninth story. As for in-universe, the performance troupe is doing a lot of traveling anyway, so Kit (and the party) just decide to take advantage of that. It still lets them help him out a bit without having to go on a whole other quest.
• In the post-game party banter, "A Lesson in Swordplay", Therion says that he doesn't do training, and that experience is the best teacher. Olberic then thinks about how it'd be impossible for Therion to be so agile without training, and concludes that Therion must train, but is bluffing about it. So, does Therion train or not? Since many people in the game has said that Therion is gifted, so is he just naturally gifted or did he practice, because that will mean he lied to the party, and so far he has not lied to the party. And if he doesn't train, then that will mean he learns from real fights, which will be dangerous.
  • In the skit, Olberic mentioned that he trains every day and practices all manner of skills. He has a very different definition of "training", and Ophilia's question comes directly after Olberic talked about his own rigorous routines. Therion must have trained too, but not on the same level as Olberic, and hence claimed that he didn't train. Therion probably also is disinterested in following a regimen like Olberic's, and is disinterested in the topic in general. Note that Therion mentioned "Look, I..." before he was interrupted by Ophilia, so he had more to say at that point. Like Olberic said, it'd be impossible to have skills on that level without training.
  • Part of it is conflation of a couple different meanings of training — Olberic says he trains every day, as a workout routine; this is what Therion is saying he doesn't do when he denies training. There's also "training" in the sense of "someone showed you how to do these things." That's the kind of "training" that Therion has. And a lot of Therion's skills are on-the-job stuff — he likely doesn't need to spend his morning doing agility exercises because he's gonna get enough chance to do them in fights; likewise, he wouldn't carry around a fake lock to practice picking, because he feels he gets enough practice just doing it for his daily job.
• Alfyn's chapter 3 is really odd. The chapter is all about what a medic is supposed to do when they find a wounded criminal. Why does the chapter make it seem like the only two options in that scenario are "Let him die" or "Treat his wounds and let him go on his way"? It really didn't occur to Alfyn or Ogen to simply treat their patient's wounds and then call the city guards to have them arrested? Why didn't they even consider that as an option? Didn't they realize it was perfectly permissible to treat injured criminals and turn them over to the authorities on the same day?
  • It's mostly due to the personalities of everyone involved. Ogen's severe pessimism leads him to act similarly towards pretty much everyone, including himself. Alfyn's extreme optimism puts him in the other direction, though he does at least try to convince Miguel to give up his theiving ways while treating him.
  • One thing I also found odd was that one of the women whom Alfyn helps knows what kind of person Miguel is, but hadn't tried to report him to the authorities. It could suggest that the authorities aren't able to handle Miguel, although that seems a little odd for a town like Saintsbridge.
• Cyrus has the belief that knowledge is meant to be shared, which is all well and good, but he teaches at an academy that at least seems to be rather exclusive (not to mention the only school we see in the setting), since two of the pupils are Princess Mary and her distant relative Therese (who is presumably a noblewoman herself) and it's a stone's throw from the palace. Does this make Cyrus' belief a Broken Aesop? Is it a case of Deliberate Values Dissonance regarding education being even more of a privilege in medieval times? Or am I reading too much into it?
  • There are probably other schools in the setting and we just don't see them because they're smaller/less important. More to the point, Cyrus probably just teaches there because it's the first place that hired him (which isn't exactly uncommon in real life in general). Cyrus also teaches Mary and Therese in a special room in the castle rather than the Academy itself, so it could be that the rest of the students aren't quite as rich as them.

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