Tales of the Abyss

This thread is bait to me...

In a nutshell it all comes down to Star. And snynard (sp?) is right. It never mattered who died first.

The in-a-nutshell explanation:

Star begins in the left cage, Star's replica on the right.

Later, only the right cage is occupied later. However, Asch sees Star's empty cage on the left and panicks. We later learn Star was in the replica's cage.

Asch was told by Spinoza that he'd undergo fonon separation, but apparently panicked before Spinoza could finish explaining. Furthermore, in the Asch the Bloody comic, Dist outright told Asch that he'd be absorbed by his replica. (And was downright giddy about the prospect, apparently to the point that he decided to do a bunch of animal experiments...)

So what happened exactly? Location, location, location. Star was in his replica's cage. Star also disappeared. Therefore, Star was absorbed by his replica, and took over the replica's body. The one who is absorbed is the "winner".

Consider that the whole purpose of studying replicas was to resurrect the long-dead Nebilim. Jade and Dist knew the replicas had no memory. Why keep bothering? Why study perfect isofons? Essentially, they were genuinely dealing in Necromancy, attempting to create a living body for someone who was already dead, something that could hold Nebilim's mind and soul. This is why Dist was excited about finding a perfect Isofon, and experimenting on one. He was hoping to use that information to ressurect Nebilim. No, this is never said outright, but it's the only answer that makes sense, given the characters involved.

There's a common myth that Jade/Dist/Spinoza said Asch would absorb Luke. In reality, no such text or dialogue exists anywhere in the game or extended material. However, we do see Luke being absorbed by Asch's body just before the credits. So if we go by Star, who was given his replica's body, Luke "wins". Luke even mentions feeling symptoms similar to what Star experienced shortly after Asch died. As for why the reversal took place, I figure by the end of the game the fonons in Luke's body had destabilized to the point that they could only flow in the other direction. Ironically, his actions at the Tower of Rem and Eldrant probably saved his life in the end.

Granted, it all comes back to the devs' line about the player's "wish", but I've been doing some serious thinking on the subject as of late. Maybe the devs' line was just their way of expressing the "moral" of the story. If we want the dead to return at the cost of the living, more power to us, but we haven't learned anything. Indeed, I can't think of many who want Asch to return at the cost of Luke, being that Asch was already dead due to his own actions and false assumptions. On the other hand, Luke returning at the cost of an already-dead body doesn't hurt anyone, and leaves everyone happy in the end. Yes, even Natalia, as she too was pleading for Luke to survive. Heck, I could write a whole other post on why any Natalia arguments are a straw man from hell.

Anywho...

Jade eventually gave up on ressurecting Nebilim, even if Dist never did. I assume Jade eventually came to the conclusion that creating a life just to extinguish it for the sake of someone already-dead was not fair to the life he'd created. Goes into the whole idea of why people are uncomfortable with cloning in the real world. I remember there being genuine talk back in college about cloning for the sake of harvesting organs. The idea makes people upset for good reason. They see it as cruel to bring someone to life just to kill them for spare parts. However, few see any problems with harvesting organs from a person who has died by other means. It's obvious that Tales of the Abyss exists to make a statement (or ten) about a few things, so take that as you will.