So last year my friend and I did a lets play of Chrono Trigger and this was our first time playing Chrono Trigger and when playing it we just kind of had the thought that The Reapers are pretty much Lavos on a way bigger scale. Did anyone else have this thought when playing?

I do really like the analogy but the way Chrono Trigger so cleverly integrates that you can just fight Lavos if you want among other things makes it more of a cohesive and meaningful thing. I don't know about anyone else but for me I never really cared that The Reapers were a thing, at least after the first Mass Effect. Lavos though, and really the whole of Chrono Trigger, actually makes the end of the world compelling in a way I find holds up against many other also-ran save the world plots these days.

To answer your question it hadn't crossed my mind but as I said now that it has I really like it even if I feel the Reapers pail in comparison. Also, while we're at it, I always though The Reapers was really dumb in a lame ass 13 year old who thinks he's way cooler than he is kind of way. Just wanted to through that out there for no particular reason.

Well I mainly was talking about the whole letting a civilization build itself up to only harvest it. Also you will be happy to know that Chrono Trigger did become one of my favorite games ever.

@sarge1445 said:

Oh shit, you're totally right about that too! Man, I shouldn't be posting on the forums at 3:45 in the morning.

Never put the two together, but yeah I see what you're saying.

There's an entire trope concerning this type of narrative. It's the same with the "Moon Crew" from Dead Space and the Flood from Halo etc.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssimilationPlot

I've been playing Crono tigger these past few weeks and had the same thought :p

Kinda, but it is way better done in Chrono Trigger.

I just realized Lavos means 'The Voice' in Spanish. That's creepy.

It's a fairly common genre trope. Someone out there's always trying to devour everything.

Just keeping it within Square, consider that Lavos = Jenova. Both are aliens come to earth on a meteor, exploited by man for science, then they spring their trap and eat everything. Also, their disastrous CG movie, except they were alien ghosts that time.

So Lavos = Jenova = The Spirits Within = Reapers.

I don't think the Reaper sound can ever beat this:

I do, however, think they both share the bad end quality (on a fail state, that is): "But the future refused to change," which is pretty poetic for the type of storylines in both games.

Aren't the Reapers trying to save sentient life from themselves while Lavos and his kind are simply parasites? I think that alone is enough to differentiate the two.

"La" mean fire.

"Vos" mean big.

Wait, is that what 'lava' comes from?

@scrawnto: Nah, it's a quote from Chrono Trigger. Ayla says it after you defeat Azala for the final time. The terms she is using are from her fictional dialect.

Well, they're both antagonists so yes?

Yeah, I looked up the etymology of lava right after, and found it was from Latin by way of Italian, and the root 'labes' meant 'a fall or slide'. Hooray, jumping to conclusions and looking a fool!

Pretty much, yes. They are kinda similar, in that both entities fit several tropes, but having two evil beings that fit a few similar tropes doesn't make them equal. In addition to being a parasite, I don't really remember Lavos showing anything more than primal intelligence, or at least his (or, rather, its) end goal is reproduction and it doesn't have any thoughts beyond that. I don't even know if I want to attach the word "antagonist" to Lavos, since Queen Zeal is more actively against Chrono and Co. in a literary sense and Lavos is merely the tool she thinks she can control. Unless the Star Child thingy at the end of ME3 could be considered an analogue to Queen Zeal, but then the Star Child has no delusions of grandeur that make him think he can control the Reapers.

If it were earlier in the day and I was less lazy, I would bet that I could go into much more detail about this.

Also, I forgot what the star child was supposed to be called, so you'll have to put up with that name.

Thanks, now I really want to replay Chrono Trigger. Might go do that now actually...

And I can see the connection, but they're related in the same way that a lot of video game extinction/end of the world causing creature(s) are related. Their motives and what type of being they are end up being totally different though. I guess you could draw a comparison between the reveal of Starchild and the reveal of Lavos' inner core. Both are hidden from the player and you're made to believe the outside threat is all there is (the shell and the reapers). But again, there's a lot in gaming that is like that so I wouldn't call it significant.

As I just rewatched Babylon 5 (TV show that ran from 1993 to 1998), the conflict in Mass Effect is pretty much identical to that of the Shadow War in B5.

In B5, every 1000 years, the old races make the younger space faring races fight each other - one side to impose order, discipline and victory through alliances among the weaker races, and the other chaos, and weeding out the weaker races in favor of the strong through conflict. While the ancient races' motivations aren't exactly identical, there's a similar conflict between the technological Vorlons and the organic Shadows. There's of course the space station (Citadel/Babylon 5) as the central hub for the story, while a human character (Shepherd/Sheridan) rises to notoriety among the alien races, becomes an agent for an ancient organisation (Spectre/Rangers) and is given access to one of the most advanced space ships available (Normandy/White Star) and has to bring the other young races together to fight the old ones in order to break the 1000/10000 year cycle.

Hell, the original ending of ME3, where interstellar travel became impossible, severing Earth and it's colonies from the rest of the universe, and the time lapse to a distant future where tales of the events in the games are told as ancient myths also happens in the end of season 4 of Babylon 5.

I've always considered that a dumb line, because it brings up so many needless questions.

Also, I think I had this conversation with @mento before. Pac Man got involved, somehow.

@video_game_king: I dimly recall this also but have no idea when, why or where this conversation happened. It must have been in the comments of one of the CT ER episodes, I'm guessing.

@mento:

I think it was on one of your lists, and it had more to do with Xenoblade.

@video_game_king: Close, it was your Xenoblade list. Can't believe I searched around for it. Nor can I believe that we hijacked this poor fellow's thread for this nonsense.

So... yes! Common enough theme in games, it turns out. With all these variants milling around, I'm sure there must have been some kind of universal precedent. Maybe a very well-regarded sci-fi novel from like the 70s that was based on the idea. I definitely need to read more.

The Reapers = same cliche that exists in a thousand other fictions