This was actually foreshadowed wayyy back, when Phoenix first met Inga in case 3: Inga didn’t recognize him at first, but then he noted his distinguishing features aloud, and identified him. Phoenix remarked on it at the time.
It's great foreshadowing because you can easily brush it off as thinking Inga is the kind of person who doesn't bother to remember people who aren't important to him
@@SilverScizor753 we've dealt with that a fair bit, hell for all we know, manfred con karma could of had that, cuz he ALSO didnt know phoenix at all because he "didnt bother to remember defense attourneys"
34:25 No, not literally. They can still see faces just fine, it's just the part of the brain that can identify and distinguish faces isn't working right. Lotus's monkey explanation is pretty spot on.
I am pretty face blind. Facial features to me are possible to perceive but just will not stay in my memory for some reason. I instead can usually tell people apart well enough based on build and hair. Might be different for others though.
I agree. I can see faces, but I can't really distinguish details. I often think people are related when they aren't, aren't related when they are etc. I don't say hi to people I meet in the grocery store or out and about because of how often I'm wrong
If it clears things up, it's established in this game that spirits experience *zero* time passage from their death to when their spirit is channeled. (If you remember when Maya channeled Tahrust, his first reaction was thinking he was in the afterlife/the Twilight Realm. He thinks he just died even though his death was a day or so prior to his channeling). So the current idea is: Inga was killed in the tomb at 2. He's channeled at 2:30pm. For Inga's spirit, there is no 30 min gap, it's instantaneous. He's dead at this point, but his spirit hasn't processed/figured out he's dead. As Apollo describes, it's like suddenly waking up from a bad dream. So he thinks he's running late for the hostage exchange and rushes over to the tomb. He's not rushing over at the brink of death, he's already gone. To be clear, this is the current idea for where you're at in the case. However much of that is confirmed as fact, you'll find out! Just adding this to clarify I'm not spoiling anything!
This is a good summary of where we stand so far. The Séance clearly shows Inga being killed in the tomb, so the whole thing about being stabbed in his private quarters and running off with a knife in his back was already disproven and thrown out the window in the last episode. Much of Lucah's confusion seems to stem from the fact that she still believes that part happened.
As someone who has this condition, no we don't literally see blank faces, but remembering what a face looked leading to a reliance on other factors like hair, body type, clothing etc. A classmate once wore a (realistic) wig to class and I thought we had a new student for like an hour. I ended up recognising them by their eyeliner. It's hard to explain what faces actually look in my memorys, the best I can put this is this: If I imagine people close to me in a freeze frame sort of way, or remember a Foto of them I took I can roughly imagine their faces, but for people I don't know, or if I try to actually replay a memory, It is close to them being faceless. You know how if you take of your glasses things get blurry or look like one solid colour? Yeah kind like that but only with faces
So the revelation that inga indeed has prosopagnosia adds a lot of hidden context what we already know, things that the game never bothers to point out. We know that to channel someone, you need to know their name and their face. But since Inga cannot distinguish between faces, he couldn't visualize someone's face properly, even if he had a picture to work with and everything. So even if, by summoning the Founder, he really could gain spiritual power, it still wouldn't help him. And you _need_ to be able to channel spirits in order to be eligible for the throne of Khura'in. In short... Inga could never have personally taken power. Therefore, we can surmise that it almost certainly was all for Rayfa's sake. But we also found a note in his safe where he basically wrote down that he's plotting to overthrow Ga'ran and take power using the Founder's Orb. It's enough to be used as evidence against him but doesn't go into any detail, so it's not really much of a "plan" at all. It's almost as if... he put that note there specifically so that, in the event his coup attempt falls through, it'll be found and used as confirmation that the plot was all his idea. So that Ga'ran won't see Rayfa as a threat to her rule, and she'll at least be safe, even if he'll be executed for treason as a result. This is what makes Inga an interesting character for me: He's a stereotypical moustache-twirling dickhead, and yet he genuinely seems to care for his daughter above all. (Much unlike someone else we know...) He's a terrible person but a loving father. As we heard Dhurke say earlier in this case, "What kind of father wouldn't risk his life to save his own children?"
I would actually take this a step further and say that perhaps a secondary motive in all of this would be that Inga might seek the power as a potential cure for prosopagnosia, much like 999's villain did. After all, if the Holy Mother is to grant him the power to cast spirits, he may in turn be granted the ability to perceive faces alongside the spiritual power so it's actually functional.
Yeah, this is what I was thinking as well. When we found those five year long, overdue execution papers, then Rayfa's Birth Date as his safe's lock combo, simply calling him a bad person to the core wasn't sitting right with me. I think he did truly love Rayfa and wanted what's best for her, but he did horrible things to get there/avoid harming her, or something to that extent.
It's unlikely that this is how people with prosopagnosia LITERALLY see people. I imagine they just see their face, but it's just impossible for them to recognize the unique features. They just see "a face." Kinda like how if you're looking at a group of the same species of bird, you likely couldn't tell them apart. But since his brain can't properly process the face, this is probably just what his spirit relays. It couldn't have told you what that face looked like because he couldn't really register it in his head.
To borrow an analogy from 999, it's like looking at monkey faces - you can tell they're faces and have features, but you would struggle to recognise individual monkeys from their faces (while other monkeys of the same species presumably don't have that problem).
I wonder if it’s just shorthand for the game, and if it was an actual viewing of what the person saw in real life, it would be kind of like a mushy blurry face or something like that. It’s just easier to show no face at all for the game maybe? That’s my thought. I both love and hate the idea of prosopagnosia because it’s terrible but also so weird and interesting to think about, and why our brains are so specialized at this point that it can fail at one singular very important task like that, but be fine recognizing other things. It’s all fascinating.
It's probably a lot like looking at the Funyarinpa from 999 (before realizing it is a Funyarinpa, of course) - there are features there, but you cannot make sense of them, and therefore you can't form a good memory of them either.
If we had a nickel for every time prosopagnosia came up as a plot point in a game that Lucah has LP'd in the last few years, we'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
I haven't really had a chance to follow this LP, but I saw the thumbnail and came here to make sure this was the top comment. Thanks for not disappointing me! 😂
What's neat is that Inga's prosopagnosia was actually hinted at in the previous encounters with him. At the end of Case 1, he takes a moment to just stare at Phoenix, likely trying to commit his features to memory. And in Case 3, he doesn't recognize him at first and needs to be reminded who he is, which just comes off as him being self-centered at the time.
this case was always fascinating to me as someone with faceblindness; it isnt quite one to one with how it works for me, but it might as well be! i can generally focus on one or two facial features at a time, so unlike Inga i can *see* features, but they dont stick around for long. if i cant see my family's hair or they change their hairstyle, i have to ask who it is and can generally pick out who it is from their voice or body language. just this morning i woke up, left my room to go to the bathroom, and failed to recognize my older sister until i sensed her irritability. my poor younger sister has it even worse than i do, though,
Im sorry if this is insensitive to ask but since your face blind would it also affect how you see faces in media and video games? Again sorry if im being rude
As far as I can tell, "face blindness" isn't literal face blindness, it's just the inability to recognize someone via their face unless you really get familiar with their features.
@@lamegamesunanimous3445 no worries! you were very respectful in asking this question. i dont think i've ever really thought about it, but seeing faces in animation. games. and other non-live action forms of media, i actually have a much easier time recognizing fictional characters; partly because their facial details are much closer together, and partly because they are more easily represented as a two-dimensional "pattern" on a flat surface, so it doesnt register as "face" (though i cannot draw faces very well either). another helpful factor is that fictional characters very often have signature "looks", such as outfits, facial features like prominent scars, unusual hair and so on, which i believe this game touches on with Inga's notebook. thank you for asking, and for being respectful!
@@vickysterling3342 I had it too as a kid and my experience was pretty similar to yours! Especially the specific features appearing but then blinking back out. I wonder, for you, does a face look kind of like a "zone of abstraction"? Or like something impossible and warping kind of? I always described it as similar to looking at something in the distance when you're looking up from underwater on a bright sunny day. It was super scary as a kid, having to rely on what people were wearing to identify them, sometimes making mistakes and walking up to total strangers haha.
@@LunaRayArclight yeah fr. she definitely has her failing upward moments, but her intuition always amazes me. part of it is probably cuz of her point n click game experience lol.
Maybe? The whole prosopagnosia bit was a major plot point in 999 and her recognizing it was simply a case of "so we're doing this again." On the other hand, her getting stuck on the "he was on the phone" was correct, but it was like, 5 steps in advance correct when the game wasn't even trying to hint at it and she kinda just got stuck on the idea of him being on the phone, and it was a part of a piece of evidence that hadn't been used yet. She basically did those steps in reverse order and she was literally asking "how would anyone get this...." and yet no one really would get it because the phone comes in many steps later down the chain of events.
Uncredited zoos are terrible. Credited ones are fine; the animals on those kinds get amazing healthcare, high nutrient food, and their caretakers do everything they can to make sure the animals habitats keep them enriched. I get so tired of people acting like all zoos are terrible. The animals there usually come from wildlife sanctuaries that can't be released back into the wild anyway.
"DId he really just run off on the brink of death" No, he was being channeled. He ran off while he was being channeled. He wasn't "on the brink of death", he was already dead but he didn't know he was dead.
I totally get being lost, but a few points that might help clear things up: 1. If Inga couldn't hear something, it would never have appeared in the Seance, because the sensations felt are their own sensations. If someone didn't hear something, it wouldn't appear in their memories - its not an "objective video" of their last moments, it's their last memories, exactly as they experienced them. 2. Seances recall the moment a person died. If they were channeled after they died, it would not affect what appeared in the Seance, as they are already dead when they are channeled. (Their memories are also cut off at the point of death.)
Nothing to do with the game, but just a quick note about the whole "zoos are bad" thing...no, they're not, necessarily. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums is the primary regulatory body for...well, zoos and aquariums. They're specifically a US-based organization, but they actually work with zoos and aquariums all over the world. The AZA's primary focus is to ensure that any zoo they have authority over operates humanely and with a focus on conservation and research. Any AZA-accredited zoo needs to demonstrate that they can keep their animals healthy--physically _and_ mentally. Feeding, medical care, enrichment, the size and shape of their habitats, it's all taken into account. They're also expected to obtain their animals in a responsible and humane way. Granted, these standards only apply to zoos accredited by the ACA; a lot of privately-run zoos, here and abroad, absolutely cut corners on care for their animals in the name of maximizing profits. It's these zoos that give the rest a bad name, and it's important to know which side of the dichotomy your local zoo falls into, but the important thing to remember is that, especially in America or anywhere else the AZA operates, those profit-driven "zoos" are a rare exception and far from the norm.
Plus, it's not like Zoos are prisons for animals. In a world of humans, zoos are a form of preservation. I think Giant Pandas would certainly be extinct if not for Zoos.
We've certainly made mistakes in the past, like not respecting the social structures of other animals (the famous example being forcing unrelated wolves to just live together) and no or poor enrichment, but giant strides have been made!
A neat way to think about why the face is blank: Even though Inga saw the killer's face, he didn't recognize the person and couldn't remember any facial traits. Thus, his spirit didn't know how to communicate that part of the person's appearance. This gap resulted in the blank face. AFAIK, people with prosopagnosia can see a person's face, but they just all look the same. So people weren't really faceless from Inga's POV.
I don’t know why, but I absolutely love the fact that Inga had prosopagnosia. Not only is it cool to see from his POV in the Insight, but I almost makes me feel bad for him knowing he was never able to see his parents, his wife, and especially his daughter’s face just because that’s how his brain works. This is only one of two time I can think of where a character in AA has a mental disorder, but it’s really cool to see because it makes the cast feel more deep than just a bunch of puns and stereotypes.
Not only have you played 2 different games that had someone with prosopagnosia, but also, in both games the person who had it was a middle-aged man who was irredeemably evil but was not the final villain of the game!
I mean, I’d consider Ace the main villain of 999. Unless I’m forgetting something even though Zero was someone else, Ace was the one who was definitely the main villain considering all he did in both the past and present. He’s not the main villain of the series though, I’ll give you that.
@@Klaxynd I guess it comes down to what "main villain" means. It's like in Investigations 2, where (without spoiling) the Chapter 5 victim was responsible for almost all of the conflicts in the game, but the mastermind was the one who directly caused them. Similarly, Ace was the reason why the current Nonary Game in 999 happened, but Zero was the one who actually carried it out. But I guess we're getting into semantics at this point. Ace and Zero are both the main villain in different ways, so I'll concede the point to you!
@@bruschetta7711 If nothing else, his love for Rayfa seemed genuine. He used Rayfa's birthdate as the password for his super important safe, and even kept a letter she wrote him many years ago in there. Unlike Ga'ran, who has literally zero positive qualities, Inga at least has that going for him!
People who have played 999: "Inga has prosopagnosia, just like Ace!" People who have never played 999: "Dhurke was possessed by the Holy Mother!" I had a feeling you're going to use a faceless Dhurke as a thumbnail
@@NoThankUBeQuiet its a mystery thriller game about 9 people stuck on a sinking ship and forced to complete elaborate puzzles. Lucah's played it on the channel.
@@neo-didact9285 It was, but interestingly it sold way better in the west. I dunno if that makes a difference from Capcom's perspective. But like, considering how similar AA and ZE are as franchises, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were paying attention to each other's releases to some extent, if only for potential inspiration
In fact, this came out the same year as Zero Time Dilemma, which drew a lot of attention back to the Zero Escape games when it was announced the previous year. The timing probably doesn't quite line up, though it's possible Inga's condition was just retconned in later in production, since it doesn't really play into earlier cases.
@@ashenwolf98 SoJ was June or September, depending on region; ZTD saw a worldwide release in June. ZTD saw releases on additional platforms in August and September of that year, while SoJ added platforms in 2017 and 2024. So, yeah, the initial release was the same month, though SoJ was the 9th, while ZTD the 28th, putting them more than half a month apart.
I had prosopagnosia as a child and it didn't look like it does in this game at all for me. For me it looked like everything was normal when you looked at someone until you got to their face, at which point reality warped around it, kind of like how you look up at the sky when underwater. Sometimes if I stared for a long time, a single piece of the face might "come to the surface" and be visible for a moment, like an eyeball blinking into and immediately out of existence. It was scary going out as a kid because if I got lost, I had to rely on my memory of what people I knew were wearing to identify them, and sometimes I got it wrong or their clothes were very generic and I'd approach a similarly-dressed stranger. I once got lost in a Barnum & Bayley's circus show and it was dark, many lights were flashing, and I couldn't really figure out anything in the crowd. Eventually a man with heavy face paint and a ringmaster-ish velvet purple getup found me and helped me- I still remember how comforted I felt when I could actually make out his face somewhat. It wasn't really that I could see his facial features, but, the makeup must have made his face look geometric and abstract enough that my brain didn't even attempt to process it as a face, and because of that, there was no reality-warping around it. I still remember his face makeup- all white except for big vertical diamonds centered on where his eyes would have been. After that, things like circus acts, kabuki, and noh theater were comforting to me. Anyway though, for me it didn't at all just look like a creepy blank face. It was just like my brain was looking at something otherwordly, beyond what the brain could process, and it substituted a whirlwind of chaos while trying it's best to process the impossible. My understanding is that there's a certain part of the brain which is largely responsible for recognizing human faces, and I guess for me it was either underdeveloped when I was a child and it took a few years for it to work properly, or, it had been working fine in the beginning but my parents damaged it by beating me, because they usually would hit me in the head and in my own face. Regardless of the cause, I recovered and I can see faces just fine now, but I definitely remember the strangeness of prosopagnosia even now. I imagine other people might experience it differently- possibly it depends on how and why the prosopagnosia developed, and if it was injury-induced or just always there.
9:43 - "Did anyone come up with [Inga being too relaxed]?" I didn't, but I ALSO got the "Man's voice" contradiction correct for the wrong reason. Because the intensity of "Man's voice" wasn't changing, I thought the voice was Inga himself, perhaps praying to the Holy Mother to give him strength for the hostage exchange.
I was seriously expecting (and hoping) Lucah would take a break for her voice’s/lungs’ sake. Take care of yourself girl! Also if you had a nickel for every game you’ve played since the decade started where a character had prosopagnosia, you’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s strange that it happened twice…
Imagine if this is how everyone with Prosopagnosia saw things… Just to be clear, it shouldn’t be how those with face-blindness actually see things. It’s actually a lot like a person seeing a flock of birds; all of them have different faces, but we can’t tell the differences between them as easily as the differences we see on human faces. Don’t forget to show your badge to everyone, and check their profiles often.
I like to think it’s just the way people without prosopagnosia interpret the vision. Like if someone else with prosopagnosia saw the pool, they’d see it as they normally see people, but since Apollo and everyone’s brain can’t accurately interpret what prosopagnosia is like, they see it like a faceless being.
I remembered seeing an artist depiction of prosopagnosia in the 999 Wiki. It does show the faces of Junpei, Akane, Santa, and Clover, but they looked out of focus, giving the impression that the faces look the same rather than being faceless like with SoJ
@@JyuRaposa Yeah. It’s sort of like (don’t anybody take this the wrong way) how humans have a hard time telling ape faces apart and so we have to rely on other things to distinguish between them. People with prosopagnosia can distinguish between people by things like skin color, hair color, physique, stance, gait, mannerisms, etc. The only reason this works in the game is because everyone always dresses the same and they don’t go into detail about other characteristics that could be used to tell people apart. XD
I've had prosopagnosia and for me it wasn't like a blank face but also wasn't like all faces looked similar. It just looked like there was a zone of abstract nonsense where other people saw faces and my brain was trying to process something beyond comprehension and would just buffer and show me something that really looked like some kind of tear in the fabric of reality above everyone's necks. I didn't actually know it was abnormal until I asked a teacher why the human characters on a 2D drawing are always depicted the same way on paper when it's not actually like that, and she was very confused about what I meant. Once I understood something was wrong, I hid it as best I could because my parents were rather abusive and I was afraid they'd be angry if they found out something was "wrong with me". I gradually grew out of it for whatever reason and now I see faces pretty normally, but, I do tend to forget them quickly unless I see the person enough times.
I'm not sure Rayfa was specifically saying prosopagnosia has come up before, she could be talking about other disorders that affect how someone sees the world.
Also, it's the sort of thing that only needs to have come up once before for it to be preserved in the official record and an important case study for the Royal Priestess.
999 came out in 2010, this game was 2016. Maybe there was so influence but I think it’s more that prosopagnosia is just a really convenient condition for a mystery game
Was gonna comment the same thing! I played Spirit of Justice at release but didn't play 999 until recently like the last year or 2. It's funny how games that are pretty far apart end up getting played together like this ha.
Don't let the fires get you. I live in Calgary. I can't imagine what having a persistent cough right now would be like. Fire season is well in progress.
You are correct that the victim's last memory would be what happened when they died. That's what we see in the Seance. That's what Inga experienced when he died. It was indisputably at 2. And yet he was seen at 2:30, meaning that if Inga was channeled after his death, that's still the last thing he saw when he died. He couldn't have died in his room, he had to have died in the tomb.
Haven't even watched it yet just wanted to comment and let you know Lucah I appreciate the upload while you are trying to recover from the wildfire. I hope you and Jon stay safe during this time! 🙏
I believe actual prosopagnosia is more akin to how it's hard for humans to tell one monkey apart from another, like monkeys can have differences in how their faces look but our brains aren't wired to easily pick up on those subtile differences like we are with other humans. They just ran with a stylistic interpretation here both for clarity's sake as well as to fit in with the "faceless" motif of the Holy Mother. I could be off base here but I think it works somewhat similarly to how dyslexia works. Like how some people will see a word, can see the letters in order with one another, but their brain doesn't quite make the same natural connection as the rest of us, being less able to see the whole as a singular item separate from the sum of its parts. So if someone with face blindness were to look closely they could probably spot individual characteristics that a person's face might have like "blue eyes", "small nose", etc., but their brain could still fail to put them together as "this person's face".
I can’t believe Lucah ended last episode and started this one without ever realizing there was a typo on screen that whole time. “Okay, I’ll give it try.”
Every time they are discussing something really heavy, that one song comes up, it's called "The Basics of the Case". And it's such a mysterious, almost ominous song. For some reason, when they finally started bringing up the topic of prosopagnosia, that song playing in the background gave me chills.
this case was the one that really took things directions. you're going to want a bulletin board, some red string, some post-its, and some push tacks to keep things clear. it's a real puzzler.
It's no coincidence that both 999 and PW used the same concept. I'm pretty sure the main writers of the stories were friends and often shared ideas with each other.
"If I had a nickel for every visual novel I played where I had to prove that a megalomaniacal antagonist had prosopagnosia to uncover the truth behind a murder, I'd have ten cents. Which is not a lot of money, but it's a strange thing to have happen twice."
45:35 The game just said he ran off not realizing that he was being channeled. Not on the brink, but actually dead. I think that the seance calls on the final moments experienced by deceased while in their own body, as vs a channeled soul’s memory of events both prior to death and after being channeled. i can’t recall if the game ever explicitly states anything specific about this or not though.
I don't have the condition myself but I've once done some research about it for my psychology class. The way they portray it here isn't how people with prosopagnosia see human faces. It's more that just every face looks the same to them. Actually, even humans without that disorder might experience this sometimes with people from other cultures. For example these clíche (and racist) lines of "all asians look the same." This is a form of prosopagnosia that's common in humans. It's harder for us to differenciate faces with structures we're not familiar with. But unlike people with Prosopagnosia, they can find those differences and discern a person by that. People with the disorder cannot do that. To them, they all look the same and they cannot find the individual differences like smaller lips, round eyes or so. Unless it's a really obvious thing like f. e. a big mole, a crooked nose, a scar etc. Eye color would work, too... but it'd need to be a striking different one. Simple blue or brown is too common. So basically instead of 'no face' imagine a really common looking face that every single person around you has.
The condition prevents people from connecting the facial features of people to memories of that person. They can say "the individual in front of me has blue eyes " but can't say "i know people with blue eyes."
something tells me that what Maya will mention in the stand is gonna make a whole courtroom explode, metaphorically speaking. then again, i do remember her being exhausted.... like, remember back in trials and tribulations where she channeled Dahlia to protect herself from her? this could be that. and that was only for like 2-3 days. this is 6 whole days, as she has said.
I'm sure you've remembered by now, but channeling the dead does not also channel whatever injuries caused their death in the first place; else when Maya channeled Abbott Inmee, he would've had a gaping wound on his chest (and we know he didn't because he had his shirt off for so much of his screentime). So if Inga was killed in the tomb and then later channeled in his own room, he would've come back in the picture of health, and there would've been no problem with him running back to the tomb.
28:34 Let me also remind everyone that, the estimated time of death on the autopsy report is 3pm. It’s not a range of several hours like it sometimes is in these games. So if this killer was trying to frame Dhurke, either they tried to throw off the time of death, or the estimated time of death on the autopsy just happened to coincide with when Dhurke actually arrived, making them EXTREMELY lucky.
45:40 Like I said, he had already been killed in the tomb at 2. So when someone channeled him and he ran to the tomb, he thought he just had a nightmare. So he was being channeled into someone else’s body when Rayfa saw him. His actual death happened a half hour before that. And the whole thing about the scream, I think what they’re saying is, since the flow of time picks back up for you from the minute you die after you’re channeled, the last thing that happened to Minister Inga was he was stabbed, so he probably hadn’t even finished letting out a scream at the time of his real death and his scream continued into when he was channeled.
As someone who didn’t know about the condition and hadn’t played 999 before this, figuring out Inga had prosopagnosia was one hell of an uphill battle. I didn’t even think about the idea of The Holy Mother possessing Dhurke either I was just so confused! Still one of my favourite cases in Ace Attorney even if it’s super tricky, the payoff is worth it.
33:47 999 was first released for the Nintendo DS in 2009 (2010 in America), and Spirit of Justice was released in 2016. The fact that both of these games involve prosopagnosia is simply an amazing coincidence. Don’t forget to show your badge to everyone, and check their profiles often. *Also,* as a reminder, the speech-bubble button on the bottom of the screen on the left is a log, in case you miss some skipped dialogue.
If you recall Lotus' explanation from 999, people with prosopagnosia can see the features, but they struggle to remember them. Inga seeing people as faceless is likely just an artistic choice. Also, remember that the Holy Mother DOES have a face (Shown in the Founder's Orb), it's just censored in most instances for religious reasons.
To answer the question "Is this how faces appear for people with prosopagnosia in real life" that's a nope. 999 had it far closer with their "You cant differentiate monkey faces" analogy. Here its really misinterpreted to make the case work.
42:20 The whole thing about him being stabbed in his private quarters earlier was a red herring. But now that we know he was killed at 2, it still means he could’ve died in the tomb. All that means though, is that someone went into his private quarters and channeled him, and then “Inga” headed to the tomb around 2:30, which is what Rayfa saw.
Wait... I know what happened: Inga was playing Jumanji, rolled a 5, and a Lion appeared and murdered him! The guy he saw was actually Robin WIlliams. He just didn't arrive in time to save Inga.
9:38 That is a hard one to get, because it’s not really an inconsistency between the evidence, the Seance, and/or the Insights; it’s more of just the player having to make the connection that Inga doesn’t even turn around or act surprised when he hears the voice.
34:20 I mean, I really feel like seance visions while they give us a view of the things the person saw before death, i feel like they are changed by the perception of the person being channeled This is a good example, the actual condition wouldnt change how people would look like that, instead would make it harder for the brain to make that connection, but for the sake of this game being clear, it is shown this way so we the players understand quickly "somethings wrong".
The way I like to explain it is this: Imagine I point out a sheep in a herd of sheep. I give you plenty of time to memorise this sheep's face. Then we come back later and I ask which sheep in the herd it was I pointed out. Would you be able to tell me? Probably not. But sheep don't have the same faces any more than humans do and they can even recognise other sheep's faces from photographs. Everyone has a face, eyes, nose, etc. but... everyone has a face... eyes.. nose ... etc... how does that help me identify someone at a glance? I look at things like height, hair, clothing, and especially listen for voices to know who someone is. I hate how one of my sister's has different coloured hair every time I see her. Literally. Every time. I've walked up to strangers and spoken to them thinking they were my family, and walked right by others I knew because I didn't recognise them outside of the context I usually see them (eg, seeing people from work out and about).
8:35 I actually didn't have much trouble with this seance, but not for the reason you'd think. I was thinking about in Tahrust's murder, what we thought to be Maya/Kee'ra's footsteps were actually Tahrust's (partially thanks to the fact the footsteps here only appeared when Inga was moving, implying they are his). So when it said "Man's voice" I was like "Inga is a man. It could have been his voice." So I challenged Rayfa on that, and then the game lead me to the cellphone. A moment you've described in these games before as "getting to the right place by the wrong way" 8:37 This is when I knew the Lucahjin AA Brainworm had full hold of my thought process. Because when I saw that animation my brain went "Oh girl ya nails!!" This is not how I speak LMAO 33:35 It is a CRIME that Athena is not here to explain prosopagnosia. A CRIME I SAY 38:06 RAYFA may not have seen this before, but the divination seance has been used probably since the country's founding. It's not unlikely it happened at some point historically and thus became a footnote in Rayfa's training that she forgot about until this jogged her memory
If I had a nickel for every time Lucah played a game where prosopagnosia was a major plot points I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird
People with Prosopagnosia don't see blank faces irl. All faces just look the same and hard to differentiate. So to give a more accurate explanation, if we all wear the same out fit we will look like twins to them. I think the blank faces in games is a metaphor for the term "Face blindness" So it's an artistic take on the condition.
Funnily enough, I was playing 999 for the first time when Spirit of Justice had first come out, so I was playing them simultaneously. Imagine how weird it was to see prosopagnosia as a plot point twice within a week of each other. :p
32:51 So let me just say, I’ve never played this so called “999” so I never suspected what was going on here until it was actually brought up at this point in the game. A lot of LPers, mostly ones who’ve played that game before, figured this out as far back as when we first found Inga’s notepad, like you did.
45:32 What makes you think he ran off on the brink of death? All the happened in his quarters was that he was channeled, then he ran towards the tomb as Rayfa saw him. He wasn't stabbed in his quarters, he was stabbed in the tomb. This was proven with the divination seance, the idea that he was attack in his quarters was disproven at that point
34:25 as someone with prosopagnosia (funnily enough decided to get diagnosed after my first time playing 999) I can tell you that no it’s not how we see the world. Simplest way I can explain it is kind of like doll faces. Like, the features are all there and I can tell things apart like eye color and the like but when trying to think on what a face looks like my brain can’t make sense of it. When I try I can say things like “well they have two eyes a nose and lips” but like I can’t really discern people’s faces so I tend to go by hair, clothes they wear, and tattoos/piercings
Its less like that literally and more that you see people's faces but your brain doesn't process any of facial features anymore than you would remember details on random object you see. Human brain normally processes lot of info on remembering small details on people's faces, so without that its like trying to remember pattern of someone's moles on skin, you'd need actively try to remember small details like that (and you'd normally forget that kind of information after a short while)
My experience with prosopagnosia is reversed. Where I first played this to learn about it, then 999. So funny little thing. Though I feel you had it better since here you could try to apply the same principle, where as with 999, they need to tell you before it's truly relevant.
The footsteps were Inga's. If it's in Rayfa's vision, then Inga would have experienced that. "He didn't hear the man's voice because he was on the phone" doesn't make any sense, because he registered a man's voice, therefore logically the man's voice is on the phone. If he didn't hear a voice, he wouldn't have registered a voice. If he didn't hear the footsteps, he wouldn't have registered the footsteps. But the footsteps are his, so of course he wouldn't be alarmed.
It will never not be funny to me that the Ace Attorney series is set from like 2016-2028 and everyone still uses flip phones. I know the original games came out before smart phones were a thing, but the fact that they just kept it like that just makes me happy, it's like... Ace Attorney flavor.
Im face blind, not actually diagnosed but once you realize that's a thing that can happen, you kinda just know if you have it or not. It's also a bit of a sliding scale disorder i think, some people are wirse than others. For me, i see faces, literally they are visible and it's not like a creepy slenderman no face thing, it's just that i can't retain anything really inmy memories. Even looking at pictures really doesn't help. I learned to distinguish people largely based on build, hair, and body language. It still gets awkward not recognizing people you should, sometimes even close family but most of the time i realize who it is after a minute or two before it gets too awkward.
as someone with prosopagnosia, no, people do not appear to have "no" face like in-game. they definitely have faces, eyes, mouths, noses, etc. Just... the brain isn't very good at "remembering" those details and associating it with specific people. so we see it, but it's just kind of ... A face, not a specific person's face. That said, given at least in my case i can't _remember_ people's faces, representing the face as blank is probably a pretty good way of portraying Inga's memory of the event, even if it's not what he LITERALLY saw in the moment.
It's mildly dark how the last thing Inga hears in death was Datz Arebal's laugh in the background.
Dark comedy is a heck of a thing. Datz must be thrilled to know that little fact. If anything, it’ll make him laugh more!
An end I don't wish even to my worst enemy.
I love how every time Lucah says "How is anyone supposed to figure that out" it's after she gets it on the first attempt
This was actually foreshadowed wayyy back, when Phoenix first met Inga in case 3: Inga didn’t recognize him at first, but then he noted his distinguishing features aloud, and identified him. Phoenix remarked on it at the time.
Yeah, Inga probably didn't think Phoenix would be worth remembering back when they met in case 1, so he didn't take notes for him at the time.
It's great foreshadowing because you can easily brush it off as thinking Inga is the kind of person who doesn't bother to remember people who aren't important to him
Oh! That’s brilliant!
@@SilverScizor753 we've dealt with that a fair bit, hell for all we know, manfred con karma could of had that, cuz he ALSO didnt know phoenix at all because he "didnt bother to remember defense attourneys"
The fact that Rayfa has a pet frog and loves animals is very important.
34:25 No, not literally. They can still see faces just fine, it's just the part of the brain that can identify and distinguish faces isn't working right. Lotus's monkey explanation is pretty spot on.
I am pretty face blind. Facial features to me are possible to perceive but just will not stay in my memory for some reason. I instead can usually tell people apart well enough based on build and hair. Might be different for others though.
I agree. I can see faces, but I can't really distinguish details. I often think people are related when they aren't, aren't related when they are etc. I don't say hi to people I meet in the grocery store or out and about because of how often I'm wrong
Datz really is the epitome of the guy who can annoy you a lot and make your life difficult but whom you can't bring yourself to hate
So Datz is Emile, got it lol
@@taekwondittoNope, that’s just a creepy sexual harasser.
If it clears things up, it's established in this game that spirits experience *zero* time passage from their death to when their spirit is channeled. (If you remember when Maya channeled Tahrust, his first reaction was thinking he was in the afterlife/the Twilight Realm. He thinks he just died even though his death was a day or so prior to his channeling). So the current idea is: Inga was killed in the tomb at 2. He's channeled at 2:30pm. For Inga's spirit, there is no 30 min gap, it's instantaneous. He's dead at this point, but his spirit hasn't processed/figured out he's dead. As Apollo describes, it's like suddenly waking up from a bad dream. So he thinks he's running late for the hostage exchange and rushes over to the tomb. He's not rushing over at the brink of death, he's already gone.
To be clear, this is the current idea for where you're at in the case. However much of that is confirmed as fact, you'll find out! Just adding this to clarify I'm not spoiling anything!
This is a good summary of where we stand so far. The Séance clearly shows Inga being killed in the tomb, so the whole thing about being stabbed in his private quarters and running off with a knife in his back was already disproven and thrown out the window in the last episode. Much of Lucah's confusion seems to stem from the fact that she still believes that part happened.
As someone who has this condition, no we don't literally see blank faces, but remembering what a face looked leading to a reliance on other factors like hair, body type, clothing etc.
A classmate once wore a (realistic) wig to class and I thought we had a new student for like an hour. I ended up recognising them by their eyeliner.
It's hard to explain what faces actually look in my memorys, the best I can put this is this:
If I imagine people close to me in a freeze frame sort of way, or remember a Foto of them I took I can roughly imagine their faces, but for people I don't know, or if I try to actually replay a memory, It is close to them being faceless.
You know how if you take of your glasses things get blurry or look like one solid colour? Yeah kind like that but only with faces
Thank you for sharing🙏
So the revelation that inga indeed has prosopagnosia adds a lot of hidden context what we already know, things that the game never bothers to point out. We know that to channel someone, you need to know their name and their face. But since Inga cannot distinguish between faces, he couldn't visualize someone's face properly, even if he had a picture to work with and everything. So even if, by summoning the Founder, he really could gain spiritual power, it still wouldn't help him. And you _need_ to be able to channel spirits in order to be eligible for the throne of Khura'in. In short... Inga could never have personally taken power. Therefore, we can surmise that it almost certainly was all for Rayfa's sake.
But we also found a note in his safe where he basically wrote down that he's plotting to overthrow Ga'ran and take power using the Founder's Orb. It's enough to be used as evidence against him but doesn't go into any detail, so it's not really much of a "plan" at all. It's almost as if... he put that note there specifically so that, in the event his coup attempt falls through, it'll be found and used as confirmation that the plot was all his idea. So that Ga'ran won't see Rayfa as a threat to her rule, and she'll at least be safe, even if he'll be executed for treason as a result. This is what makes Inga an interesting character for me: He's a stereotypical moustache-twirling dickhead, and yet he genuinely seems to care for his daughter above all. (Much unlike someone else we know...) He's a terrible person but a loving father. As we heard Dhurke say earlier in this case, "What kind of father wouldn't risk his life to save his own children?"
I would actually take this a step further and say that perhaps a secondary motive in all of this would be that Inga might seek the power as a potential cure for prosopagnosia, much like 999's villain did. After all, if the Holy Mother is to grant him the power to cast spirits, he may in turn be granted the ability to perceive faces alongside the spiritual power so it's actually functional.
Yeah, this is what I was thinking as well. When we found those five year long, overdue execution papers, then Rayfa's Birth Date as his safe's lock combo, simply calling him a bad person to the core wasn't sitting right with me. I think he did truly love Rayfa and wanted what's best for her, but he did horrible things to get there/avoid harming her, or something to that extent.
It's unlikely that this is how people with prosopagnosia LITERALLY see people. I imagine they just see their face, but it's just impossible for them to recognize the unique features. They just see "a face." Kinda like how if you're looking at a group of the same species of bird, you likely couldn't tell them apart. But since his brain can't properly process the face, this is probably just what his spirit relays. It couldn't have told you what that face looked like because he couldn't really register it in his head.
Kinda sounds like how dissociation is described in Night in the Woods. How everything appears as “just shapes,” but just with faces.
To borrow an analogy from 999, it's like looking at monkey faces - you can tell they're faces and have features, but you would struggle to recognise individual monkeys from their faces (while other monkeys of the same species presumably don't have that problem).
I wonder if it’s just shorthand for the game, and if it was an actual viewing of what the person saw in real life, it would be kind of like a mushy blurry face or something like that. It’s just easier to show no face at all for the game maybe? That’s my thought. I both love and hate the idea of prosopagnosia because it’s terrible but also so weird and interesting to think about, and why our brains are so specialized at this point that it can fail at one singular very important task like that, but be fine recognizing other things. It’s all fascinating.
It's probably a lot like looking at the Funyarinpa from 999 (before realizing it is a Funyarinpa, of course) - there are features there, but you cannot make sense of them, and therefore you can't form a good memory of them either.
@@JAnne_Bonne Sometimes that's how I feel about if I'm asked to describe someone's face. But I can identify people
If we had a nickel for every time prosopagnosia came up as a plot point in a game that Lucah has LP'd in the last few years, we'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.
As far as I know that's the number of times it's shown up in video games in total - I'd be interested if there were any others!
Now may I recommend the anime Apothecary Diaries?
@@leviathan1173 Oh I didn’t see this comment before making mine (despite looking for the reference). XD
I brought it up back when they first found the notebook.
I haven't really had a chance to follow this LP, but I saw the thumbnail and came here to make sure this was the top comment. Thanks for not disappointing me! 😂
What's neat is that Inga's prosopagnosia was actually hinted at in the previous encounters with him. At the end of Case 1, he takes a moment to just stare at Phoenix, likely trying to commit his features to memory. And in Case 3, he doesn't recognize him at first and needs to be reminded who he is, which just comes off as him being self-centered at the time.
Oh no, the Dark(er) Lord stole Dhurke’s face!
this case was always fascinating to me as someone with faceblindness; it isnt quite one to one with how it works for me, but it might as well be! i can generally focus on one or two facial features at a time, so unlike Inga i can *see* features, but they dont stick around for long. if i cant see my family's hair or they change their hairstyle, i have to ask who it is and can generally pick out who it is from their voice or body language. just this morning i woke up, left my room to go to the bathroom, and failed to recognize my older sister until i sensed her irritability. my poor younger sister has it even worse than i do, though,
Im sorry if this is insensitive to ask but since your face blind would it also affect how you see faces in media and video games? Again sorry if im being rude
As far as I can tell, "face blindness" isn't literal face blindness, it's just the inability to recognize someone via their face unless you really get familiar with their features.
@@lamegamesunanimous3445 no worries! you were very respectful in asking this question. i dont think i've ever really thought about it, but seeing faces in animation. games. and other non-live action forms of media, i actually have a much easier time recognizing fictional characters; partly because their facial details are much closer together, and partly because they are more easily represented as a two-dimensional "pattern" on a flat surface, so it doesnt register as "face" (though i cannot draw faces very well either). another helpful factor is that fictional characters very often have signature "looks", such as outfits, facial features like prominent scars, unusual hair and so on, which i believe this game touches on with Inga's notebook. thank you for asking, and for being respectful!
@@vickysterling3342 I had it too as a kid and my experience was pretty similar to yours! Especially the specific features appearing but then blinking back out. I wonder, for you, does a face look kind of like a "zone of abstraction"? Or like something impossible and warping kind of? I always described it as similar to looking at something in the distance when you're looking up from underwater on a bright sunny day.
It was super scary as a kid, having to rely on what people were wearing to identify them, sometimes making mistakes and walking up to total strangers haha.
@@vickysterling3342 good to know I wasn't being rude how I see is that people with face blindness would just see a blurry blank face😅
The fact that Lucah called the face blindness immediately after the notes is wild to me!
That's maybe in due part to the Zero Escape Nonary Games 😂. Also, Lucah is incredibly intuitive 😮
@@LunaRayArclight yeah fr. she definitely has her failing upward moments, but her intuition always amazes me. part of it is probably cuz of her point n click game experience lol.
Maybe? The whole prosopagnosia bit was a major plot point in 999 and her recognizing it was simply a case of "so we're doing this again." On the other hand, her getting stuck on the "he was on the phone" was correct, but it was like, 5 steps in advance correct when the game wasn't even trying to hint at it and she kinda just got stuck on the idea of him being on the phone, and it was a part of a piece of evidence that hadn't been used yet. She basically did those steps in reverse order and she was literally asking "how would anyone get this...." and yet no one really would get it because the phone comes in many steps later down the chain of events.
Uncredited zoos are terrible. Credited ones are fine; the animals on those kinds get amazing healthcare, high nutrient food, and their caretakers do everything they can to make sure the animals habitats keep them enriched. I get so tired of people acting like all zoos are terrible. The animals there usually come from wildlife sanctuaries that can't be released back into the wild anyway.
"DId he really just run off on the brink of death"
No, he was being channeled. He ran off while he was being channeled. He wasn't "on the brink of death", he was already dead but he didn't know he was dead.
I totally get being lost, but a few points that might help clear things up:
1. If Inga couldn't hear something, it would never have appeared in the Seance, because the sensations felt are their own sensations. If someone didn't hear something, it wouldn't appear in their memories - its not an "objective video" of their last moments, it's their last memories, exactly as they experienced them.
2. Seances recall the moment a person died. If they were channeled after they died, it would not affect what appeared in the Seance, as they are already dead when they are channeled. (Their memories are also cut off at the point of death.)
Dhurke, you dropped your face. Huh! I'll get you a new one!
When something smells, it's always the... Bal? Huh, gusse we found the long lost twin of Larry.
Smelly balls
The Bal is always close to the Butt.
I think in this case, the phrasing goes like this: When something smells, it's usually Dat'azz.
"Why the heck you lion?"
The lion smiles, sneezes, and takes a bite.
Why the heck you warba’adin’? 😂
Nothing to do with the game, but just a quick note about the whole "zoos are bad" thing...no, they're not, necessarily.
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums is the primary regulatory body for...well, zoos and aquariums. They're specifically a US-based organization, but they actually work with zoos and aquariums all over the world. The AZA's primary focus is to ensure that any zoo they have authority over operates humanely and with a focus on conservation and research. Any AZA-accredited zoo needs to demonstrate that they can keep their animals healthy--physically _and_ mentally. Feeding, medical care, enrichment, the size and shape of their habitats, it's all taken into account. They're also expected to obtain their animals in a responsible and humane way.
Granted, these standards only apply to zoos accredited by the ACA; a lot of privately-run zoos, here and abroad, absolutely cut corners on care for their animals in the name of maximizing profits. It's these zoos that give the rest a bad name, and it's important to know which side of the dichotomy your local zoo falls into, but the important thing to remember is that, especially in America or anywhere else the AZA operates, those profit-driven "zoos" are a rare exception and far from the norm.
Plus, it's not like Zoos are prisons for animals. In a world of humans, zoos are a form of preservation. I think Giant Pandas would certainly be extinct if not for Zoos.
We've certainly made mistakes in the past, like not respecting the social structures of other animals (the famous example being forcing unrelated wolves to just live together) and no or poor enrichment, but giant strides have been made!
A neat way to think about why the face is blank: Even though Inga saw the killer's face, he didn't recognize the person and couldn't remember any facial traits. Thus, his spirit didn't know how to communicate that part of the person's appearance. This gap resulted in the blank face.
AFAIK, people with prosopagnosia can see a person's face, but they just all look the same. So people weren't really faceless from Inga's POV.
I don’t know why, but I absolutely love the fact that Inga had prosopagnosia. Not only is it cool to see from his POV in the Insight, but I almost makes me feel bad for him knowing he was never able to see his parents, his wife, and especially his daughter’s face just because that’s how his brain works. This is only one of two time I can think of where a character in AA has a mental disorder, but it’s really cool to see because it makes the cast feel more deep than just a bunch of puns and stereotypes.
Not only have you played 2 different games that had someone with prosopagnosia, but also, in both games the person who had it was a middle-aged man who was irredeemably evil but was not the final villain of the game!
I mean, I’d consider Ace the main villain of 999. Unless I’m forgetting something even though Zero was someone else, Ace was the one who was definitely the main villain considering all he did in both the past and present. He’s not the main villain of the series though, I’ll give you that.
@@Klaxynd I guess it comes down to what "main villain" means. It's like in Investigations 2, where (without spoiling) the Chapter 5 victim was responsible for almost all of the conflicts in the game, but the mastermind was the one who directly caused them. Similarly, Ace was the reason why the current Nonary Game in 999 happened, but Zero was the one who actually carried it out.
But I guess we're getting into semantics at this point. Ace and Zero are both the main villain in different ways, so I'll concede the point to you!
As someone who can't recognize faces and is a man who one day will be middle aged, not the representation I'd like...
And here i was hoping for more evidence that could redeem Inga
I hope he was a loving father at least
@@bruschetta7711 If nothing else, his love for Rayfa seemed genuine. He used Rayfa's birthdate as the password for his super important safe, and even kept a letter she wrote him many years ago in there. Unlike Ga'ran, who has literally zero positive qualities, Inga at least has that going for him!
Here’s a reminder at how long this turnabout is: it’s the same one as the Paul Atishon turnabout still. 😂
As someone watching along blind. I thought people were joking about the length of this case. It feels as if it never ends!
It coulda been two chapters. I wonder if they wanted to keep the momentum going and merged them.
@@runningoncylinders3829 More likely they wanted to keep the game to be 5 chapters, but didn't want to drop any of the cases, so merged the last two.
People who have played 999: "Inga has prosopagnosia, just like Ace!"
People who have never played 999: "Dhurke was possessed by the Holy Mother!"
I had a feeling you're going to use a faceless Dhurke as a thumbnail
Never played 999 don't even know what it is. But I know what face blindness is
@@NoThankUBeQuiet its a mystery thriller game about 9 people stuck on a sinking ship and forced to complete elaborate puzzles. Lucah's played it on the channel.
it's a bit weird to think that cause....we know the holy mother has a face. We saw it.
999 was back in 2009, so this was 7 years afterward. You have to wonder if there was some inspiration involved here!
Was 999 made in Japan? Also was it very niche? Then unlikely.
@@neo-didact9285 It was, but interestingly it sold way better in the west. I dunno if that makes a difference from Capcom's perspective. But like, considering how similar AA and ZE are as franchises, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were paying attention to each other's releases to some extent, if only for potential inspiration
In fact, this came out the same year as Zero Time Dilemma, which drew a lot of attention back to the Zero Escape games when it was announced the previous year. The timing probably doesn't quite line up, though it's possible Inga's condition was just retconned in later in production, since it doesn't really play into earlier cases.
@@rmsgrey It wasn’t just the same year, it was also the same month. Both SoJ and ZTD came out in June of 2016.
@@ashenwolf98 SoJ was June or September, depending on region; ZTD saw a worldwide release in June. ZTD saw releases on additional platforms in August and September of that year, while SoJ added platforms in 2017 and 2024.
So, yeah, the initial release was the same month, though SoJ was the 9th, while ZTD the 28th, putting them more than half a month apart.
dhurke taking a slenderman selfie in the thumbnail
I had prosopagnosia as a child and it didn't look like it does in this game at all for me. For me it looked like everything was normal when you looked at someone until you got to their face, at which point reality warped around it, kind of like how you look up at the sky when underwater. Sometimes if I stared for a long time, a single piece of the face might "come to the surface" and be visible for a moment, like an eyeball blinking into and immediately out of existence.
It was scary going out as a kid because if I got lost, I had to rely on my memory of what people I knew were wearing to identify them, and sometimes I got it wrong or their clothes were very generic and I'd approach a similarly-dressed stranger. I once got lost in a Barnum & Bayley's circus show and it was dark, many lights were flashing, and I couldn't really figure out anything in the crowd. Eventually a man with heavy face paint and a ringmaster-ish velvet purple getup found me and helped me- I still remember how comforted I felt when I could actually make out his face somewhat. It wasn't really that I could see his facial features, but, the makeup must have made his face look geometric and abstract enough that my brain didn't even attempt to process it as a face, and because of that, there was no reality-warping around it.
I still remember his face makeup- all white except for big vertical diamonds centered on where his eyes would have been. After that, things like circus acts, kabuki, and noh theater were comforting to me.
Anyway though, for me it didn't at all just look like a creepy blank face. It was just like my brain was looking at something otherwordly, beyond what the brain could process, and it substituted a whirlwind of chaos while trying it's best to process the impossible. My understanding is that there's a certain part of the brain which is largely responsible for recognizing human faces, and I guess for me it was either underdeveloped when I was a child and it took a few years for it to work properly, or, it had been working fine in the beginning but my parents damaged it by beating me, because they usually would hit me in the head and in my own face. Regardless of the cause, I recovered and I can see faces just fine now, but I definitely remember the strangeness of prosopagnosia even now.
I imagine other people might experience it differently- possibly it depends on how and why the prosopagnosia developed, and if it was injury-induced or just always there.
Dhurke is The Question.
9:43 - "Did anyone come up with [Inga being too relaxed]?"
I didn't, but I ALSO got the "Man's voice" contradiction correct for the wrong reason. Because the intensity of "Man's voice" wasn't changing, I thought the voice was Inga himself, perhaps praying to the Holy Mother to give him strength for the hostage exchange.
I thought it was “how can you definitively say this is Dhurke’s voice speaking, it just says ‘man’s voice’”
But hey, we take those
Man I didn’t know dhurke was slender all this time
I was seriously expecting (and hoping) Lucah would take a break for her voice’s/lungs’ sake. Take care of yourself girl!
Also if you had a nickel for every game you’ve played since the decade started where a character had prosopagnosia, you’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s strange that it happened twice…
10:31 - Ga'ran: OBJECTION! My husband has no friends!
WOAH! Faceless Dhurke thumbnail! Wonder if Inga had “Ace”’s condition?
Imagine if this is how everyone with Prosopagnosia saw things…
Just to be clear, it shouldn’t be how those with face-blindness actually see things. It’s actually a lot like a person seeing a flock of birds; all of them have different faces, but we can’t tell the differences between them as easily as the differences we see on human faces.
Don’t forget to show your badge to everyone, and check their profiles often.
I like to think it’s just the way people without prosopagnosia interpret the vision. Like if someone else with prosopagnosia saw the pool, they’d see it as they normally see people, but since Apollo and everyone’s brain can’t accurately interpret what prosopagnosia is like, they see it like a faceless being.
I remembered seeing an artist depiction of prosopagnosia in the 999 Wiki. It does show the faces of Junpei, Akane, Santa, and Clover, but they looked out of focus, giving the impression that the faces look the same rather than being faceless like with SoJ
@@JyuRaposa Yeah. It’s sort of like (don’t anybody take this the wrong way) how humans have a hard time telling ape faces apart and so we have to rely on other things to distinguish between them. People with prosopagnosia can distinguish between people by things like skin color, hair color, physique, stance, gait, mannerisms, etc. The only reason this works in the game is because everyone always dresses the same and they don’t go into detail about other characteristics that could be used to tell people apart. XD
I imagine it is comparable to color-blindness. it doesn't prevent you from seeing colors, it just makes colors harder to recognize or differentiate.
I've had prosopagnosia and for me it wasn't like a blank face but also wasn't like all faces looked similar. It just looked like there was a zone of abstract nonsense where other people saw faces and my brain was trying to process something beyond comprehension and would just buffer and show me something that really looked like some kind of tear in the fabric of reality above everyone's necks.
I didn't actually know it was abnormal until I asked a teacher why the human characters on a 2D drawing are always depicted the same way on paper when it's not actually like that, and she was very confused about what I meant. Once I understood something was wrong, I hid it as best I could because my parents were rather abusive and I was afraid they'd be angry if they found out something was "wrong with me". I gradually grew out of it for whatever reason and now I see faces pretty normally, but, I do tend to forget them quickly unless I see the person enough times.
I think they must have plenty of Dhurke's clothes, in The Plumed Punisher show where they have actors playing as him.
46:20 Seymour is a witch with a capital B.
I'm not sure Rayfa was specifically saying prosopagnosia has come up before, she could be talking about other disorders that affect how someone sees the world.
Also, it's the sort of thing that only needs to have come up once before for it to be preserved in the official record and an important case study for the Royal Priestess.
999 came out in 2010, this game was 2016. Maybe there was so influence but I think it’s more that prosopagnosia is just a really convenient condition for a mystery game
Was gonna comment the same thing! I played Spirit of Justice at release but didn't play 999 until recently like the last year or 2. It's funny how games that are pretty far apart end up getting played together like this ha.
Don't let the fires get you. I live in Calgary. I can't imagine what having a persistent cough right now would be like. Fire season is well in progress.
My guess when Inga was channeled he probably thought he was asleep and rushed to the chamber not realizing he was already dead
Datz Are'bal, the Larry Butz of the Kingdom of Khura'in.
Well look who I found in the comments! Hi Nightshade. :)
(Oh right, it's MariettaRC from Starmen. Forgot my TH-cam name is different. :P)
@@Sujinpuffy Hello! It's nice to hear from you! Hope that you've been doing ok.
@@PSI_Nightshade I've been doing well, thanks for asking! Hope you've been good too!
You are correct that the victim's last memory would be what happened when they died. That's what we see in the Seance. That's what Inga experienced when he died. It was indisputably at 2. And yet he was seen at 2:30, meaning that if Inga was channeled after his death, that's still the last thing he saw when he died. He couldn't have died in his room, he had to have died in the tomb.
We also now know the source of Rayfa's eye twitch. Garan has it too.
Just remember: when something smells, it's usually Are'bals.
Haven't even watched it yet just wanted to comment and let you know Lucah I appreciate the upload while you are trying to recover from the wildfire.
I hope you and Jon stay safe during this time! 🙏
He does have style
He has no face
Th-th-th this dad
Will be Ga'ran's disgrace
Remember in Case 3 when Phoenix visited the palace, and Inga didn't recognise him? That was some epic foreshadowing.
I believe actual prosopagnosia is more akin to how it's hard for humans to tell one monkey apart from another, like monkeys can have differences in how their faces look but our brains aren't wired to easily pick up on those subtile differences like we are with other humans. They just ran with a stylistic interpretation here both for clarity's sake as well as to fit in with the "faceless" motif of the Holy Mother.
I could be off base here but I think it works somewhat similarly to how dyslexia works. Like how some people will see a word, can see the letters in order with one another, but their brain doesn't quite make the same natural connection as the rest of us, being less able to see the whole as a singular item separate from the sum of its parts. So if someone with face blindness were to look closely they could probably spot individual characteristics that a person's face might have like "blue eyes", "small nose", etc., but their brain could still fail to put them together as "this person's face".
I can’t believe Lucah ended last episode and started this one without ever realizing there was a typo on screen that whole time.
“Okay, I’ll give it try.”
Yoooooooo the channeling twist had my mouth wide open
Every time they are discussing something really heavy, that one song comes up, it's called "The Basics of the Case". And it's such a mysterious, almost ominous song. For some reason, when they finally started bringing up the topic of prosopagnosia, that song playing in the background gave me chills.
this case was the one that really took things directions. you're going to want a bulletin board, some red string, some post-its, and some push tacks to keep things clear. it's a real puzzler.
It's no coincidence that both 999 and PW used the same concept. I'm pretty sure the main writers of the stories were friends and often shared ideas with each other.
"If I had a nickel for every visual novel I played where I had to prove that a megalomaniacal antagonist had prosopagnosia to uncover the truth behind a murder, I'd have ten cents. Which is not a lot of money, but it's a strange thing to have happen twice."
Phoenix: a long time ago... I played a hit zero escape game, 999, and heard of a disorder-
I didn't realize Dhurke's face was missing in the thumbnail until after watching the video and it slightly jumpscared me when I noticed
So when the blank face Dirk showed up in the last one, I was reminded of the game "that's not my neighbor"
45:35 The game just said he ran off not realizing that he was being channeled. Not on the brink, but actually dead.
I think that the seance calls on the final moments experienced by deceased while in their own body, as vs a channeled soul’s memory of events both prior to death and after being channeled. i can’t recall if the game ever explicitly states anything specific about this or not though.
I don't have the condition myself but I've once done some research about it for my psychology class.
The way they portray it here isn't how people with prosopagnosia see human faces. It's more that just every face looks the same to them.
Actually, even humans without that disorder might experience this sometimes with people from other cultures. For example these clíche (and racist) lines of "all asians look the same." This is a form of prosopagnosia that's common in humans. It's harder for us to differenciate faces with structures we're not familiar with.
But unlike people with Prosopagnosia, they can find those differences and discern a person by that. People with the disorder cannot do that. To them, they all look the same and they cannot find the individual differences like smaller lips, round eyes or so. Unless it's a really obvious thing like f. e. a big mole, a crooked nose, a scar etc. Eye color would work, too... but it'd need to be a striking different one. Simple blue or brown is too common.
So basically instead of 'no face' imagine a really common looking face that every single person around you has.
999 came out in 2009. 7 years before SOJ. Fun fact: in 2012 a mobile game called Cause of Death used Prosopagnosia as plot point as well.
The condition prevents people from connecting the facial features of people to memories of that person. They can say "the individual in front of me has blue eyes " but can't say "i know people with blue eyes."
something tells me that what Maya will mention in the stand is gonna make a whole courtroom explode, metaphorically speaking. then again, i do remember her being exhausted.... like, remember back in trials and tribulations where she channeled Dahlia to protect herself from her? this could be that. and that was only for like 2-3 days. this is 6 whole days, as she has said.
I'm sure you've remembered by now, but channeling the dead does not also channel whatever injuries caused their death in the first place; else when Maya channeled Abbott Inmee, he would've had a gaping wound on his chest (and we know he didn't because he had his shirt off for so much of his screentime). So if Inga was killed in the tomb and then later channeled in his own room, he would've come back in the picture of health, and there would've been no problem with him running back to the tomb.
28:34 Let me also remind everyone that, the estimated time of death on the autopsy report is 3pm. It’s not a range of several hours like it sometimes is in these games. So if this killer was trying to frame Dhurke, either they tried to throw off the time of death, or the estimated time of death on the autopsy just happened to coincide with when Dhurke actually arrived, making them EXTREMELY lucky.
45:40 Like I said, he had already been killed in the tomb at 2. So when someone channeled him and he ran to the tomb, he thought he just had a nightmare. So he was being channeled into someone else’s body when Rayfa saw him. His actual death happened a half hour before that.
And the whole thing about the scream, I think what they’re saying is, since the flow of time picks back up for you from the minute you die after you’re channeled, the last thing that happened to Minister Inga was he was stabbed, so he probably hadn’t even finished letting out a scream at the time of his real death and his scream continued into when he was channeled.
As someone who didn’t know about the condition and hadn’t played 999 before this, figuring out Inga had prosopagnosia was one hell of an uphill battle. I didn’t even think about the idea of The Holy Mother possessing Dhurke either I was just so confused!
Still one of my favourite cases in Ace Attorney even if it’s super tricky, the payoff is worth it.
It's the Dark Prognosticus all over again....
33:47 999 was first released for the Nintendo DS in 2009 (2010 in America), and Spirit of Justice was released in 2016. The fact that both of these games involve prosopagnosia is simply an amazing coincidence.
Don’t forget to show your badge to everyone, and check their profiles often.
*Also,* as a reminder, the speech-bubble button on the bottom of the screen on the left is a log, in case you miss some skipped dialogue.
There's always monkey business happening but almost always there is channeling business too.
If you recall Lotus' explanation from 999, people with prosopagnosia can see the features, but they struggle to remember them. Inga seeing people as faceless is likely just an artistic choice. Also, remember that the Holy Mother DOES have a face (Shown in the Founder's Orb), it's just censored in most instances for religious reasons.
To answer the question "Is this how faces appear for people with prosopagnosia in real life" that's a nope. 999 had it far closer with their "You cant differentiate monkey faces" analogy. Here its really misinterpreted to make the case work.
42:20 The whole thing about him being stabbed in his private quarters earlier was a red herring. But now that we know he was killed at 2, it still means he could’ve died in the tomb. All that means though, is that someone went into his private quarters and channeled him, and then “Inga” headed to the tomb around 2:30, which is what Rayfa saw.
Wait... I know what happened: Inga was playing Jumanji, rolled a 5, and a Lion appeared and murdered him! The guy he saw was actually Robin WIlliams. He just didn't arrive in time to save Inga.
19:25 "Tell them, Naegi."
9:38 That is a hard one to get, because it’s not really an inconsistency between the evidence, the Seance, and/or the Insights; it’s more of just the player having to make the connection that Inga doesn’t even turn around or act surprised when he hears the voice.
34:20 I mean, I really feel like seance visions while they give us a view of the things the person saw before death, i feel like they are changed by the perception of the person being channeled
This is a good example, the actual condition wouldnt change how people would look like that, instead would make it harder for the brain to make that connection, but for the sake of this game being clear, it is shown this way so we the players understand quickly "somethings wrong".
The way I like to explain it is this: Imagine I point out a sheep in a herd of sheep. I give you plenty of time to memorise this sheep's face. Then we come back later and I ask which sheep in the herd it was I pointed out. Would you be able to tell me? Probably not. But sheep don't have the same faces any more than humans do and they can even recognise other sheep's faces from photographs. Everyone has a face, eyes, nose, etc. but... everyone has a face... eyes.. nose ... etc... how does that help me identify someone at a glance? I look at things like height, hair, clothing, and especially listen for voices to know who someone is. I hate how one of my sister's has different coloured hair every time I see her. Literally. Every time. I've walked up to strangers and spoken to them thinking they were my family, and walked right by others I knew because I didn't recognise them outside of the context I usually see them (eg, seeing people from work out and about).
8:35 I actually didn't have much trouble with this seance, but not for the reason you'd think. I was thinking about in Tahrust's murder, what we thought to be Maya/Kee'ra's footsteps were actually Tahrust's (partially thanks to the fact the footsteps here only appeared when Inga was moving, implying they are his). So when it said "Man's voice" I was like "Inga is a man. It could have been his voice." So I challenged Rayfa on that, and then the game lead me to the cellphone. A moment you've described in these games before as "getting to the right place by the wrong way"
8:37 This is when I knew the Lucahjin AA Brainworm had full hold of my thought process. Because when I saw that animation my brain went "Oh girl ya nails!!" This is not how I speak LMAO
33:35 It is a CRIME that Athena is not here to explain prosopagnosia. A CRIME I SAY
38:06 RAYFA may not have seen this before, but the divination seance has been used probably since the country's founding. It's not unlikely it happened at some point historically and thus became a footnote in Rayfa's training that she forgot about until this jogged her memory
If I had a nickel for every time Lucah played a game where prosopagnosia was a major plot points I'd have two nickels.
Which isn't a lot, but it's still weird
People with Prosopagnosia don't see blank faces irl. All faces just look the same and hard to differentiate. So to give a more accurate explanation, if we all wear the same out fit we will look like twins to them. I think the blank faces in games is a metaphor for the term "Face blindness" So it's an artistic take on the condition.
999 came out in 2009 in Japan, 2010 in the US.
Spirit of Justice originally came out in 2016.
Can't wait for the next video, where we get to see the best name in not only this game, but the whole series
Funnily enough, I was playing 999 for the first time when Spirit of Justice had first come out, so I was playing them simultaneously. Imagine how weird it was to see prosopagnosia as a plot point twice within a week of each other. :p
Must've been the work of morphogenetic fields...
12:54 I think the footsteps heard in that moment belonged to Inga himself.
32:51 So let me just say, I’ve never played this so called “999” so I never suspected what was going on here until it was actually brought up at this point in the game. A lot of LPers, mostly ones who’ve played that game before, figured this out as far back as when we first found Inga’s notepad, like you did.
prosopagnosia was even used in The Apothecary Diaries
45:32
What makes you think he ran off on the brink of death? All the happened in his quarters was that he was channeled, then he ran towards the tomb as Rayfa saw him. He wasn't stabbed in his quarters, he was stabbed in the tomb. This was proven with the divination seance, the idea that he was attack in his quarters was disproven at that point
If Rayfa calls Phoenix Barb Head and Apollo Horn Head, what does that make her mum?! 😂🤯
34:25 as someone with prosopagnosia (funnily enough decided to get diagnosed after my first time playing 999) I can tell you that no it’s not how we see the world. Simplest way I can explain it is kind of like doll faces. Like, the features are all there and I can tell things apart like eye color and the like but when trying to think on what a face looks like my brain can’t make sense of it. When I try I can say things like “well they have two eyes a nose and lips” but like I can’t really discern people’s faces so I tend to go by hair, clothes they wear, and tattoos/piercings
I have something kind of like that. I mostly see colors but I can't see people faces.
Its less like that literally and more that you see people's faces but your brain doesn't process any of facial features anymore than you would remember details on random object you see. Human brain normally processes lot of info on remembering small details on people's faces, so without that its like trying to remember pattern of someone's moles on skin, you'd need actively try to remember small details like that (and you'd normally forget that kind of information after a short while)
My experience with prosopagnosia is reversed. Where I first played this to learn about it, then 999. So funny little thing. Though I feel you had it better since here you could try to apply the same principle, where as with 999, they need to tell you before it's truly relevant.
The footsteps were Inga's. If it's in Rayfa's vision, then Inga would have experienced that. "He didn't hear the man's voice because he was on the phone" doesn't make any sense, because he registered a man's voice, therefore logically the man's voice is on the phone. If he didn't hear a voice, he wouldn't have registered a voice. If he didn't hear the footsteps, he wouldn't have registered the footsteps. But the footsteps are his, so of course he wouldn't be alarmed.
Can you imagine if datz and Larry met also that is a real disorder and good luck in the next part Lucah your gonna need it
It will never not be funny to me that the Ace Attorney series is set from like 2016-2028 and everyone still uses flip phones. I know the original games came out before smart phones were a thing, but the fact that they just kept it like that just makes me happy, it's like... Ace Attorney flavor.
Im face blind, not actually diagnosed but once you realize that's a thing that can happen, you kinda just know if you have it or not. It's also a bit of a sliding scale disorder i think, some people are wirse than others. For me, i see faces, literally they are visible and it's not like a creepy slenderman no face thing, it's just that i can't retain anything really inmy memories. Even looking at pictures really doesn't help. I learned to distinguish people largely based on build, hair, and body language. It still gets awkward not recognizing people you should, sometimes even close family but most of the time i realize who it is after a minute or two before it gets too awkward.
as someone with prosopagnosia, no, people do not appear to have "no" face like in-game. they definitely have faces, eyes, mouths, noses, etc. Just... the brain isn't very good at "remembering" those details and associating it with specific people. so we see it, but it's just kind of ... A face, not a specific person's face.
That said, given at least in my case i can't _remember_ people's faces, representing the face as blank is probably a pretty good way of portraying Inga's memory of the event, even if it's not what he LITERALLY saw in the moment.