The path I ended up going down focused on two female characters from the story, Lolly and Nausicaa (sp?). It seemed that no matter what I learned about or what stories I read, I ended up at the same page in the end. The page said something like: “It all comes back to that in the end, doesn’t it? Love or death. The lady or the tiger.” I believe I came across this page no less than 5 times during my journey. I wasn’t annoyed by this fact, but rather a bit encouraged. It made me feel that I was exhausting certain branches and that this “choice” was central to my afternoon experience.
I didn’t learn much about the main character at all during my playing experience. He seemed more interested in providing the backstories for the 3 other characters I ran into, Lolly, Nausicaa, and Wert. I read a great deal about what all 3 had been through in their lives and I have to say the 2 women had a great more “color” to their stories. My 2nd time through was more pleasurable than my first attempt because I actually was able to follow a story in a sense. Each page flowed into the next and I was driven into a world where these characters existed and interacted. I can’t say I felt like I made progress (I never did quite reach a true “ending”), but I did feel that at least I got more of the story this time around.
My journey ended when I got to a blank page that did nothing no matter where I clicked. I was frustrated because I got no closure out of it, but in reading some other posts, I suppose I’m not the only one. I don’t know if that was totally the intention of the author, but it makes sense to me. After all, I learned about history and my story did not have much to do at all with present or future actions.