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Originally Posted by Keline  The sarcophagus has not been opened after we've seen it. The museum personel would have "discovered" the C4, the police would have as well. The bloody handprints on the sarcophagus were probably Jack's doing to add more scare to the whole thing! |
Precisely so. The sarcophagus can't be opened without the key, and it was stolen before the Museum could examine it (hence no x-rays). Nobody in their right mind would have broken the thing open to find out what was inside, it being an ancient artifact and all. The key was stolen precisely so that nobody could know what was inside. The whole 'The sarchophagus appears to have been opened from the inside" rap I don't get. How could a person arrive at such a conclusion
without opening it? That concern, however, is trivial in the grand scheme of things.
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Originally Posted by Keline Jack's intentions are most unclear here. He couldn't know for certain who would get the sarcophagus. However he knew from Cabbie that everyone would be after the Sarcophagus and Jack probably felt like getting rid of either LaCroix or the Kuei Jin. As it plays out in every ending but the Kuei Jin one, he's getting both done. |
The part that everybody seems to miss is that not only does Jack have Anarch leanings - he was a pirate. He is an anarch in the truest sense of the word, that being, "I take orders from one person - me!" I'm speculating, too, but I'd bet that Jack couldn't possibly care who got the sarcophagus, just so long as he broke open the hornet's nest, as it were. As the ending attests, his goal may have been to wipe out the Kuei-Jin and the Camarilla in LA, but that was likely more of a desirable outcome than integral to the plan. The "plan", if you want to call it that, is that there was no plan beyond getting that hornet's nest broken open. What comes next is irrelevant.
He's a sociopath. People reflexively try to impose structure on things, but trying to impose structure on a sociopath's train of though is like trying to balance a brick on the tip of a string. It may serve some function as an intellectual exercise, but is inevitably doomed to practical failure. If you want to grasp his intent at all, you have to look at it from that part of your mind that you don't like - the snarling, malicious child who pulls the wings off bugs because it can, not because it has a reason.
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Originally Posted by Keline Now for the last part I don't understand myself
Why was the key stolen seperatly? Johansen knew it was the key to the Sarcophagus, so it was probably stored right next to it on the Dane. So who stole it? The KJ are the only faction we know to have possessed it. The KJ stealing it themselves doesn't make sense because they would have taken the Sarcophagus as well. In fact, the Chang brothers were sent by Ming Xiao to retreive the Sarcophagus. We know the key was stolen from the Elizabeth Dane. Which leaves us with 1 clue. Jack was on the E.D.
Now the only hypothesis I have here is that Jack wanted the KJ wiped out by any means necessary, so he gave Ming Xiao the key so she'd become a target of the Camarilla. The only flaw here is that nobody knew who had the key until MX approaches you after Hollowbrook Hotel and tells you. |
I'm content that Jack took the key and gave it to the Kuei-Jin, perhaps through intermediaries (not difficult, and the intermediaries need have no clue what's going on). He had a fairly good idea what LaCroix would do with it, but he also had a fairly good idea that the Kuei-Jin would opt for the
status quo - at least for the time being. The goal of the Kuei-Jin is to wipe out the Camarilla in LA, and until that is
fiat accompli, they won't be distracted by other things. Whether or not you found it wasn't as important as that LaCroix did not, at least not without some major-league bloodshed. The consequences of the key being found were irrelevant, and the bomb is not actually pointed at anybody. If somebody finds the key and opens the sarchophagus (even you or the Kuei-Jin), then
KAFLOOIE!!!! A big, satisfying explosion that blows up a few city blocks. Close enough. The one ending that I think would irritate Jack the most is the Kuei-Jin ending, not because of any particular philosophical or political leanings, but just because it's too darn clean.
Quel bummer.
As a sociopath, his mind may be a mystery to us, but to a sociopath, we're a large, glowing neon book with pretty pictures and great big typefaces. Jack wasn't playing you - at least not just you. He was playing everybody. Perhaps you were sired on purpose or by accident, or perhaps as part of a different game. One extra monkey-wrench in the machinery couldn't hurt, and he helps to keep you alive only insofar as you keep him entertained by slaughtering everything in sight. As a caitiff, you're closer kin to him than pretty much everybody else - unallied, leaderless, and clueless. The perfect patsy, and he knew everybody would want a piece of that - if you were alive. The bulk of his initial instruction to you consists of convincing you that the 'right way' is through - not around - everybody. Not an accident, that.
I initially thought that the "feeling of dread or pressure" was you. My opinion has shifted somewhat from that point of view, though. That dread isn't an antedeluvian, or you, or anybody or anything in particular. It's L.A. going to heck in a hand-basket. As it shakes out, you play a major part in it, but it's anarchy by committee, and most of the members don't even know they're on it. You merely serve as the Magnesium in his alchemy. You help everything burn hotter and faster - even things that otherwise wouldn't burn.
. I build it out of the solo ending...
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