In my first playthrough with Janus, i named him Hugh Janus.
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I am assuming Janus would have long ago evolved far beyond mortal limitations and does so out of habit as it has become second nature to them, although they could choose not to for any reason. Basically, that such an act is as trivial to them as mindlessly scrolling through social media is to many young people today.
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Yes I understand that, my stance is that it should be trivial to a godlike being. Obviously this is up to the author but in my opinion it is unbefitting for someone of Janus’ stature to be unable to perform small feats of precognition on a whim. As established in a conversation with Yoru, a reasonable expectation of a low power precognitive is to be able to look a few seconds into the future, so I would assume a legendarily powerful one could do so trivially. Mainly my contention is the inconsistency we see surrounding Janus and their power, I don’t mind if constant short term precognition is not possible, but I would like to see a clearer definition of their power, and one that feels appropriate for a godlike being.
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The use they make of “just” precognition and time stop is enough to do more than any of the other fables was capable of. Namely cutting short the fight with the praetors and preventing Yoru and Kaizo from being captured in the first place.
Why should they be stronger than this at this point in the story? Since the story demonstrates it’s more than enough to be a complete menace. Personally I like Janus as they are, a wildcard and a trickster whose raw power output might seem less impressive than other fables but has far more impact at the end of the day when the chips are down. There’s nothing trivial about what Janus is capable of.
It’s only natural that all things have a cost, it’s the most organic way to deal with powers that have such a massive effect, something as immensely advantageous as being capable of foreseeing the consequences of your actions, the problems you will face and how to overcome them is incredibly fucking broken, despite the limits to that power.
How often can the average precogniscient peer into the future? How accurate are they in their predictions? I’ll wager none of them begins to measure up to Janus. And the current Janus is already terrifyingly powerful. How powerful will they be by the end of this story?
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I’m not trying to say Janus is weak, but that their abilities are inconsistently manifested, or at least it feels like it to me. We see some incredible feats from Janus yet they never attempt actions that are established as low level precognition, something that I can only assume would be easy for them. Perhaps it is because their mind is that fractured, but it is not made clear, so all I can do is speculate. They were able to foresee the rise and fall of empires, but did not foresee the praetors when going to the city, not even attempting to see how their trip outside the safehouse would pan out. This is a major tactical blunder for even a regular covert agent, much less a strategic genius. I understand the plot and real life constrain the writing, but consistency is an issue that I hope will be addressed as much as possible.
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Except the inconsistencies in Janus’s powers aren’t coherent to the setting
While that may be true in other stories involving precogs it’s not in this one.
Here we have multiple instances of Janus peering into the far future.
You don’t have to assume it’s said so in game Janus came to rely on their powers for much of their daily life and it’s been proven that habits developed during childhood tend to stick with us for life knowing this as we do it definitely makes the inconsistent showings of their powers more glaring.
Agreed
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The author actually brought up Janus in a process report about a month ago. I think they said they were considering either rewriting Janus’s part or replacing them altogether if he couldn’t figure out a reason why Janus doesn’t just use his power to just get out of every problem he got himself into.
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A change would be unfortunate but understandable. I imagine without tighter restrictions to Janus making everything consistent would be a huge undertaking, and more restrictions could ruin the power fantasy of the story.
Leaning more heavily into Janus being god of time is also a possibility. Time travel could be passed off as precognition and seems a bit easier to define restrictions around.
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Yes, I agree it could be something like Tracer from Overwatch’s power. Maybe he can only go back seconds in time. That would be powerful enough for him to still be a fable without it completely breaking the plot.
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I think you missed the part where Janus only becomes Janus after the near death experience. Before that he could not see very far nor has the weakness. The more he uses his power the more his mind breaks. He could only the future of three’s objects simultaneously. And due to his physical, at a certain point he could not get out of certain future. This writing is consistent with the rules of the world - Janus couldn’t activate his power 24/7 to look in the future 10 sec ahead because it will break his mind.
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I agree. Prolonged use is also a way to overexert yourself.
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Nope i didn’t miss it I just don’t think Janus would stop doing something that has become a habit to them at this point also since Janus was an advisor to multiple roman emperors than it’s pretty much a given that they were using their powers on a daily basis.
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You do know the headpains would keep him from doing it too much, right?
Live with taking excedrine 4 pills at a time, 2 to 4 times a day just to not get stuck in bed.
Id hate having Janus’s ability which seems worse.
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It’s clearly not. Since aside from the Emperor and his successors no one in court knows who Janus is. If Janus had attended court on the daily basic the last Emperor would have been dethroned for going against a God. Another point against your notion is “ the last Emperor saw Janus acting like a mad man, talking to himself “ so it’s clearly that using power “daily” - like you said - cause Janus to have a mental breakdown .
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Agreed the hallucinations seem terrible.
They literally made Janus apart of the roman pantheon and that’s on top of Janus being a renowned legate and either being a judge or enforcer for the empire so people know who Janus is.
Not really if anything it proves my point that Janus was still using their powers on a daily basis probably even more so since they were in service to the empire not once did I say that Janus couldn’t overexert themselves I was just pointing out that I don’t think that would stop them from using their powers the way they always had.
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I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume an ultra powerful being could constantly use their powers at a low level without issue, but that’s just moot speculation and ultimately up to how the author wants things to work, and not the main point, which is the inconsistency between what we are told Janus is and how they act. It was brought up as an example of the disconnect between expectations established by the text and what Janus does in the story. Sometimes Janus will act like a god and sometimes like a normal person.
I don’t know if the issue can be resolved without a ton of work, but not addressing it wouldn’t be ideal either. I do like the precognitive powers but they are really different from the others, and if the author is dissatisfied with it then it may be best to cut losses and rework the path than forcing it to the end.
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Janus only worked as a Judge or Enforcer during the first Emperor, and during that time, he/she moved to work into the inner court at the highest level. Only after that he is called Janus, God of Pathway.
I also find the notion of “Janus used to do something at young age so he will continue doing it” is false. That is devoid of character growth. If i used to eat dirt at young age that does not mean I would continue eating dirt as an adult, especially if whenever I tried to eat dirt, i got stomachache.
Your point is why can’t Janus continuously using his power even through hallucinations. I am showing that having hallucinations and not knowing which are real have a clear negative effect that lead Janus to stop using his power daily.
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I wouldn’t call it low level. Seeing ALL possibilities that can happen in a few minutes at the SAME TIME? Sounds like something you wouldn’t do 24/7. Too much information all at once is a problem. Janus could have learnt to focus on specific futures to use the power well when needed, but trying to do the same when you don’t need it would most likely distract them from seeing the future where they’re ambushed.
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Uhh we’re forgetting something, finding “specific future” Is not easy it’s involved seeing each and every future path until Janus found the future they wanted, this act of seeing multiple path of future is what make them hallucinate and going insane as they can’t make difference between future and reality.
Janus power have varying burden solely depends on how much further and how specific the future they want and the further they go the more unbearable it is, Janus have no problem seeing immediate future like what happen in next 5 second and minimal problem when seeing like half hour to the future.
The problem start to arise when Janus want to find specific future in order to change outcome of something aka messing with fate/destiny.
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