Bastion/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• The part where Rucks says The Kid hears a song, asks something to the effect of "How'd that go, again?" and then Build That Wall starts playing actually isn't breaking the fourth wall and makes perfect sense, since it turns out Zia was sitting right in front of him listening to him talk, and the music starting is actually Zia playing the music to Rucks, not her at the campsite.
• The final level in Bastion is Tazel Terminals. Despite long being established as an underground structure, when you get there, the Terminals are overflowing with snow. Why? Well, because the Calamity threw the Terminals up higher than it did anything else! Altitudes!
• Zulf's theme (Mother, I'm Here). The song has quite an impact. However, play through the Kid's Who Knows Where. That backstory basically tells the same story as Zulf's theme. Coming home to an empty house, holding his mothers hand only to find out she is no longer with him. This makes the ending where the Kid decides to rescue Zulf all the more poignant.
  • Note the ending song's refrain is "Mother, I'm Here."

Fridge Logic

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't adding rifling to a blunderbuss musket have virtually no effect on the pellet spread?
  • The point of rifling is to impart spin on the projectile. Spin makes the bullet fly more reliably straight. When a bullet has no spin, you get a bullet equivalent of a knuckleball. So, if you took away some or all of the rifling, the bullets would actually spread a bit more, or at least fly more wildly. Possibly a case of Fridge Brilliance.
    • The point of that entry is that the musket doesn't fire bullets, it fires pellets, which are unaffected by rifling. The game perhaps could have made that upgrade "narrow choke" versus "wide choke", which would indeed change the spread of the pellets, which would have been more realistic.
• Is it just me? or do you move slower while holding Zulf's body than when you hold the Battering ram? It probably to be more dramatic, but still.
  • Well, you need to be a little more careful when carrying a badly beaten man on the brink of death than you do a massive pillar of rock. Maybe The Kid is just being careful?
• If a health tonic can heal any injury, why carry Zulf out, when The Kid could have just given him a health tonic and kept the Battering Ram?
  • Who's to say the tonic would work on anyone besides The Kid? Besides, the health tonic wouldn't stop the Ura from shooting Zulf. The Kid's tenacity certainly did, though.
  • Also, it's tricky administering an ingested liquid to an unconscious person. The Kid may have also been in a hurry, thinking ahead and trying to ration them, not thinking that part through, worried he'd screw up and choke the recipient, or who knows what else.
• Why is "Mother, I'm Here" called Zulf's theme, when it's the Kid whose backstory involves spending a long time away from home and mother?
  • They're more alike than you think.
  • The song isn't addressed to Zulf's mother, it's addressed to the goddess Micia, who is commonly referred to as Mother- she brought everyone into the world, and everyone will eventually return to her. The song is essentially about Zulf dying and seeing god.
  • Word of Composer is that it's just a funeral song from the game's world, used to reinforce the mood.
• Rucks justifies whatever happens to Zulf, the Ura, and the beasts of the wild under the assumption that The Kid will choose to restore the world. But what if The Kid chooses to evacuate the Bastion? Talking to Rucks about the Pecker Egg at the end of the game has him mention all the lost lives in order to convince The Kid to choose Restoration, but it's all conveniently ignored if The Kid chooses Evacuation. No Endor Holocaust, anyone?
• Out of all the enemies you fight, the only ones that seem to be on the endangered species list are the anklegators. Not so much ignored, but perhaps rationalized along the lines of "If they survived the Calamity, they'll survive the Kid."