I’m starting a new thread on this, so that it doesn’t get mixed up with the character names discussion.
I wrote:
I was (very) briefly considering naming Frog “Kermit”. As for the name “Crono”, though, I really think the developers were just playing fill in the blank. First of all, the notion of time has no particular significance to the character at the start of the game. And second, while the game is about time travel, there’s nothing of the notion that inherently relates to the character Crono - he’s just along for the ride.
Xwing1056 responded:
[b]No, nothing in Chrono Trigger was that shallow. Do you remember when Gaspar was describing the Chrono Trigger? He said this:Let us call that the Chrono Trigger. It is pure potential. By unleashing a specific course of events, it can have a powerful effect on time.
He is talking about the Egg, but simultaneously, players will think of Crono because he shares its name (in the Japanese, he and the egg were spelled the same, Kurono). Looking back, who started the chain of events that allowed time to be changed? Crono. If he hadn’t met Marle, she never would have tried Lucca’s machine and been sent back in time. If he had decided not to go back and rescue her, Leene would have died. When, in the future, Lucca asks Crono whether they should attempt to save time, he decides that they will. He triggers everything. That’s why his friends need to bring him back to life; it’s one of the quests necessary for saving the world. If you don’t, you won’t get the happy ending. Crono is different than, say, Magus; time can be saved in the right way whether or not he’s alive. Nearly every major plot point shows that time revolves around Crono. The whole game revolves around Crono.[/b]
I haven’t won the game without rescuing Crono, so perhaps you can fill me in on what happens, but otherwise, I’m skeptical of your answer. It seems to me that the only act that is strictly necessary to “save time” is to defeat Lavos, and Crono doesn’t even need to be in the active party to accomplish that.