pew.PNG
[Hide] (1.2MB, 994x585) Reverse I've been replaying OG Advance Wars since I never beat it when I was a teenager, and I had this headcanon that I'm sure others have talked about but I never did.
I always imagined Advance Wars was in a universe where people didn't die in war. Like the battle animations just show the machines getting destroyed, but the people always just sort of "fly off" in a cartoony style. I always imagined that explosions did the same thing where the people inside would just be all black and charred like in a Wily Coyote cartoon, but otherwise be perfectly fine. You know, cartoon physics. In a weird way, in my headcanon, this also explained why Andy didn't know what an airport was. Since fall damage doesn't exist and cartoon physics does in Advance Wars, if you wanted to travel anywhere in the Advance Wars universe, you'd just sorta "Team Rocket" yourself into the stratosphere to travel around.
Wars in the Advance Wars universe, then, amount to gaining territory by a giant "King of the Hill" game, as opposed to slaughter.
Aside from the animations conveying this, this was the only thing that made sense to me given how...lackadaisical everyone treated war? Like otherwise, Sonja is A-OK killing everyone in her army for test missions just for intel. However, if all her men just sort of temporarily "fly off" and wars are this "King of the Hill" game, then her actions and everyone's disregard makes a lot more sense. It also makes sense how there's "no harm done" from Orange Arm