Maple Cultural Influence and Secrets Thread

MapleStory has a lot of secrets hiding around, from discontinued quest lines to strange NPC names and dialogues. These are secrets that won't quite benefit you economically, but most likely, either as used to be said on the internet, "make you shit bricks" or just be kind of interesting to know. It almost seems like MapleStory is a bible of its own. I believe that the game like the bible, as scholars argue about the book, many of it's information is a result of cultural influence. Therefore, there is a lot to delve into about it. I will try to list as many secrets and (sort of based) conspiracies in this thread. Many credits go to Wikipedia for the composed info.

Available in MapleLegends (v.062)

Monsters

• "Thantos" means death in greek.
• "Jr. Cerebes" and "Cerebes" are probably inspired by Cerberus. In Greek mythology, Cerberus, often called the "hound of Hades", is a monstrous multi-headed dog, who guards the gates of the underworld, preventing the dead from leaving. This makes sense, since the "fully developed form of Cerebes" (quoted from Monster Book), Bain is found in "Wan Wan Spa of Hell".
• Leviathan () is a sea monster referenced in the bible. This word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature. Later Jewish sources describe Leviathan as a dragon who lives over the Sources of the Deep and who, along with the male land-monster Behemoth, will be served up to the righteous at the end of time.
• Kimera, also Chimaera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. Likewise, Magatia's Kimera is composed of a a mechanical head (inspired by Alcando), a serpant's tail with lizard legs (inspired by Zenumist).
  

Skills

• Bahamut (bishop spawn), in Arabian mythology is a vast fish that supports the earth. In addition, in Job, Behemoth and Leviathan may both be seen as composite and mythical creatures with enormous strength, which humans like Job could not hope to control. But both are reduced to the status of divine pets, with rings through their noses and Leviathan on a leash. Some Young Earth creationists believe Behemoth to be a dinosaur (or a red dragon in our case, haha, seems about right!).

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Items

• Mikhail (from Hebrew;"whose like God") is considered one of God's angels in Christianity and Judaism. This name is especially present in Kabbalah, which MapleStory imagery has been commonly inspired by.

NPCs

• Elpam Gorlab from New Leaf City, spells "Maple Balrog" backwards. This NPC claims he comes from an alternate dimension called "Versal", where everything is... reversed and is now stuck in our dimension. See more about Versal below.
• Rina from Henesys has gone through plastic surgery (Credit: Thread, Yozich).
• Gachapon refers to variety of vending machine-dispensed capsule toyspopular in Japan and elsewhere. "Gashapon" is a Japanese onomatopoeia composed of two sounds: "gacha" for the sound of a crank on a toy vending machine, and "pon" for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle.

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• Humanoid A () from Magatia visually looks like Andrew (Robin Williams) from "Bicentennial Man". He also experiences the same problem as Andrew, a robot which wants to be declared human. They both also find their emotions as what differentiate them from other machinery and make them feel human.

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• All Victoria Island Storage Keepers are Asian.
• The Mesorangers are inspired by The Power Rangers (thanks Chow ).

Storylines

• Kyrin's father is named "Testonen". He is acclaimed to have been the first pirate who used his bare fists to fight against the Black Mage. The Black Mage concept was first introduced with the pirate storyline.
• According to the Stumpy quests, Perion was once blooming with plants and trees just like Ellinia, but over time it dried up.
• According to a Neckson campaign, Queen Areda from Ariant placed a spell on the king, Abdullah VIII, so that he doesn't interfer with her plans. Abdullah being the eighth king of his dynasty may be a parody by Neckson on how corrupted monarchy can get.
• The conflict between Alcando and Zenumist in Magatia isn't only about whether mechanics should be infused with alchemy, but also a conflict about whether pure ideas and emotions can be more important than private egoistic interests. It may symbolize the conflict between post-modernist philosophy which claims that objective truth should not be seaked because it cannot be found and modernism which claims that truth can be found with scientific progress and that scientific progress is always moral. As Broker Han tells you: "Long ago, after the Black Magician disappeared from Ossriya, a group of alchemists got together and formed Magatia. The motto of the town was "ultimate knowledge is only an experiment away." However, then he says: "Do you really think Magatia is a town full of scholars with pure intent on research? That's nonsense. There's no other town that bickers over territory for their own good like them. The days of scholars purely searching for the truth are long gone... well, that's perfect for brokers, though.". Romeo and Juilet who are seperated from each other, Phyllia who lost her husband and Humanoid A that won't be declared human by his society, they all symbolize the pain modernist conventions cause - all of them suffer because of their society which looks for "better" knowledge. Magatia shows us, I think, that science can go wrong if given to the wrong hands.
• Magatia is also the second time the Black Mage is introduced in the game by Neckson with a map named "Black Magician's Lab".

Questlines

• Mr. Wetbottom's Secret Book is most likely a pornography magazine.
  Here are three proofs: First, Ronnie runs away (frightened of le pedophile dad?) with his father's book, claiming "he has no idea why he wants it so bad" when you ask for it. He's a kid, that's why he doesn't understand what's so interesting about naked bodies (Many psychologists argue we are born without sexual knowledge and it is society and life which shifts our orientation and tendencies). Second, the father works at the sauna. An only parent working hard to finance his kid or an insane pervert coming to work to watch naked maplers sweat?
  Lastly, look at the book: Is that a woman with provocative clothing?

Maps

• In Ellinia Station, "Victoria" is written "Sixtopia". This may be because there are six towns located on Victoria Island, however, it is more likely it was just a Wizet employee playing around with the computer's fonts- seeing as how if you write "Victoria" with Symbol font, it comes out as Sixtopia.
• Lith Harbor looks a lot like Santorini, a Greek island which formed on the remnants of a volcano. Lithos means rock in Greek.

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• El Nath seems to be an in-game version of Jerusalem (city in Israel). Like Jerusalem (at winter), the town is surrounded by snow and hexgrams (Jewish culture) and NPCs with Arab names and middle eastern attributes (The storage keeper is called Mohammed and has a camel).
• Florina Beach sounds like Florida (U.S state) beach. If you've seen Spring Breakers, the squad of girls travel to Florida for a wicked, hot and drug-full vacation.

Server-related

• Could she = be her ?
  Are Kimberly and Kay from Omega Sector the same person? Here are 3 proofs they are: 1. They both have red hair! 2: Both of their names begin with the letter K! 3. Like Kay which is working on various secret mechanical projects (one of them being an Omega Sector warp capsule which you can use from anywhere in the world, which she asks you not to show anyone), Kim has said she can't tell us about certain things she is working on with the server.

Shouldn't be available on MapleLegends
or should they?

Places

• Versal and the rest of Masteria To be edited.

Questlines

Creepypasta

• The White Lady of Perion: Murial was said to be an employee at Neckson who enjoyed visiting Perion in-game at her spare time. Her ghost, the white lady, is claimed to roam Perion ever since she suddenly died, haunting very few, selected individuals among the millions of maplers.

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If you have anything that may be interesting to know about the game, please post it below!
I will try to constantly edit the thread to add more content.

 

Updated with some more stuff.
If anyone can help me out by sharing what they know about Versal that'd be great. I actually forgot most of what I knew. Also, I found out that Masteria was recently updated in gMS with something about Versal but I don't play gMS, so if anyone doesss.........