Regarding Tentacles

Might as well get this discussion started with a whole wall of text! As good as the art is and as much as I like the concept of Shadow Alice, I really dislike the idea of making tentacles part of the "look" for Shadow Alice, and it is the design exploration that I most dislike out of anything done so far for “Asylum”. There are a few reasons why I don't like the tentacles here. Firstly, after two games, it's been established that the red tentacle motif is part of the Red Queen’s design language. To give Shadow Alice the same visual signature will make her read as being the same character or someone indistinct from the Queen. Now while it was suggested in one of the livestreams that perhaps there could be some connection between Shadow Alice and the Queen (perhaps the latter as a remnant of the former or created by), I think that would do a disservice to both characters, cheapening the Queen as both her own unique villain and as an interpretation of the character from the original books, and leaving people to just think Shadow Alice is the Red Queen throughout the game and not a fragment of Alice herself. Perhaps Shadow Alice can be responsible for the Queen’s current form in some way, but any interpretation of the Queen where she’s just a remnant of Shadow Alice doesn’t really add much of value to the story for what it takes away. Additionally, from another angle, the tentacle motif makes Shadow Alice an enemy we’ve already fought and encountered twice before…so how is she in any way unique? We’ve already gone through variations on this theme twice before, so what are we gaining by doing it again? Especially given that even the first design draft has the “Blur” movement which already makes Shadow Alice stand out from other enemy designs used so far. I think that idea should be built off of (and perhaps new ideas explored as well) and some new powered up form should be found that steps away from the red tentacles. In short, Shadow Alice should be unique and distinct, an antagonist in her own right who doesn’t come across as a repetition of one that already exists, one that has her own unique visual calling card that makes her iconic on her own without cribbing the look of someone else.