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mecha--maniac · 2 days ago

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This is possibly my fault since I started being active in the community again, and posting my sympathetic thoughts about Solaris quite a bit. So I'mma ramble the thoughts this makes me think.

By no means do I think Solaris is entirely sympathetic -- he's a god, and gods are almost never depicted as being perfect -- but I point out the sympathies a lot because the game sure doesn't, and most people will pick up on what they (almost certainly correctly) perceive as a biblical Satan/demon analogy, and thus are predisposed to assume he's evil for the sake of being evil. This is almost certainly what the devs were intending, buutttt the story for the game seems pretty clearly unpolished, so it's hard to say for certain that someone on the team didn't purposefully add a lot of background trappings that imply the history of the area is more proto-indo-iranian than the modern european parts of the setting would imply, and thus the themeing could actually be more of an observation on how christianity absorbed traditions from other cultures and turned positive things into negative things, such as the neutral-to-positive origins of things like 'hell' and 'demons' and how they became synonymous with 'evil' and 'bad' when transplanted. It wouldn't change much in regards to good/grey/evil readings; but it would support that the past has been obscured purposefully at some point. Historically, it would have been obscured by the ruling class with something to gain, but since deities are a Real Thing here it could also be Solaris himself.

(But again I really do honestly think most of the potentially purposeful detail in this game is an accident... I kinda assume the bg/asset team somehow had more time to work than the writers. This game was rushed to Hel and back. I think they wanted to play with grey areas, but didn't get the chance to actually put in everything they were building to.)

And honestly, I love any reading of the character; good, evil, and especially in between. I'd like to see more done with the old story mentioned (I'm aware of it and think about it a lot) and I'd say I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone go down that 'Solaris was malevolent the whole time' road when exploring him... But this is the gay weirdo website, and historically gay weirdos tend to sympathize with the demonized monsters, so I'm not actually surprised he's usually played with more benefit of the doubt (plus there's a distinct reverse correlation between tone of a subject vs tone of the fan interaction; the darker the thing, the lighter the fan content, and vice versa)

I gotta say, though. That old story doesn't prove Solaris has ever been malevolent. That could very well have been the intention -- I always assumed it was, and assumed the average reading was 'oh the game characters have this story wrong, Solaris is secretly the bad guy here' -- but it's not proof. The lines tell us for sure that there is a story about Solaris, and that's it. It may sound to us -- with outside biases -- that Solaris faked saving the city; it may sound to them with their ingame biases that Solaris did save the city; but there's a whole lot in between there. An incident similar to the story probably happened, but we can't say for sure. And while it seems like the obvious starter of the fire would be the fire god, we should consider that devastating blazes that destroy entire cities are a thing that happen in modern times, and thus probably happened in any time period (probably more often, what without fire codes and such.) A legitimate blaze could have just happened. And who better to douse it than someone that can control fire? The 'Solaris tricked them' interpretation is easy to see under the surface, but it might legitimately not be that deep. Maybe Mrs. O'Leary's cow starts a fire; fire god cleans it up; fire god decides to be the city's patron; citizens honor patron deity with ceremonies. Or maybe there was even a mix, since we definitely can't know Solaris's intentions; maybe he did start it as a trick, but later legitimately cared for the people, only for the people to betray him so now mass murder is back on the table. Maybe it wasn't a trick, but he's pissed enough now to throw away the loyalty.

My point is there are a hell of a lot of interpretations to be made with what is frankly a scaffolding of a script, and that's what I like about it. There is extremely little we can confirm in the game, unless we see it actually happen, with all included intentions of the characters stated (for instance: Mephiles literally never kills Sonic. No blood; he comes back; even the characters 'sense he's still there'. Did he intend to? Maybe. Probably. The writing probably isn't that deep. But all he actually needed was Elise to think he was dead, so we can't say for sure he didn't pull a trick there.) Cause characters like Mephiles can seem all dramatic and evil and trickstery, but dude might just be ye olde theatre kid. And this leaves a loooot of room for different readings and fanworks that don't even need to actually contradict the game, since so little is known for certain. So; I just like to point out that it's possible this debacle was more a tragic misunderstanding of hurt people than a good v bad situation. We can assume the writers probably went pretty basic with the ultimate theme being the usual 'you versus the bad guy' with the starters of some deeper stuff before corporate rushed the game out the door; but we can't know that's the case.

P.S. I usually ignore everything after the game when it comes to interpreting it, but if we did count modern stuff, SXSG drops a damn bombshell with that 'I want to exist' line, and talking about restoring himself to the timeline. It's still just a theory, but man; that sure seems to imply he never was trying to destroy reality and/or time the way Eggman told everyone he was. That's just more fuel to the tinfoil hat 'Eggman was goading everyone on in that fight on purpose since he had a lot to lose, as Solaris was aware Eggman was trying to use him' theory.

P.P.S. Also, like, Solaris was confirmed for sure stuck inside a stick and a t(w)eenager for a decade, and I doubt anyone could come out of that making rational decisions. Meanwhile the other side are almost all children that have possibly been a bit rattled by all the time traveling, chaos energy, and trauma they've been injected with over the course of that three days or so (+for Silver and Blaze), so I find it hard to judge them, either. I can judge Eggman, though. Dude was definitely just a dick. He's proven that plenty.

P.P.P.S. Main complete fuckin mystery in the game to me beyond 'probably just an unfinished plotline' is the Mephiles trying to get Silver to kill Sonic thing. I don't see how it makes sense in any case whatsoever; if Solaris was somehow a saint, why the hell would he take such a roundabout route, particularly since he obviously didn't need to? If he was a schemin' demon, same goes -- why go so roundabout, why pick Silver for it, why get so complicated, when it backfiring was so obviously a risk? Maybe because he knew Silver had something to do with Shadow, and maybe he found out Shadow was kinda-sorta friends with Sonic, so he just... Hoped it would be ironic for the half-moment between victory and pulling the plug on the timeline? I dunno man, and I'd love to hear more theories about that from folks, particularly since there's a lot of room for introducing ideas of there being limits or rules to Solaris's power/time travel/the universe itself/etc that might justify playin' what is essentially an intradimensional combination hopscotch/cat's cradle.

Tl;dr: Pretty much all bits of this game are up for wildly different interpretations, as little is ever actually confirmed, and we have a whole lot of unreliable narrators. I think the conversation should be 'here's how I read it, or the version I enjoy' and not 'your way of reading and liking the thing is wrong'.

A lot of people recently—as in, a weirdly high number of people—have been posting about how Solaris as a deity is a sympathetic figure, and how he was a victim in the grand narrative of Sonic ‘06.

This post is neither meant as a “gotcha” nor is it attempting to disprove or devalue this reading of the narrative, in fact I’m actually going to demonstrate how moral ambiguity is a theme that ‘06’s story definitely and intentionally explores, but I do want to just… point out what’s textually stated about Solaris in the game’s story.

To best illustrate what I’m getting at, I want to talk about Solaris chronologically. To do that, we need to discuss some deep lore that has come up on my blog several times in the past. (And no, it’s not the fact that the owner of the shops in Soleanna is named Enrique.)

Most people know that Solaris is represented by an eagle in Soleanna’s religion, but for those who missed the symbolism, Soleanna’s crest depicts an eagle standing proud with wings outstretched underneath a simplistic depiction of the sun, with the prominent feathers protruding outward in a manner reminiscent of sunbeams. Considering Solaris is known as Soleanna’s sun god and the eagle here is clearly represented as being a proxy for the sun (with the wing-sunbeams and all), and based on the fact Solaris’ physical form heavily resembles an eagle, it’s safe to say the eagle became a symbol in Soleanna due to worship of Solaris.

Additionally, the stained glass murals found in Kingdom Valley seem to show the eagle—Solaris—having some connection to or dominion over the day cycle, with the mural depicting this in a serene, positive light.

With that connection in mind, I would like to bring up the most insanely loaded and impactful throwaway NPC dialogue of any Sonic game:

Now, I’ve posted about this dialogue plenty before, but I wish to reiterate how this completely missable dialogue from some random woman in Soleanna’s New City contains deep lore that is heavily implied to be the origins of Soleanna’s symbol of their god, and may even be an origin story for Solaris’ worship in general.

The story is about Soleanna being overtaken by huge flames, until out of nowhere a huge eagle saves it. We know that Solaris’ physical form has the appearance of an eagle, so it’s barely conjectured to say that this story represents Solaris saving Soleanna—otherwise it would literally just be a narrative red herring. Additionally, the NPC specifically says that some people still believe the story to be factual, so this is clearly meant to be some manner of biblical non-fiction in the Solaris religion.

Clearly, this event sparked worship of Solaris, which, as previously mentioned, was viewed by the people of Soleanna as a positive deity—the “Eternal Sun,” which was paid homage to via the Festival of the Sun, which involved (description from the game’s official guide but this is also just what’s shown in the intro cutscene) “lighting a beautiful fountain of ﬁre, bathing the city in the crackling glow of a thousand ﬂames,” which I would say is representative of the great fires that overtook the ancient Soleanna, then afterwards “fireworks ﬁll the sky, and there is much rejoicing by the general populace.” I would consider this as representing Solaris appearing from the call of the flames, but that’s conjecture—all that we need to focus on is what’s textually stated, which is that fact that there’s “much rejoicing by the general populace.” This is mirrored by the dialogue heard in-game, in which Elise, whilst lighting the fountain, prays: “Sun of Soleanna, guide and watch over us with your eternal light.”

The next event that we know of chronologically is, after somehow taking the form of a meager sentient flame, Solaris was entrusted to the royal family as the “Flame of Hope.” We don’t know how this happened, just that it did.

Later down the royal family lineage, we get to Elise’s father, the Duke of Soleanna. At some point, his wife—Elise’s mother—died, and conveniently the Duke then became infatuated with the altruistic idea of harnessing the power of time to allow his people to rectify past mistakes and avoid bitter fate. To that end, he started the Solaris Project, which aimed to study the Flame of Hope the royal family had been entrusted with and, more bluntly, manipulate the super-dimensional god-being Solaris for its power.

It is noted that the Living Flame had to grow larger for this power to be harnessed.

It is explicitly stated in-game that Solaris disagreed with this treatment. During the cutscene “The accident 10 years ago” which shows the Solaris Project experiment failing, a scientist notes that out of nowhere an electromagnetic pulse has been generated, which is causing a meltdown. The Duke responds to this by saying, “Why, Solaris? Why do you refuse to listen to my voice?” which suggests that Solaris itself generated the EMP, despite the fact that this causes it to fracture.

Furthermore, the game’s official guide (which should admittedly be taken with a few thousand grains of salt, as it’s a Prima Games guide and those are rather notorious) has this to say regarding Solaris and the experiment:

So, pretty cut and dry when you view it all like that in isolation, right? Solaris was a benevolent god that was abused by the duchy of its people and driven berserk from said abuse, which is why even after reforming its darkness and wrath it still sought to destroy all time. The Duke of Soleanna sucked bad and Sonic ‘06 is a narrative about… god dying for no reason? And the ending of Sonic ‘06 with Elise extinguishing Solaris represents, uhhh… deicide? Elise is perpetuating the cycle of abuse???

Obviously no hate to people who prefer viewing Solaris in a strictly sympathetic light (I literally wrote a fanfic with that as a partial premise), but you have to admit that it muddies the narrative. And, additionally, what a lot of people ignore when they come to that conclusion is the fact that Solaris had known malevolence.

First of all, consider the fact that the Flames of Disaster were a known thing in Soleanna’s faith—specifically known as Solaris’ wrath.

And when you remember the fact that Solaris takes the form of fire, and is known to be the being whose wrath is released in the form of flames,

Suddenly the story of the eagle has an alternative reading!

I am SO firmly in the camp that that NPC’s one-off dialogue is meant to suggest that Solaris manipulated its way into a position of worship, and that it being reduced to a meager flame was a saving act—which is why said flame was then entrusted to the royal family.

As stated above, this isn’t even an unheard of concept: Elise just casually tells Sonic about the potential of the Flames of Disaster, and all of Eggman’s actions throughout this game hinge on the fact that he wants to take the power of said flames (which he already knows about, just not how to channel) for himself.

Not to mention the fact that the component parts of Solaris don’t do the sun deity any favors. Iblis is literally a destructive manifestation of blind wrath, and Mephiles is a misery maximalist who literally overcomplicates plans to a fault just so the absolute most amount of karmic irony and sheer misfortune can underline all of his actions.

So… Solaris was vastly malevolent, ergo the Duke’s actions were completely justified, and Sonic ‘06’s narrative is about defeating ontological evil?

Also probably not!

A major theme of Sonic ‘06 is the dichotomy between the actions of an individual and the impact those actions have on the whole of society/the future—impact those actions hold in general:

Elise’s decision to sacrifice her relationship with Sonic by unmaking the instigating event of their meeting from the timeline, all to save the future, that’s just the underlining of this theme. There’s also the fact that Elise had to bear the Flames within her and repress her emotions in order to lead her people and hold back Solaris’ wrath, and the fact that Silver grapples with the idea that to save his future he has to personally kill an individual. Shadow has that whole moment where he says if the world chooses to become his enemy he’ll still fight like he always has, and even Amy gets the (admittedly pretty funny) line where if she had to choose between the world and Sonic, she’d choose Sonic—and for what it’s worth, that arguable ideology did plant the seeds of Silver questioning whether what he was doing was right or wrong. Even Blaze, who’s notoriously underutilized in ‘06, sacrifices herself to seal away the flames of Iblis for good.

I feel like the intended reading you’re supposed to have is that, yes, Solaris was terrible and did terrible things, but the Duke of Soleanna and contributors to the Solaris Project were also terrible and attempting to harness powers no mortals should possess, and both sides acted in manners that impacted the wider world in direct and indirect ways. It’s supposed to be a little difficult to work your head around and completely justify in one direction or the other—it’s trolly-problem-esque, in that sense.

So, in conclusion… all of this being said, there is still room to be made and interesting narratives to be constructed around the idea that Solaris was a victim—and personally I agree there’s some sympathy to be felt for the Flame and the experimentation it underwent even with its malevolence—but I feel like the actual narrative presented is much more intentionally nuanced.

#it's late and I'm unmedicated #as usual #so rambleness #I'm hoping and assuming this is a good faith thing and not 'I read it this way and I'm annoyed people see it other ways too' but it's a bit #hard for me to tell for certain #it's just #I think it's fair to point out possible alternatives that have no concrete counter-evidence #particularly since most people frankly never question who and what is 'right' and 'wrong' in this game #now; most people I find posting about it do #but folks that are already talking about it aren't most people #I get the feeling this is my sign I should shut up about Solaris :Y

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deikshen · 26 days ago

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More ghost Shen Yuan because he lives rent-free in my head

Qing Jing's dead disciple? Actually, I guess, it would be Shen Yuan who transmigrated to PIDW excitedly seeing Luo Binghe, but risking too much on a night hunt he is simply RIP - however, HA! Who says death will prevent Shen Yuan from seeing his blorbo?

So, he's a ghost. A ghost fire that goes back and forth through Qing Jing, that perhaps takes humanoid form the first night it sees little Luo Binghe beaten and bleeding in the shed. Visceral hatred burns so strong that it turns into a Menace rank ghost, helping Luo Binghe, taking care of him.

And Shen Yuan befriends Luo Binghe. He only appears at night! He doesn't need to eat or drink, and he accompanies Luo Binghe, helping him heal, practicing meditation with him, sharing his own knowledge in the absence of an appropriate cultivation manual. Luo Binghe looks forward to the night. He knows his friend is a ghost, and that he should technically exorcise him... But he's harmless!

Shen Yuan is the only company Luo Binghe has, and Luo Binghe is the only company Shen Yuan cares about.

Eventually, everything happens. Shen Yuan tells him that as a ghost he can know that some things will happen. His System is gone with his death, so he explains to him about the Endless Abyss, having weapons and provisions. Shen Yuan tries to get away, but with his ashes in Qing Jing, it is extremely difficult and dangerous for him to go any further. He becomes weaker.

Finally, Luo Binghe is thrown into the Abyss. Shen Yuan is alone, again.

So, start training.

It feeds on anger, on bad emotions; it clings like a ghostly chaos to heavy emotions, to hatred, to jealousy, to the evils of the heart. Shen Qingqiu is an endless source of food. Advance to the Wrath rank, with effort and care not to be noticed so as not to be exorcised. Shen Yuan obtains his own ashes, forges them, and once he is stronger he leaves Qing Jing.

The road to the Demon Realm is chaotic, even more so for a ghost; they vibrate on the same wavelength, but there is a huge difference in their treatment and behavior. Ghost City is a distant dream that Shen Yuan is curious, but not curious enough to go. He has to be available when Luo Binghe comes out of the Abyss. After The Horrors, he'll need a friend!!

Shen Yuan clings to Mobei Jun; the truth is that Mobei Jun cannot hurt him or drive him away, and the threat to exorcise him is never fulfilled - so, he just resigns himself to the fact that it is in his palace. And Shen Yuan proves to know more than meets the eye: he is a strategist, fixes political scandals, knows who are enemies and who will be, and is in charge of making clean war plans. (Shen Yuan might find Shang Qinghua too, recognize him as a transmigrator, and make his life miserable sometimes. Just for fun.)

Finally Luo Binghe shows up to take Mobei Jun's palace. He has left the Abyss in just three years! Shen Yuan is proud!!

There is a rough fight, but an easy surrender. Shen Yuan is excited to see Luo Binghe in all his glory, huge and strong, and when Luo Binghe spots him among the crowd of surrendered people in the palace, running towards Shen Yuan is all he can do.

(But it's Bingyuan, so if we don't have a little bit of relations without lack of communication I don't know what we have.)

Because eventually, Shen Yuan gives his ashes to Luo Binghe; forged into a jade pendant practically identical to the one Luo Binghe lost. The only difference is that it is crystal clear like diamond. Shen Yuan gives it as a meaningless gift - in reality, he knows that if his ashes are with Luo Binghe, there is no way they can be destroyed! He's the Protagonist! He has his protagonist halo! No one can ever beat him!

Luo Binghe, on the other hand, who has been learning everything he can about ghosts, he is suddenly overwhelmed that his feelings for Shen Yuan are reciprocated. Shen Yuan has given him his ashes! Luo Binghe has heard that certain ghosts give their ashes to their loved ones as a demonstration of deep love... And it's not that Luo Binghe was expecting it. He had always believed that his feelings for Shen Yuan were not noticed, but besides being noticed, they are reciprocal!! Shen Yuan's thin face had made him say that it had no meaning, but Luo Binghe knows the truth!!

It's not that Luo Binghe has ashes to exchange with him, but he will definitely give and do his best. It will show his beloved A-Yuan that he doesn't need to be shy and can express his feelings with confidence!!

...

And Shen Yuan doesn't understand why Luo Binghe is suddenly so intense with him. He doesn't complain! He doesn't need to eat, but Luo Binghe cooks him delicacies. He doesn't sleep, but Luo Binghe insists that they share a bed, and Shen Yuan assumes it's to feel protected like when they were together in the woodshed. He hands over important decisions of his kingdoms to him. Shen Yuan believes it is to test his intelligence and see how well he has been doing! Luo Binghe spends his free time just listening to him talk about monsters and plants, and Shen Yuan believes it is to continue learning from him as before.

Shen Yuan notes, with some apprehension, that there are two things missing from this Binghe: plans for revenge... and all his wives. Shouldn't he have at least fifty at this point in the plot!?

However, the first time Shen Yuan asks Luo Binghe if he has thought about marriage, Luo Binghe... cries? He looks at him with huge eyes full of tears and hugs him? What does this "thank A-Yuan for granting me the privilege" mean? Protagonist, did you think you needed your best friend's approval to get married!?

... Why do the servants take his measurements for wedding robes!?