meeting wyll at the grove, as someone who the tieflings trust enough to train their children, says so much about him. it's so sad that he doesn't get explored in acts 2-3 as deeply as the other companions, when his problems are equally intense. the average player probably long rests once before coming across the grove, but even if not, in that time wyll has already proven to the tieflings that they can rely on the Blade of Frontiers.
this is the immediate first thing he chooses to do after being condemned to slow death via ceremorphosis. his priority list in the first conversations with tav is: 1) hunt down a dangerous devil, 2) help zevlor with the goblins, 3) once nothing threatens the tieflings he will gladly search for a tadpole cure. wyll is perpetually his own last priority, and i wonder if it has to do with the lore about souls.
if he believes mind flayers' souls have been destroyed, and fiend warlocks will all have their souls sent to the hells after death, then becoming a mind flayer isn't the worst possible way for him to die. he would never become a mindless monster to save his own soul, but he's not gripped by horror the way that some of the other origin characters are. lae'zel has been made revoltingly impure to her people, astarion is terrified of losing the scrap of bodily autonomy he just regained, gale is guilt-ridden over the orb detonation if he dies, shadowheart has to survive to prove herself to her cult leader, and karlach has also just regained bodily autonomy and is desparate to live.
this is just another quest for the Blade, whose persona guards wyll ravengard against the vice of self-concern when he ought to be concerned for those in need.
1K notes
·
View notes
sorry to keep bitching about frustrating rain world fandom trends, but I think if you read downpour as a pure "being alive is good, actually" metaphor with a weird dissonant twist at the end (saint's campaign), that ... reveals a shockingly surface-level reading of the story that ignores every interesting question the game poses in favor of trying to force a comfortable, one-note moral that only actually works if you ignore a significant amount of canon.
like, I'm sorry, but there's no way to in good faith pry a straight answer out of this story. I know fandom tumblr is a hotspot for disillusioned former christians, and stories about how religion isn't all it's chalked up to be are comforting for many, but this simply is not that kind of story. if that's your takeaway from it - that the world the game presents is worth sticking with, that ascension isn't the right choice - that makes sense, it's a valid personal opinion to come away with. however, to argue that the void sea endings are objectively the "bad" endings, or that saint's campaign makes no sense thematically, is to overlook a massively important reason why rain world works so well as a game in the first place: it's intended to be a choice.
saint's ascension ability is in YOUR hands. the game is asking you, the player, what you got out of this, what you think is best. it is asking you to reflect on the themes it's been trying to communicate to you for the last several dozen hours
(can you cope with a life that brings you more pain than joy? if there was another way to exist, would you choose to change? what would you give up to attempt another existence? everything? what if you're being fooled and you're chasing a terrible fate? what if powerful people are preying on your misery and it's all a scam? what is left of you when stripped of all things that cause pain? is it your true self? in a world without pain, what is even left? what if it's everything that means the most to you? what if you're going home? what if you could love without the fear of pain, loss, sickness, death? is the grand more important than the small? is it better to stick with familiar pain, or to chase something frightening that may ultimately make you happy? who can you trust to guide you? who will take advantage of you on the way there? what would get in your way? your own ego? your guilt? bitterness? love for the world you know, an ability to see beauty in the midst of tragedy? is this weakness or strength? etc etc etc don't even get me started on the commentary on religious institutions, classism, structural and familial abuse, and how this is all woven together)
like, I'm sorry, rain world is not a saturday morning cartoon trying to teach you life lessons, it's a piece of interactive fiction using game mechanics as a vehicle for some extremely interesting philosophical discussions, which it politely asks you to actively engage with as you go along. I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable to people who don't relate to those topics, but declaring bad writing on a piece of fiction for not presenting you with a clear-cut moral stance at the end that already aligns with your personal lived experience is just ... a godawful way to interact with stories.
(deliberately handwaving or ignoring major and obvious pieces of symbolism for the sake of declaring it a Good Story That Agrees With You, Actually frankly isn't much better. stop making me read analysis posts where half the story has to be a drug trip for your point to make sense)
350 notes
·
View notes