What's the moral of the story?

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The narrator condemns Mo's actions, but i don't see what wrong she did trying to save everyone.

[Paisen]

Like the narrator says in Chapter V, no one should try to bear the weight of the world upon their shoulders and cling on to broken dreams.

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Originally posted by Paisen:

Like the narrator says in Chapter V, no one should try to bear the weight of the world upon their shoulders and cling on to broken dreams.

That's not what i'm asking here. How exactly does those ideas relate to the story portrayed in the game? From my point of view, they contradict with what is established:

The air puryfing system is crucial to the survival of the people on the islands. And the only one who can operate and sustain it is Mo. What choice does she have but to bear that weight? It's not like anyone is capable in assisting her in this task.
Instead, when the system fails and lives of every creature on the islands are endangered, none of the inhabitants seem to understand the magnitude of such event and how urgent Mo needs to act to fix it. It's like none of them realise the danger and think of what Mo's doing as some game she's playing by herself. Thinking that Mo was doing anything wrong here is an exemplary mental gymnastics. Should Mo have had a drink with her uncle, a stew with her sister, a chat with her grandma, all in the time of crisis when evryone's lives are in danger? No. Not bearing that weight meant letting everyone die.
At least until the last minutes of the game, when we learn that all along there was another way to save everyone by fleeing the islands on Freja's, or whatever her name was, ark. And that, i think, is straight up bad writing. It's like the narrator is mocking us by keeping this solution to a problem the protagonist was struggling against all along outside of our field of view for the most part of the story and only revealing it in the last possible moment. Even if we assume that Mo did know about this option all along, it is said that many of those that tried to flee the islands during exodus didn't survive. So this option does not appear to be any better than trying to fix the air puryfiers and taking it into account does not make Mo's actions senseless. What she was doing was necessary. Blaming her for it is hypocritical and wrong. Her dreams weren't broken until the very last part of the game.

[Zerephiehel]

even then its bad writing. it is as you said. the main story doesnt give much options on what to do. it even goes so far telling you that humanity has already tried to flee but its not a solution to the problem. therefor the end conclusion of just running from your problems is a bad mentality, a bad morale and a really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way of saying just do whatever the ♥♥♥♥ you want and dont care for consequences.

[bitterologist]

Presumably they are going for the same thing as e.g. Braid and Shadow of the Colossus did: you do this thing which you think is righteous, but what if it's not? Does that mean you are, in fact, trying to justify actions that are in fact bad? Or what if what you're fighting for is a lost cause, and therefore not something you should keep making sacrifices for?

However, the execution of said themes is kind of sloppy. Mo is not presented as having had much of a say in the matter, being chosen at a young age by the giants. No one else can do what she does, so it's not like other people can help. Fleeing is not really presented as a viable option until late in the game, e.g. the narrator saying that the mist is as much a threat at sea as at land. The initial premise is that keeping the engines running is a matter of life and death, making it super-weird when the characters and narration berates Mo for prioritising fixing the problem over hanging out with her family.

Also, even if fleeing is an option the giants themselves are in immediate danger – something only Mo seems to care about. The giants are presented as unselfish creatures who have toiled for ages to keep the humans safe. Are we supposed to not care if they suffocate? And what is the deal with the narrative presenting Mo as the one forcing the giants to go on and then finally allowing them to give up and die – weren't they the ones that set up the machines and then chose her to maintain them? It could of course be intended as a metaphor, Mo allowing them to give up and thereby allowing herself to do the same. But if it's meant as a metaphor, it's not a very well executed one.

There are interesting things to say about being the chosen one, or feeling that one is. There are interesting things to say about allowing oneself to give up on a lost cause. But in my opinion, this game largely fails at saying anything meaningful about these things.

[YotsuMD]

Originally posted by Аниме:

Not bearing that weight meant letting everyone die.

Mo's fight is ultimately futile. The world is doomed, and she's hurting herself and others by chasing a goal even giants couldn't accomplish. Even if she did manage to revive the last giant, she would at some point grow old and die with no one to replace her, while the handful of people left on the islands would linger on with no future for themselves until they too died, leaving the giants toiling on trying to keep an empty world alive until they'd succumb to time themselves.
Mo thinks giving up and running away is foolish, but in the end it was the only chance she had at a future and a real life without destroying herself.

Originally posted by Аниме:

Her dreams weren't broken until the very last part of the game.

Her will to pursue her goal was broken when she couldn't convince herself that it was attainable any longer, but she was chasing a lost cause from the beginning. It was lost before the giants even made her an apprentice. Their dream of protecting what was left of the world was a task so monstrously huge that even they had no hope of succeeding, and Mo placing the same burden on her own shoulders was destroying her and her connection with others.

[󠀡]

Originally posted by YotsuMD:

Originally posted by Аниме:

Not bearing that weight meant letting everyone die.

Mo's fight is ultimately futile. The world is doomed, and she's hurting herself and others by chasing a goal even giants couldn't accomplish. Even if she did manage to revive the last giant, she would at some point grow old and die with no one to replace her, while the handful of people left on the islands would linger on with no future for themselves until they too died, leaving the giants toiling on trying to keep an empty world alive until they'd succumb to time themselves.
Mo thinks giving up and running away is foolish, but in the end it was the only chance she had at a future and a real life without destroying herself.

Originally posted by Аниме:

Her dreams weren't broken until the very last part of the game.

Her will to pursue her goal was broken when she couldn't convince herself that it was attainable any longer, but she was chasing a lost cause from the beginning. It was lost before the giants even made her an apprentice. Their dream of protecting what was left of the world was a task so monstrously huge that even they had no hope of succeeding, and Mo placing the same burden on her own shoulders was destroying her and her connection with others.

As far as i remember, at no point does the game say anything about "the world". The threat and the countermeasure depicted are isolated to a handful of islands the story takes place on.

The game does not provide information or hints about whether or not Mo and giants will succeed in their task until the last chapter of the story. We don't even know what obstacle - the reason giants stopped in the first place - prevents their plan from being realized to measure the probabilty of it's success. Without that piece of information labeling their attempt as futile from the start is just speculation.

[YotsuMD]

Originally posted by Аниме:

As far as i remember, at no point does the game say anything about "the world". The threat and the countermeasure depicted are isolated to a handful of islands the story takes place on.

Fair enough, I was using the word a bit loosely there. From Mo's perspective, it may as well be though.

Originally posted by Аниме:

The game does not provide information or hints about whether or not Mo and giants will succeed in their task until the last chapter of the story. We don't even know what obstacle - the reason giants stopped in the first place - prevents their plan from being realized to measure the probabilty of it's success. Without that piece of information labeling their attempt as futile from the start is just speculation.

The game explicitly states that neither Mo nor the giants are immortal. They have been staving off the spores for centuries (though it somehow seems to contradict what we learned in the crypt), but eventually something will break, or one of them will falter, and no one will be there to aid them (the game mentions Mo frequently being exposed to the spores, so presumably their situation is precarious enough that her involvement is required frequently).

[󠀡]

Originally posted by YotsuMD:

Originally posted by Аниме:

The game does not provide information or hints about whether or not Mo and giants will succeed in their task until the last chapter of the story. We don't even know what obstacle - the reason giants stopped in the first place - prevents their plan from being realized to measure the probabilty of it's success. Without that piece of information labeling their attempt as futile from the start is just speculation.

The game explicitly states that neither Mo nor the giants are immortal. They have been staving off the spores for centuries (though it somehow seems to contradict what we learned in the crypt), but eventually something will break, or one of them will falter, and no one will be there to aid them (the game mentions Mo frequently being exposed to the spores, so presumably their situation is precarious enough that her involvement is required frequently).

That point of view doesn't take into account the immediate danger to Mo and everyone else throughout the story. Yes, the whole system might be unsustainable in the long term, but right here and now, when spores have begun actively killing life on islands, is not the time to think about alternative ways. What choice does Mo have other than try to fix it? To give up on the system built by giants and then do what? Simply sit down and die together with everyone? Consider that we, and Mo as well, are not aware about Freja's ark and an option to flee the islands until the very end of the story. That's the point mine and bitterologist's posts earlier in this thread are trying to get across. To portray the protagonist's actions as wrong, the story must also present the "right" course of action they should have taken. This one does not.

And that bit about giants doing their work for centuries, where does that come from? Once again, i don't remember the game saying for how long they have been doing that.

[GabeC1997]

Not to mention that the whole world is already ♥♥♥♥♥♥, otherwise you'ed have surviving travelers passing through the islands. A few weeks worth of water and food doesn't mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ without the ability to get more. If anything, everyone but Mo was a selfish coward who couldn't think past their own immediate feelings, "No One is an Island" my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass they're the one's who didn't care about what anyone but themselves! And don't even get me started on abandoning the surviving Giants!

[2pi360]

> At least until the last minutes of the game, when we learn that all along there was another way to save everyone by fleeing the islands on Freja's, or whatever her name was, ark. And that, i think, is straight up bad writing

I would not call it a bad writing.

Yo just have to keep in mind that Mo and you, the payer. are not suppose to be a same (like in some other games)

At the beginning, Mo knows about the ark, but dont treat it as a viable solution due to her spite and stubbornness. Mo also dont see her own spitefulness and stubbornness

You, the player, dont know this, and as a story goes on you slowly realize this

[Vecen]

Pardon the necrobump, but I have an alternative theory to what's going on on how it fits into the games morals.

You may remember we briefly see the last giant near the end of the game. He is completely flooded with fungi growing out of him. His skin is seemingly calcified. And when Mo releases Safan, he suddenly turns into the same, a calcified remain with fungi growing out of him. How did he die so quickly? and already with fungi growth? And how was that last giant even operational before the malfunction? Everything points to advance decay.

That's because Mo wasn't actually 'releasing' him, she was releasing her pretended illusion of him. The giants were dead long before the game even started. Everything points to that; the advanced decay, the fact no-one seemed concerned about repairing these vital systems, why almost everyone had already left even though the giants were supposedly still alive and purifying the air right until the start of the game. This is also why none of the characters (such as the uncle) remove their mask when the purifiers are 'fixed'; Mo repaired nothing. It was all imagined.

Mo doesn't wear a mask because of some courageous bravado; she needs the hallucinogenic properties of the spores to keep the illusion going. Why would she do this? Remember there are brief allusions to some important people dying during the scenes with her sister. These were most likely their parents.

Mo blamed herself (had the weight of the world on her shoulders) and retreated to the defunct giant caverns in despair. She was exposed to spores, and found the omni-tool while searching around. She subconsciously created a narrative were she was 'the chosen one' to keep the now dead giants alive with her newly acquired tool.

The moral therefore is to move past the grief and try to make a living with what you have (in this case the ark).

[effevene]

Originally posted by Vecen:

Mo doesn't wear a mask because of some courageous bravado; she needs the hallucinogenic properties of the spores to keep the illusion going. Why would she do this? Remember there are brief allusions to some important people dying during the scenes with her sister. These were most likely their parents.

An interesting interpretation, Thanks.

[2pi360]

> Pardon the necrobump, but I have an alternative theory to what's going on on how it fits into the games morals.

I do agree here, I had the same suspicions

[facedancer]

Originally posted by Vecen:

Pardon the necrobump, but I have an alternative theory to what's going on on how it fits into the games morals.

That's how I read the ending too. Basically the game is told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. The omni switch is also most likely broken from the very beginning.

[Banana Stand]

Originally posted by Vecen:

Pardon the necrobump, but I have an alternative theory to what's going on on how it fits into the games morals...

Mo blamed herself (had the weight of the world on her shoulders) and retreated to the defunct giant caverns in despair. She was exposed to spores, and found the omni-tool while searching around. She subconsciously created a narrative were she was 'the chosen one' to keep the now dead giants alive with her newly acquired tool.

The moral therefore is to move past the grief and try to make a living with what you have (in this case the ark).

I agree with most of your interpretation. However she was most likely she was picked by the giants to use the Omni Switch. However it was their last act before they secluded themselves and slowly rotted away in the underbelly. Your theory on them passing before the start of the game would make sense too and, it was probably this cause of the "Great Exodus".

As for the morals for me it was about the shackles we place on ourselves because, of some kind of illusion of duty we self imposed. It's an issue for anyone whose ever had to deal with family business or family cultural duty.

The giants/islands could also just represent end stage capitalism. The giants are titans of industry. Mo is the people who work in them. We are all upholding this collapsing system through makeshift patch work means as we are being swallowed up by the pollution with the threat of drowning of rising sea levels. They pointed out a few times throughout the game how we can't escape the pollution and that's why Mo decided this was the best place whilst others wanted to leave and take a chance on a potential new future.