[Spoiler] I... kinda hate the ending.

[Democracy Officer Gehenna]

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Open the discussion only at your own risk, you have been warned!

------SPOILERS BELOW------

So, Ori dies.
Now, I know the obvious two responses.
First, that he didn't die, he became a tree. Well... the tree references Ori in the third person, and for all intents and purposes IS a different person.
Second, that what is wrong with a bittersweet ending? The answer is nothing, when done well.

The 'sacrifice' at the end basically comes from nowhere. There is absolutely no foreshadowing at all until at the VERY end. This utterly undercuts the ending to a rather startling degree. It left it feeling hollow, empty, and bad to me.

[Teal V2]

KillingArts a écrit :

Yeah, but that was the big thing in BF. I remember people writing about how fascinated they were, that Moon pulled of to get you to like a character and get attached to him and then killing him off, all in just a few minutes. People were crying when watching the intro. Killing a beloved character is not inherently bad like some here seem to suggest. It is a powerful tool used in many stories. And I can see the value for the story in killing Ku, even if they decided against it in the end. I wonder if I would have liked it better or worse. Really not sure.

Yeah, adding negative elements is fine till it gets balanced with good. Ori died in the opening, it was nice and all, people were touched.
And what happened? Something good happened to make it equal, Ori got revived as the very last act of Nibel's spirit tree. His last breath for Ori, it was nice and good.

Ku's death would have been the smallest bad thing in wtow 2. To me at least.
She was just a background character. Only Ori got attached to her, not the players. Well, I guess?
If someone was able to get to love Ku with the screen time she had, good to them.

KillingArts a écrit :

I think the way you do it is important. Remember My Girl? That movie was for kids/family. Even though it had a very tragic ending. The main protagonist is a young boy, and he dies in the end.. You can do stuff like this properly, for all age groups.

I do not know that movie (if it is a movie).
Let us say, the execution is very important, and I do believe a kid dying in a bed with family around is less brutal than seeing one being torn apart by a monster.
Ori 2 does not have such brutal scenes, alright. But Ku does not die, so this point is not important right now.
The devs with Ori 2 had enough problems writing a decent story that they failed anyways.

KillingArts a écrit :

I am reluctant to call tragic elements of a story "negative feelings", but ok. I would, though, disagree that we only get negativity and no positivity. Obviously some people here felt very differently than me in the outro, but I thought the ending was very uplifting. And even with Ku not being there, it would still have been like that. It would still have been Ori's friends growing old together. There is a lot of positivity in that.

People are all different I believe, this is why you see a lot of positive in how everyone dies you got to know in Blind Forest, while others see it as a negative thing.
Excuse me, if I do not see enough balancing value in a leaf at the very end.
This 3 seconds just not enough to compensate for the story filled with plotholes and losing everyone I liked in the whole game.

I just killed your whole family and cut your limbs, but hey..! Your wife is pregnant!
Yaay, I feel much better now.

KillingArts a écrit :

Well, it's not balanced out in the sense that every bad thing gets nullified and everyone is purely happy. But does it really have to? The message is that bad things happen in life. Even loss of friends or family members. But in the end, life goes on and has a lot to offer, even after tragic loss. That is the balance I see here.It doesn't have to be 50/50 good/bad feelings. The sequence is important. And WotW ends with a positive feeling. It would have even with Ku's death (as that doesn't change the main message).

In wotw the only thing you see is that, bad things can and will go worse.
Also, not the in-game characters should feel themselves "happy", but the players. If not happy but at least satisfied.

This is the balance I am talking about.
I wouldn't care if Niwen as it is perishes in a nuclear explosion with Ori and everyone we loved, if after that something happens which makes me satisfied even after such a horrible thing.

As a game, it should make players satisfied. Perhaps some is satisfied. But I just can't believe that those players are satisfied with the story in a deep meaning.
I believe those players were playing for the gameplay itself and say the story is good cuz the game was actually good.
Those players just have no questions cuz they do not care about it as much as the ones wanting details about the story.
It is fine, we are all different.
But it gives a fake image about how good or bad the story is.
Since -technically- only people spending time to understand the story and happenings should talk about why a story good or bad.

I dare to say that, majority of people saying "the story is good" not even heard the word "plothole" before. (With little exaggeration, of course)

And once again, I do not care about "It is a metrovania game, story is not important".
Story is do important. If you can't write it properly, then just skip it and spend more resources into the game itself.

I find it kinda hilarious how the Dev talks about "It is all about life choices and our own life experience."
This game has as much to do with life choices as much I'm close being the president of USA.

Just because they state how deep the meaning of their game is, it won't be deep.
Execution, thorough planning, ideas, smooth mixing.
These are lacking in my eyes.

[Stretchyf]

KillingArts a écrit :

Did you forget how Black Forest started? Characters dying in stories is not torture, at least not for most people. It it an instrument to provoke emotional reaction (hello, Game of Thrones ^^).

It is Blind Forest, dude! It looks like you are all about emotional reaction and not cares about underlying logic. It is like "it feels tragic and good to me no matter what is the message or lack of thereof or logic, or lack of thereof". I'm saying this because of how you mentioned earlier that story is not important to you here. But execution can do magic I would say, but I don't feel that magic is present here, like scriptwriters were lazy or busy doing another things.

Just to kill an important character for emotional reaction only is a cheap move. There should be reasons and message aside from "s**t happens" - it is how I feel about it.

Naru died (kinda) in BF because she cared about Ori - it sends strong positive message of love. It is tragic... but beautiful. Yes Ori is devastated and this event sends him into his journey - nice story-writing trick! Again good. Last part of prologue with Ori frail and dying also very touching and ends with not death but start of actual gameplay. It is kinda weird to see Ori instantly running happily and not thinking much about his past experiences, but it is a game and he is a puppet in your hands. Also losing his live and given a borrowed one instead to save the forest, while being a puppet in your hands, feels right and neat move.

Also in BF Ori "had chosen" to move on and to be kind - and was rewarded for that tremendously! Also very good message. And final message about how moving love is. Neat and wonderful!

But in Wotw they wanted to kill Ku to send you only one message: "Life is harsh, s**t can happen" and provoke emotional reaction. As Gehenna mentioned already, we were supposed to remember Kuro's last minute sacrifice and be ready to make such thing for Ku if needed. But then they want to kill Ku in first half of the game "to provoke emotional reaction". Where is the logic?

Do you feel the difference?

KillingArts a écrit :

So you're making the assumption that players can only enjoy and care about the story if they disagree with Ku (or any character) being killed? I would strongly disagree with that.

It is like you have read only one my message and are making assumptions because of it. I'm not able to squeeze all multitude of my views into one post. It is like you again not paying enough attention but want to criticize me. It sounds simplistic and kinda offensive.

It is important not only WHAT happens on the screen, but also WHY it happens and WHAT MESSAGE it delivers. My opinion, if anything. You can feel different. If Ku died on the screen with positive message and because of absolute necessity to keep the story flow, as with Naru in BF, I would accept that and, may be, even liked that! But still Ku is too much of a child while Naru is not, so situation would be different even then.

[Luna Spirito]

[Sorry for my english]

I know a game that is quite similair to Ori, "Dust: An Elysian Tail". And I would even recommend it to those who like Ori.

Ending spoiler alert:

As for me, I am quite disappointed with ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. But in Dust, the ending is quite similair: Dust dies in the final battle for survival of Moonblood race. And... I really enjoyed it. I really think that death of Dust is something beautiful. He also have people around who he can call "family", "friends". And that's not even the case when it wasn't possible to avoid dying. But, as for me, I do not regret.

This lead me to one idea:
The problem is NOT in sacrifice. The problem is NOT in the fact that "But Ori has family". The problem (mostly) is NOT in the fact that this sacrifice could be easily avoided. I think that the core problem is in approach of creating Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I think that creators decided to make the emotional impact the most important thing in the story... but it isn't.

The most important thing of a story is its idea: something creators want to show or tell us. And the whole story has to be build on this foundation. But I am not sure that this is what we see in Ori. What about death of Ku? What does it show to us? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I am just stupid, but it sounds to me like developers just wanted to make game sad and give Ori motivation. And about Ori becoming a tree... Well, yep, it has some idea behind it about life cycle, but that's not idea of the entire game. The game is about saving forest and "life cycle" only popped up at the end.

To be honest, I wasn't very sad about Ku's death. In fact, I expected this. It didn't touch me. In Dust, main protagonist also dies, and I also thought that he will die, but ending touched me. The whole scene, every word in ending of Dust refers to something in the past. It makes you recall all your walkthrough, all bright and dark moments, understand what they were for. But not in Ori. In Ori and the WotW you just think: "Oh, wow, now I am guardian of the forest. Wait, but I already was guardian of the forest. Well, at least I saved Ku! Who died just to make game 'sad'... yep..."

It may sound like I hate Ori and the Will of the Wisps... well, because I do. I spent a lot of time in Dust, and it showed to me how this should be done. I am much more disappointed with WotW now. The game really is made with heart, but... but story isn't. As for me, I just see know like they wanted to make it "sad", make the whole game "sad" at any cost.

You know, the same happens to Shriek. She just wasn't accepted by the society. No, the game doesn't show her feelings, it just states the fact. In Ori and the Blind Forest there isn't many told about main antagonist, but, still, you can understand what she feels.
https://youtu.be/1aiYHU1Xq7s?t=63 - here, we can see despair of Kuro. At 1:24 we can see sorrow. At 1:33 we already can see her rage and, what's much more important, we understand her rage. I almost cried yet once again when I viewed this cutscene right now.
What we have about Shriek? Just one cutscene that almost does not show anything (well, it just states the fact and the most emotional part for me is the part when she falls right at the beginning, that's really cool, describes her loneless better then the rest of the cutscene) and multiple phrases. From who? FROM ORI, FROM ORI'S STANDPOINT! But basically Ori doesn't know anything that is unknown for player. And Ori obviously does not understand her thoughout the game, well, because literally no one does. Or Ori has empathy superability and understands everything just by looking at someone?
And then she just decides to die at the end. Do you see some kind of an idea behind this story? Well, I don't. Maybe "some people do not accept kindness"? Yes, but actually no, because nobody actually behaved to Shriek in a kind way (of course if you don't think of "not beating" as being kind). There is potential, but it is wasted. Her story just was designed to be sad, as just Ku's story was designed to be sad.

I don't say that game shouldn't be sad, no, I don't. I say that this sadness must be built on top of main idea of the game. And if it is, it's a very big emotional impact. This really makes story stay inside of your heart until the Life Thread calls.

To be honest, now I'm not now even sure that alternate endings can "fix" Ori. Maybe yes, maybe not, but just making Ori survive is not an option. Much more refactor is needed, much more connection between ending and the rest of the game is required.

[Supernoxus]

Where is my medicine? a écrit :

[Sorry for my english]

I know a game that is quite similair to Ori, "Dust: An Elysian Tail". And I would even recommend it to those who like Ori.

Ending spoiler alert:

As for me, I am quite disappointed with ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. But in Dust, the ending is quite similair: Dust dies in the final battle for survival of Moonblood race. And... I really enjoyed it. I really think that death of Dust is something beautiful. He also have people around who he can call "family", "friends". And that's not even the case when it wasn't possible to avoid dying. But, as for me, I do not regret.

This lead me to one idea:
The problem is NOT in sacrifice. The problem is NOT in the fact that "But Ori has family". The problem (mostly) is NOT in the fact that this sacrifice could be easily avoided. I think that the core problem is in approach of creating Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I think that creators decided to make the emotional impact the most important thing in the story... but it isn't.

The most important thing of a story is its idea: something creators want to show or tell us. And the whole story has to be build on this foundation. But I am not sure that this is what we see in Ori. What about death of Ku? What does it show to us? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I am just stupid, but it sounds to me like developers just wanted to make game sad and give Ori motivation. And about Ori becoming a tree... Well, yep, it has some idea behind it about life cycle, but that's not idea of the entire game. The game is about saving forest and "life cycle" only popped up at the end.

To be honest, I wasn't very sad about Ku's death. In fact, I expected this. It didn't touch me. In Dust, main protagonist also dies, and I also thought that he will die, but ending touched me. The whole scene, every word in ending of Dust refers to something in the past. It makes you recall all your walkthrough, all bright and dark moments, understand what they were for. But not in Ori. In Ori and the WotW you just think: "Oh, wow, now I am guardian of the forest. Wait, but I already was guardian of the forest. Well, at least I saved Ku! Who died just to make game 'sad'... yep..."

It may sound like I hate Ori and the Will of the Wisps... well, because I do. I spent a lot of time in Dust, and it showed to me how this should be done. I am much more disappointed with WotW now. The game really is made with heart, but... but story isn't. As for me, I just see know like they wanted to make it "sad", make the whole game "sad" at any cost.

You know, the same happens to Shriek. She just wasn't accepted by the society. No, the game doesn't show her feelings, it just states the fact. In Ori and the Blind Forest there isn't many told about main antagonist, but, still, you can understand what she feels.
https://youtu.be/1aiYHU1Xq7s?t=63 - here, we can see despair of Kuro. At 1:24 we can see sorrow. At 1:33 we already can see her rage and, what's much more important, we understand her rage. I almost cried yet once again when I viewed this cutscene right now.
What we have about Shriek? Just one cutscene that almost does not show anything (well, it just states the fact and the most emotional part for me is the part when she falls right at the beginning, that's really cool, describes her loneless better then the rest of the cutscene) and multiple phrases. From who? FROM ORI, FROM ORI'S STANDPOINT! But basically Ori doesn't know anything that is unknown for player. And Ori obviously does not understand her thoughout the game, well, because literally no one does. Or Ori has empathy superability and understands everything just by looking at someone?
And then she just decides to die at the end. Do you see some kind of an idea behind this story? Well, I don't. Maybe "some people do not accept kindness"? Yes, but actually no, because nobody actually behaved to Shriek in a kind way (of course if you don't think of "not beating" as being kind). There is potential, but it is wasted. Her story just was designed to be sad, as just Ku's story was designed to be sad.

I don't say that game shouldn't be sad, no, I don't. I say that this sadness must be built on top of main idea of the game. And if it is, it's a very big emotional impact. This really makes story stay inside of your heart until the Life Thread calls.

To be honest, now I'm not now even sure that alternate endings can "fix" Ori. Maybe yes, maybe not, but just making Ori survive is not an option. Much more refactor is needed, much more connection between ending and the rest of the game is required.

I agree. You shouldn't make a game sad and emotional just for the sake of it. Instead of sad, it will just feel cheap.
Personally, I don't have an issue with the main character dying at the end of a story. Many games do this.
Spec Ops: The Line lets you decide to commit suicide at the very end. But that suicide is the consequence of what this entire story has been building up to. The main character wanted to be a hero so badly that he went insane in denial of all the innocents he has killed. He has been hunting a fake voice for the entire game, blaming it for all the bad that happened. Once he confronts it, he finally realizes that there is no one to blame for all of this but him. This doesn't come out of nowhere either. The game keeps dropping increasingly strong hints towards his mental condition. From strange decisions to short random hallucinations, to his enemies looking like his dead teammates, blaming him for everything, to the literal loading screen changing from short descriptions of the mission to just a short text saying "You are still a good person."


And then there is Ori. What is Ori's story about? Loss, I guess? Family? A mother loses her child and a child loses his mother in Blind Forest. In the end, the mother sacrifices herself to make sure the same thing does not happen again...
Actually I think she mainly kills herself to save her last egg, not to save Ori. So I am not really sure what the message here is.

Will of the Wisps? It's about family again..I guess? Ori is pretty disconnected from his family for most of the time. But he tries to save someone that is like a child to him, so that may work. So then what's the rest of the game about?
Shriek is not accepted and an outsider. Is Ori an outsider too? No, they don't treat him nearly with as much distrust. Being an outsider can't be the theme either.
Maybe it's that it is a life cycle? Ori becomes a tree and the cycle starts over? What's up with nearly the entire rest of the game then? The life cycle theme gets properly introduced at the very last wisp. If this is the theme of the game, then we should be able to see life cycles all over, but I struggle to think of any other example.
Is the theme really just that "life is harsh"? I guess that is the most fitting overall theme as many things in Will of the Wisps seem to go wrong despite your best efforts. Like the Moki building a house for his family just to discover that they are all dead. Then he kills himself too. It's not a satisfying conclusion. It's just...random. Kind of like Life. But even then you run into a major problem. If your plot is about how harsh life is, then you have to make doubly sure that there are no plot holes. After all, life is all about consequences. If something happens for no reason, then it gets difficult to argue that this is really about life. Unfortunately, the story is filled with plot holes. For example, why does Ori has to sacrifice himself if there are plenty of growing spirit willows all over the place. They even have light energy that Ori can absorb. Just pop Seir into one of them. Why can't Seir heal Ku's wounds? The Spirit tree in Blind Forest managed to bring Ori back from being dead with his literal last breath. It can't be /that/ hard to just heal Ku's wounds for someone as powerful as Seir then. She gave Shriek a powerful uppercut and was about to finish her off with another blast. Clearly Seir is already extremely powerful.
How are any of those things related to life? Life is harsh, but it still operates on rules. If the rules are broken, then it's just not life anymore. It's a poorly told story.
Even worse, they heal Ku's wing at the very end of the game. Life is harsh. Sometimes you are born with disabilities and you have to learn to deal with them. Good message...but then a magical tree just gets you out of your wheelchair and everything is fairly tale fine again.
So if Will of the Wisps tried to tell the viewer about the harshness of life, then it failed.
I can't think of any other themes this game might have been about. None of the ones I came up with worked or were consistent throughout a major portion of the game. It's awful.

[Stretchyf]

Where is my medicine? a écrit :

This lead me to one idea:
The problem is NOT in sacrifice. The problem is NOT in the fact that "But Ori has family". The problem (mostly) is NOT in the fact that this sacrifice could be easily avoided. I think that the core problem is in approach of creating Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I think that creators decided to make the emotional impact the most important thing in the story... but it isn't.

Agree with it. Except avoidability of sacrifice is debatable. Nice to know someone thinks like you to some degree.

Supernoxus a écrit :

I agree. You shouldn't make a game sad and emotional just for the sake of it. Instead of sad, it will just feel cheap.

My thoughts about Will of the Wisps too.

[St. Spook]

Post by u/IHCfanfic

u/IHCfanfic a écrit :

I think I'm one of the "some people" sherwood mentions since I've made a few posts about this. Basically... there's a couple of plotholes like "Why did none of Niwen's spirits fuse with Seir when they had a chance?" and "If the Light is eternal and every tree needs a fully-formed Light to be complete, how do Spirit Trees ever exceed replacement fertility?" that I don't think don't have answers, it's just that the more plausible answers result in some possibly-unsettling implications. The primary issues are due to subtext and a lack of buildup in a specific area.

First, to the general subtext. While Thomas Mahler has said that Will of the Wisps is "about the second half of life," I can't agree with that because it's really obviously a coming-of-age ending: Ori literally transitions to an "adult" state of being. But there are a few things about the ending that give it a very bitter and cynical theme that I'm not sure the writers were intending.

1: Even if the new Spirit Tree is stated to be Ori, it does not feel like Ori is still there. This is due to several factors, including the "When my name was Ori" line, the bait-and-switch with making his voice identical to the Spirit Tree's, and IMO most importantly the fact that what they did just doesn't work with a silent protagonist. Ori has zero lines of dialogue aside from calling Ku's name, which means his characterization is based entirely on things like body language, which... a tree doesn't have. And Tree-Ori only speaks as a narrator, never speaking to another character. So there's... not really anything left of Ori's original characterization besides him drawing a family portrait the only way he now can. Even his light is for the most part Seir's yellow color instead of Ori's blue-white. Basically the writers were trying too hard on the "foreshadowing which you only notice in hindsight and suddenly seems really clever" aspect, but failed to do anything to emotionally convince the audience that the tree and Ori are still the same character. This combined with Ori's growth being a sacrificial death and rebirth leads to a very strong theme that growing up is the metaphorical death of the person you were as a child and the loss of your old identity, which is really, really dark.

2: If Ori becoming a tree is a metaphor for the transition between childhood and adulthood, obviously the new spirit being born is a metaphor for becoming a parent, but, uhh... what does that make Seir, and especially the act of permanently fusing with Seir? There's two options here; if we're being generous since it's an E-rated game we'll say it's a metaphor for marriage. Except that Ori is, up until this point, portrayed as a child, and Seir is a much older being, and the audience - and by extension Ori - has very little time to get to know Seir because her true form and voice aren't even revealed until the third act... at which point her main notable action besides attempting to revive the Spirit Willow and fusing with Ori as the next best thing is Ori literally having to hold her back from attacking Shriek. Furthermore as a tree Ori is completely dependent on Seir for survival, while Seir will, at a minimum, outlive and "replace" him at the end of his lifespan. This is... not an equal power dynamic or a good sign of a healthy relationship. Oh, and also they had to explicitly show Ori outliving Naru and Gumo, and Ku growing up and flying away, leaving Ori with... just Seir, since he's now immobile and can't see Sein or the Spirit Tree again. I get the metaphor here: obviously the next generation will usually outlive their parents, and relationships with your birth family change and become less close in adulthood, but combined with all the other stuff I just mentioned it feels more... isolating.

That also brings me back to the "Why did none of Niwen's spirits fuse with Seir when the willow was about to die?" question. There's two main answers I've seen suggested. One is "Spirits can't fuse with the same light as their parent tree," which, uhh, makes the metaphor even more uncomfortable, and the other is "Nobody wanted to, and this is probably Seir's fault," which makes the feeling that Ori was pressured into a decision he was too young to fully understand even stronger.

I don't think this was intentional, and it was almost certainly caused by attempting to re-use what was originally a scrapped ending for Blind Forest. Ori fusing with Sein would still be a little weird for some of the reasons I mentioned, but Sein is at the very least present for almost all of, and a much more major character in, Blind Forest, so the audience would at least have a chance to get attached to her.

[98misti]

Pixel Satori a écrit :

Post by u/IHCfanfic

u/IHCfanfic a écrit :

I think I'm one of the "some people" sherwood mentions since I've made a few posts about this. Basically... there's a couple of plotholes like "Why did none of Niwen's spirits fuse with Seir when they had a chance?" and "If the Light is eternal and every tree needs a fully-formed Light to be complete, how do Spirit Trees ever exceed replacement fertility?" that I don't think don't have answers, it's just that the more plausible answers result in some possibly-unsettling implications. The primary issues are due to subtext and a lack of buildup in a specific area.

First, to the general subtext. While Thomas Mahler has said that Will of the Wisps is "about the second half of life," I can't agree with that because it's really obviously a coming-of-age ending: Ori literally transitions to an "adult" state of being. But there are a few things about the ending that give it a very bitter and cynical theme that I'm not sure the writers were intending.
{...}

Oh my.
Reading this, I realized Seir technically got married... With a child!

And what about this "fusing" thing? What does it mean, metaphorically? What human 'activity' is close to this? If they fused to *also* have children and they barely knew each other, this means...

Ugh, jfc! They really did the right thing to use fantasy creatures instead of humans; if all of this happened with human characters, with a realistic setting...

[Teal V2]

Yeah, it is a luck that it is trending to use fantasy characters to tell a story.
Imagine Alien with only humans!

A smaller human would come out of a bigger one!
Oh wait...

[98misti]

Teal V2 a écrit :

Yeah, it is a luck that it is trending to use fantasy characters to tell a story.
Imagine Alien with only humans!

A smaller human would come out of a bigger one!
Oh wait...

Well, both the Xenomorph and the smaller human eat up your lives if you're not fully prepared :P

[Teal V2]

98misti a écrit :

Well, both the Xenomorph and the smaller human eat up your lives if you're not fully prepared :P

I was even closer to the truth than I expected.

[St. Spook]

I don't think that everything is a super complex metaphor in WotW. In my opinion, Ori fusing with Seir is just a metaphor for growing up, and the leaf shows that 'the cycle continues'. Nothing more, nothing less.

I do agree that Ori is a child, and 'growing up' / becoming an omniscient tree probably isn't how most would like to spend their childhood. It feels like Ori was robbed of those years they could've spent being with their family.

I also agree with these:

IHCfanfic a écrit :

Even if the new Spirit Tree is stated to be Ori, it does not feel like Ori is still there. This is due to several factors, including the "When my name was Ori" line, the bait-and-switch with making his voice identical to the Spirit Tree's, and IMO most importantly the fact that what they did just doesn't work with a silent protagonist. Ori has zero lines of dialogue aside from calling Ku's name, which means his characterization is based entirely on things like body language, which... a tree doesn't have. And Tree-Ori only speaks as a narrator, never speaking to another character. So there's... not really anything left of Ori's original characterization besides him drawing a family portrait the only way he now can. Even his light is for the most part Seir's yellow color instead of Ori's blue-white. Basically the writers were trying too hard on the "foreshadowing which you only notice in hindsight and suddenly seems really clever" aspect, but failed to do anything to emotionally convince the audience that the tree and Ori are still the same character. This combined with Ori's growth being a sacrificial death and rebirth leads to a very strong theme that growing up is the metaphorical death of the person you were as a child and the loss of your old identity, which is really, really dark.

IHCfanfic a écrit :

That also brings me back to the "Why did none of Niwen's spirits fuse with Seir when the willow was about to die?" question. There's two main answers I've seen suggested. One is "Spirits can't fuse with the same light as their parent tree," which, uhh, makes the metaphor even more uncomfortable, and the other is "Nobody wanted to, and this is probably Seir's fault," which makes the feeling that Ori was pressured into a decision he was too young to fully understand even stronger.

I don't think this was intentional, and it was almost certainly caused by attempting to re-use what was originally a scrapped ending for Blind Forest. Ori fusing with Sein would still be a little weird for some of the reasons I mentioned, but Sein is at the very least present for almost all of, and a much more major character in, Blind Forest, so the audience would at least have a chance to get attached to her.

[98misti]

Pixel Satori a écrit :

I don't think that everything is a super complex metaphor in WotW. In my opinion, Ori fusing with Seir is just a metaphor for growing up, and the leaf shows that 'the cycle continues'. Nothing more, nothing less.

I do agree that Ori is a child, and 'growing up' / becoming an omniscient tree probably isn't how most would like to spend their childhood. It feels like Ori was robbed of those years they could've spent being with their family.

I'm sorry, I forgot to explain I don't take my last comment, and the "Ori is Jesus" one, super seriously and as a 100% fact. My bad.

Those ones mostly came from my utter shock, because of how metaphorical the game is, and how questionable the delivery is, you can easily twist and misinterpret its meaning and WotW (somewhere) even encourages you to do that.

[St. Spook]

98misti a écrit :

Pixel Satori a écrit :

I don't think that everything is a super complex metaphor in WotW. In my opinion, Ori fusing with Seir is just a metaphor for growing up, and the leaf shows that 'the cycle continues'. Nothing more, nothing less.

I do agree that Ori is a child, and 'growing up' / becoming an omniscient tree probably isn't how most would like to spend their childhood. It feels like Ori was robbed of those years they could've spent being with their family.

I'm sorry, I forgot to explain I don't take my last comment, and the "Ori is Jesus" one, super seriously and as a 100% fact. My bad.

Ah. Sorry for taking that seriously.

98misti a écrit :

Those ones mostly came from my utter shock, because of how metaphorical the game is, and how questionable the delivery is, you can easily twist and misinterpret its meaning and WotW (somewhere) even encourages you to do that.

Idk if this is also unserious, but I partially agree.

[El_Verdugo]

Can someone explain where the ori becoming the tree was a scrapped ending from the first game came from? Was something the developers said?

[Spirit]

it was the planned original ending for blind forest but they ditched it for a more satisfying one