I Hate All the Endings!

[Yvilinn]

I Hate All the Endings!
I recently completed my first playthrough of the game. I was very adamant to avoid spoilers and wanted my first playthrough to be my genuine choices. I felt like I had solid reasons for some of the decisions I made in the story. I was disappointed to see these decisions never really go anywhere or achieve anything. While I believe this game to be a masterpiece, I can’t help but feel like something was sorely lacking in the overall experience. The endings, especially, felt extremely unsatisfying.

Before I go into the reasons as to why I hated all the endings, I'd like to talk in depth about my experiences with this game and other similar stories.

My Interaction with Dragons in Other Stories
My two notable experiences with stories that involve dragons were the film Dragonheart and the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. For those who prefer not to be spoiled: Both these stories feature humans befriending dragons, and their decision to do so alters the fate of many.

Dragonheart goes like this:
The dragon hunter knight attempts to hunt a dragon who bests him. As he lies on his back, defeated and awaiting execution, the dragon decides instead to spare him. The knight, who does what he does because of a very traumatic past experience with a dragon, instead befriends the same dragon who (unbeknownst to him) caused him the said traumatic experience. They then proceed to have all sorts of adventures like conning villagers and robbing them of their money, saving each other’s lives against an evil king, and curing each other’s boredom.

These two friends find meaning in each other, and the dragon eventually sacrifices himself for the knight. There’s this moment with the dragon ascending to the heavens and becoming a constellation to shine down upon his friend to give him the message that he is not truly gone.
There’s also the How to Train Your Dragon franchise who features a boy who befriends dragons despite his dragon hunter cultural background. His decision to befriend dragons instead of destroying them alters his nation’s fate and saves them from a terrible disaster; and makes life all the more enjoyable for everyone, human and dragon alike.

My Interaction with Dragons in Golden Treasure: the Great Green
In Golden Treasure: The Great Green, the first no-tails we meet hunt our birther-creator. My first reaction to this was one of acceptable: We were, after all, just told that destruction was one of the two great laws that cannot be violated. The no-tails were simply obeying one of the Great Laws of being and they possibly perceived the larger, stronger creature to be a threat to them. Darktooth later confirms this line of thought by telling us that our birther-creator’s hatred for the no-tails was great. It’s safe to assume that she caused much harm to their community.

We then meet the children playing by the river. On my first, genuine playthrough I befriended the child; it was obvious to me that the loner child would be the easiest to approach among the other children and I chose to communicate with him as I figured that it would be natural for a hatchling to be equally curious and hungry. The child then saved my life by distracting the adults. It was a heartwarming moment to realize later in the story that the child had grown up and had never forgotten me. It was noteworthy to find out that he was a shaman, a spiritual leader, among the no-tails. Oh, I thought, this has promise; someone who could potentially influence change among the no-tails who also happens to have great admiration and unquestionable love for a draak-kin.

Our next encounter with the no-tails is the child we can choose to save from a great slideclaw in the second act. I lost one of my lives trying to save him, as I thought it would be a massive gesture of good faith with the no-tails and possibly a game changer for when the time came to interact with the no-tails more frequently. The child never made an appearance again (which was disappointing).

Act three is the act where we interact most with the no-tails. One notable encounter is meeting Wears-Many-Skins (as I named him), who attacks us in our sleep with poisoned weapons. He then lures us into three very precisely set traps. He was by far the deadliest boss in the game, I lost one of my lives here as I failed the check to dodge his rock avalanche trap and I didn’t have enough hp for the following boss fight.

What’s interesting is that he was alone. This hunter has to be a high ranking member among the no-tails; a legend who fearlessly and skillfully takes on the mighty Spiritkeeper. You realize, after defeating him, that you merely broke his body, not his spirit as he stares at you with a piecing gaze as he lies defeated on the ground awaiting execution (sounds familiar?).

You are given the option to spare him. When I saw that the option to spare him was present, I was certain that this was the exact scene from Dragonheart playing out in the game. I couldn’t choose this option in my first playthrough, as I didn’t have any way of healing him. I was devastated, and I even felt like starting over as I was sure that I wasn’t going to get a good ending. I could see Wears-Many-Skins being BFFs with Vantage as the two have a burning passion for crafting traps. I imagined seeing them sharing a campfire on a starry night, sharing hunting stories. My core told me that he had to survive if I were to ever have a chance of befriending the no-tails.

There are also several encounters with the no-tails in part three where we get to learn more about their culture. Most of these interactions are positive and encouraging. The hut that we can explore if we get past the clansingers has our character hilariously interact with a drum that seems to mesmerize our silly lizard. Despite being aware of the danger of the no-tails approaching, our character keeps hitting the drum out of sheer, pure amusement; even promising themselves, “okay, one last time, then I have to go.” I couldn’t help but giggle at this whole scene; it was full of pure joy. What’s more, the no-tails who see us escape the hut fail to attack because they are described as being “stunned by our beauty.”

In one encounter we stumble upon a battlefield where no-tails of different groups are engaged in battle. Even though it may have been better for a draak-kin to just watch the fighting and let them slaughter each other (as that would mean less no-tails around to hunt us), I chose to fight with the local no-tails against the invaders in my first playthrough. I didn’t loot the battlefield afterwards. The idea here was to improve my chances of establishing a dialogue with them and to show them that I might actually be an ally to them as opposed to a monster that hunts and eats them - if they chose to pursue that possibility. This ended up being one of the many threads that didn't tie into anything.

In another encounter we stumble upon a ritual site that our character is very impressed with. “How did they move those heavy stones?” our character curiously asks. The scene then proceeds with the no-tails sacrificing an animal to their gods in accordance with their belief system. Our character finds this very strange, noting that the smoke won’t reach far - knowing this from experience. I could imagine Darktooth interacting with them, as we are given a lecture about religion in the Great Lesson; this whole scene seems to complement Darktooth’s area of expertise. Furthermore, I couldn’t help but entertain the possibility of the artist possibly being restored as a spiritual leader here; he was (or still is) a shaman after all.

In another encounter we get to enter the great hall of the no-tails and experience their cultural expression of themselves. Our character is absolutely stunned with the existence of such expressions and is immediately compelled to name them art. Our character observes that the no-tails are strange, but not necessarily evil. They have their own ambitions, desires, fears, and loves.

What’s more interesting than all this is the fact that there are aliens in the Golden Treasure universe. We are told that an aggressive alien species brought ruin to the draak-kin in the past. One would assume that they are the immediate threat to the draak-kin. We also learn frustratingly little about them in all three acts. One would assume that the draak-kin would be infinitely more interested in identifying this very real threat to them. And one would naturally observe that if a united assault against them in the past didn’t work, the draak-kin as they are now – greatly reduced in number – would stand no chance against them in the future. On my first playthrough I thought that the no-tails made natural allies against such a terrifying threat; as alien species wreaking havoc would cause harm to be visited upon them as well.

So, to conclude all this, our silly lizard is endlessly fascinated with the no-tails. They are proven over and over to be a source of great inspiration and amusement. In turn, the no-tails are hostile towards the draak-kin simply because they do not understand them and they see dangerous beasts when they look at them. The no-tails who interacted with us on a more personal level (the Artist, Wears-Many-Skins) learned to appreciate us as creatures who have depth.

Now, let's move onto the endings and why I hated them:

The Destruction Ending:
M-T-B’s ending has you commit a genocidal campaign against the no-tails. Aside from the obvious problems one might have with this ending, I believe that it would be fair to judge this ending from the perspective of our character. As I laid out under the previous title, our character has mountains of positive interactions with the no-tails. Going Hitler on everyone despite all of our inspiring and encouraging experiences with the no-tails feels like the ultimate betrayal of self.

The Escape Ending:
I confess I didn’t see this ending yet, but what’s being suggested is to construct some sort of spaceship to escape to a different planet that supports life for the draak-kin and to start over.
A) Space travelling doesn’t sound like something the draak-kin would have experience with. They'd have to rely on alien technology, which I believe is reckless and unwise.
B) What happens when the others appear on this new planet, or the no-tails? Do we travel the galaxy?
This ending feels like we’re putting a band aid on a gushing wound; it’s a temporary solution at best and a betrayal of kin at its worst.

The Suicide Ending:
When Allmommy started her speech by saying “The no-tails can be redeemed” I thought “Yeah! Here we go! This is the good ending.” But then things started to get real weird, real fast, with her explaining her intention to commit ritual suicide. Aside from the obvious reason why this would be very concerning, it just feels like a random choice disconnected from reality. This conclusion makes crazy leaps in logic; such as the inherent assumption that no-tails can’t be reasoned with. She wants to become a no-tail just for the opportunity of being able to speak to them. We can, however, already speak to them just fine. And by this point in the story I had bonded very strongly with them. I strongly disagree with the idea that only way to educate the no-tails about why it's bad to disrupt the ecosystem of the land is to kill ourselves - it feels like the ultimate drastic action for seemingly little to no gain.

The Dreaming Door Ending:
This is Draco’s Ending in Dragonheart. He died and became a constellation (The Stars Are Her Scales), shining forevermore onto the world as a being of elevated consciousness who brings forth a light of eternal hope for his friends. Except, he didn’t commit suicide to achieve this ending; he chose to sacrifice himself to save his friend the knight from the evil king.
I have a problem with this ending because it feels highly spiritual and religious; advocating a belief system that I ultimately don’t subscribe to. I felt like I was being spoon-fed this idea that I had to die in order to appreciate life, which felt very strange to me. I had come to appreciate many things in life as a draak-kin.

For example: My wholesome friendship with the artist, Darktooth’s awkward but assured parenting, sniffing for mushrooms with the tusksnorts and forging a friendship with them. (This was especially my favorite scene; just imagine the scene of a dragon sniffing the ground, butt in the air, with the pigs in a contest to find the most mushrooms. They’re having a grand time because a dragon is failing at doing something they are famous for. But they give you the best mushroom in the end so you don’t feel bad. That’s a memory they’ll never forget! It’s such a silly, yet satisfyingly wholesome scene; I was grinning of joy by the end.)

I loathed this ending because it ignored something very real: I loved being a dragon. I loved all the adventures I had been through. I loved all the bonds I had forged. I had a satisfying life and I already felt complete. Draco sacrificed himself to preserve what he had because it was beautiful. We are being asked to do the exact opposite. This ending wants us to commit suicide to achieve transcendence by sacrificing everything that gave us meaning. It feels impractical (being blind to the truth) at best and a betrayal of life at worst. I feel like the Spirit of the Green would miserably fail Darktooth’s trial of wisdom in act two, pushing transcendence on us when we really have no reason to desire it - it is disconnected from reality.

Further Thoughts…
A) Why is the grey future so bad? I believe that technology is what makes the human species unique and fascinating. What’s more is that humans don’t ultimately desire to destroy life - for they ARE life.

I have the imagination to see a future where the humans and draak-kin can mutually coexist. The game acknowledges that both species find each other fascinating, but fears to explore that concept further. Why should they be enemies? They do have a common enemy in the form of the others, after all.

B) How can M-T-B order our execution with ease when we have a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION in our possession? I speak of the artifact, antimatter. It has the power to instantly end an encounter by killing your opponent. It kills you instead, if you play with it.

I have a problem with this artifact because its existence feels like a betrayal of the Chekhov’s gun principle in writing: "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." Being able to use this artifact to bail us out of certain death and absolutely owning the most badass dragon in the process would’ve been such an incredibly epic scene. I was genuinely surprised to see that this was not presented as an option; this is THE one scene where this artifact would’ve come in real handy. This is the uno-reverse card to M-T-B:

M-T-B: You will not obey? Okay then, you will die.
Spiritkeeper: NO U :)

C) M-T-B is very strange. He sleeps in lava and keeps very questionable company. His right-hand good?beast Never-Ever the darksweet has incomprehensible power. He is one of the deadliest bosses in the game and faces off against our dragon character with ease.

I honestly didn’t think M-T-B was a real dragon in my first playthrough. I thought he was an other being because everything I knew of him felt… off. I’m still not sure if he is a real dragon. I don’t understand the whole enkindling business he has with his followers.

D) I am over thinking all this a bit, aren’t I? I find this game to be very inspiring. I'm curious to hear what you guys have to say about all this.

[Hybrid]

It is a daunting task to try responding to such a large post. However, it's in my nature to be thorough, so I will try to respond to as much as possible. I ask for respect regarding the amount of time I've spent writing this.

Roughly responding from top to bottom in each severity category:

Agreed:
1. It is my belief that the three main endings are designed to be imperfect and bittersweet -- the product of three Elders who are devoted to their own philosophies and unwilling to brook and compromise. To suggest that the endings are worthy of hate is a bit strong, however. Endings are not required to be perfect in order to be appreciable.

2. Agreed it would be nice to have every possible path and possibility accounted for. But let's keep in mind this is an indie game created by a very small team. Time and resources are not infinite.

Big disagreement:
3. Ludwig based a lot of this on dragons as a mix of wild animals and mythological figures, not on media of the past 2 or 3 decades. Last December during Green Gaming Fest, I name-dropped DragonHeart and Ludwig said he had never (at the time) even seen it before. To use DragonHeart and HTTYD as a basis for dragon behavior or story here is an error, because Ludwig sure didn't.

4. HTTYD is on so much of a smaller scale, dealing only with Berk and the local dragons who harass them because the big one is demanding tribute from them. Hiccup, through an enormous amount of effort, is able to solve the root problem (by killing the big one demanding tribute) to make peace between the local dragons and Berk. The problem in Golden Treasure is planet-wide and involves intelligent dragons steeped in tradition. Even if the Spiritkeeper could make peace with one village (and while you can't become BFFs, you can at least have non-aggression with each other; they only send the hunter and dragonslayers if you bother them), what other Draak or humans would care about one Draak making peace with one village?

5. The artist is not a shaman or spiritual leader. By all evidence, he's a lifetime loner, first not playing with the other children, and then living in the middle of nowhere with only a cat and bird for companionship. He is never seen doing anything that a shaman might do (aside from making healing poultices, I suppose), and he never leads anyone. He could even be an outcast and pariah because everyone thinks he's a weirdo.

6. The aliens who caused the Skyfall are the same ones who placed the humans on Earth. Though that was many years before the Spiritkeeper's time, it's more likely that the humans remember the aliens from their mythology as gods to be placated rather than as a threat. They're making a sacrifice to something at that altar scene. How could the Draak ever form an alliance with the humans against the humans' own gods (who fought the Draak and set a commandment of "Oh, by the way, if you see any Draak left over, be good lads and kill them, okay?") without some extreme duplicity on the Draak-Kin's part?

7. The Spiritkeeper and Artist are both one-in-a-million personalities. There was only one Leonardo da Vinci. There was only one Albert Einstein.

8. Regarding the Survival ending, either the Spiritkeeper has been embracing traditional dragon behavior this whole time (so there's no betrayal of self), or must cave into MTB's ultimatum of "Join me or die." Darktooth makes it clear that the Spiritkeeper is too young to be taken seriously on suggesting new ideas, and if you qualified for the Wisdom or Compassion endings then Darktooth and Allmother will express their disappointment quite firmly if you go Survival at the last minute.

9. Regarding the Wisdom ending, don't let perfect be enemy of good. It's Darktooth who has been studying space travel; if we can't trust the wisest Draak on Earth, then who can we trust? Also, it's not meant to be a perfect solution. It's a roll of the dice, a chance to survive instead of staying in a situation that Darktooth believes is 100% chance of death. There's no guarantee of anything. In fact, from what little preview we've seen of Hierophant (the Wisdom sequel), life is not exactly fine on the new planet. Life doesn't come with guarantees.

10. Regarding the Compassion ending, I will address just two items.
* "Inherent assumption that the no-tails can't be reasoned with" -- they can't. The Spiritkeeper can speak with one Artist who already liked dragons and didn't need convincing, and can gain the respect of one hunter as a worthy opponent. Literally no-one else wants to have a rational conversation. The dragonslayers can speak with you, but it's only to gloat.
* "The only way to educate the no-tails about why it's bad to disrupt the ecosystem of the land is to kill ourselves" -- That is not Allmother's premise. It's much closer to "We are dragons in soul and have capacity for rebirth, so doesn't matter what happens to our bodies or what we look like on the outside as long as we keep our goal (Earth's survival) in mind."

11. Regarding the Dreaming Door ending:
* The Spiritkeeper doesn't die or commit suicide in this ending.
* If you loved being a dragon and loved the adventures and found that life satisfying, then there's an opportunity to agree with Ego. But you can't have it both ways.
* The Spirit of the Green does not push transcendence on you. In fact, it tries to steer you away to the degree that you have to ask twice for a fourth option before it finally relents and warns that you will "lose everything".

Moderate disagreement:
12. Saving the child from the slideclaws would not help any relations because a terrified child's testimony would not be very convincing. Assuming the child can coherently remember anything about the experience, a claim of "I was saved by a Draak" is not going to hold too much weight when the humans have only known nothing but trouble from Draak-Kin.

13. Regarding Wears-Many-Skins, there is little reason to believe that any hunter is high-ranking or skilled in leadership. Hunting and leading are two different skillsets. In fact, hunters are often portrayed as loners, more comfortable in the wilderness than around crowds. His respect from being defeated is on a personal level, from one hunter to another. If healed and allowed to go home, I always imagined him as saying little about what actually happened, maybe just a few words to make them stop bothering the Spiritkeeper, out of respect for the Spiritkeeper's honor.

14. Helping the local No-Tails in the fight reduces your threat level with them (the measure for when they send the hunter or dragonslayers after you), but one dragon appearing on a chaotic battlefield does not friends make. There's no guarantee that they can even tell the Spiritkeeper apart from any other Draak.

15. The great hall filled with artwork is real nice until you bump into Warden's head mounted on the wall and remember they're real fond of killing Draak on sight.

16. The Grey Future is bad for the Draak-Kin and any Goodbeasts who fall victim to habitat loss.

17. Using the Antimatter on MTB would have no guarantee of success (who's to say it has no defense against it?) or else would be likely to take out Darktooth and Allmother as well, who are standing right next to MTB, and possibly any number of other Draak nearby. We're also bound by options that the Spiritkeeper can think of, not every option we can think of.

18. MTB is an Onyx Kin, who (short version) were created by the Ruiner-Empress for the sole purpose of being warriors during the Skyfall. They perceive the world in a very different way that Rift (also an Onyx) explains a little bit of when you meet it.

19. Enkindling is explained by the Salamanders in part 1 and Darktooth in part 2. Basically it's an ability for Draak to enhance the longevity and abilities of other Goodbeasts, at risk of making them a bit insane/eccentric (the school instructors, for example).

Nitpicks:
20. Draco didn't sacrifice himself to save Bowen. He sacrificed himself to undo his error of giving half his heart to Einon, whom he knew in advance was evil and didn't deserve such generosity.

21. The constellation Draco was already there, so Draco (the dragon) did not "become a constellation". I would accept him becoming a star in it, or becoming part of the constellation. It was a little unclear specifically what happened there.

22. The two Laws of being a Destroyer and Creator are for Draak-Kin, not everyone. While it's likely that other carnivores have similar Laws, that's not absolutely known.

23. Emerald Flame's hatred of No-Tails was "immoderate", not "great". I prefer Darktooth's exact wording.

24. Never-Ever is a Baretail (rat), not a Darksweet (dormouse).

[Yvilinn]

My original post went over 2500 words, which is comparable to the required word count for university final essays. I wrote as much as I did because I had hoped *you* would respond. Also, I was certain that if you responded, you would be thorough (you didn't disappoint). It is clear to me that you are very passionate about this game and I found the prospect of a lore discussion with someone as passionate to be intriguing. So my respect for you is a given.

1. I agree - this game isn't worthy of hate. The opposite actually, as I wouldn't engage with a story intimately if I hated it. To hate such a well crafted game would be unfair to the overall experience. English is a second language to me; I used the word "hate" poorly. I guess I simply didn't want a bittersweet ending; I wanted a happy ending.

2. Every possible path and possibility isn't accounted for in this game. There are so many threads that don't ultimately tie into the proceeding events. I suppose I got too invested and let my imagination run wild. This is again, a testament to the skill and dedication of the small team that created this game.

3. I see. I suppose I assumed that outside media must have influenced some aspects of the story as some of the imagery present in the game seemed suspiciously familiar to me, such as the line "The Stars are her Scales." I imagined a connection that ultimately wasn't there. Or it could be that I liked the movie too much and it influenced my interpretation more than I realized.

4. Draak-kin in the lore are the children of the Earth and the Sun and are presented to be the ultimate life form (at least from their perspective). They are proud creatures and most of them would rather break their opponent rather than be bent to their will. Compromise doesn't seem to be in their nature. Darktooth himself explained in one scene that were draak-kin to cooperate rather than compete the land would be consumed; so they aren't social creatures simply out of necessity. And the road to coexistence is, of course, the most difficult path to walk in such a setting. The problem is planet-wide. It involves characters on both sides who are proud and stubborn. And it is reasonable to note that draak-kin have a divided society where every individual is a nation by themselves; so, one draak-kin's peace may not mean much to others.

A path being difficult, however, doesn't mean it shouldn't be walked. Though, it is fair to say that a reasonable individual wouldn't blindly walk a path. I imagined that the game presented me with a solid amount of pieces to a puzzle to solve this problem. We have a high shaman on our side (I double checked, will link the screenshot later in the post). It doesn't take much for Wears-Many-Skins to attack us; the encounter can trigger without killing anyone. It triggered for me after I drove the lumberjacks out of my forest through intimidation. That means it wouldn't be too outrageous for him to side with us after the encounter (if we heal him). I don't think it would be too far fetched to assume that he is a respected (and possibly steering) part of his community; an exceptionally skilled hunter would be very valuable to a society that is vulnerable to being preyed on. There's that whole battle scene where you can side with the no-tails. Furthermore, we are specifically asked if we want to loot the battlefield. I imagined that the purpose of this choice was to have us choose between reputation and wealth (just one of those threads that didn't tie into anything, or so I thought). There are several other scenes like these, which seemed like pieces of a puzzle to me. Furthermore, a grand gathering of dragons seemed like the perfect setting to overcome to solitary nature of draak-kin and get them to collectively agree to a pact; it felt like the perfect frame for this puzzle (which turned out not to exist).

5. A god without followers is not a God. Similarly, a shaman without followers would be a hermit rather than a shaman. In all medium where I've encountered a shaman, they would be presented as leaders surrounded by their followers. I didn't know them to be lone characters. This was especially so in history. I'm Turkish, and my ancestors used be a shamanistic society (before they converted to Islam). They would worship numerous "Tengri." Among these Tengri, or "living objects," Gök Tengri was the greatest. Gök Tengri was the "Blue God," as the sky is blue. So the word shaman strongly stood out for me due to cultural background.

The artist doesn't seem to be a character of weak will. When introducing himself, he confidently says that he is strong of spirit. He then explains that he is a "very high" shaman (screenshot). So I suppose the questions to ask here is what a shaman means in the setting of this game. Are shamans loners? Are you still a shaman if you are cast out? Was he cast out or is he on some sort of pilgrimage? There was simple so little to work with to answer these questions: So I filled in the blanks with my own interpretation of the word shaman. I'm curious if doing this was an error on my part, as I'm honestly not sure.

The relevant screenshot: https://freeimage.host/i/wVBI8x

6. This is a very good point, and I confess I didn't put much thought into what the no-tails' relationship with their Gods (the Others) might be. It is depressing to think that they would very much choose to stay loyal to their creators rather than coexist with the draak-kin, who they perceive to be beasts. We do get a glimpse into their belief system through the artist, however, and what we hear from him is neutral. He mentions that the no-tails were told that their purpose of being was to tend to the land and to "destroy chaos." This leads to me to think that their belief system is fundamentally good but open to interpretation. Similar to how real life religions command "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (except people who aren't us, then you can kill them as you like). The artist says that some no-tails are good who have a positive interpretation of their religion and some are bad; giving us a 50/50 split. It all depends on whether they perceive the draak-kin as forces serving chaos; I believe that the draak-kin represent order as opposed to chaos. Darktooth specifically attributes the solitary nature of the draak-kin to be tailored towards preserving the balance of the ecosystem. Balance sure does sound like order to me.

Or maybe I'm just biased and I'm playing the devil's advocate here. *Shrugs*

The relevant screenshot:
https://freeimage.host/i/shaman2.wVCszN

Disclaimer: My purpose in commenting on religion was not to offend any party or parties. I am merely a being who seeks understanding. Forgive my blunders if there are any (that I obviously failed to perceive).

7. The Spiritkeeper and the Artist are one in a million personalities indeed. So, a one in a million outcome for such difficult problems are warranted (my happy ending).

Furthermore, it doesn't take an exceptional individual to bring forth great change - just enough intellectually honest, good spirited people. The artist's 50/50 split seems promising enough for an optimistic mind.

8. The survival ending makes sense for the appropriate minded draak-kin; fully agreed. My dissatisfaction was due to none of the endings giving me closure for the way I played my character. My interpretation of the destruction ending was through the point of view of my draak-kin who chose an unorthodox path.

9. Pretty much same as my answer to the survival ending; well argued. The ending makes sense from Darktooth's perspective who believes the draak-kin to be doomed. My dissatisfaction with this ending was the great uncertainty it came with, even should the journey succeed. I never was a person to take leaps of faith; I'm a cautious person. I suppose this made me biased towards this ending.

"What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, circa 1800.

Napoleon didn't like leaps of faith either, it seems. He thought that the concept of a steamboat was nonsense as opposed to the future of naval warfare. Was he a fool or a realist? Food for thought.

Note: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" I love that quote. Might use it in the future, haha. Also, I didn't know there was a sequel planned for this game. Thanks for letting me know, that's wonderful news!

10. The artist's language is broken, as I don't expect he had much opportunity to practice his signs with a draak-kin. The Spiritkeeper may well be the only draak-kin he's known. I'd say it's impressive that his signs are comprehensible given how little exposure he's had to the draak-kin (presumably). The dragon slayers are another matter entirely. They can speak the signs perfectly because they've probably slain many draak-kin - which I thought was clever story telling.

It is fair to note that rational argument sounds like something that would be strongly out of character for the average draak-kin. My dissatisfaction is due to the fact we never got to try. We never tried to speak to any no-tails. The story so readily and eagerly subscribes to the idea that no one cares for dialogue. That's what I fundamentally have a problem with, the treads that would've led to you engaging in meaningful dialogue are never tied. Especially after so many encounters that promise otherwise.

Though I suppose this can be attributed to the fact that this is an indie game and exploring such possibilities was simply out of scope for development - for the sake of completing the project with limited resources.

11. I confess I don't I understand this ending well enough to comment on it further. I'd like to replay this ending with a bit of save scumming to see the extra text before commenting further. I may have over-fixated on the fact that we use the true song of destruction on ourselves (which kills us, right?). Will update.

12. Valid points. That situation can go either way. The child may or may not remember us. The no-tails may or may not believe us.

13. Wears-Many-Skins successfully hunted Flare on his own. He engages us in battle on his own. As I remember him, he was one of the harder bosses in the game. I imagined that a greatly skilled hunter would be invaluable to a society that is vulnerable to being preyed upon. So I comfortably made the assumption that he had to be a respected (and possibly a steering) member of his community. Whether if I was too indulgent in making this assumption is for you to judge.

I also thought that this scene was similar to the way Bowen and Draco met. Though that's been proven to be irrelevant with your mentioning of the fact that Ludwig never saw the movie. I may have read too much into this whole situation and made connections that never existed.

14. Similarly to #12, that situation can go either way. The no-tails may or may not be able to distinguish us from other draak-kin. They may or may not interpret this as a sign of good-will. I was mainly confused with the option afterwards to either loot the battlefield or leave it untouched. I wasn't sure what the game was judging here. Whether if I was too indulgent with my interpretation is again, for you to judge.

15. Draak-kin have killed no-tails in the past, so the killing on sight part seems to be the mutual way the two species often treat each other. I imagined that my character wouldn't be as disturbed with the image of Warden's head being mounted on a wall; our birther-creator was hunted moments after we had hatched, which is worse. I saw this scene as a reminder of my resolve - this is precisely the kind of behavior I am trying to stop by striving to achieve coexistence. I took Warden's head with me to send that message: A non-sentient, apathetic creature would've ignored the head; that's not what the draak-kin should be.

16. The Draak-kin are sentient. With sentience comes endless possibilities. The gray future might not be so bad for a sentient species (though it is certainly disastrous for those who are not).

17. I don't think that trying to use the antimatter to survive M-T-B's execution is too outlandish an idea for the Spiritkeeper to reach on their own. As always, yours to judge.

18. I see. I didn't know this lore. I'm still exploring this amazing game.

19. I see. I've been playing this game for about a week now. I've missed so much in my previous playthroughs. Thanks for the clarification.

20. I agree that Draco sacrificed himself to undo his mistake. I disagree with the notion that this was his only reason for doing so.

21. I've seen enough stars in that film sequence to justify my initial error of associating it with the "The Stars are her Scales" quote from this game. The imagery was just too darn similar.

22. We eat beef and chicken. The concept isn't too outlandish to apply to the no-tails. Though this is a mere opinion of course, as always, yours to judge.

23. Immoderate. Thank you. Would you believe that I tried to think of the exact word Darktooth used for half an hour before I gave up and wrote great instead?

24. I still haven't unlocked my beast masteries. I looked at the blackened imagine of the goodbeast and thought: "Hmm, yeah, this looks like Never-Ever. Let's see, it says he's a darksweet, ok, cool."

Hah :)

Maybe I should've just said that he was a rat, but using the game names are just infinitely more satisfying and engaging. Call me crazy :P

Further Thoughts: Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. This is such great stuff. I greatly enjoyed reading about your interpretation.

[Hybrid]

You're welcome.

Regarding a few selected items:

5. I concede that he calls himself a Shaman, but I think he means that he communes with and is respectful to Earth and Earth's creatures. It does not mean he holds any level of respect with other humans.

6 & 7. Although I do understand your perspective, there are a few things to keep in mind. Draak and humans are much alike in this story. Both see themselves as Order and the opponents as Chaos. And even though we know Draak aren't all bad, and the Artist says humans aren't all bad either, there's too much tradition and bad blood on both sides to think about making peace. It's unfortunate, but it's also realistic.

9. I can't take credit for the idiom: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/do+not+let+perfect+be+the+enemy+of+good

11. We're using the True Song of Destruction on "Ego"; the concept of individuality itself. It's meant to be taken as symbolic. I have a full analysis of the ending as a Steam Guide that might help; I think I got it mostly right.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1973420055
15. Unfortunately, I think they end up interpreting that as theft of their trophy.

17. It's not, strictly speaking, outlandish. But we can't second-guess what the Spiritkeeper does or doesn't come up with as a valid idea at a given moment. There are always bad ideas that seemed good at the time, or things that, in retrospect, should have been obvious. That happens to everyone.

20. I was kind of summarizing a 1.5 hour movie into a single sentence. Allow me to rephrase, that Draco's strongest reason for sacrificing himself was because he straight-up indicated that giving half his heart to Einon, who turned out to be irredeemably evil in his adulthood, made Draco afraid that he'd be barred from Dragon Heaven for enabling that evil instead of letting young Einon die from his accidental injury. Draco tried to get Bowen to kill Draco (and therefore kill Einon) during a quiet moment, to Bowen's refusal. So yeah, for dramatic purposes the film waits until Einon was charging at Bowen with a knife, but Draco had wanted this well in advance and Bowen kept refusing to participate in suicide-by-cop. There was never a goal to save Bowen, although it all did help to give Bowen some closure regarding his mentor/student relationship with Einon.

22. I'm just saying that Laws are personal to a species, even if they happen to match sometimes. Like, Clansingers probably have a Law to respect the clan, and Tusksnorts probably have a Law to hunt for truffles.

And one thing I missed -- I really loved the "stunned by your beauty" line as well. I had considered commissioning a comic based on that like I did for all the other silly scenarios, but never went through with it. I really need to try that.

[Naggarock the graveship]

What a chunk of thoughts . Dam i didn't regret of reading this and wasted 1.5 hour's .
Hybrid , all i can say you literally "Destroyed" him . =D
I could've say something too in addition to your conversation , but...
Silence sometimes sharper than any blade .
Using a "%A&^" against MTB is a suicide , not only for you , but for all The Moot . Making Draak-Kin obviously doomed .
Perfection , can chase , cannot catch .

[Yvilinn]

He's very knowledgeable about the game indeed!

Is your time wasted if you do not do not regret it?

I don't think it's possible to literally destroy someone through the use of a chat box (unless you learn their address and ship them a bomb - or something).

He did, however, make some good points if that's what you mean. Which was kind of the point of this venture. Trade ideas, learn, grow.

Oh I'd blast M-T-B to pieces to ensure my continued existence. Furthermore; as mighty as M-T-B is, to assert that the survival of a race is tied to a single individual is very pessimistic indeed. I'd think of it as "more of a challenge than before" as opposed to impossible. Life is after all, ever evolving, ever reaching; it would be boring and stale without a challenge!

[Yvilinn]

Have you ever heard of the bee paradox?

“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. It’s wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.”

Food for thought!

PS: I'd love to hear about your thoughts about the endings!

[Hybrid]

I just strive to know everything about all dragons everywhere.

[Naggarock the graveship]

And yet we know nothing...

[cavy]

One minor remark to add to this old discussion- we save the child by frightening it away from the paths that lead away from other No-Tails searching for it. We don’t walk up and say, ‘this way kid, follow me home’. We terrify it into going a safer direction. If that kid remembers us after rescue, it's as the demon it fled from, that got interrupted by the Slideclaw, after which rescue could penetrate the woods and find it safely.

Because that's how brains work. No-Tails dim memory of Draak and periodic experience with them is as 'strange beings who alternate between indifferent and ought-right enemies of men.' The last Draak in this forest preyed on humans until they brought it to Silence on the day that we hatched. Our Draak may know why we did what we did, and that we steered the child home. The No-Tails were not witnesses, and cannot know that truth. Were we the sheepdog in their eyes, or are we the wolf?

FYI, there are no friendly mountain spirits in known mythology. Mountains were where people died in a thousand terrible ways, and the stories and spirit-ideas reflected that. I'm less sure about the forest tales, but the child that ran away or was otherwise led astray in the woods, and frightened back to safety again fits one of those- it spared you- this time. Don't test it again.

A non-sentient, apathetic creature would not have taken it. And a sentient that can be treated with would not come past the guards , in the dead of night, into the heart of their home, and take the highest trophy for it's own.

IN the spirit of Curiosity, has anyone here read.... hmm... Beowulf? because that's pretty close to how Grendel came in the night on the sleeping warriors in the king's great hall, and killed them.
The idea of taking something in peaceful protest is rather foreign to the mesoptamian valley and forest of the Spirit-keeper's day; it is an idea born of the luxury to think in such a way.
It was not wholly unknown in human history, but neither would it have been apparent to anyone within the confines of the narrative the text displays, either the Spirit-keeper or the No-Tails, whose trophy was taken.
The Spirit-Keeper's motive, as opposed to ours, is that the preserving of a creature's flesh is a sin against Great Void, to believe Void unworthy of receiving the flesh. The No-Tails wake up and find that something very large came invisibly past their defenses, trespassed in their sanctum, and stole away with the mark of their victory over the monster that had claimed these woods in their parents day.
And they don't know how it came in, or what it will do when it it comes back.

...I guess that got longer than I planned.

Regarding the endings, I too was somewhat dissatisfied with some of ho they were presented. Mostly that I didn't feel like i'd earned them. I'd done all this nosing into everything I could, and found out so many things, but no matter what i did, the outline for my choices never changed.
I didn't mind the endings themselves, so much as how-well, i already said it- the exploring i'd done only prepared me to pick one of the routes, not to participate in the argument preceding. All my learning was simply so that I; who lived near a heart of the Green, could cast my vote with full knowledge. Nothing more. It works okay, but it felt a bit unearned the first time.

[Yvilinn]

Both are valid, well argued points.

The recollections of a traumatized child who had to run from monsters through an imposing forest are likely to persuade the no-tails of the danger the draak-kin posed to their kin. Similarly, a draak-kin demonstrating the ability to infiltrate the no-tail great hall would be a cause of grave concern. It would most certainly give them the message that something drastic may be required to ensure the safety of their kin.

But I would like to suggest that some no-tails would see a pattern emerge here. Lions kill the cubs of their rivals and eat them. Bears kill the cubs of the mothers to mate with them. (Barring humans) Animals, to my knowledge, simply do not have the hardware required to go beyond eating and mating - to put it bluntly. It is pointless to reason with them because when they look at you, they see food; it would be like talking to a wall, except in this case the wall maims you. But this isn't what happened with this particular animal, is it? Imagine a kid, lost and afraid, crying and quivering, *somehow* making it through a bewildering forest *despite* being chased by a dragon and lion at the same freaking time. That is one hell of a sequence of events, should we accept that the kid isn't the reincarnation of Superman. Was this outcome a coincidence; just some freak event? Then the same animal removes the head of a fallen comrade from the great hall - what purpose does this serve the animal? Is it going to eat it? Does the grim reminder of a hunt that found its mark stir something in the animal: Sorrow, a sense of responsibility, or maybe base greed? "Hey guys, call me crazy but, we might be able to actually talk to this thing, see what it wants."

Now add to this all of our other interactions with them. We have shaman friend whose status in society is unknown to us (can he help us). We can side with the local no-tails in battle (hey, this thing can keep us safe from rival tribes; what if we had a draak-kin on our side and they didn’t). We can explore the no-tail hut without killing the clansingers (why did it not kill our pets). We can take objects that would be worthless to an animal (why did the draak-kin take our drums - does it understand music) We can scare away the lumberjacks rather than eat them; granted a hostile beast roaring at you is a great cause for concern, but had we attacked they wouldn't have survived (why didn't it attack). Our whole trade interaction with the delvers (hey, this thing does math). I always wondered how the logistics of that worked: Trading without ever getting to see each other. Do we perch up on the top of their mine entrance and reach down with a claw while telling them to not look (lol)?

We first hear of the no-tails from Darktooth at the very start of the game. He calls them the "broken custodians.” We can immediately tell that Darktooth is not at all ignorant about these creatures, which then raises the question: What has his interactions with them been like? We never get to explore. We find out that he had extensive dealings with the delvers in the past. He certainly has no trouble identifying the delver artifacts we present to him. Darktooth is in a unique position because he is an elder dragon. He can force conversation with the no-tails should he desire it, I doubt any fool would dare to fight him.

To conclude this line of thought: These are all very liberal interpretations. I believe that an overwhelming majority of people living today would just see a threat, terminate the threat, sip some tea and call it a day. You'd have to be Mahatma Gandhi to look at these events, care enough to see a positive trend, and be motivated enough to seek a peaceful ending. I'm dissatisfied because of the fact that we never got to try. Had we tried and failed, I'd have absolutely loved the ending. Even a bad ending would've been fine. My dissatisfaction is rooted in the fact that I made all these interpretations in my first playthrough that were ultimately pointless to the story.

Regarding the endings, none of the four endings gave me closure:

The survival ending. Genocide. We kill them before they can kill us. But now, we have the threat of the others paying us a visit in the future and we know how that turned out last time. Our kind remains doomed despite the bloodbath. We didn't achieve victory. What's worse is that an open minded draak-kin's adventures would be a waste in this outcome; we learned about the no-tails only to kill them - it was all for nothing.

The escape ending. We swallow our pride and relocate. Fine. But in this outcome we never confronted the problem, we ran from it. We postponed it to a time when a new sentient species will have risen to challenge us. This isn't an ending, it's a cliffhanger.

The suicide ending. We become Jesus and save humanity from itself. I'd rather not kill myself and sacrifice all that I was, I am, and will be. It's too drastic, too strange an ending that takes away my pride of being.

The final ending, well, I have a confession to make; I didn't play through this ending yet. I'm missing two of the tarot cards required to unlock it. I struggled with the ant colony mission, kept dying at the fruit part where we have to fight a bigger insect. I have, however, seen the ending on YouTube through a let's play video. What I've seen there is our character surrendering to the will of this ascended being. This instantly reminded me of Kreia from Star Wars: The Knights Old Republic 2.

(KOTOR 2 is often credited as being one of the best RPGs ever made, and Kreia is often credited as being one of the best written characters ever in a video game.) This is what she would've said to this ending:

“Because I hate the Force [The Spirit of the Green]. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost.”

I felt like I was being forced to subscribe to a belief system that I ultimately didn't believe in. Granted, we aren't forced to do anything - but if we don't accept this ending then we have to sit through the other three, thus my use of the word. I'll eventually get to reading Hybrid's interpretation of the final ending in the post that he made, it's in my to do list.

PS: I looked at Hybrid's owned games and discovered this amazing game called Wildermyth through his list. Been chewing through that lately. Hybrid has good taste in games :p

I hadn't heard of Beowulf before. Maybe I should've, given how it is such an important piece of old English literature (thanks Google). Guess I'll watch a film adaptation of it, seems like a fun thing to do for today :p

[Hybrid]

Without repeating myself too much here, I would like to address a few of these points.

Regarding saving the kid and then stealing Warden's head back -- these two events happen 30+ years apart (estimate based on how the future Artist is ~10 years old in part 1 and is of advanced age in part 3). It's a huge leap of logic for any of the humans to connect the two, much less conclude it's the exact same Draak who did both. This is while they probably have trade or visitors from other places where Draak sightings or battles are probably the #1 news item.

Regarding Darktooth's interactions with humans -- Darktooth has been alive for millennia, so he's probably had all sorts of interactions. I think he's probably been able to single out open-minded individuals like the Artist and question them. And by the same token, he's been able to see this is an incredibly rare viewpoint among humans. 99.9% of them are broken custodians who forgot their purpose. 0.1% of them, rare souls like the Artist, can explain the situation, but they can't change it.

Regarding trading with the Delvers -- This is a real thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_trade

Regarding the survival ending -- The Others who left the humans/delvers/enforcers on Earth have been gone for an extremely long time, and the prevailing thought by the Draak is that if they were going to come back, they'd have done so by now. While the ending is hardly perfect, I believe it's overly pessimistic to say the Draak are doomed.

Regarding the final/secret ending -- I know you said you haven't read my previous answer yet. But factually, you're not surrendering any will to any ascended being and the Spirit of the Green initially tries to steer you away from this path until you insist otherwise. Whether you like the ending or not, you can't say that the Spirit of the Green is forcing the Spiritkeeper to do something, when it's the Spiritkeeper who first begs the Spirit of the Green to reveal this option in the first place. If you don't agree with what it says, that's fine. But the "ending" truly starts by badgering the Spirit of the Green about it, and you are given every possible opportunity to stop.

And while I may have good taste in games, it unfortunately means that I'm extremely picky and end up actually playing/enjoying very few. :(

[Nex]

using antimater aganist MTB would be a suecide. If we kill one of the most respected draak before hundreds, we are not making it out alive. There is also not zero chance of him(?) surviving: I mean come on, he activates a volcano with mere presence, can transform you into unstopable force without any effort, merely talking to him for 20 secounds boosts your reputation, and enkidled baretail into most fearsome enemy in the game. But even if you killed him without anybody complaining, what then? I mean it would be really funny and clever, but still. (sorry for bad english {also I know I am late [also this is very creative idea]})

[Naggarock the graveship]

Originally posted by Nex:

using antimater aganist MTB would be a suecide. If we kill one of the most respected draak before hundreds, we are not making it out alive. There is also not zero chance of him(?) surviving: I mean come on, he activates a volcano with mere presence, can transform you into unstopable force without any effort, merely talking to him for 20 secounds boosts your reputation, and enkidled baretail into most fearsome enemy in the game. But even if you killed him without anybody complaining, what then? I mean it would be really funny and clever, but still. (sorry for bad english {also I know I am late [also this is very creative idea]})

Как я и говорил ранее это не просто суицид , это геноцид будет с учётом того на что способна антиматерия , мы аннигилируем всё собрание драаков и все окружающее пространство в радиусе хрен знает сколько километров. Островок просто испарится и против такого никакая сила пустоты не спасет Прожжённого.

[Vitlöksbjörn]

I just thought I'd pitch in: the way I see it, the "suicide" ending (I don't like this name, this isn't what it is) is the TRUE ending in the sense that in our reality that is what happened.

The implication is that there are people who have dragons in their hearts. People who, perhaps, would be drawn to playing this game, or in some other way wish to reconnect with their past selves.

They are the DRAAK-KIN. We are the DRAAK-KIN. We were the DRAAK-KIN.

That is the Onesong of our reality.

[Naggarock the graveship]

ehh layers...