What even is the story?

[Special Thanks, You]

Played through the game twice and I still don't even have a vague understanding of how the world works or the plot of the game. What do y'all think?

[acaciasensei]

I need to finish the game in order to answer you because my pace is super slow as i tend to enjoy the story.
Basic from what i understood so far is that you are a force of nature and everything that has a beginning needs to end at some point to restart a new that's what is what i though but alongside during your journey you get to know just the details and appreciate the cycle of life? like something like this in the rough from what i managed to grasp.

[quintonhoffert]

Kind of. The world that GRIME takes place in is the dead body of a giant person. The other giant person from the opening scene breathes life into the dead giant in hopes of keeping the child within said dead giant alive, and that life-giving breath granted life to various beings inside the dead giant. Think of them, the various NPCs and enemies you encounter, as basically being cells within the dead body that, together, makes up the world. The dead giant's insides are made of rock and the NPCs and enemies are literally rocks dredged up from the dead flesh and given life.

Unfortunately, this life is invariably painful and wrong. Because the giant world person is already dead, the cells given life by the Breath are afflicted by the Old Pain: the deep, instinctual knowledge that they are dead cells unnaturally forced into life and that their whole existence is a violation of the natural order. This Old Pain is both mentally and physically agonizing and is always present in the denizens of GRIME, even in those who intentionally bury that pain beneath various things (art, imagination, religion, etc.). Probably the best way to think about the Old Pain is that it's like cancer: unchecked life to the point where it puts people through agonizing pain rather than sustaining them.

The core conflict between NPCs comes in the form of the disagreement between Shidra of the Worldpillar and the flesh-sculpted of Cenotaph City. Shidra believes that despite their unnatural forms and the everpresence of the Old Pain, continued life is the best possible path for the denizens of the dead giant. They see death as the ultimate end of everything and something to be staved off for as long as possible, ideally forever as the denizens of GRIME are immortal unless killed. The people of Cenotaph City, on the other hand, have seen visions of the death of their world in ancient times and the birth of the Spiral Heart protagonist, who will destroy the world the way its brethren did to the other stone giant people. The people of Cenotaph City understand that the Old Pain will never go away and can never be truly lost or forgotten and have instead come to worship death, and by extension the protagonist, as death is the ultimate end of existence and thus the end of the Old Pain. Instead they wish to enjoy their limited existence as much as they possibly can considering the agony of the Old Pain, and they admire the idea of "immortality" through the memories of the Spiral Heart. This is why they crafted the grand city and put on the Final Performance: in order to create an unforgettable experience for the Spiral Heart so that it will remember their greatness even when they are gone.

This conflict of ideals sets the stage for most of the various levels that we explore. In order to mask the Old Pain Shidra created various hierarchies for their followers to ascribe to in the (ultimately unsuccessful) hopes that the dedication to those ideals would bury the Old Pain. They created the Shapely religion, which suggests that the closer a being is to perfect proportions (i.e. a body like that of the dead giant within which they live), the less the Old Pain would afflict them. Shidra also sent the Whispering Mothers down to Lithic to gather the Stoneborn together to create a city and engage them in public works like art in the hopes that those sufficiently engaged would forget the Old Pain. Meanwhile, the flesh-sculpted in Cenotaph City saw these efforts and were disgusted by Shidra's attempt to prolong the life of the Stoneborn below, which they saw as a misguided effort that would do nothing but prolong the Old Pain. They cut off relations with Shidra and their cults and sealed themselves inside Cenotaph City, sculpting it into an architectural marvel so that it could be the most aesthetically pleasing to the Spiral Heart when it devoured the city.

It is at this point that the Spiral Heart, the protagonist, is born. The Spiral Heart is an infant black hole that grows by devouring the world, and the ending found by killing Shidra shows them completely devouring the world of GRIME and taking their place amongst their black hole kin. The Spiral Heart is essentially a lost child looking for its parents; the marker shown at the top-right of the map that you see when the cutscene plays at the start of the Unformed Desert is the head of the dead giant and the place where the Spiral Heart can reconnect with its parents. The Spiral Heart's quest puts them in contact with Shidra, who knows the Spiral Heart's destiny and knows the implacable, unstoppable nature of the Spiral Heart and is desperate to delay it as long as possible to preserve the world's life. They send the Spiral Heart on a quest to gather materials that Shidra knows can trap the Spiral Heart in a body of stone, thus suppressing its true nature and ensuring eternal life for all of the world's denizens. Meanwhile, the flesh-sculpted of Cenotaph City wait with baited breath for the arrival of the Spiral Heart, as its arrival will mean they can finally die and be freed from the Old Pain.

Before I continue to the endings, I should make it clear here that for all their intended benevolence Shidra is unable to stop the Old Pain. The Shapely religion they created to give Stoneborn a cause to dedicate themselves to is a sham. As Yon makes clear to you, even gaining a beautifully-proportioned body in the Carven Palace did not stop the affliction of the Old Pain. Likewise, the Stoneborn of Lithic are supposed to concentrate on making art and not thinking about the Old Pain, but it is still present within them and several NPCs in Lithic talk about feeling the Old Pain even though discussing it is forbidden. Shidra has good intentions and clearly sees themself as a hero but not even their best efforts can stop the Old Pain: only death can. The question, then, is which ideology you agree with. Is life worth living at all costs, even despite agonizing physical and mental pain that will never go away no matter how much you try not to think about it, or is agonizing immortal life a curse rather than a blessing and is death the natural conclusion to a life well-lived?

These are the two endings that you, the protagonist, can grant the people of GRIME. When you encounter Shidra at the top of the Worldpillar you can either accept their ritual or destroy it. If you accept the ritual then Shidra seals away your existence as a Spiral Heart and remakes you using Levolam, the indestructible flesh-like stone that birthed you into the world. You become another Stoneborn in the world, the First of Levolam, but are also afflicted with the Old Pain because you have had life Breathed into you, and because you are no longer the Spiral Heart the world of GRIME will continue on indefinitely, always living but never freed from the Old Pain. On the other hand, if you destroy the ritual and kill Shidra you ascend to the Peak of Creation, meet with your parents and devour the world. You attain your true form as an adult black hole and life within the world of GRIME comes to an end.

However, regardless of your personal ideals, the ending that involves killing Shidra is unquestionably the better ending for the Spiral Heart protagonist. One way or another the protagonist is immortal, whether as a Stoneborn or as a Spiral Heart. If you accept Shidra's ritual, however, you will be afflicted with the Old Pain forever, and possibly have a second source of that Pain as the ritual suppresses your true nature as a Spiral Heart and whatever kinship you feel towards your parents. Meanwhile, becoming an adult black hole allows you to finally reunite with your parents and assume your true, fully grown form. So in this regard, regardless of what you believe is the best ending for the world of GRIME and its people, the Kinship ending is unquestionably the best ending for the Spiral Heart protagonist.

[Special Thanks, You]

@quintonhoffert Wow that's fascinating. Thank you so much for explaining it all, but I do have some questions if you don't mind. Is the giant breathing life in the dead giant a blackhole kin, or are giants and blackhole kin separate? Do all giants inevitably birth a blackhole inside their body through whatever that rock based substance we saw getting crushed at the beginning? Is the child within that you said trying to be kept alive the plant in the garden (that would presumably birth another giant) or the spiral heart? Lastly, what does the speech in the Pale Sky even mean? Sorry if it seems like I'm asking too much, but you seem quite knowledgeable and I'm truly intrigued.

[Cruna]

It's a story about rocks. The End :)

[quintonhoffert]

Sorry I've been away from the thread for a while, I had work. I should also note that from here on out I am relying mostly on speculation and my understanding of the more obscure parts of the lore. I will freely admit that I don't really understand the lore in the Pale Sky, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

I don't believe that the giant breathing life into the dead giant is a black hole kin; rather, I think you're correct that all giants inevitably birth a black hole within their bodies that eventually grows to kill them, or at least to consume them. The Child in the Garden is presumably not the Spiral Heart, but rather the child of the two stone giants and a new (albeit unborn) member of their race. The Pale Sky dialogue is quite difficult to understand, even moreso for me since some of the text is Hebrew transliterated into English (the lead developers are Israeli I believe), and even though I'm of Jewish descent I don't understand a single word of Hebrew. That said, I do think the Pale Sky dialogue explains most of the backstory and I will expound on what I said above using said dialogue. I also found a very helpful post on Reddit which translates most of the Hebrew text, which I will link at the bottom.

The Pale Sky text is a dialogue between the dead giant and the other giant that breathed into it. They swam through the void of space to escape from their kin because Spiral Hearts were appearing within the oldest members of their group, ripping them apart and devouring them. They had a child together but one of them also had a Spiral Heart within them and was dying because of it. The text specifically says that their immortal existence is the cause of the appearance of the Spiral Hearts. Here is the full text copied from the Reddit post:

You are my ... hakol (everything) ... cosm(???) ... Vohuw ... breath ... neshima (breath)

Anakhnu (we) ... we must... swim away... livroakh (escape) ... escape

The primeval... zkenim (old ones) somthing inside.... ripping them apart

Hold me ... Vohuw... My heart... is koev (painfull)... heavy

At the least ... the end is tziv'oni (colorful)... beautiful

Vohuw... what should we... name the child... Vered (rose)... theirs will be as... colorful as a spiral..

Shelanu (ours)... our child... Vohuw... I can not... continue.

This spiral.. will be... my last... akhrona (last)

Shed (demon???)... swim with Vohuw... search for another... spiral... one without... a vengeful... Tehom (hole/abyss) ... at its center...

Mofia(appears)... it appears from... the most ancient of... us... first

Our eternal... existence... does it... gives it... passage... sha'ahr (gate)

Bilti nimnah (unavoidable) ... it is inside... We cannot... avoid it

Toda (thank you)... thank you... for staying... with me... to the... siyum(end)...

This text suggests that the Spiral Hearts are essentially the equivalent of the kind of degenerative diseases that become increasingly common as humans get older. The stone giants are immortal and are thus guaranteed to grow a Spiral Heart at some point, it's just a matter of time. The same Reddit thread also translates Levolam (the pink rocks we use as checkpoints) as "heart of the world," and the lore from the panel describing said surrogates says of them "A shard of the womb you once inhabited, it can be used as such again." Given this, I think it's clear that each stone giant will inevitably grow a Spiral Heart within their own Levolam heart stones, and those Spiral Hearts will inevitably kill their hosts by growing and devouring them from the inside out.

The giant in the opening cutscene is breathing into the dead giant in hopes of reviving the child within, since the child was born dead due to complications. The Breath successfully revived the child, at least in some regard (albeit clearly not fully as the Child does not appear to be growing normally), but its effects on the Spiral Heart are unknown. On the one hand it's possible that the Breath delayed the birth of the Spiral Heart by giving the dead stone false life, but since the Spiral Heart can absorb Breath and be healed by it as well it's also possible that the Breath helped the Spiral Heart be born as well. Unfortunately the lore just isn't clear on this point. Hopefully any further DLC, whether free or paid, will shed more light on the backstory of the Child, as it appears to be at least tangentially important to the background narrative but it just doesn't have much lore right now.

Either way, I think that for the most part the major lore is pretty concrete and nailed down but a lot of the background worldbuilding is still a bit up in the air. However, at least we have a good idea of how the Spiral Hearts and Stone Giants function in relation to each other. I personally hope that any sequel or side project to GRIME explores the body of a giant who hasn't yet died, as that would give us a much better idea of how the Spiral Hearts function. It may be that it is normal for them to only reach full maturity once their host giant is dead, or it may be that the Spiral Heart is meant to grow while the giant yet lives and end up killing its host. The Pale Sky text certainly implies the latter over the former but we don't know for sure since the game itself takes place long after the host giant has died. Either way, without more gameplay and story I think the lore we have ends here.

Here is the Reddit post I quoted. I quoted the whole post so there shouldn't be any new information in it, but it's important to quote your sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/GRIMEgame/comments/pa34kz/translation_of_hebrew_parts_in_end_game_major/

[Special Thanks, You]

It could be possible that spiral hearts grow like real black holes? As the giants age and their body (possibly their hearts) grow as well and get to such a size that the density of their levolam hearts collapse in on themselves, like we see in the beginning scene. This makes it more of a natural and scientific process rather than just a "disease" that every old giant seems to get. This is how a giant can be alive while forming a spiral heart. Hopefully I made sense with that. But there's always New Game+ that might shed some light on this

[quintonhoffert]

That would make a lot of sense and I bet you're correct. Hopefully NG+ goes into more detail but for now I will choose to accept your theory as the truth.

[PKPenguin]

Originally posted by quintonhoffert:

The giant in the opening cutscene is breathing into the dead giant in hopes of reviving the child within, since the child was born dead due to complications. The Breath successfully revived the child, at least in some regard (albeit clearly not fully as the Child does not appear to be growing normally), but its effects on the Spiral Heart are unknown. On the one hand it's possible that the Breath delayed the birth of the Spiral Heart by giving the dead stone false life, but since the Spiral Heart can absorb Breath and be healed by it as well it's also possible that the Breath helped the Spiral Heart be born as well. Unfortunately the lore just isn't clear on this point. Hopefully any further DLC, whether free or paid, will shed more light on the backstory of the Child, as it appears to be at least tangentially important to the background narrative but it just doesn't have much lore right now.

It has been a few months since I played through the game. I don't recall seeing "the child" and googling for it turns up nothing, is this something that was shown in-game that I am simply forgetting? Very interesting posts by the way, really well done

[Rubedo]

I just understood that Akhlan is אכלן(eater, maybe feaster).

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Originally posted by PKPenguin:

Originally posted by quintonhoffert:

The giant in the opening cutscene is breathing into the dead giant in hopes of reviving the child within, since the child was born dead due to complications. The Breath successfully revived the child, at least in some regard (albeit clearly not fully as the Child does not appear to be growing normally), but its effects on the Spiral Heart are unknown. On the one hand it's possible that the Breath delayed the birth of the Spiral Heart by giving the dead stone false life, but since the Spiral Heart can absorb Breath and be healed by it as well it's also possible that the Breath helped the Spiral Heart be born as well. Unfortunately the lore just isn't clear on this point. Hopefully any further DLC, whether free or paid, will shed more light on the backstory of the Child, as it appears to be at least tangentially important to the background narrative but it just doesn't have much lore right now.

It has been a few months since I played through the game. I don't recall seeing "the child" and googling for it turns up nothing, is this something that was shown in-game that I am simply forgetting? Very interesting posts by the way, really well done

Necroing the discussion, but.... yolo. :D

"The Child" is that weird, glowing flower in the lush garden-like area of the game, where the "Mothers" plant lady bosses are from. The child is basically a weird, misshapen flower-fetus that is Stillborn but on perpetual magic life support, healing/growing/being born so slowly that its unclear if it'll ever wake up. I assume it would, if most of/all of the life/breath in the world was taken away and given to it, but that would basically be its own apocalypse, no Black Hole space-parasite needed.

[Anahkiasen]

I saw this video yesterday which seems to match the explanations posted above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbNwAezy7Y&list=WL

One thing I don't see mentioned is the Yr, which were apparently the first civilization to arise inside the dead Parent, from the Breath that broke out of her Pale Sky if I understand, and that they were ultimately destroyed by the feasters and their Vulture. So the feasters and the Yr are older than the Stoneborn, which is why most of what is left of Yr are ruins. The Vulture and all of the feasters are basically results of the other parent's breath being "rejected" by the Parent's body and causing teratoma-like formations and mutations (everything purple), which angered them when they saw the Yr adopt the humanoid form of the Parents, which was everything they could not be.

Also the video explains that the Child, not understanding its purpose and being stuck in its growth in the womb/Childbed, is being consumed by an unsatiable want to "be" and is spreading its breath around, but because the Child's breath is a unique mix it blooms/mutates what it touches which leads to all the floral/plant creatures.

One thing though is you mention the Coda as using their doom cult to ignore the Old Pain but it's said in a dialogue IIRC that the Coda do not feel it as they are made entirely of the flesh of the Parent and as such live with her memories, and thus do not feel the "conflict".

[kalirion]

Originally posted by quintonhoffert:

The Spiral Heart is essentially a lost child looking for its parents;

Where are you getting this from? How does a black hole have parents? There was text about "kin", and the ending is "kinship", but that doesn't necessarily mean "parents". The SH talks to didn't recognize them either, other than as "kin".

Also, the "stone giants" seem to basically be people-shaped planets.

[Anahkiasen]

To me the spiral heart is looking for its kin in the sense that it can sense the other entities have succumbed to their spiral hearts and it's longing for reaching them. The same way the Kin (which I suspect is the black hole from the Other parent) can sense you as you reach closer to the head.

[strandd505]

Originally posted by Cruna:

It's a story about rocks. The End :)

[Dardobul]

something that might be interesting to know - "Spiral hearts" could be a reference to the supermassive black holes believed to be at the centre of spiral galaxies. This adds a neat dimension - I don't think the "stone giants" are made entirely of stone, instead they are more abstract. its just that stone is what is left last to be suffused with breath. The feasters certainly appeared to be more animalistic, and there is reference to a "skincrafter" on some of the items who had to become a "stonecrafter" eventually due to lack of material.