lore: ng+ last boss?

[gereforte]

who is it? and why is it there?

[kalirion]

The final boss remains the same. There's a new optional boss, which seem's to be the Child's nightmare of YOU.

[gereforte]

i'm talking about the dreamborn terror.
can't understand who is and why is inside the giant body imprisoned in that place.

[Slug Camargo]

Originally posted by gereforte:

i'm talking about the dreamborn terror.
can't understand who is and why is inside the giant body imprisoned in that place.

Precisely. The Dreamborn Terror would seem to be what the Child sees when they see the Vessel (the player character).

If you got the "Dream" achievement (from the Colors of Rot DLC), you should've seen a cutscene and dialogue where the Child seems to be excited because he can perceive the Vessel in a way they don't perceive anyone else; but then they realize the true nature of the Spiral Heart, which they seem to take as bad news. It stands to reason, then, that when we enter his dream in the NG+ cycle we're seeing ourselves as a terrifying apparition.


As a bit of background: We know from the dialogue bits at Pale Sky that the birth of the Spiral Heart was unexpected, and also that it resulted in the death of one of the Parents. Presumably, it would've also resulted in the Child becoming "dispersed" and unable to take form.

On another note, apparently, both the Child taking form and the Spiral Heart's very existence are threats to this world. The Child because, according to Godlhead, living beings of the world are actually "parasites infesting their (the Child's) remains". And the Spiral Heart is just a relentless destructive force, hellbent on absorbing the entire world in order to become one of those... gods? or whatever those celestial beings in the "Kinship" ending are.

So Shidra, as self-appointed protector of life, devised a plan to save the world, even if he knows it is bound to end sooner or later (according to his own words):

• First, he binds the scattered remains of the Child in such a way that they're stuck in a dreamlike limbo where they're barely even conscious of their own existence. Every now and then the Child's consciousness will try to bleed outside of the dream and into the world, possessing some creatures in an attempt to gain physical existence (resulting in apparitions like the Giant of Eyes and the Surrogate Vulture). Shidra appointed a few of his servants to keep tabs on this phenomenon.

• Second, he attempts to convince the Vessel to give up the Spiral Heart, spare the world, and ultimately join the living creatures inhabiting it, becoming a sort of new kind of Carven: the "Firstborn of Levolam" (as per the "Weakness" ending).


In short, we're playing the bad guy in the story: We killed a mother by hijacking her pregnancy, we're killing the saviour of the world by defeating Shidra, and we're terrorizing an unborn child while at it.

[kalirion]

Originally posted by Slug Camargo:

As a bit of background: We know from the dialogue bits at Pale Sky that the birth of the Spiral Heart was unexpected, and also that it resulted in the death of one of the Parents.

Hardly unexpected - all the World Parents somehow give rise to Spiral Hearts (i.e. black holes) within them and are killed by them. They don't know why, it just happens. I don't think this particular world was killed by Spiral Heart though - it was long dead even before the player character showed up.

[Slug Camargo]

Originally posted by kalirion:

Hardly unexpected - all the World Parents somehow give rise to Spiral Hearts (i.e. black holes) within them and are killed by them. They don't know why, it just happens.

Well, that's a point I keep going back and forth about.

On the one hand I tend to agree. It would seem like a natural step in the life of these beings, and one that they're unaware of until it just happens.

On the other hand, some of the dialogues make me think that there is something unusual about how events came about in this particular world. When I'm in the mood to support this theory, I'll refer to the fact that the "Kinship" ending shows 6 or 7 celestial bodies, and only 3 of them have a black hole in them (including us). So we're not unique but, as I said, we are somewhat unusual.

Originally posted by kalirion:

I don't think this particular world was killed by Spiral Heart though - it was long dead even before the player character showed up.

That might be right, but I like to believe that the writers created a whole new interpretation of what life and existence can mean.

The way I like to see it, all these half-formed, endlessly suffering and grieving poor bastards we keep coming across are in fact what "life" is like in this story. They all exist more or less by accident and, as Shidra implies, they're destined to be destroyed sooner rather than later, whenever the celestial being takes its true form (or wakes up, if you will).

[kalirion]

Originally posted by Slug Camargo:

The way I like to see it, all these half-formed, endlessly suffering and grieving poor bastards we keep coming across are in fact what "life" is like in this story. They all exist more or less by accident and, as Shidra implies, they're destined to be destroyed sooner rather than later, whenever the celestial being takes its true form (or wakes up, if you will).

I saw another interpretation: The world parent died while pregnant, and another world parent tried to perform CPR, sending the "Breath of life" into the world. This Breath kept the Child from dying but, but also happened to animate some of the rocky flesh into those endlessly suffering poor bastards.

[steeeeeeeeeevvee]

Anyone else see similar concepts with the black stone in the Kaaba?

[Gauss Kramer]

I think our void-head (protagonist) some sort of cancer, cuz all map its a body structure (nerve, stomach and so on), and we absorbing "cells" (enemies) of "live" mother