Thoughts on the Ending (Spoilers for; the entire game)

[ShroudedInLight]

Hey, just finished the game for real. Hell of a trip. Still a little torn up over it.

With that out of the way, as good and feelsy as the ending is...was anyone else kinda disappointed?

I feel like....whatever wish is sealing away color (because I assume one is) and the wish thats sealing away the Island...it feels weird to have those issues unresolved. I don't know if a sequel is planned, I missed something, or if those are just open ended parts of the game world that will never be resolved.

I want to clarify that I really do like this game and the ending was amazing...it just didn't go the way I was expecting it to there at the end. Like the King would have likely given up his quest to freeze Vaugaurd if you could have somehow said reminded them of their past, and the loss of color and knowledge feel too tied up to not be together some how. Obviously, even getting the king to give up peaceably wouldn't resolve the Time Loop because of what we learn in Act 5...but it feels like there's stones left unturned.

Oh well, Siff's free now. Thats all that matters really. I hope they get to the bottom of that someday.

[Sabaithal]

There were a few things that were implied, but are likely left kind of vague on purpose.

For example in the room only Siffrin can access there was an entry implying someone had a wish to have...another version of themselves. Well we find out at the end of the game that Loop is another version of Siffrin, so logically I can only assume that Siffrin was here (given that this was a room only accessible by those capable of reading the <unknown> language)... except Siffrin has never been to this country before, which cancels out this theory. So someone else capable of reading the old language? Well the only other person we know of would be the King.

So if that is the case, if the king wished for a reflection, who was it? Or is the king himself a reflection?

Then there's the island that disappeared. Nothing in the game really elaborates on what caused this. Its possible the king did this, though listening to his story this seems unlikely (given that his only want is to remember what the universe lost). It also might be possible that Siffrin did disappeared the island, given how both were capable of wishcraft, even if they did it unintentionally.

Siffrin recalls a past trauma involving croissants. Is it possible he made a wish, however innocent that ended up being a sort of "monkeys paw" and erased the island as a result? He wished to erase the memory, and so the universe erased everything connected to it.

As for the return of color... I don't know. We are given so little info on this one. What we do know is that there was color in the world at one point, and now there isn't, and no one knows why. They speculate that the people might have changed instead of the world, but as we saw this wasn't the case. The Red star has appeared three times in the game.
- Once when the king and Siffrin tried to remember the name of the island. A normal looking star became cracked, jagged, and violent red.
- Once in Act 6 after the loops began to reach a resolution (but NOT after the resolution). Other characters even acknowledged the color here.
- Once in the Act 6 fight against loop. Near the end Loops remaining eye has a red star inside of it, when they are recalling their own experiences.

All three times the red star is associated with an action of Siffrin/loop. Siffrin is referred to as the "bright one" and loop is bright and glowing. In the very first scene of the game Siffrin is seen swallowing a star (and they feel a tug on their stomach throughout the game, implying that star may have been their "wish" leading to the loops, which is also why siffrin was always so hungry, feeding the power for the loops to continue).

Memories, bad memories, result in the red star. This further reinforces my theory that Siffrin might be the reason why the nameless island vanished, and perhaps colors with it. Specifically the color red. Blood red. Because of a traumatic experience, such as a loss. Siffrin lost someone important, was left alone, and wished for "the memory to be erased" and everything related to the memory was...except him. That's my theory anyway.

[Jarp]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

For example in the room only Siffrin can access there was an entry implying someone had a wish to have...another version of themselves.
[…]
So if that is the case, if the king wished for a reflection, who was it? Or is the king himself a reflection?

Siffrin recalls a past trauma involving croissants. Is it possible he made a wish, however innocent that ended up being a sort of "monkeys paw" and erased the island as a result? He wished to erase the memory, and so the universe erased everything connected to it.

As for the return of color... I don't know. We are given so little info on this one. What we do know is that there was color in the world at one point, and now there isn't, and no one knows why. They speculate that the people might have changed instead of the world, but as we saw this wasn't the case. The Red star has appeared three times in the game.
- Once when the king and Siffrin tried to remember the name of the island. A normal looking star became cracked, jagged, and violent red.
- Once in Act 6 after the loops began to reach a resolution (but NOT after the resolution). Other characters even acknowledged the color here.

All three times the red star is associated with an action of Siffrin/loop. Siffrin is referred to as the "bright one" and loop is bright and glowing. In the very first scene of the game Siffrin is seen swallowing a star (and they feel a tug on their stomach throughout the game, implying that star may have been their "wish" leading to the loops, which is also why siffrin was always so hungry, feeding the power for the loops to continue).

Memories, bad memories, result in the red star. This further reinforces my theory that Siffrin might be the reason why the nameless island vanished, and perhaps colors with it. Specifically the color red. Blood red. Because of a traumatic experience, such as a loss. Siffrin lost someone important, was left alone, and wished for "the memory to be erased" and everything related to the memory was...except him. That's my theory anyway.

that’s actually some pretty neat theories, not gonna lie. The game DOES actually have some answers to some of those questions if you dig enough.

Though I think the game actually explains the Journal thing in some obscure flavor text in Act 5, if you manage to get into that room again during that act.
Apparently, the journal is very old, “far older than you are.” It’s apparently a cautionary tale Siffrin has heard as a child, though the moral is lost on them. It’s not actually related to any characters apparently, but it IS meant to hint towards Siffrin and Loop being one and the same, even if it isn’t talking about them directly. Honestly kinda confusing that it’s left in a hard to find location in act 5, but it does give some answers.

Oh, also, the past trauma involving croissants is actually pretty straightforward. It’s related to the Country, yeah, though it’s specifically tied to an event that apparently happened only some time before the loops began. It’s The Incident that you can learn about through interacting with the silver coin in act 3/4 enough times. It’s not that the croissant is related to wanting to forget, but it did end up as a representation of what he lost, as they got a croissant from a Boulanger who happened to come from the same country, and it definitely was traumatizing. It dug up reminders of what was forgotten. So, yeah, it’s not related to like, a wish, but it’s related to The Incident (a prerequisite for the Loop fight) that doesn’t go to say Siffrin COULDN’T have been responsible somehow, but the croissant trauma doesn’t have to do with that directly? At least not with my interpretation.

Oh, and then the star bit! At the start of the game when you see Siffrin eating the star, I’m like 99% sure that’s actually LOOP, giving up and eating the star that turned them into… well, Loop.

And then the color… there’s a lot of room for interpretation there, but there’s some color theory books you can read that gives a some context.
The color theory book conversations point to the color Red appearing during “times of immense trouble”, and that red appearing has reportedly happened several times in the past, apparently. Odile translates it as “moments before something ‘breaks’”. I think the color Red appearing is most directly tied to Wishes “breaking”, as all of the times it shows up is related to either the Country, or the wish to stay with the party, or even Loop’s own Wish for someone to help them.

Trying to say the Country’s name is actively going against the wish, and therefore it starts to “break”, based on what I understand. Same with Act 5, the Red on the horizon is because of Siffrin’s wish falling apart because of his attempts to go against it, and abandon it. Same with the other flashes of Red in act 5.

That’s all my interpretations, at least. Red shows up when wish craft is breaking, it seems. But I dunno.

[ShroudedInLight]

Originally posted by Just a random person i guess:

Discussion Stuff

Yeah, I think that you're right about the color red being tied to wishes ending. This makes me think that, perhaps, someone wished color away at some point. Or that in order for Wishcraft to work color had to be wished away? This is only a theory, but the only times we see color in the whole game are near wishes beginning or ending.

Which is why I'm also nearly certain that someone wished The Country away; and perhaps with enough people's will power that wish could be broken too. I was really hoping there were actual answers somewhere that I'd missed in the game but it seems like we're working off obscure flavor text and context clues at this point.

What kind of wish could have banished an entire country? Did the Country do it to itself? Some kind of civil war or schism within the religion? Was wishcraft deemed too powerful and so try tried to seal away the knowledge of it for good? But, that doesn't make all that much sense since you can still find books about Wishcraft that the universe doesn't unexist. Was it wished away by others and then the knowledge of Wishcraft buried?

I want more details than exist and its frustrating.

[Ryukan]

My theory is that its all Siff's fault. The fault of multiple Siffs running away from their issues, hating themselves, forgetting/erasing their issues and creating a personal Hell for themselves by accident.

The whole "world" that we see is a "make believe world" created by a hopelessly broken Siff who made an "ideal world" ruled by Siff own rules and perspective. A kind of "be carefull with what you wish for" sorta story.

An endless loop created by a distorted wish from an person in deep despair that endup backfiring, Siff creates a "world", becomes "the universe", creates another Siff and this Siff ends up broken and doing the same thing and creating another "world within an world", everything keeps repeating over and over in a universal scale rather than only that "2 day loop". Its a circle within a circle, a loop within a loop.

The "world" we see is the result of a "telephone game" inside the mind of a broken "God (Siff)", the nameless country is not allowed to exist because some Siff decided to forget everything about it due to some trauma, colours do not exist anymore because some Siff was so traumatized that the world lost all its colours on their eye, Vaugarde is in risk of being frozen because some Siff was afraid of forgetting their new home, and so on. Siff is stuck trying to create a "better world" for themselves but always making things worse and creating more and more problems. The House is some Siff own new house, but now our current Siff needs to save it because some other Siff erased their own country wich caused some other Siff to become a threat to their very own current home because they cant remember their own country. Siff is Siff worst enemy and a world class threat, Siff is the one who needs to be stopped, they are always the "last boss".

This story is not about all the loops/worlds, its only about the single loop/world that finally "killed" the eternal loop. Loop's suicide and final will, Loop could not allow a world where their friends no longer exist, a world where Siffs erased/forgets their friends to come into being.

Well, this is my theory and the conclusion i reached after messing around a thousand loops without ever fast fowarding and losing my darn mind somewhere in the stage. Whats real? Am i real? I dunno anymore... ITS ALL SIFF BLINDING FAULT!! CRAB IT ALL!! THEY GOT THEIR HAPPY ENDING AND LEFT ME ALL ALONE LIKE THISSS!!! BLINDING CRAB WHO CANT DEAL WITH ANYTHING PAINFUL WITHOUT FoRgEtTiNg IT ALL...
....
I forgot what i was saying... Oh well, its all fine, im fine, its fiiiinnee...

[Sabaithal]

Still confused about the star room specifically. It doesn't make sense that it was Siffrins room given that it is his first time in this country, and the owner apparently created/summoned "another self" successfully. Which that does sound like siffrin and loop, this predates those two ever meeting each other, and siffrin learning about wish magic to begin with.

The king is the only other obvious individual, given that he would be the only one able to open the door aside from siffrin. But the thread kind of dies there. Assuming that was his room... where and who is the doppleganger? The immediate thing I think of is "siffrin" but we've seen what the king looks like. They don't look similar at all.

[IC-313N]

the only true thing i actually felt disappointed about when it comes to the ending, was the way loop was done. i understand two hats exists ( iykyk ) but in the actual ending, loop just kind of . . . gets mentioned ? you can go back to the tree, of course, but then theyre just gone. im not exactly sure what id want in stead, because two hats does close loop's story well, but if you aren't aware of two hats, loop is just not acknowledged well enough in my opinion. after everything they've done for siffrin, you'd think their ending would be . . . well, more ? idk if this is just a personal thing, or if im being too harsh / picky, but i wanted to share my thoughts. other than that, i don't really mind a lot of the things being left vague and unanswered on purpose, i like theorising, so i just brew up my own little things.