Could someone explain the story to me? [SPOILER of course]

[Skree]

i did not play the first game very far, and ij ust finished this one with the "cowardy" chapter.

I am not sure i get the story. I am the source of the end of the world? but now i guide the heroes? but in the end they still fight me? or who?

I have many "allegory" feelings about the game story, but perhaps i simply rolled the dumb dice and didn't understand it.

Would someone be so kind as to explain the sory of these two games to me? or is it intended that it is "not clear"?

Thank you really, i want to be sure i am not missing something.

[snuggleform]

I am the Darkest Dungeon.

[Ignosius]

The way I interpreted it, you sacrificed your professor, became a god, and it destroyed the world. The only thing left of the world is your own memories of it.

You have the power to restore the world by reconstructing it with your memories, but doing so would kill you. You regret what you've done and want to fix everything, but you're too much of a coward to sacrifice yourself.

After that, things get kind of hazy. My guess is that the professor, the narrator, still has some power inside your mindscape, since he was one of the people who was sacrificed to create the iron crown. He guides the heroes, who are themselves memories in your mind, to fight against your inner demons and force you to confront your own failures. That's why every act is a different "confession", with the final one being to accept your cowardice.

Once you've overcome your cowardice, you accept death and the world is reborn.

[Skree]

Originally posted by Ignosius:

The way I interpreted it, you sacrificed your professor, became a god, and it destroyed the world. The only thing left of the world is your own memories of it.

You have the power to restore the world by reconstructing it with your memories, but doing so would kill you. You regret what you've done and want to fix everything, but you're too much of a coward to sacrifice yourself.

After that, things get kind of hazy. My guess is that the professor, the narrator, still has some power inside your mindscape, since he was one of the people who was sacrificed to create the iron crown. He guides the heroes, who are themselves memories in your mind, to fight against your inner demons and force you to confront your own failures. That's why every act is a different "confession", with the final one being to accept your cowardice.

Once you've overcome your cowardice, you accept death and the world is reborn.

It was more or less my interpretation... but this seems so far removed from the first dak dungeons story. Perhaps my mistake was thinking they were tied.

[snuggleform]

I wasn't joking in my previous comment. I think the meta allegory is that we are all the Darkest Dungeon. That's basically what the last sentence the narrator says in the ending scene.

[Skree]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I wasn't joking in my previous comment. I think the meta allegory is that we are all the Darkest Dungeon. That's basically what the last sentence the narrator says in the ending scene.

LIke in "the darkest dungeon of our minds"?

[Ignosius]

Originally posted by Skree:

It was more or less my interpretation... but this seems so far removed from the first dak dungeons story. Perhaps my mistake was thinking they were tied.

As far as I can tell, there is no connection to the first game whatsoever. Someone who is more familiar with the lore of the first game is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: Plotwise, at least. They take place in the same world.

[Null Winter]

Originally posted by Skree:

It was more or less my interpretation... but this seems so far removed from the first dak dungeons story. Perhaps my mistake was thinking they were tied.

Comments from the Academic (this game's narrator) confirm that the events from the first game are canon and have some influence on this game's backstory; he and your character previously visited the Ancestor (first game's narrator and villain) while researching the Iron Crown, and he also mentions that the Swinefolk were first seen in an isolated hamlet (location from the first game).

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Skree:

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I wasn't joking in my previous comment. I think the meta allegory is that we are all the Darkest Dungeon. That's basically what the last sentence the narrator says in the ending scene.

LIke in "the darkest dungeon of our minds"?

In the ending it talks about how there is good and bad in everyone. The bad is what he calls the Darkest Dungeon.

My interpretation of the first game was the mad professor wrote a letter to you calling you home to inherit some decaying estate but when you got there you found out he had gone mad because he had found some occult secrets and he was investing resources and human lives into digging up an evil deep within the earth. You sent heroes to investigate but they only wound up awakening the Heart.

This second story seems to change or illuminate more details - it wasn't really the professor's idea to do that, it was you all along and you coerced him into helping.

For me the most confusing part was what does the professor mean that things were out of balance, but now the cosmos is in balance once you beat the boss, I don't understand that.

[Ignosius]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

My interpretation of the first game was the mad professor wrote a letter to you calling you home to inherit some decaying estate but when you got there you found out he had gone mad because he had found some occult secrets and he was investing resources and human lives into digging up an evil deep within the earth. You sent heroes to investigate but they only wound up awakening the Heart.

This second story seems to change or illuminate more details - it wasn't really the professor's idea to do that, it was you all along and you coerced him into helping.

I believe the professor in 2 and the Ancestor in 1 are two different people.

Originally posted by snuggleform:

For me the most confusing part was what does the professor mean that things were out of balance, but now the cosmos is in balance once you beat the boss, I don't understand that.

You became a god and broke the world. I imagine that's what the cosmos being out of balance is referring to. Beating the boss means you die, which removes you from the cosmic equation and brings everything back into balance.

[fistleaf]

It's like Darth Vader, sacrifice yourself to bring balance to the force.

[Magni]

The Academic and the Ancestor are definitely two different people. As are the Heir and the new main character.

The Ancestor sent a letter to the PC and Academic after their research was lost when the university library burned down, and fanned the PCs obsession, eventually causing them to go full cultist, sacrifice the Academic and become a vessel for the Iron Crown. At that point the apocalypse started, and the mind of the PC essentially fled to the Valley to wallow in Denial. And then the Academic's ghost followed him and gave him a good kick in the ass to shake him out of it and make him go start fixing this mess the two of them caused.

Tl;dr: The Ancestor ruined everything and caused an apocalypse. Again. What a jerk.

[The Face]

Originally posted by Magni:

Tl;dr: The Ancestor ruined everything and caused an apocalypse. Again. What a jerk.

Old man ruins everything, part 2: Electric Boogaloo

[fistleaf]

Maybe the Ancestor was also trying the ritual to become a god, but he failed when he woke Heart of Darkness instead. The protege succeded.

[PECK]

I'll be interested to see what others have speculated and will speculate about here, but my take is this:

In short, your character (I’m just going to start calling them the “Student”) was the cause of the end of the world that was already occurring by the time of the first game (Darkest Dungeon 1) as a result of their actions. So, as you said, you (the Student) are the cause of the end of the world, I would think.

As to the heroes you’re “guiding”, or the “you” they fight by the final Confession, I think of this whole game as essentially the Student coming to terms with their feelings about what they had done (essentially).

I tend to think of it as analogous to the story of Pandora’s Box. The Student’s academic pursuits allowed them to unlock eldritch knowledge and secrets that essentially made them into a god-like entity, imprinting themselves on the fabric of reality. However, in doing, they also unleashed all their negative sentiment and evil unto the world.

I think of this game as the last in the box, Hope, that “you” are essentially playing, getting the Student to the end where they come to terms with their self-loathing at what they had wrought.

As to how it relates to the first game. My assumption is that the Ancestor from the first game is completely unrelated to the story of this one. I tend towards thinking that the Ancestor was probably active a little after the Student completed the ritual, but before the whole world goes to ♥♥♥♥. So that by the time he begins to waste all his Estate’s resources on the excavation, what he discovered at the bottom was the Heart of the Student, now enmeshed in this reality (which to me is how I gel with how a few of the confession bosses are body parts, the brain, the lungs, the eyes… too many eyes though).

…. But that’s just a theory… A game theory! Thanks for reading.