Did I win or did I "win"? (Spoilers, obviously)

[Ryusui]

So I finished the game last night. Went for the "Eat the Tiger" ending where I defeated Eater-of-Names, destroyed the Answering Tiger, and saved the Caern.

EXCEEEEEEEPT...

Now that I've had time to think on it, I am concerned.

Endgame spoilers ahead:

Towards the back half of the game, you're told that the Answering Tiger is looking for weaknesses so he can trap you in his false worlds. The Stormcat makes it explicit that if you show the Answering Tiger who you really are, you're screwed. So, I avoided falling for his traps, and I made it as far as killing Eater-of-Names and demolishing his Caern-killing drill.

At which point Stormcat tells me that now the opposite is true, that if I want to vanquish the Answering Tiger once and for all, I need to use my true self like I did when I bound the Triple King. I went into the Umbra, found myself in the battle at Vermont Yankee, and after one more vague warning from Stormcat to the tune of "don't forget what I told you," and much agonizing over the choice, I did what the Stormcat told me the most recently and used my true self.

I'm sitting here on the opposite end of all that and I'm having this horrifying realization that perhaps I played myself. I'm wondering if perhaps it really was too easy, and that I ended up playing right into the Answering Tiger's claws in the end, and the ending I got was just a (largely) happy illusion. And I know that this is literally the nature of the beast - when you're messing with the Answering Tiger, you can't always be certain what's real! - but despite getting achievements, I am still left wondering.

So, to any fellow Tiger-eaters out there: did I do the right thing by listening to Stormcat's last bit of advice? Or was I already ankle-deep in illusion by that point, and I basically just put the gun to my head and shot myself because I thought one of my most trusted allies told me to?

[thiagocord]

Really wish i know, somehow on my next plays when i felt on tigers ilusion Knife eyes start calling someone called "Nathan" ( my last character ), i was really confused, there is a character on lore called "Nathan"? or their are implying my last save "Become part of the tiger" o_o.

[DamnMeAgain]

This is a spoiler for the Ride the Tiger ending, but I think it will play into what you are asking:

On the Ride the Tiger route you let the Tiger eat the Caern, but when it tries to rewrite reality, you use its own ability to basically overwrite the bad things that happened with a better future. Katherine's alternate future self is the catalyst for this, so that makes the whole thing suspicious, because she is quite literally a piece of the Tiger and admits as much.

The thing that relates to the Destroy the Tiger ending is that at first when in its new reality inside the Tiger, the protag is encouraged to not be their true self so the Tiger will create a false "pleasing" future which will not affect the protagonist, as they tricked the Tiger. But when Katherine breaks it down to it core, the moment she tried to free the Tiger during the Battle of Graves, Stormcat and Katherine tell protag to be herself again, to BIND the Tiger in its most vulnerable state. Just like the Triple King, a spirit defers to people who are in tune with themselves. The Tiger at its height of power feeds on truth and turns it into lie. But at its weakest it is just another spirit.

That is the idea anyway. So as you can see, the methods overlap. This either means that this is the true method to defeat the Tiger or it means that all endings except the one where you let Eater of Names win are perhaps the Tiger's lie.
I personally prefer to believe that Ride the Tiger worked. It was not an easy win, even if it resulted in universally positive outcomes. It didn't even achieve what Katherine thought it would. As Stormcat said: This is something entirely new and most wondrous.

[jmvbento]

If you want to be metagame-y about it, Rides the Tiger is the largest-point ending.

[Stoner's pot palace]

Considering the rules of the ending reflect everything you know about spirits i personally think we actually won but i would be interested to see if you tried Ride the Tiger with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stats/failed if it was really any different.

If you bound the the King spirit you know that once you weaken a spirit it is made vulnerable to the usual methods.......its just we had to reverse the script for the Tiger to weaken it in the first place