Ending discussion (SPOILERS)

[АРТЕМ ШЕВЧЕНКО]

So what your thoughts on the ending? I was following it till the last minute, when Senua met her dark twin or smth. I got some thoughts on what happened there but want to hear yours, any ideas? (btw, what a beautiful game, actually breathtaking)

[The Jester]

Okay, so:

- When Askja erupted and all the cataclysms happened (e.g., lava flows, storms, and the lack of sunlight causing colder, harsher weather), Thorgestr's father convinced others that the giants were to blame.

- When Illtauga is first spotted and Thorgestr allegedly throws a spear at her, it is not real. A few seconds later, Thorgestr is seen holding this very spear in his hands. Fargrimir mentioned that Illtauga only hunts at night. This is connected with the gravitational pull of the moon at night, considering Iceland is a volcanic island.

- The second giant, representing storms and the absence of sunlight, is directly connected to volcanic activity, such as clouds of dust and tectonic movements.

- The third giant, represented by Thorgestr's father, is associated with harsh weather resulting from the lack of sunlight, which is why the sacrifices were claimed by this giant. It was simply due to frostbite.

- When Senua searches for the hidden folk, she enters a cave (before draining the lake). The entire chapter where she is in the cave is happening in her mind while she is lying unconscious. During the cave chapter, she wakes up next to a torch she didn't have earlier(in reality). When she enters the final cave where Ingunn's baby is, she doesn't have the torch again, and there is no tunnel she crawled through moments ago. The crawling through the tunnel with light symbolized her regaining consciousness. When you look up in the hidden folk cave, there is an entrance she fell through, causing her to lose consciousness.

- The chapter about the second giant is close to realistic, meaning it wasn’t just in her head to such an extent. However, as the giant crawls out of the water and rests on the rocks, it turns into rocks just before the attack starts. Why were the others attacking rocks, or what exactly happened that others were dying? Did the rock formation fall due to the storm? Were they believing in Senua's ability to see beyond the veil? Most likely.

- The third giant is the easiest to interpret.

Now, I don't quite understand what happened in the forest, but I will be playing it again soon to decipher it.

Yeah, so that was that.

During the whole story, she was learning that Thorgestr was different from his father, and that she was different from her father. Both their fathers were poisoning them, hence the darkness mark on Thorgestr's hand.
But the past is the part of her she can't get rid off or ignore and that it is dictating her future.
But she can choose what future she will follow.

Besides that, I also question what exactly happened when she struck Illtauga with her sword. Was it lava or a rock in reality? Or what really occurred that made Thorgestr's alleged spear stop Illtauga from claiming Senua's life? How did she defeat Illtauga in real life? Was it just a coincidence that the volcanic eruptions stopped when she arrived in Iceland? Perhaps.

I guess there are many things like this that can't be fully explained and were used for artistic vision. However, I believe there is something more behind it. The developers must have thought of real events to inspire what Senua could see. This is how psychosis works: it's not just seeing things out of thin air but a projection of the mind onto reality, akin to an overactive imagination.

I don't know what else to add; I am on the toilet right now.

[Demystificator]

Originally posted by The Jester:

Now, I don't quite understand what happened in the forest, but I will be playing it again soon to decipher it.

Depends on what forest you're speaking. Draugr ritual is real. You can even see some altar in the village before meeting them.

If you speak about the forest where people get lost. Its either Senua get in psychosis and get back to them by her own instead of them dragging her back like Dillion did in HB1.
Or, they could get lost for real and the forest would wake some PTSD to them and as Senua knows how it feels, she brings them to reality. All of them speak about hearing or seeing weird things in that forest.

Originally posted by The Jester:

Besides that, I also question what exactly happened when she struck Illtauga with her sword. Was it lava or a rock in reality? Or what really occurred that made Thorgestr's alleged spear stop Illtauga from claiming Senua's life? How did she defeat Illtauga in real life? Was it just a coincidence that the volcanic eruptions stopped when she arrived in Iceland? Perhaps.

Before Illtauga wakes, there's an explosion clouding Senua vision. Imo its the clue that from that point, everything is in her mind. An other clue to that is, at the end of the race, just before Illtauga springs, you can see floating wood in the air.

I think its something special to Saga ; you can see the psychosis rising little by little, especially with Senua's stress.

It wouldn't be the first time Senua wields her sword against something that doesn't exist in the objective reality.

[IsaacG]

Originally posted by Dam Stark:

Well that just makes it uninteresting to me. If the game is about a shaman who happens to have psychosis and uses it to help people, even helping the giants who all appear to be suffering then I find that more compelling than the alternative because a person who is hallucinating on that scale isn't really able to survive or take care of themselves.

They like leaving it "ambiguous" but I think they overplayed their hand on this one to the point where if at least some of the giants aren't real then this is pure bait and switch and yes like I said it's not unreliable narrator it's pretentious bait and switch narrative design.

Imagine some guy is telling you the Saga of a mythical character and you are invested in the story and then at the end he goes "But you see, all of this was probably all in the hero's head and it was all about trauma and mental illness" I'd spit in his face. If he wants to make a compelling story about somebody suffering from mental illness I would completely drop the "ambiguity" which becomes only a plot device to hook people into the story.

You'd hate Shutter Island then lol

[21Savage]

Originally posted by Krainz337:

Originally posted by BiskutMentega:

I think the ending is ass. I am in the middle of bashing someone in the face for all the lives he sacrificed, full with adrenaline and rage and then somehow in the heat of the moment, I got an idea that I shouldn't kill him because I don't believe in fate, destiny and all that nonsense and I actually have a choice.

The giants? Forget about it. Let the credit roll. Who wants to see giant slaying anyway.

That's what I understand for the ending. Would love to read some other explanation, especially from those who praises this game as masterpiece.

There were no giants

Uh I’m pretty sure you missed it, not sure how, but Alister was thee giant in question, he even said it himself when he says “I give him blood and he gives me power!” And the hidden folk even tell you that he is the giant when walking into final battle with him! That one went way over your head man! Just talking 💩 but no this is the way I viewed it. Even though he was not (really) a giant, physically I guess you could say, but it’s also strange how you battle this last giant unlike the last ones, besides given the second to last one you do actually fight this one a little also to get him to his resting spot. But I sum it up to alisters need for power which is why the heavy need for battle compared to other giant battles. Either way I hope you all enjoyed the game as much as I did, I also agree on the ending being ass although I understand the sentiment and meaning behind it, just cucked us is how I feel about it.

[speds👃]

Ending hit harder than HB1's. These game's stories sh*t on other story games so hard

[Lestrad]

The only thing I haven't worked out yet is if Senua is supposed to be getting worse (mentally), or better.

[Bedil_Juling]

This is what I get from the story... I maybe wrong but since I'm kinda of introvert guy who have tendency to drown my self in my own thoughts , I think I understand what the story is all about. (or at least I thought I do "hahah" )

This story is about how Senua's mind trying to fight and replace the mindset that her father planted in her mind all her lifetime of how she is cursed and how she will bring death to people around her into something that she can bare with and life with. Her human survival instinct trying to make things easier for her so she doesn't need to drown herself in depression and sorrow all the time that will end up destroying herself.

To help her fight and replace her father's mindset in her, she created this story as a reason to help empowering herself to fight and deny his father's perception of her that she believe all this time. So as the story progress in her, it gradually giving her more and more power to deny what her father told her about herself that she is cursed and darkness, a monster.

That's why she create this story, to alter that mindset, she create the character, as her friend, her enemies, and also the giants in her mind to help her change the mindset.

For example a character such as Fargrimr, a wiseman who unlike her father who think she is cursed because she keep talking to herself, Fargrimer see it differently, she see senua's un-normal behaviour not as curse but as gift. A gift that makes her special, a gift that she can use to help people. So Fargrimr is just a character that she create in her mind to alter how she believe about her her conditions. Fargrimr is just a person that she create in her mind to help her believe herself that she is not cursed but special. Similar to the hiddenfolks, Fargrimr is just a fantasy that she built to alter her mindset, to redirect her mindset as a cursed monster into a special person.

Another example is when the hiddenfolk said every monster was once a person who succumb in their own desperation, grieve and depression. This word is a word she create that she represented it as the Hiddenfolk's wise word to help herself to not succumb into the mindset of herself that she is a monster. Giving her a power not to succumb to this idea of her as a monster and help her get out from her depression mind so she can avoid from being destroyed by her own grieve and become a monster herself

And at the end when the story in her mind as complete, she have all the power she need to fight her father's mindset, because now she believe she is not cursed but special... and that what her father told her about herself is nothing more than a lie.

So now with these power she must face her father's mindset in her... that she represented as the final battle between her and Thorgester's father, a character that she created as a mirror image of her father, as and avatar of her father's mindset in herself that she need to destroy and replace it with a new mindset. A mindset of her not as a cursed monster but as someone special. A good mindset the she created for her to get out from her own depression.

[Sledge Hammer!]

Did anyone actually think that Senua really went to Hel in the first game and fought demons to bring her partner back to the land of the living? If players could accept the first game's plot device that Senua sees and hears things that are not real, then why are people so angry about her seeing imaginary giants?

I've even seen reporters for gaming magazines become confused over this issue. Senua witnessing the giants interacting with other people was all part of her fantasy world, the real villagers only appeared when she showed them oddly shaped rocks and convinced the villagers that they were dead giants. The ending made clear that the tribe leader created the myth of giants to terrorize his own people and keep them enthralled under his power.

[Рафнсвартр]

Originally posted by Demystificator:

Senua is actually alone when Giants turn to stone.

Mate, Thorgestr says it himself that he SAW the giant turning into a stone. Pretty much everything is too far fetched when it comes to connect the story and the final together. And the majority of what you said there is up to interpretation. That's what was beautiful about it. The interpretation. But with that twist, they ruined ALL of that.

[Рафнсвартр]

I don't like the ending because it's too self-aware and out of the blue. In the game where everything is up for interpretation, such a sudden twist is just not good imo. Now we know for certain that she WAS IMAGINING things, huge part of HB1 and 2 was a fever dream, and I would prefer them to never answer these questions rather than doing that in such an up in your face, unrefined manner. At least, they could have done it better and later down the path, in the third game, with better set up and hightened stakes. She wasn't questioning giants existence ONCE during the whole game, she WASN'T poisoned by the FEAR of locals, because she saw giant Hela in the first game, and she was REINFORCED in her belief that she is the one to bring giants down. I wish they went a different route with this, full Hela route, making her feel for the giants/former people/monsters, carrying their pain and waging war against the Gods/powerful human beings all the way 'til Ragnarok slash final revelation which very well could have been this very twist. But now they are cutting off all of that, to pursue what? Mixing it up with the mythos further won't be as impactful and meaningful, because now we know - she is just seeing things. It's full self-awareness from now on. Devs did a massive mistake imo. Rip Hellblade 3.