So what's Gumo's story? [SPOILERS]

[Cutesune]

There's very much a recurring theme of love, and doing terrible things for the right reason throughout the game; Naru appears to have lost a child and taken in Ori as a surrogate to them, but when the tree calls to Ori she hides them away to protect them. The tree obviously cared for it's lost child, but the act of calling out unknowingly killed Kuro's children, who in revenge and fear for the safety of her last surviving child, blinds the tree setting into motion the events that threaten to end Nibel.

But what's Gumos story in all this?

We see Gumo in the introduction watching Ori at Naru's house form the foreground, which explains how he knew where to find Naru's body. The fact he's out wandering that far suggests he was already living indepdent of the Forlorn Ruins facility, which also explains how he survived when the element of warmth failed and killed the rest of the Gumon.

When we find Gumo, he was taking the Water Vein for something (The narration simply says he gave in to despair and darkness), but his lair in the grotto is clearly rigged to hell with booby traps, like he's been hiding out there a long time, likely since before the forest was blinded.

So I'm wondering what his backstory is; how he ended up living alone in a booby trapped hole, what he wanted with the water vein, why was he watching Ori and Naru's house and whether his backstory was also intended to fit in some way to the over-arching theme of doing the wrong thing in the name of love, or whether he's just acting on despair and loneliness.

[ditt_25]

I've had a few theories on Gumo's motives but haven't floated them out on the forums yet. Guess it's time to mention a few of them. First off, it's not 100% certain that it is in fact Gumo we see in the introduction, but it's likely enough that I'll assume it is Gumo.

Anyways a few possibilities on why Gumo might steal the Water Vein. Of course, other interpretations are possible.
1]Gumo simply enjoys the light, glow, etc the Water Vein. Perhaps it even reminds him of his home/family?

2]If the Gumon Light Vessel can raise the dead, maybe Gumo had intended to try using the Water Vein in a similar manner on the Gumon (whether it'd work or not is another issue) or to atleast try unlokcing Forlorn Ruins. And he can't exaclty run to the Forlorn Ruins wikth Ori chasing him (while also happenign to block the one path away from the hideout).

3]Gumo blamed Ori (or the Light Spirits in general) for the fall of the Gumon and stole it. Whether it was to protect the Vein/Nibel from what he saw as a danger, or simply to make the Light suffer for what it did. But upon being saved by Ori, he realized that not all of the Light are dangerous/evil. Although if he did watch Ori in the prologue you'd think he'd know that by now.

4]Maybe just curious. The Gumon were crafty inventors, and to accomplish that a certain amount of curiosity is required.

5]Well, if you were alone for years, your social skills might also be a bit lacking. Stealing what Ori needs would be one way to get Ori to play with you.

As for the backstory of the booby trapped hideout, there is presumably a gap of an unspecified number of years between when Naru finds Ori and when the prologue ends (I believe the tie gap was stated in one of the Ancestral Tree conversations). So even if Gumo didn't move there until after the forest went Blind (and it is certainly possible he was there before then), Gumo's likely had years to play around with the place.

Given how Gumon were inventors a booby trapped obstacle course would serve as a creative outlet, perhaps a twisted idea of having game to play with visitors, and also a defensive measure against dangers lurking in Nibel.

[Cutesune]

It seems likely it's intended to be Gumo during the intro. He pops up during the scene after the forest is blinded, just before Naru dies. At this point in time most of the Gumon should be dead, and this would have put him in the right place and time to have seen Ori (and presumably Naru's body)

If it wern't the case, then there is a lot of big questions as to how Gumo shows up to resurrect her later. (Indeed, many critics including the Escapist magazine have panned that scene as a giant plot hole, when in fact it's well foreshadowed in two different scenes).


I think I'm just over-thinking Gumo really, not all the characters fall into the "mistakes made for love" subtext; Ori and Sein for example have very different motivations and the trees narration makes it quite clear that he'd given in to despair prior to his encounter with Ori.

We can probably discard 3 since he'd require a lot of meta-knowledge to blame the light spirits for the dying land when the great tree has been visibly damaged by a 3rd party, while 5 doesn't sit as he seemed pretty bent on murdering Ori, not playing with him. It's probably more along the lines of 1 or 4, it seems like something a survivor would do; collecting pieces of the past for company, or salvaging them to build something new out of it.

[Big Floppa]

Keep in mind, the Forlorn Ruins, or as the soundtrack calls it, "Home Of the Gumon"
was closed and frozen over untill Ori found the Gumon Seal. Gumo couldn't have known about the fate of his kind when he stole the water vein. Also, in the Forlorn Ruins, the camera pans back to gumo entering, and shows him looking down on his fallen, confused and obviously hurt. I'm sure thats the first time he finds out, leaving me to question his motives.

Sein says, "Once lush and green, now covered in ice / Those who didn't escape paid with their lives"
My theories are that gumo either left his home before the fall of the elements, was an outcast, or was lucky enough to escape in time...

BUT WAIT... "Those who didn't escape (...) "
Either he's the only one who did, or there's more surviving Gumon out there somewhere :D