Five pebbles is such a fascinating character

[mothmayo]

I don't know if this counts as a discussion THAT much but I just really wanted to talk about five pebbles for a second. Five Pebbles is one of my favourite iterators, so this helps keep me energised for the nonsense I'm about to type. Not at first, but nowadays I get the vibe that Febbles (as I'm going to call him from now on) is kind of just an angsty teen. I first got the idea when, in a broadcast, NSH and Suns mention Febbles being defiant, and striving for independence, not unlike someone who just turned 12 years old. The more I looked into him, the more he seemed like a lad. He has a mentor, a (presumably) older iterator, a big sister, impatience, being way too smug considering he's trying to flex on a rat, and interests. I'll touch on two of these, first being impatience, but more accurately, his anger. Try to imagine your only "parents" have gone to get milk and never came back, and you have what was once a duty you can never free yourself from to a duty you can never free yourself from but this time you and your insides are deteriorating over time. But very, very slowly. You also want to get some milk, but thats not possible because your parents sucked beyond belief. You reach out to your mentor, a kind and understanding individual. They give you the help you need and you try to pull it off. Bad news! You messed it up so badly because your dying sister kind of didn't want to die.

So now everyone is reaching out to you, and you're still grappling with what just happened and pretending you aren't. Then, your mentor sends the messenger. Tired, you tell your mentor to (politely) get lost. You read the pearl and find out your understanding mentor is trying to tell you the same garbage everyone else is. Sort of like "hey man I feel like garbage" and every single person tells you the same well meaning "don't worry, it gets better! Have hope! Experience the natural wonders of the world! Try yoga!" Man I'd go straight up insane if the last person willing to sort things out pulled that nonsense, especially if I were going through one of the worst points in my life.. Anyway, he nukes Suns overseer and throw Spearmaster like a basketball. While his actions were kind messed up, he's understandable. Before I head to my next point (interests), I'd just like to add he's a LOT less talkative when you show up as hunter, at least compared to scugs like survivor and monk. His text boxes have a lot less in them and more time between them. Artificer's run has him a bit like this too, but aside from sounding annoyed, he still sounds kind of out of it.

Now. Interests!! He's one of the only iterators we see who seem exactly interested in things outside of, yk, technical stuff or whatevers up with the great problem. If you were to ask me what, say, Moons hobbies were, I'd say uhh idk but with Pebbles? History and poetry. From what I can remember, none of the other iterators really mention hobbies and interests. This is a bit of a stretch, but you know that stereotype where kids will be wildly interested in anything they come across, and an adults only personality trait is Their Job? Or that thing where kids and young people are like "Wow!!! Things!! Engaging would be great for my experience!!!" Yes this sounds like Febbles to me. No I have no idea how to explain it better.

Also forgot to mention, a lot of ancients didn't want Febbles to exist in the first place. They openly discussed this, and it's obvious it's something he's aware of. Doesn't he feel at least somewhat upset??? Though he could, and just doesn't want to tell the wild rat he's talking to come on febbles whats a rat going to do with that information come on tell us the local wildlife isn't going to gossip about you and bully you this isn't highschool Also can't forget the part where his messed up experiment is eating away at him from the inside, that doesn't sound horrific at all/s. Anywho, he always struck me as a young iterator who messes up, sometimes unbelievably badly, but as a result always struck me as a sympathetic character. What do you guys think?

[76561198844914455]

uh...
not reading allat.

[slugcateater]

not reading allat

[slugcateater]

update: I read it

[Steelflame]

On the topic of not knowing Moon's habits, interests, ect.... I mean, we only talk to a sorta healthy Moon is one campaign. And in that campaign she literally know she's probably about to die, with no hope at all of survival, the only person who COULD save her refusing to, being selfish and just focusing on extending his own now very much limited time now that he has incurable cancer, with no one to talk to because her communications antenna was damaged (possibly by Pebbles? Hard to tell if it was his actions or just sheer time that damaged that for her). Every other campaign is post-lobotomy prison inmate Moon basically. It's really hard to have hobbies and interests when you are chained to a wall and can barely remember yesterday afterall.


Pebbles story is quite deep. But I mean, he's basically the game has to a main antagonist. He is the cause of the collapsing world around him. He is the central component that defines our experiences in Rain World.

[Justice]

I don't really see him as angry teen, but rather a bitter egotistical middle aged man, despite being one of the youngest one. And in the end he sees errors of his ways and in his sick dying state handled and reedemed himself pretty maturilly.
From his own words he regrets and not expected to be forgiven and asked to remove his power cell that keeps him alive to give someone he did cruel and dirty.

[slugcateater]

Originally posted by Justice:

I don't really see him as angry teen, but rather a bitter egotistical middle aged man, despite being one of the youngest one. And in the end he sees errors of his ways and in his sick dying state handled and reedemed himself pretty maturilly.
From his own words he regrets and not expected to be forgiven and asked to remove his power cell that keeps him alive to give someone he did cruel and dirty.

he wouldn't have redeemed himself if he hadn't got this weak

[mothmayo]

Hard to say, but I doubt it. He's prideful, so he doesn't seem like the type to immediately solve the problems he's caused, but he doesn't read as entirely evil or cruel to me.

[CtenosaurOaxacana]

5P Is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

• He encouraged iterator chatrooms to explore suicidal ideation
  
  
• He abused his friend Seven Red Sun's trust, extracting dangerous info from them
  
  
• He ripped open Spearmaster's chest without anesthesia
  
  
• He ordered Artificer to slaughter dozens (possibly hundreds) of scavengers
  
  
• He kills slugcats for the crime of hanging around for a few minutes
  
  
• He unleashes vile horrors upon the world in the form of the Rot, literally mobile cancer
  
  
• He's responsible for the extreme rain, the whole insane 'vertical tidepool' ecosystem
  
  
• He casually and slowly forced his own sister Moon to nearly die from dehydration,
  all for the sake of attempted suicide, upgrading it to a fraternal murder-suicide.

Moon suffered for having compassion, love, patience and sympathy for her brother. She only barely survived his depravity because her own survival instincts (or self-preservation mechanism) finally kicked in.

Now she's got permanent 'brain' damage (still smart by human standards), her 'legs' are forever broken, and her internal 'organs' are ruptured and bloated with liquids.


5P only does three good actions (or rather NON-actions) throughout the story campaigns.

1. He gives most slugcats the Mark of Communication, a Karma buff, and directions to where to get Ascension. Only because he's literally programmed by his creators to help creatures that approach him, but also personally hopes this gets rid of them.
   
   
2. He doesn't steal Hunter's green neuron for waking (rebooting) Moon from her coma,
   but only because he doesn't need or want it, not because he gives a ♥♥♥♥.
   
   
3. He 'accepts' giving his emergency power source to Moon via Rivulet,
   but only because by that point he's already so completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥
   by his disgusting self-inflicted cancer that he can't even stop Rivulet anyway.

All of these (non)-acts are just a 'pat on the back' to make himself feel better at best.
The first was due to involuntary programming, the second was the bare minimum of decency, and in the third instance he no longer had choice.

5P is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

[Bee]

Originally posted by CtenosaurOaxacana:

5P Is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

• He encouraged iterator chatrooms to explore suicidal ideation
  
  
• He abused his friend Seven Red Sun's trust, extracting dangerous info from them
  
  
• He ripped open Spearmaster's chest without anesthesia
  
  
• He ordered Artificer to slaughter dozens (possibly hundreds) of scavengers
  
  
• He kills slugcats for the crime of hanging around for a few minutes
  
  
• He unleashes vile horrors upon the world in the form of the Rot, literally mobile cancer
  
  
• He's responsible for the extreme rain, the whole insane 'vertical tidepool' ecosystem
  
  
• He casually and slowly forced his own sister Moon to nearly die from dehydration,
  all for the sake of attempted suicide, upgrading it to a fraternal murder-suicide.

Moon suffered for having compassion, love, patience and sympathy for her brother. She only barely survived his depravity because her own survival instincts (or self-preservation mechanism) finally kicked in.

Now she's got permanent 'brain' damage (still smart by human standards), her 'legs' are forever broken, and her internal 'organs' are ruptured and bloated with liquids.


5P only does three good actions (or rather NON-actions) throughout the story.

1. He gives most slugcats the Mark of Communication, a Karma buff, and directions to where to get Ascension. Only because he's literally programmed by his creators to help creatures that approach him, but also personally hopes this gets rid of them.
   
   
2. He doesn't steal Hunter's green neuron for waking Moon from her coma,
   but only because he doesn't need or want it, not because he gives a ♥♥♥♥.
   
   
3. He 'accepts' giving his emergency power source to Moon via Rivulet,
   but only because by that point he's already so completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥
   by his disgusting self-inflicted cancer that he can't even stop Rivulet anyway.

All of these (non)-acts are just a 'pat on the back' to make himself feel better at best.
The first was due to involuntary programming, the second was the bare minimum of decency, and in the third instance he had no choice.

5P is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

Small correction. Pebbles is all of those things. But everything the OP said is true as well. This is what makes a complicated character.

[Bee]

Also i absolutely agree with you. The situation Pebbles is in is HORRIBLE and I frankly couldn't imagine being in anything like it. Everything he knew was just gone one day. The other iterators were older, had connections, but all he had as a younger one was just his sister, who wasn't really searching for the solution anyway. The actions he did were inexcusable, but his heroic acts aren't to be overlooked either. Writers did good with this one.

[Steelflame]

Originally posted by CtenosaurOaxacana:

He's responsible for the extreme rain, the whole insane 'vertical tidepool' ecosystem

I'd more blame that on the people who made the iterators. Sure, he could minimize how much water he draws each cycle to stall out the rain (as we see when in Rivulet's campaign after he loses his refraction cell), but the cycle is forced by the mere existance of an interator. Even Moon was making cycles, it's part of their core design.

Originally posted by CtenosaurOaxacana:

He 'accepts' giving his emergency power source to Moon via Rivulet,
but only because by that point he's already so completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥
by his disgusting self-inflicted cancer that he can't even stop Rivulet anyway.

Yes, and how likely was Rivulet to know to do this? We know they had a pearl in their stomach that showed roughly where it would be in 5P, but 5P actively told them to go take it and give it to Moon. He wanted a bit of atonement for his crimes. He couldn't undo his mistakes. That ship had long since sailed. But he could make Moon's quality of life better at the cost of his own at that point, and he chose to do so.

[mothmayo]

Originally posted by CtenosaurOaxacana:

5P Is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

• He encouraged iterator chatrooms to explore suicidal ideation
  
  
• He abused his friend Seven Red Sun's trust, extracting dangerous info from them
  
  
• He ripped open Spearmaster's chest without anesthesia
  
  
• He ordered Artificer to slaughter dozens (possibly hundreds) of scavengers
  
  
• He kills slugcats for the crime of hanging around for a few minutes
  
  
• He unleashes vile horrors upon the world in the form of the Rot, literally mobile cancer
  
  
• He's responsible for the extreme rain, the whole insane 'vertical tidepool' ecosystem
  
  
• He casually and slowly forced his own sister Moon to nearly die from dehydration,
  all for the sake of attempted suicide, upgrading it to a fraternal murder-suicide.

Moon suffered for having compassion, love, patience and sympathy for her brother. She only barely survived his depravity because her own survival instincts (or self-preservation mechanism) finally kicked in.

Now she's got permanent 'brain' damage (still smart by human standards), her 'legs' are forever broken, and her internal 'organs' are ruptured and bloated with liquids.


5P only does three good actions (or rather NON-actions) throughout the story campaigns.

1. He gives most slugcats the Mark of Communication, a Karma buff, and directions to where to get Ascension. Only because he's literally programmed by his creators to help creatures that approach him, but also personally hopes this gets rid of them.
   
   
2. He doesn't steal Hunter's green neuron for waking (rebooting) Moon from her coma,
   but only because he doesn't need or want it, not because he gives a ♥♥♥♥.
   
   
3. He 'accepts' giving his emergency power source to Moon via Rivulet,
   but only because by that point he's already so completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥
   by his disgusting self-inflicted cancer that he can't even stop Rivulet anyway.

All of these (non)-acts are just a 'pat on the back' to make himself feel better at best.
The first was due to involuntary programming, the second was the bare minimum of decency, and in the third instance he no longer had choice.

5P is a selfish, hateful, worthless bastard.

I can see where you're coming from, to be honest. I would only argue with a few of these (scav genocide is ehh, the rains are a byproduct of iterators in general, and the rot which he doesn't have any control over especially now that it's running around.)
He's an awfully complex character, and has his fair share of good and bad traits, such as awful pride and selfishness, and god knows what was happening with moon when he effectively killed her, though this also makes him more realistic because he actually has personality traits beyond cold and does things. It feels a bit weird, though, putting him into good and bad like it's black and white, because morally, he's difficult and complicated and weirdly unpredictable. He's the perfect blend of relatable and "I would move away from this person if they sat next to me on the subway". I feel like I'm losing my mind with pebbles. He's technically the antagonist of Rain World (individual who challenges the protagonist, I believe), but at the same time, I can't call him evil or good. He's bad enough that I can reasonably call him that and I enjoy throwing things at him, but also was filled with sadness when I met him as saint. Shout out to Five Pebbles, bestie-worstie I've ever met.