third watcher ending theory

[pure randomness]

ok, so since watcher will eventually get a new ending, i think its fair to think about what could it be. i think, the ending will be the watcher going to outer expanse, as seen in gourmands ending (even though as far as we know, the watcher isnt connected to downpour) another ending might be killing the prince or something related to the UE worm

[Jevmen]

Both sound quite bizarre and improbable.

For the first one, watcher clearely doesnt take downpour as canon, there are many things where it actively contradicts it, like removing the daynight cycle, changing the entire interpretation of rot decanonizing hunter longlegs, elaborating on how echoes work decanonizing the Undergrowth echo, the ice age no longer existing at all, the world outside the walls not being a mush of dirt and vegetation (the walls dont seem to even exist anymore), among other tiny details... which follow vanilla's canon rather than downpour
But the most obvious one is the intro where they get rid of the dumb idea of slugcats living in friendly colonies and going back to the original idea of them being feral creatures who interact within their family groups.

For the second one, why? It really is literally impossible to cause anything meaningful to those beings, nor would it really serve any purpose, why would you help your friends to just kill them like some edgy teenager, how would you even do that, what satisfying conclusion would it even give...

[Trifecta]

Warning: Lots of spoilers and rambling ahead!


I believe the third ending will be about Watcher attempting to find their family in the void. We see Watcher's family in the intro, as well as two dreams, it would be weird if the game doesn't do anything with it.
Additionally, the second dream looks like Watcher's family ascending, so there's some further proof to my baseless theory.

It would be interesting if the second ending with the Prince effects the third ending.
Maybe, if you haven't done the rot ending, you'll ascend like normal.
And if you have done it, then all the Void-Worms will be infected by rot, and you'll be unable to ascend.
Or, it can be the other way around. Rotted Worms won't care if you have normal Karma, while normal Worms will care, and refuse to help you ascend.

Maybe, the purple rot we see in the game is a hive-mind of the Prince, and as thanks for helping him infect everything, he helps Watcher ascend via the rotted Void-Worm.
If this is the case, then it would make the second ending more meaningful and worthwhile.
It would sort of make sense too, since Watcher doesn't have normal Karma, he wouldn't be able to ascend with the normal Void-Worms.

However... there's really no way for any of us to know what it will be like. All we can do in the meantime is theorise.

-Ramble over-

[pure randomness]

Originally posted by Jevmen:

Both sound quite bizarre and improbable.

For the first one, watcher clearely doesnt take downpour as canon, there are many things where it actively contradicts it, like removing the daynight cycle, changing the entire interpretation of rot decanonizing hunter longlegs, elaborating on how echoes work decanonizing the Undergrowth echo, the ice age no longer existing at all, the world outside the walls not being a mush of dirt and vegetation (the walls dont seem to even exist anymore), among other tiny details... which follow vanilla's canon rather than downpour
But the most obvious one is the intro where they get rid of the dumb idea of slugcats living in friendly colonies and going back to the original idea of them being feral creatures who interact within their family groups.

For the second one, why? It really is literally impossible to cause anything meaningful to those beings, nor would it really serve any purpose, why would you help your friends to just kill them like some edgy teenager, how would you even do that, what satisfying conclusion would it even give...

idk, i just wanted to give some ideas, and if the watcher is really going through different realitys like most think, then there has to be one that downpour exists, which the watcher can go into

[pure randomness]

Originally posted by Trifecta:

Warning: Lots of spoilers and rambling ahead!


I believe the third ending will be about Watcher attempting to find their family in the void. We see Watcher's family in the intro, as well as two dreams, it would be weird if the game doesn't do anything with it.
Additionally, the second dream looks like Watcher's family ascending, so there's some further proof to my baseless theory.

It would be interesting if the second ending with the Prince effects the third ending.
Maybe, if you haven't done the rot ending, you'll ascend like normal.
And if you have done it, then all the Void-Worms will be infected by rot, and you'll be unable to ascend.
Or, it can be the other way around. Rotted Worms won't care if you have normal Karma, while normal Worms will care, and refuse to help you ascend.

Maybe, the purple rot we see in the game is a hive-mind of the Prince, and as thanks for helping him infect everything, he helps Watcher ascend via the rotted Void-Worm.
If this is the case, then it would make the second ending more meaningful and worthwhile.
It would sort of make sense too, since Watcher doesn't have normal Karma, he wouldn't be able to ascend with the normal Void-Worms.

However... there's really no way for any of us to know what it will be like. All we can do in the meantime is theorise.

-Ramble over-

thats a really nice idea! i think that might be the leading case

[Thicket]

definetly something with daemon id say, the developers said that there will be multiple more endings, so probably an ascension ending with variants and daemon affecting something in an ending

[Jevmen]

Originally posted by pure randomness:

Originally posted by Jevmen:

Both sound quite bizarre and improbable.

For the first one, watcher clearely doesnt take downpour as canon, there are many things where it actively contradicts it, like removing the daynight cycle, changing the entire interpretation of rot decanonizing hunter longlegs, elaborating on how echoes work decanonizing the Undergrowth echo, the ice age no longer existing at all, the world outside the walls not being a mush of dirt and vegetation (the walls dont seem to even exist anymore), among other tiny details... which follow vanilla's canon rather than downpour
But the most obvious one is the intro where they get rid of the dumb idea of slugcats living in friendly colonies and going back to the original idea of them being feral creatures who interact within their family groups.

For the second one, why? It really is literally impossible to cause anything meaningful to those beings, nor would it really serve any purpose, why would you help your friends to just kill them like some edgy teenager, how would you even do that, what satisfying conclusion would it even give...

idk, i just wanted to give some ideas, and if the watcher is really going through different realitys like most think, then there has to be one that downpour exists, which the watcher can go into

this isnt the marvel multiverse, these are not "what if this happened?" relaities, they all exist and are bound by the same rules and events, only separated by how karmically aligned they are, causing the weaker ones to start to become rotten until they fade to the rot entropy and dissapear.
Nothing else changes

[Thicket]

yeah I have multiple theories that make perfect sense with both the watcher and downpour, seems quite stupid how people assume that seperate "canons" exist.

[Jevmen]

Originally posted by Thistle:

yeah I have multiple theories that make perfect sense with both the watcher and downpour, seems quite stupid how people assume that seperate "canons" exist.

They literally contradict each other constantly, they are incompatible straight up.

[Thicket]

Originally posted by Jevmen:

Originally posted by Thistle:

yeah I have multiple theories that make perfect sense with both the watcher and downpour, seems quite stupid how people assume that seperate "canons" exist.

They literally contradict each other constantly, they are incompatible straight up.

whatever I don't care if you believe in multiple canons or not I just personally don't at all, multiple timelines or universes would make more sense to me.

[Jevmen]

Originally posted by Thistle:

Originally posted by Jevmen:

They literally contradict each other constantly, they are incompatible straight up.

whatever I don't care if you believe in multiple canons or not I just personally don't at all, multiple timelines or universes would make more sense to me.

Layers of reality =/= Multiverse
There is no rain world multiverse lol, they havent shown anything like that, and it would diminish the entire story.
but oh, ppl would love to always be in the right, thats what multiverses are for, so nobody can be wrong ever

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Jevmen:

For the first one, watcher clearely doesnt take downpour as canon, there are many things where it actively contradicts it, like removing the daynight cycle,

Which was only a thing in certain areas, and could relatively easily be introduced to the two (or is it three?) locations to which it could apply - you could also argue that the complete lack of any noticeable change at the end of a cycle is indicative of other climatic variations or even something as simple as WHEN you wake up.

Originally posted by Jevmen:

changing the entire interpretation of rot decanonizing hunter longlegs

...how exactly?

Originally posted by Jevmen:

elaborating on how echoes work decanonizing the Undergrowth echo

And yet the Undergrowth Echo somehow doesn't "decanonise" every other Echo, it merely has a different viewpoint to them.

Originally posted by Jevmen:

the ice age no longer existing at all,

Tell that to the Surface region.

Originally posted by Jevmen:

the world outside the walls not being a mush of dirt and vegetation (the walls dont seem to even exist anymore)

And which region is both "outside" of the walls and still drenched by heavy rainfall as the Outer Expanse was? I'm struggling to work this out, since pretty much every region we see as the Watcher could very well be within an iterator's boundaries, or so removed in both (or either) time and space that the resultant terrain differs.

Originally posted by Jevmen:

But the most obvious one is the intro where they get rid of the dumb idea of slugcats living in friendly colonies and going back to the original idea of them being feral creatures who interact within their family groups.

...having some members of a species live in colony groups and some members sticking to family groups is an impossibility, apparently. That the two things are broadly similar in all except the quantity of members has also seemingly passed you by.

[Thicket]

Originally posted by Jevmen:

Originally posted by Thistle:

whatever I don't care if you believe in multiple canons or not I just personally don't at all, multiple timelines or universes would make more sense to me.

Layers of reality =/= Multiverse
There is no rain world multiverse lol, they havent shown anything like that

thats not what I mean... its something different I just dont think that the watcher is pointless with downpour or downpour is pointless to the watcher