An Observation About the Nature of A Shade

[oRpheusB20]

Anyone else notice that, in-game, the character that you follow is called A Shade, not THE Shade?
Meaning that in this world, beings known as 'Shades' are not unique. Most notably, this is all from our Shade's rather warped point of view, ergo, if they believed they were the only Shade, the text would most likely refer to them as The Shade.
Not that I expect any other games set in this universe to revolve around a Shade, but does that mean that we could, reasonably, run into another creature similar to the one that we are following around?

Which also makes me think: what is a Shade's purpose? Ours, of course, is to wait 400 days and then awaken the King, but I've seen at least one theory that our Shade is a Soul Vessel for the King, so are Shades in general Vessels? Or are they far more flexible; after all, they are alive, and in most situations, having a living Vessel would be far more risky than a non-living one. Are they created for one specific purpose (the King just opens his hand and there's our Shade, just curled up there, so...) and can decide their destiny from there on if given the time to contemplate their existence (as ours can), or are they born into this life/choose this life?
If the former, are they a creation specific to the King, or could anyone with magic capabilities create one?
If the latter, why would anyone choose such a life; after all, there is only one Shade that we clearly see in the game, so I guess not a lot of people were swayed by whatever the King had to offer before he went to sleep. The King lives in this vast network, but there is no evidence that anyone else actually lives in the caves besides our Shade.

Anyone got any thoughts? I would love to hear if anyone else thought it funny that the character was named something so particular.

[JustinceYalen]

In literature and poetry, a shade (translating Greek σκιά,) can be taken to mean the spirit or ghost of a dead person, residing in the underworld. The image of an underworld where the dead live in shadow is common to the Ancient Near East - Wikipedia entry of Shade (mythology)

Could it be the Shade is the reincarnation of the dead person buried in the tombstone near the good ending? or the skeleton whose former "owner" was impaled by a stalactite in the eye?

[oRpheusB20]

...I don't know why, but I never considered a more literal interpretation of a Shade. Although if our Shade was a dead person, it calls into question how long they've been dead. They certainly seem to hold a reverence for the King that feels, at least to me, more like they genuinely are devoted to him rather than having been brought back to life at the moment the game starts. They also haven't explored the cave system any, but they do have a room, one they are clearly comfortable with, referring to the stuff inside as 'mine,' which at least implies to me that it didn't belong to anyone else immediately beforehand, and I doubt that the King conjured that stuff last minute to keep his servant comfy.

Where is that latter example? I'm not all that far in, haven't even hit a full two weeks yet, actually. Curiosity just tends to not let me keep from spoilers, haha. I'll certainly have to look out for it though.
Anyway, I don't think it could be the latter, due to the eye impalement. If it were the dead spirit of that guy, I feel like our Shade would be missing an eye, or something would otherwise be off, in order to imply a connection. It would probably be rather subtle, to maintain the 'up for interpretation' vibe, but regardless, I feel it would be there.
The former feels more likely, since it could be that our Shade was drawn to their corpse and in some manner realized that they weren't who they thought they were and decided to deviate from the plan given to them by the King who dragged their spirit back to Earth. It would also explain why they would be compelled to slowly stretch out farther and farther despite noting to themselves that the King might be displeased with their actions, even as they continue to do it.

[JustinceYalen]

Originally posted by oRpheusB20:

Where is that latter example? I'm not all that far in, haven't even hit a full two weeks yet, actually. Curiosity just tends to not let me keep from spoilers, haha. I'll certainly have to look out for it though.

From: https://www.facebook.com/studioseufz/photos/a.259876754086883/3583274855080373/ (This is the official Studio Seufz Facebook page so I won't count that as a spoiler but rather as a teaser)

Anyways the intro shows the king conjuring the shade from his hand albeit in a subtle manner. Hence I believed the Shade was a dead person reincarnated by the king with his memories wiped.

Also the room could be one of the King's quarters and the Shade took ownership of it after the king goes into slumber. That's my theory

[oRpheusB20]

Well now, talk about a disappointing fate...

Hm, I don't think I was watching all that closely when the Shade came into the picture. To me it just sort of seemed like they just... appeared.
Regardless, I still feel as though the Shade's dialogue comes off as far too devoted for someone who just happened to have gotten dragged into this mess last second. Sure, they have doubts as the story goes along, but anyone would, after being told to wait 400 days to wake your master for some nebulous 'end of all suffering'. I feel like, if the Shade hadn't had some sort of connection to the King prior, they wouldn't have felt any need to obey his instructions, or worry about if he would get mad about them wandering out so far.
Perhaps there was a short time-period we don't see, where the King teaches them about himself, to instill the loyalty we see. Just enough time to get acquainted with him, but not enough that we'd be missing out on anything vital?

That's reasonable, I suppose, but... the King is kind of massive? If he could shrink himself down, I feel like it would be better for energy conservation if he were smaller, since less of it would have to go towards keeping his giant physical form alive. After all, he's snoring! He doesn't seem to shut off completely in the same manner as a robot; some of his energy has to be going towards keeping his body alive. But hey, what do I know?

[JustinceYalen]

Originally posted by oRpheusB20:

but... the King is kind of massive? If he could shrink himself down, I feel like it would be better for energy conservation if he were smaller, since less of it would have to go towards keeping his giant physical form alive.

I would say that the King's true form is massive and him shrinking down is more for convenience. He kept his real massive size to display a sense of awe and power to the Shade (and us as the players since The Longing have some fourth wall breaking moments)

As for the Shade's devotion, I believe when he was reincarnated he was "reprogrammed" to serve the king: the moment he come back to this world as a Shade, the goals of his previous life are replaced by the need to obey the king's order. The dreams and hallucinations he had are probably a fragment of his previous life calling him to go back to his family (The old man could have adopted the young troll as a replacement for the Shade's death when the Shade was a human)

I assume the King has the ability to do that to the Shade's former soul.

[JustinceYalen]

Fun fact: before the latter part of the game, I used to think that the old man is the king's real form and the young troll is the Shade's former self since both the Shade and the troll have similar features. And the hallucinations are the Shade and the King's former lives before something tragic happened

I thought the ending would be the king and the shade going back to their original self in the Shade's hallucinations after the Shade awaken the King. And I thought the Shade would discover why he and the King would hide underneath the Earth, build a castle to protect themselves from whatever happened above, and removed all traumatic memories from the Shade to protect him.

It would have been cool if the story went that way.

[John117XC]

The shade is obviously loyal to the king and I think that the shade did not exist in the form of a shade anytime before because his birthday (400-35 days = 365 days old) is his first one. This leads me to the theory of the shade and the king being the same person or at least the shade could be something like a living "horcrux" like in Harry Potter with just one objective: To return the soul of the king by waking him up after 400 days.

It may sound odd, but i think the king can't survive for long if the shade leaves onto the surface. In my opinion the drawings tell a lot about the lore and also give hints about different endings right from the scratch. Combine different colors and you see different endings: The ladder leads to a tragedy, the cliff to an end, the old one leads to salvation, the halls of eternity and stuff could be symbols for the awakening king ending. As I know every of the 5 endings it all makes sense:

The King and the Shade are maybe both different parts of the exact same person. So the shade could represent the mind (or more precisely the soul) of the king and wandering around and exploring is what can lead to distraction instead of the rest which the sleeping king needs.

Please excuse my bad english as I'm not used to write a lot and as I'm no native speaker. What do you think about my theory about the soul of the king and the shade being somewhat of a horcrux?

[oRpheusB20]

Originally posted by JR117XC:

The shade is obviously loyal to the king and I think that the shade did not exist in the form of a shade anytime before because his birthday (400-35 days = 365 days old) is his first one. This leads me to the theory of the shade and the king being the same person or at least the shade could be something like a living "horcrux" like in Harry Potter with just one objective: To return the soul of the king by waking him up after 400 days.

That certainly seems to be a popular theory, and I can see why.
Although I never made the connection of the birthday; that certainly is clever and points towards the Shade not having been human beforehand, else they may very well have clung to their birthday, if nothing else.

I also noted the names of the drawings were very... telling.
A similar theory is that if the Shade leaves, then the King doesn't wake up, but more because he doesn't have his alarm clock than because he'll die. Notably, all the endings with the King not waking simply involve the Shade just not coming back to prod him awake.

Oh, I do quite like that last bit. After all, a wandering soul is a concept we already have. Sort of synonymous with the idea of a free spirit, which, in the case of The Longing, has a much heavier meaning, given that any of the endings that don't involve waking the King include the Shade becoming a 'free spirit' by making their own choice and either dying or living the rest of their life in the way they choose.

Originally posted by JR117XC:

Please excuse my bad english as I'm not used to write a lot and as I'm no native speaker.

Bad English? Dude, do you know how many people I've seen on the web that only know English but can barely type coherent sentences? Your English is flawed in places, sure, but I feel no urge to rip it apart like I usually do when looking at the poor writing of others. And I consider myself pretty decent at writing and my English is oftentimes flawed too!
Basically: have some confidence! You're more than competent enough to pass for an average monolingual teenaged American.

Originally posted by Justince:

Originally posted by oRpheusB20:

but... the King is kind of massive? If he could shrink himself down, I feel like it would be better for energy conservation if he were smaller, since less of it would have to go towards keeping his giant physical form alive.

I would say that the King's true form is massive and him shrinking down is more for convenience. He kept his real massive size to display a sense of awe and power to the Shade (and us as the players since The Longing have some fourth wall breaking moments)

Yeah, but like I said, he clearly is snoring; in some way he is alive and using energy to keep being alive. Our human bodies use less energy while we are asleep, but if we go into comas we don't stop needing energy to live. Assuming the King get energy from sleep rather than nutrients in food, he still would be using what would ultimately amount to a significant portion of what he gains while asleep to keep his physical form breathing. He could have shrunk right before sleep, at least for the sake of energy conservation...

Originally posted by Justince:

As for the Shade's devotion, I believe when he was reincarnated he was "reprogrammed" to serve the king: the moment he come back to this world as a Shade, the goals of his previous life are replaced by the need to obey the king's order. The dreams and hallucinations he had are probably a fragment of his previous life calling him to go back to his family (The old man could have adopted the young troll as a replacement for the Shade's death when the Shade was a human)

I assume the King has the ability to do that to the Shade's former soul.

As JR117XC pointed out, the Shade does have their birthday precisely 365 days after being called to wait, and as I say in response, I feel like they would have clung to their birthday if nothing else? Like, if they don't keep their name or their birthday or really anything but some shadow of their old personality, are they technically the same person or, at that point, just someone very similar (ignoring the concept of souls, of course, because being a soul dragged back from the afterlife pretty much puts an end to the conversation right there).
Although you do make a good point on being reprogrammed. Kind of makes me think of Skyrim's Thralls, if you're familiar enough with that? But, again, they seem to have clung to some aspects of their personality, so it makes me think they would have clung to something else of significance.
(Also, I kind of adore where you thought the story was going! It makes sense, considering those are the only two other humanoids we see, and they do closely parallel the King and Shade. That would make for a cute little fan AU! Although for the game itself I can see why it wouldn't be that way, since it would be a little too set in stone for the otherwise ambiguous nature of the game)

[John117XC]

Originally posted by oRpheusB20:

Bad English? Dude, do you know how many people I've seen on the web that only know English but can barely type coherent sentences? Your English is flawed in places, sure, but I feel no urge to rip it apart like I usually do when looking at the poor writing of others. And I consider myself pretty decent at writing and my English is oftentimes flawed too!
Basically: have some confidence! You're more than competent enough to pass for an average monolingual teenaged American.

Thank you very much :-) I don't like grammar nazis that much (as we have a lot of them over here in Germany^^'). So I often mention that I'm not a native speaker to prevent some trouble regarding this topic. Better safe than sorry, I guess - But certainly, I'm still always grateful for any advice or suggestions in order to improve my skills :-)

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At first I wondered why the shade was mentioning his birthday right off the start although he technically had his birthday on that same day. Then I realized, that it had to be his first birthday ever as he has to be born (or more precisely be created) on day -400.

But then I also asked myself (as someone here already mentioned): Why should the shade even do all this - Waiting and obviously suffering of depression and solitude without complaining about the king who told him to do so? Considering the existence of magic in this setting and the king literally being the creator of the shade with his bare hands, I'm pretty sure that the king put at least a major part of his soul into the shade. They also seem to have a (don't know how to describe this correctly, but let's say) "common sense", somewhat of a relationship and collective memories. For example the shade seems to know that there are rumors about the halls of eternity and he also knows stuff about the past of the kings realm.

A few months ago I played a (mostly) text based game with idle clicking and a lot of philosophic elements which had three different endings depending on your decisions: Either you become more and more independent/liberal until you lose your mind because a world like this isn't allowed to exist. Or you obey the rules so precisely until you cease to exist (because there is no space for any non conformity in this world). The third option only showed up if you completed both prior endings and chose balanced decisions. Long story short: Either you obey the system or you rebel against the system - Or you find a more mature and balanced way and start finding your own path/truth, which immediately ends a lot of suffering.

Which reminds me of the different endings of The Longing. Especially considering the secret ending to be the "balanced ending" from above seems a lot like - neither obeying nor escaping but changing the rules of the game or the point of view.

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I can't wait to see if someone of you guys agrees. It would also be very interesting for me to know how female players (btw, I'm M30) see this. Anyways it's nice to have a discussion on the deeper meanings or the lore behind The Longing.

[oRpheusB20]

You're German? Neato. (I suppose it's a good thing that a German is willing to make any sort of Nazi-based joke...? Now I'm curious about how sensitive that sort of thing is for y'all)
I get you. I feel like if I ever managed to learn another language, 90% of what comes out my mouth would be apologies, haha.
Most of the things that you do wrong are small things, like not having added the -ing to write at the end of your first message. Ignoring that, your grammar is more sound than a fair chunk of English speakers. If online forums used a grammar check of literally just about any variety, I would imagine even that would abate before long.

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They are very fixated on their birthday, aren't they...? I suppose they would try to keep track of that, alongside their 400 day wait-limit (wait if they can't see the sun how do they logically conclude when the wait is over; time always seems to move slower when you're waiting for something)

Oh, you're very right. A newborn shouldn't know about the Halls or of the kingdom.
Although considering they specify that it's rumors about the Halls of Eternity, that makes me think that they aren't drawing these things from a sort of 'soul memory' from the King, assuming they harbor his soul. Either it's a sort of King-made Shade specific Collective Unconscious, which is the first thing to come to my mind when you mentioned 'common sense' (yes, I understand what you mean by that, and no, I can't put a concise name to it either), or that means that the King is well known in the surface, or that the Shade was once a resident of the old Kingdom.
...Huh never considered that last one until now actually.

Originally posted by JR117XC:

A few months ago I played a (mostly) text based game with idle clicking and a lot of philosophic elements which had three different endings depending on your decisions: Either you become more and more independent/liberal until you lose your mind because a world like this isn't allowed to exist. Or you obey the rules so precisely until you cease to exist (because there is no space for any non conformity in this world). The third option only showed up if you completed both prior endings and chose balanced decisions. Long story short: Either you obey the system or you rebel against the system - Or you find a more mature and balanced way and start finding your own path/truth, which immediately ends a lot of suffering.

Whoa, what game is that? It does feel quite similar to this game from the way you describe it. Perhaps by looking into that game and comparing it to this one, we can dig deeper into the philosophical elements here...

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I guess you're in luck? I'm a female, although I'm not sure what aspect of being a female it is that you are looking for here, since I'm certainly one of the least feminine females I know. *shrug*
And I agree! I'm terrible at analytical discussion type things in classrooms and such; too shy to speak up. But somewhere like here, I find it really fun to get the chance to bounce off of other people's ideas, even though it can be pretty rare for anyone to have similar interest.

[John117XC]

To be exact I'm an Italian born and ever since living in Germany. So me making Nazi-based jokes might be considered more as social criticism than actual making fun ;-) Truth be told, most people in Germany are against racism and against xenophobia. But they are sometimes a bit "blind on the right eye" if it comes to crimes which are politically motivated, in my humble opinion.

I'm glad that I speak three languages although my Italian lacks in practice a lot. It often comes in handy that I have chosen English class instead of French class at school. Plus video games are simply my favorite tool for improving my English skills.

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Yeah, it seems like they don't have any other fixed points in time as time itself is obviously very relative in this game and within the lore as well.

In the german translation the shade literally says "I've read about the Halls of Eternity, where the time is said to stand still" (I just looked it up in my Steam Archievements list). So I'm not sure whether we're not partly on the wrong track about this particular detail.

The game is an android game called "ALTER EGO" by the developer Caramel Column Inc. You can find it here[play.google.com]. I highly recommend it as you can learn a lot about philosophics and also about yourself (there are personality tests according to Sigmund Freud and other well-known psychologists). All of that is packaged in an interesting story with a lovely character as companion ("ES"). Just give it a shot - I hope I haven't spoiled too much. But I'm pretty sure that you'll be more than able to enjoy it anyway as the game is very comprehensive.

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I don't know, which feminine aspect I am looking for exactly. It's probably the type of interlocutor that I prefer when it comes to discuss both philosophical and emotional aspects of a story with such depth (pun not intended^^'). I don't like stereotypes at all but I think most women usually are a little ahead of men when it comes to emotional maturity or at least having interest in such topics. As I have a strong empathy I'm often not seen as a typical man. I'm in luck that my wife likes this quality the most about me :-) But I have to admit that I'm curious how old you are and where you live in the US.

[oRpheusB20]

Ooo, even more nifty.
Well, you can be the most inclusive set of people around and still cringe at your country's history. But it's good to hear that Germany more or less has its head on straight (ignoring politically motivated crimes, apparently, because when are politics anything but f***ed, am I right?)

Yeah, you certainly chose a good hobby to compliment your studies.

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Hm... I suppose it might have something to do with the translator? After all, things get a little muddied when changing languages, especially if it isn't the same core people doing the translations. I think there is a book that mentions the Halls in-game, but maybe I'm crazy? Although if there isn't, then the Shade still had to have learned that detail somewhere.

Oh boy, sounds like a hoot....
Wait hang on I had that downloaded for a while! I didn't get all that deep into it and deleted it from my phone when I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really an end. Whelp time to give that another shot I guess!

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Perhaps then you are simply considering a discussion with a female due to perceived emotional maturity. It can flip-flop depending on the person, but at least around high-school age, I can certainly agree with you.
Well, good to hear you have a spouse that gets you! Although any woman that turns down a man with strong empathy is probably a bit of a societal oddball already, if you ask me. I think I get you, though, with the strong empathy; for a while everyone was giving me funny looks because I was concerned for my manager's health, because she's my manager so I guess I should just ignore it, but she's a human being too??? Maybe that's just an American thing, to keep your superiors at a distance even if they clearly need someone to show them some compassion.
I'm far west, part of the three (IMO) sensible states that will give Trump the middle finger without a doubt. And I'm still young, early 20's (although I still feel like I'm 19 and wish I was 18, I tell you what). I'm probably young enough that some of the deeper things fly right over my head, haha. Or it could just be because of how my brain works, I'm not sure anymore.

[John117XC]

Yeah, to be fair: The vast majority of people in Germany are clearly against Nazis and racism. But the intellectually challenged ones are unfortunately louder in the most cases and they tend to play the role of the victim. They literally claim their right to solely play this role. If it wasn't offending the real victims (like victims of the holocaust) it'd just be ridiculous, but they also like to be smartasses in policital/any topics.

Thank you very much :) I was always ahead of my classmates back then because I loved to play video games (like Indiana Jones or King's Quest) which were challenging my English skills.

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I'm not sure about if this detail really is lost in translation. But the developer (studio seufz) of The Longing actually is a German company from Stuttgart. But I'm pretty sure that the shade said "heard about the Halls of Eternity" within the game. So it might just be a mistranslation or an inaccuracy affecting only the steam archievements.

Yeah, in my opinion it's a rewarding game if you manage to get the third/secret ending :)

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I often prefer to talk to women as they use to have deeper bonds in common.

Less empathic or also unemotional people often tend to be more frequently irritated by emotions "and stuff" (imo). So, I had chapters in my life where people called me unmanly just because I like to build deeper relationships and to support others instead of being overly competitive. Sometimes I think that (at least over here) there is a common misconception that being a swine equals being manly ^^' Not sure about that because I recently noticed that there are more profound discussions about this exact topic in my social environment.

You don't like trump? Then you line up perfectly with most Germans (including myself) XD We don't like him - or to be more precisely: Most of us see him as a dangerous and autocratical clown. Also it's nearly impossible for Germans to understand how he still can be in contention for a re-election. For example: A current representative survey revealed that 89 percent of the Germans do not think that the USA are a reliable partner for Europe when it comes to security issues.

However, it's a pleasure to have this nice conversation :) Don't get me wrong, but I'm always excited for your answers *blushes* ^^'