New spiritfarer? spoilers for end game inside.,

[TotalAbyss]

SPOILERS FOR END GAME!!!!!!!


So when Charon makes you the players Stella and Daffodel the Spritfarers, when its your time to go through the portal. are you supposed to find your replacements like Charon did? Is buck going to take up that mantle now? Or is it just empty forever?

[rmsgrey]

I suspect the entire Spiritfarer gig was entirely for Stella and Daffodil's benefit - if you look at who Stella takes to the Everdoor, they're all people from Stella's life, who she helped to deal with their own impending deaths. Oh, and Daffodil.

Between Lily's content, Stella's encounters with the ghost owl, and the end game, it's clear that Stella's time as Spiritfarer was her own way of coming to terms with her own impending death - reliving (some of) her lifetime experiences with death, both among friends and family (Gwen, Atul, Summer) and through her hospice work before finally making her own trip to the Everdoor. That doesn't necessarily mean that none of it was real - there could well be a Spiritfarer, and the assorted Spirits Stella helps could have been hanging around the first stage of the afterlife unready to take that next step and pass through the Everdoor - but it could also all have been in Stella's dying mind.

Either way, it's clear that Stella couldn't have been the only active Spiritfarer - in the real world, with billions of people alive, hundreds of thousands die every day - several people every second. Given that Stella's in-game guests are drawn from decades of her live, there should be billions of Spirits being helped, not just a dozen or so...

I come down slightly more on the side of it all being in Stella's head, as a metaphorical interpretation of her life, but if someone believed that there really were dead Spirits that had been hanging around the afterlife for years or decades, who Stella was helping to finally move on to whatever comes next, I wouldn't insist they were wrong. I only draw the line at the idea that Stella (and Daffodil) is the only Spiritfarer helping Spirits move on.

And that's without considering that in the game, Stella eventually stops finding new passengers, suggesting that her time as Spiritfarer is strictly limited (if you take it as a representation of events rather than an artifact of the limitations of the game)

[The Sojourner]

Originally posted by TotalAbyss:

So when Charon makes you the players Stella and Daffodel the Spritfarers, when its your time to go through the portal. are you supposed to find your replacements like Charon did? Is buck going to take up that mantle now? Or is it just empty forever?

I'm glad I'm not alone in wondering this. I too mildly thought that Buck (or someone like Beverly or Lily, before the updates) would be the next captain of the boat. After all, that very boat was originally designed for Charon, to be powered by the Everlight. Yet everyone you encounter is a spirit and/or a shade. It would seem they are simply not cut out to handle Stella's work with the Everlight.

The Lily update did make the ending more satisfying, but it still leaves this bit hanging (as well as the question of how Stella got hospitalized, and then passed on). Sure, in reality there are other hospice workers, but who in the world of Spiritfarer would take over the helm that Stella once had? Charon could pass on the Everlight to Stella, so why not Stella to someone else? And what would become of that ark of hers?

Of course there is the possibility that this is some sort of celebration of her life that's all in her head — a cliché that's about as icky as the ol' "it's all a dream" cliché, probably because they're so very nearly identical! Yet for this, I offer this angle behind the "dream": Charon never really passed on. Being an ancient Greek God, he's not really destined to die ever, so maybe the whole intro sequence is something of a... farce (for lack of a better term)? So then maybe Charon, along with Hades and Thanatos, were waiting for Stella this whole time, through the Everdoor.

[Ph|Apple Norris]

I think that the only real Spiritfarer is - Charon. He greets her and gives a place on a boat.
She is traveling the river Styx on the boat which is a metaphor for her life where Everlight is her life's energy, and islands are places in the real world that made a huge impression on her.
Boat grows along with her personal growth. Every spirit she meets changes her - sometimes it's immediate if this person is open to her (like Atul, Summer and Gwen), sometimes it's a Mickey and Bruce situation, but nonetheless - all those memories are now a part of her journey, a part of the boat.
Also, all this food and house decorations you give to the spirits - that's metaphor for how Stella tried to show some affection to them.
All those spirits, places, greetings, goodbyes - are all just means to an end. They show her spirit what person she became because of those experiences. In the end all of her friends gather together to bid her farewell, and then to meet her on the other side.
She steps off from the Charon's boat into Hades's domain. Her journey ends and she may rest in peace. And Charon returns alone, towards the shores of the world of the living.

[Kimochiru]

Originally posted by rmsgrey:

I suspect the entire Spiritfarer gig was entirely for Stella and Daffodil's benefit - if you look at who Stella takes to the Everdoor, they're all people from Stella's life, who she helped to deal with their own impending deaths. Oh, and Daffodil.

Yes I'm down with this interpretation. While the Spirit World may very well be a real afterlife place, the entire journey Stella made as the Spiritfarer felt more metaphorical than tangible. The whole job as a Spiritfarer closely reflects her work as a nurse, taking care of passengers to the end, as she learns something about life from them. All the passengers are people she knew, and the mini-game events represent a real event in their lives. Summer, for example, battled with cancer during her lifetime, which is represented by the "tumor" ores on the dragons. Stella, a nurse, helps them settle down. It's very clear that the Spiritfarer role was ultimately tailored specifically to Stella, representing something very meaningful to her.

Perhaps Stella really is dying in the real world, and winds up in the Spirit World to reunite with all the people who have impacted her life, helping them move on in the process.

In-game... I suppose I'd say Charon is still the true Spiritfarer, he is based on the mythological Greek spirit so I find it difficult to buy that he's actually finished with his work. Perhaps he left the mantle temporarily to Stella to help her come to terms with her death. Though, it is also possible that there are multiple souls taking on this role, those who need to experience it, caring for their own crew of old friends. After all, the game development initially started off as a multiplayer where you'd be able to pass by many other player's ships...