SPOILER Moral Ambiguity Doesn’t Work in Wynn

So we return to the idea that Orphion is shown as being fundamentally better than the DB.

 

If you wanted to be nuanced, you could say both don’t care about the native inhabitants of the overworld, just that the Light inherently doesn’t kill, mutate, or negatively impact people while the Darkness does.

Beyond that, pretty much. Hence why that nuance is kinda pointless to begin with.

 

im not claiming its orphions fault, im saying that the beings from gavel are as fucked up as the ones from dern so either side taking over would suck since orphion and the dern beast have no care for anything but their influence. like theres literally a giant stone guy with a sword thats close to destroying the entirety of gavel and orphions just okay with that i guess

are the mobs in the se not inhabitants as well? they may not be humanoid but theyre still living creatures that thrive in a rich environment. even in the toxic wastes theres still plenty of life

its ABSOLUTELY orphions fault for putting the burden on lari. it literally let a normal living creature shoulder the responsibility of rescuing the entire world. my guy is essentially one of the gods of this universe and it had no plan b, no nothing and it let her run around like a headless chicken for centuries before we arrived. orphion should have just let lari rest after she failed to kill the parasite and come up with another plan, she literally lost everything she knew and blames herself for the slow death of gavel at that point but it still let her suffer while she was obviously going to accomplish nothing of value. id rather blame the literal god who relegated all of its responsibilities on a single normal person than the helpless girl who sticked too close to her personal ethics

 

The native inhabitants of Gavel (Dwarves, Doguns, Villagers, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, etc.) are separate from the Light and Orphion. When I say if the Light expanded into the rest of the world, it doesn’t mean that the Villagers, Elves, Doguns, etc. would expand into the rest of the world with the Light. They would still stay in Gavel.

Keep in mind that Orphion is a literal alien with limited access to the overworld. So idk why you brought up the Canyon Colossus when he had nothing to do with it. It’s as silly as someone blaming you for being complacent with the alien overlord Xathu committing genocide on a planet a billion light years away.

I was referring to the original inhabitants, the Olm and the miners. The Olm got completely wiped from the SE. Yet again, the original inhabitants of Gavel (Villagers, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs) have lived and thrived with the Light for thousands of years. The Light is objectively orders of magnitude less destructive than the Darkness is on the overworld.

Orphion can’t leave the Realm of Light and has to rely on other indirect methods to do anything in the overworld. He isn’t a god in the sense that he can control almost everything like in Christianity. So he needed someone to carry out his will to defeat the Parasite.

Nor did Orphion ever force her to be his champion. She could have walked out at any moment for over a thousand years, and NEVER did. She might still be his champion if the player didn’t come along. Plus you keep ignoring the fact that she was COMPLETELY CAPABLE of killing the Parasite multiple times. Orphion helped her to do so in every way he could. He didn’t set her up to fail because his and everyone’s well being was at stake. Nor did she “cling to her morals” because her refusing to kill the Parasite wasn’t moral in any stretch of the imagination. It was just stupid. How is that even in question?

We don’t exactly know why Orphion kept her along as he did. Maybe he genuinely believed she could overcome her incompetence, maybe he thought he couldn’t find anyone else he could entrust with his power, or maybe he thought she deserved another chance. Regardless, him keeping her as his champion was never an act of malice or betrayal regardless of why you think he kept her. If anything, it shows that Orphion is extremely patient with others, even if he is at risk.

 

Why the toxic wastes, thats like the most miserable place in the entire SE, every creature there exists solely to sustain the necrobiome of the garganguan beast that died there, it's an endless cycle of sludge and acid, no creature can exist in there other than those cancerigenous monsters, look at the plagued kantyri for example, all darkness does is mutate and torture even it's own critters

The beings in the witness church eat each other alive, i dont see fairies or unicorns doing that or even the semi fucked up creatures in the realm of light

 

Even if the Light and Dark are both fundamentally amoral, life as we know it aligns pretty well with the Light. Sure, the monsters in the Forest are hostile, but, like, everything is hostile, it's an MMO. There aren't any sort of angelic abominations made by the Light, it's all Phrumkins and Alraunes and Minotaurs, all of which seem to be broadly intelligent, not innately dangerous (Alraunes only attack if you hit first, Minotaurs could easily be warlike, and Phrumkins attack you either as a prank or because they're in a gang, which is presumably not standard Phrumkin behavior), and generally align well with the normal life of the area. About the only way you could explain non-Light Gavel working well with the Light bits is by saying that every inhabitant of Gavel is fundamentally Light-touched, but Wynn isn't Light-touched and Light creatures would gel well there too.

Light brings high fantasy, Dark brings eldritch abominations, and neither just ends up as low fantasy, which is much closer to the Light's model than the Dark's. So, once again - the moral ambiguity does. not. work.

 

This is just untrue. People can live and thrive under Darkness as well-- Hell, I'd argue you actually have a better chance at thriving through Darkness than through Light.

Corruption is just anti-life though, so yeah you can't really live with corruption

 

You say this, but they aren't unhappy. They're not "miserable". Spewers live just fine there, as do a bunch of other creatures-- it's just a hostile, alien environment.

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Light actively mutates life.

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Just because creatures of Darkness look terrifying doesn't mean they're in pain or are miserable. It's just its own strange ecosystem. Blinders do not lament that their outer flesh turns into bark with age-- it's as natural and neutral as a lobster shedding.
You'll find the only actual misery in the expanse comes from those who tried to interfere with the ecosystems; Olm who moved into the region, Humans who founded a town there, the player who is seen as a hostile trespasser within it. Beyond that, creatures living there are as content as mundane ones living in the wilderness.

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A little bit of lore of Fairyflies & Fumeflies -- the blue fireflies that show up in the Light Forest and the purple ones in SE and Kander.
Faireflies mundane fireflies infected with some lightborne illness that causes their insides to slowly crystallize, creating the blue color they emit. Eventually it overtakes them and they die.
Fumeflies are mutated to become more resilient, becoming acrid smelling and releasing toxins when eaten, making them more fit for the ecosystem Darkness promotes.

 

All of the Olm got wiped out from the SE, and those that survived had to flee. The original landscape has been completely altered barring the ruins of the Olm. The only "people" living in the SE are the Lutho miners under the Light. Even the undead and spirits in Gavel are tainted by the Darkness. Mr. Caritat burned down his mansion from being influenced from the Darkness. There is nothing in the game or outside of it that indicates that people can live or thrive under the Darkness. So I'm not gonna agree with that at all.

The Olm were the original inhabitants of the SE. The Darkness was one that invaded and indiscriminately killed the Olm. The Olm didn't "interfere" with the Darkness at all.

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@Bwitty03 I already acknowledged that point and why it doesn't work.

 

You're wrong here. The Road to Dern was always influenced by Darkness, it has merely become more saturated by it with time.

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It's almost like it's a wild ecosystem and it's not made for people to live in. It's almost like the Utopias that Light and Dark both desire to create don't include humanoids or any of the world in its current form in their design.

 

From the Final Moments secret discovery: "Shortly after the portal broke into this hidden land, a beast from an unknown realm laid siege to the city forcing the Olm to his domain."

The Elves have lived in the Light Forest and Aldorei for thousands of years with the Light. Even when the Light influenced the plains and the swamps, the Villagers and the Orcs were and still have been able to live there. The downfall of the Light via the Decay has negatively impacted them.

 

The portals don't need to be open for the realms to influence the physical plane. The portals only opened in 0ap, but there were already light beings (like the old guardian of the forest) around before that.

 

I feel that's inconsistent though because that doesn't explain why the Wynn province wasn't influenced by the RoW before 0 AP, and we are never shown the Silent Expanse being influenced by Darkness before 0 AP either.

Regardless, the claim of the Darkness on the Silent Expanse before 0 AP is still very weak. The SE wasn't transformed into what it is today until after 0 AP or else the Olm could have never established settlements there to begin with. Besides, even after the Light Portal opened, the native inhabitants of Gavel didn't get wiped out, unlike the Olm in the SE by the Darkness. Which was what my whole original point was about.

 

the inhabitants of gavel are separate and not under orphions command but theyre still connected to it (especially the elves) because gavel itself is connected to the realm of light. if something real bad were to happen to gavel it would definitely have repercussions on the rol. i dont think orphion would appreciate if gahareth or the canyon colossus destroyed gavel and the portal to the realm of light but apparently that still wasnt enough for it to intervene

i mean yeah i dont really disagree with that? i never said lari didnt do anything wrong by sticking too closely to her personal ethics, just that orphion fucked up even more. its the one who chose to put ONE ELF in charge of the most important event in gavel and the realm of lights history despite having literal armies under his command, without having another solution in case it goes wrong. also this was pre-decay, so the dawg was still super powerful (and even now, its still easily the 2nd strongest being that we know of). orphions stupid ass "patience" has ruined gavel and the lives of its people, i would not even be surprised if it thought letting the darkness hit gavel and rol while waiting for another champion to appear was a good idea

so all in all orphion definitely does NOT do good, it barely cares about anything or anyone but spreading its influence

 

I'd say the reason darkness is portrayed as unnatural and seemingly against its own inhabitants is because with the current locations known to us, darkness is unnatural. Unlike Gavel, the Silent Expanse wasn't initially in the territory of darkness; in the grand scheme of things, the darkness' invasion of SE was very recent. If Wynncraft were to introduce a continent farther to the west, past the wynn province, we would most likely find a place that has always been under the influence of the realm of darkness (the Gavel-equivalent of the RoD, as shown in the RoL 4 quest).

This might be outdated though, idk.

As for the corruption in Wynn, corruption is, by nature, conflict and chaos. It's not a manifestation of a subject like light or dark, but rather a manifestation of their interaction.

Imagine like, two castles opposite of each other, with their battlegrounds in the middle. Gavel is one of the castles, in peace and order, with its inhabitants considered "natural" to the environment. The battlegrounds is where the Wynn province is, including the Silent Expanse, where there's always war and conflict. But we are yet to see the "castle" of darkness, where the creatures that live there are natural and coexist with the environment.

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oh nvm about SE. I didn't know the olm weren't native to the place.

EDIT EDIT:

Now I'm confused. About where do we claim death of the author lmao

 

We don't know why exactly Orphion choose Lari and not anyone else, or if anyone volunteered to help Orphion with the Parasite. I do think one reason why most other Elves didn't help was that most of them were simply in Aldorei Valley too far to do anything when the Parasite first landed, and only Lari happened to be in the right place at the right time to stop it. As for the hundreds of years after 0 AP, another reason could have been that Orphion was still pissed at the Elves in general for chopping down the tree, so he didn't want more of their "help."

All of this is more so speculation; I also suspect it could have been just from trying to have a central protagonist in the story instead of involving more characters. Or more so a plot hole :-/

 

yea the original said Silent Expanse in the 1.20 Beta but they changed it for spoiler reasons. (i think.)

 

They probably changed it for retconning reasons. Though if that's all that changed in that part of the quest specifically, then my point about there being an unintroduced Gavel-equivalent of Dern still stands.

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I think that's shown in like a quest/discovery

Spoiler: the story

Lari knew that the tree shouldn't be chopped down, and protested against the elders when they wanted to do it. Lari was then shown to be chosen by Orphion, and was guided to Taproot like with the player in RoL 2.

 

That's what I was saying; the Darkness wasn't in the SE before the Dern Portal opened. But Deusphage and Bwitty were saying otherwise. And I disagreed because the Olm couldn't have lived in the SE to begin with if the SE was covered in Darkness like it is today. This is where the lore starts to contradict itself:

• Aldorei's Secret Part II says the Dern Portal opened in 0 AP
• The Final Moments secret discovery states that the creatures of Darkness waged war on the Olm shortly after the Portal opened, beginning the transformation of the SE into what is today
• However, on the wiki timeline, it says "The Olm escape from their dark land into the Dernel Jungle," long before 0 AP and cites the 4th Wynn Excavation quest as a source. This is what I initially thought, especially since there only seem to be humans in Wynn around 0 AP and beyond (with some exceptions like Bob's mother).

So it's unclear if the Olm got wiped from the SE in 0 AP or before 0 AP. I'm going with that it got retconned to happen in 0 AP since Wynn Excavation Site D is older and is getting a revamp.