Let's Plague Final Comment

CaptainThunderWolf 1 year ago (edited)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd40qeeLFbM&lc=z135trnhrsnbtd4yh04cglvqaxyec3yhtlw0k

Plague, I've got something to say. I've got a few things to say. I've got so many things to say that you'll probably never even read this, for irony's sake. But I'm about to say them, and if I shout loud enough, I know the sky will at least carry an echo loud enough to confuse the hell out of you. Alright, I begin. Oh, and if you see this - please, read it. I have a lot to say.

First off, mushy things. Don't worry, the real point is much sharper. Plague, thank you. Dearly. I mean this. This playthrough... it was something else. And I don't mean that how we always mean that phrase; "something that evades easy description." No, I mean what it truly means. Something other, something aside. This was a year's worth of playthrough on a game I've seen beaten in under two hours. This was a journey through a world you appreciated, where you guided us along every meaningless and minute plot detail that runs askew with everything else like a texture just out of eye sight, or like a door floating in the sky, reminding you that Gwyn had an uncle somehow.

This was... it means something. This, it meant something. From the way you pored over every character, described them as humans, delved as hard as you could into understanding them for the sake of teaching us one lesson I'm sure you hard learned; that many of what makes us human are our flaws. The cracks. The faults. The wounds, scars, holes in us. Our failings, our mistakes. In every character you sought to find a reason for their choices, and to find their mistake. And, though you never really admitted it, a reason to excuse that mistake. I feel, a reason to make it greater. To make it, not a fault, a blemish, but a pain rose upon. A mountain crested. Something that not only made them greater for the darkness of it, but the light that it made them see.

To you, this was what it really was, something many never saw. A series of stories. Not your story most importantly, but everyone else's. You walked that world, but you didn't rule it. You led over its scars, fought the dark and light for good and ill, all knowing that none of it was your credit. The worth of your story, here, was but the worth of their stories and their given closure.

You cast the greatest flame, the deepest shadow, because you were surrounded by the sparks of those who came before. You tread their ruins and gave their flames one last light to burn upon. You treated this how it really deserved.

Which is why it really digs on me, the way you chose that ending.

Plague, there's a greater theme here that I think we all missed. A truth we dodged around, slipped by, looked past, walked through in the course for what we thought was greater knowledge. As much as the Light cast by the fire was that of hope and failure, the knowledge that allowed for aspiration and misery... it was what granted meaning to the dark.

What is a beautiful world, Plague, with none who walk it? A sea of stars with no eyes to see them? What the hell is the point of it all, if this world were an Eden, if we never made a mistake?

Why the fuck would we have gravity if we were never meant to fall down?

Plague, you saw the dark as a true inevitability. And maybe it was - as the Light seemingly came from, not the Dark, but the Grey, so too did the Dark rise as the Light fell. Born from emptiness they both were, the body and the shadow it cast - ironically, the Dark and the Light, in that order. Because without form, there is no play, no one to tell the story. Without the Light, there is no story to tell. If the story began to die, so too would stillness rise - you do begin to notice the actors and damn bit better when they stumble on their lines.

So here's the thing. We saw it as a coin flip. Light, Dark. A successor, an abandoner. One who burns, one who leaves. Fifty/fifty. Right?

Well, no.

Inevitability is a damn stupid concept when we have choice. See, Plague, this isn't an infinite series of coin flips. Or, it is, but no one means more than the other. Every separate instance is isolated; every time, new players make the cast, new actors tell the play. A new choice gets made. And with only two options, one must be selected eventually, right?

Well, no.

It's impossible. It's unreasonable. It's meaningless. The Light will die. Someone will always fail. Or, choose otherwise. To hope that the Light would burn forever, when the very tinder it requires continues to burn in the Flame - because, to be clear, I'm speaking as the Light Soul being the human essence of the Flame, with the Dark its absence, or rather, the aftereffect of its presence - eventually to be gone. That's how we assume it works - but this Fire, though fed, was born of emptiness.

Tell me, Plague. What is more empty than hope against infinity? What is more hollow than to scream into the void in defiance?

What is more human?

What would remind you more of every thing true in your heart that you desire to exist for?

In other words, what more does the Light in you need than an impossible battle, to remind itself that it burns yet for a reason?

The Flame needs kindled, Plague, because man needs a reason. The Light fades, Plague, because man needs to be hopeless. Man needs to lose hope, Eli, to rekindle it again.

The point is the fight. Or, it seems. But in actuality, it's something far more trite.

The point of an endless battle is to remind ourselves of what we fight for.

Can we expect the faith of every future successor to be that which kindles the Flame? Can we expect, like Solaire, that all would throw themselves into suffering and misery, and fight, and grow? And become more, suns unto themselves, fires that burn without any meaning but their own assigned ideas?

I think so. The Light yet fades, Plague. And yet, the Dark never grows darker. As even the farthest light fades away, we can see it still. The smallest fire burns the brightest yet with the least hope, in deepest darkness.

In other fucking words - screw inevitability. If the Fire wants to die, it'll die eating me down to my shoelaces. If the Dark wants to win, it'll do so seeing me gleefully burn the Dark soul in my hands to feed the flame as it shrinks lower.

If the goddamn void is going to eat me, it's going to look me in the eye as it does it.

We don't have any proof the the Flame will come back. We don't have any proof that it won't. All we have proof of is that we have a fight on our hands - and that means we can lose, and the other guy can win. Smile in the face of the devil. Make the reaper chase your laughter.

It's better to burn out than to fade away, they say. I dunno about that.

But if I'm going to burn, someone's going to see me smiling. And if this world dies, it'll die at its very last dregs, with no man having lived in regret.

If we lose, alright. We lose.

But damn, we fought hard.

That's why, Plague. That's why the Fire keeps burning. Because if we don't do it, who will?


Someone.

Anyone.

And any fire that burns, casts a light into the darkness. And any light we cast, brings others to follow. And whatever choice they make, we know we chose well. Right, or wrong - who cares? Let's just choose what's hard, and hope for the best. Just maybe we chose what's best, even if we knew it was hard.