WotR: The Knight Commander
Apr. 18th, 2025 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI forgot shopping doesn't happen on Easter Sunday, and indeed forgot it was Easter this Sunday, so I had to grab the last delivery timeslot available on Saturday night, because fridge empty so waiting until Tuesday for the next workable one is... not ideal.
So now I'm feeling persistently like I've Forgotten Something, which is not in fact fun.
But! Reminds me of Wrath of the Righteous.
... spoilers for the whole thing go under the cut:
The thing is when you play it for the first time this isn't obvious enough to be a tip off, but when you look back, Wrath of the Righteous is as strongly about memory as it is about being wrong about people and wrong about religion.
Which is very strong.
I just restarted so I've noticed how every 'tell me about yourself' dialogue gives the option of 'I don't remember' in assorted forms. And it's right there alongside options to be chirpy about the crusade or say you are there for knowledge or whatever, so it looks like Lazy Roleplaying Option. But on replay, oh no, it is not that.
Finnean can't remember that he's dead, which is immediately evident to everyone around him, but not to him until act 5.
Ulbrig can't remember how he got here, which he knows, but doesn't know the full extent of, until you play through his whole DLC.
Hilor has a clear and cogent answer to what he's doing on the Worldwound! ... it's just Wrong, as it turns out, since there's a thing he cannot bring himself to remember.
Nenio... oh, everything about Nenio. Can't Remember? Make it a lifestyle choice! Make it your strength! Tell yourself it's to save storage space!
... it is not, in fact, to save storage space.
As you find out in act 5.
Daeran tells people he can't remember a certain key day but is very probably a lying liar who lies, given his everything. Which makes it *viciously* ironic that what he asks of his lover is to Remember Him. We have to know you first, dearest.
And the Knight Commander is going to go through Stuff that makes it... Difficult to do.
This is obviously complicated by the fact you choose different myth paths and may or may not bump into much from the secret ending. I can't remember right now how difficult it is to find out Areelu's motives. Is that main path or skill gated? Can you arrive at Threshold not even knowing why?
On the Aeon's path what you gradually remember about yourself is that you are an Aeon. Everything more personal than that? Oopses, not relevant to Aeons. But at the very last moment you can choose to be Remembered and it changes everyone's lives, or quite possibly saves them, given they have to have existed in the first place in order to remember.
Arue's journey starts ehen a goddess wakes up the memories that went into making her, rather than just leaving her made of their results. Like the difference between procedural and biographic memory I think. Demons think they begin at their beginning, but they're made of dead people, so it's not that simple.
I love how the companions quests are like jumping up and down holding mirrors to the Knight Commander's situation. It's a horror story slowly unfolding, but they've been going Um Actually at you all along.
Poor Finnean, unaware he's a construct born of magical experimentation. Poor Nenio, unable to know yet that she's lived and died and been brought back from the Abyss. Poor Daeran, trying really hard not to think about how the power pouring through him comes from somewhere away in the dark. Poor Ulbrig, not remembering the choices that led to him being two in one. Lucky Arue, having memories waking up in her, but oh hey, those change her fundamental nature kind of a lot, wonder what that feels like.
... Knight Commander probably has a moment of it all clicks together and now they've got to stare into space a lot.
It's awesome storytelling and if your companions get killed or you don't want them around and dismiss them then it just... wouldn't come up.
Areelu keeps on trying to prompt you to Remember but she's looking so hard she'll lead herself astray on it.
On the Legend path she tries to get you to look at your own memories but there's an option to realise you have none before you woke up on Kenabres.
Which is very meta, but, also, imagine the horror of it.
The horror of any myth path really, becoming what you have chosen to be, but that deciding more and more about who.
Sure you can read it as being you, the Knight Commander, shaping the power to your will, but the more paths I play the less true that feels. And the story provides a reason for that. And the reason doesn't precisely present you with new memories, but.
But.
You can walk out of the final page a Legend.
A mortal who gets to make their own choices.
And is Iomedae on your side, on the side of freedom and self development? She's on the side of law and the way things have been and must be done, so, not quite. Is Nocticula on your side? Freedom yes, self development sure, but a whole history of evil there that very much has a job for you in mind.
Like grafting a piece of the Abyss onto your soul and... seeing what will happen.
You get all these choices for background at the start, you can change everything about the Knight Commander, you get so many options for answering the Who Are You questions... and yet by the end I feel like I know which ones are honest.
KC knows what you choose, first time you see the opening scene.
... and all the options for Remind Me Who You Are just get darkly funnier...
So now I'm feeling persistently like I've Forgotten Something, which is not in fact fun.
But! Reminds me of Wrath of the Righteous.
... spoilers for the whole thing go under the cut:
The thing is when you play it for the first time this isn't obvious enough to be a tip off, but when you look back, Wrath of the Righteous is as strongly about memory as it is about being wrong about people and wrong about religion.
Which is very strong.
I just restarted so I've noticed how every 'tell me about yourself' dialogue gives the option of 'I don't remember' in assorted forms. And it's right there alongside options to be chirpy about the crusade or say you are there for knowledge or whatever, so it looks like Lazy Roleplaying Option. But on replay, oh no, it is not that.
Finnean can't remember that he's dead, which is immediately evident to everyone around him, but not to him until act 5.
Ulbrig can't remember how he got here, which he knows, but doesn't know the full extent of, until you play through his whole DLC.
Hilor has a clear and cogent answer to what he's doing on the Worldwound! ... it's just Wrong, as it turns out, since there's a thing he cannot bring himself to remember.
Nenio... oh, everything about Nenio. Can't Remember? Make it a lifestyle choice! Make it your strength! Tell yourself it's to save storage space!
... it is not, in fact, to save storage space.
As you find out in act 5.
Daeran tells people he can't remember a certain key day but is very probably a lying liar who lies, given his everything. Which makes it *viciously* ironic that what he asks of his lover is to Remember Him. We have to know you first, dearest.
And the Knight Commander is going to go through Stuff that makes it... Difficult to do.
This is obviously complicated by the fact you choose different myth paths and may or may not bump into much from the secret ending. I can't remember right now how difficult it is to find out Areelu's motives. Is that main path or skill gated? Can you arrive at Threshold not even knowing why?
On the Aeon's path what you gradually remember about yourself is that you are an Aeon. Everything more personal than that? Oopses, not relevant to Aeons. But at the very last moment you can choose to be Remembered and it changes everyone's lives, or quite possibly saves them, given they have to have existed in the first place in order to remember.
Arue's journey starts ehen a goddess wakes up the memories that went into making her, rather than just leaving her made of their results. Like the difference between procedural and biographic memory I think. Demons think they begin at their beginning, but they're made of dead people, so it's not that simple.
I love how the companions quests are like jumping up and down holding mirrors to the Knight Commander's situation. It's a horror story slowly unfolding, but they've been going Um Actually at you all along.
Poor Finnean, unaware he's a construct born of magical experimentation. Poor Nenio, unable to know yet that she's lived and died and been brought back from the Abyss. Poor Daeran, trying really hard not to think about how the power pouring through him comes from somewhere away in the dark. Poor Ulbrig, not remembering the choices that led to him being two in one. Lucky Arue, having memories waking up in her, but oh hey, those change her fundamental nature kind of a lot, wonder what that feels like.
... Knight Commander probably has a moment of it all clicks together and now they've got to stare into space a lot.
It's awesome storytelling and if your companions get killed or you don't want them around and dismiss them then it just... wouldn't come up.
Areelu keeps on trying to prompt you to Remember but she's looking so hard she'll lead herself astray on it.
On the Legend path she tries to get you to look at your own memories but there's an option to realise you have none before you woke up on Kenabres.
Which is very meta, but, also, imagine the horror of it.
The horror of any myth path really, becoming what you have chosen to be, but that deciding more and more about who.
Sure you can read it as being you, the Knight Commander, shaping the power to your will, but the more paths I play the less true that feels. And the story provides a reason for that. And the reason doesn't precisely present you with new memories, but.
But.
You can walk out of the final page a Legend.
A mortal who gets to make their own choices.
And is Iomedae on your side, on the side of freedom and self development? She's on the side of law and the way things have been and must be done, so, not quite. Is Nocticula on your side? Freedom yes, self development sure, but a whole history of evil there that very much has a job for you in mind.
Like grafting a piece of the Abyss onto your soul and... seeing what will happen.
You get all these choices for background at the start, you can change everything about the Knight Commander, you get so many options for answering the Who Are You questions... and yet by the end I feel like I know which ones are honest.
KC knows what you choose, first time you see the opening scene.
... and all the options for Remind Me Who You Are just get darkly funnier...