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p4 shadow bullshit
P4 Shadow/Dungeon thing for Walter as of February in Ryslig
Dungeon/show is "Life of the Primitive: A Documentary". Walter's Shadow invites the viewer to join him on an educational journey into the lives of humans who live in ignorance of the world, and promises to reveal fascinating truths about human nature through study of these primitives. He is very welcoming and enthusiastic about people intruding on the dungeon, encouraging them to fight and learn, and frames the Shadows sent at them as lessons that will lead them to enlightenment.
Haven't figured out the exact visual layout of the dungeon yet. Might have three parts; first part mimicking Mikado locales, second mimicking underground districts in Tokyo, and third mimicking population centers in Ryslig.
The narration through the dungeon never loses its enthusiasm, but the content is very negative, talking about how humans are all bound in ignorance yadda yadda life is short and brutal and nothing humans ever accomplish lasts.
When the Shadow is confronted, its argument goes something like this:
- All the shit it was talking about during the dungeon is true, therefore human life is inherently worthless.
- Because worth doesn't exist. Humans are just part of the food chain and their ability to create gods is self-defeating, not a mark of power.
- This is why Walter finds it so easy to kill and eat people, despite the things he says on the subject.
- In fact, Walter's whole chaos bullshit is really hypocritical; he takes it halfway and then cops out because he personally still wants to have meaning in his life.
- The only meaning in life is in the last delusion you can feed yourself before death, and Walter just wants to die for real so that he doesn't have to think of himself as inherently worthless again.
- This of course does not make Walter happy.
- When the Shadow powers up and turns on everyone, it does so because it wants to impart upon them this knowledge, and the way to do that is through a demonstration; fighting and killing them.
- It encourages everyone to fight it, praising their acceptance of knowledge.
Walter's persona is Belial/Beliar, of course \o/ Bonus to the meaning because of how the Shadow talks about "worthlessness". Belial, in the Old Testament, is a word meaning "worthlessness/lawlessness", used to identify people who go against God and therefore are not good for the community, and which was later picked up as the name of a demon (and featured in Paradise Lost as one of Lucifer's main cronies.) If you reject the Biblical standpoint, this "worthlessness" is something to be proud of, as in the Satanic Bible, where Belial is one of the main symbols and represents a grounded mindset and independence from lofty, meaningless philosophies and dogma. Receiving this Persona would be a symbol of Walter discarding the more untenable parts of the chaotic philosophy that he had become obsessed with and had driven his self-destructive ideals, and adopting a more forgiving and human (though still subversive and rather ruthless) moral "code".
Tower Arcana, I think. It fits both what Walter represents to others and the world - drastic change through upheaval and destruction, a force that mercilessly tears down so that new things can begin - and the event he's been through and is so hung up on, his defeat at the hands of Flynn that rocked his faith in the "knowledge" he had based his new feeling of personal identity on.
Dungeon/show is "Life of the Primitive: A Documentary". Walter's Shadow invites the viewer to join him on an educational journey into the lives of humans who live in ignorance of the world, and promises to reveal fascinating truths about human nature through study of these primitives. He is very welcoming and enthusiastic about people intruding on the dungeon, encouraging them to fight and learn, and frames the Shadows sent at them as lessons that will lead them to enlightenment.
Haven't figured out the exact visual layout of the dungeon yet. Might have three parts; first part mimicking Mikado locales, second mimicking underground districts in Tokyo, and third mimicking population centers in Ryslig.
The narration through the dungeon never loses its enthusiasm, but the content is very negative, talking about how humans are all bound in ignorance yadda yadda life is short and brutal and nothing humans ever accomplish lasts.
When the Shadow is confronted, its argument goes something like this:
- All the shit it was talking about during the dungeon is true, therefore human life is inherently worthless.
- Because worth doesn't exist. Humans are just part of the food chain and their ability to create gods is self-defeating, not a mark of power.
- This is why Walter finds it so easy to kill and eat people, despite the things he says on the subject.
- In fact, Walter's whole chaos bullshit is really hypocritical; he takes it halfway and then cops out because he personally still wants to have meaning in his life.
- The only meaning in life is in the last delusion you can feed yourself before death, and Walter just wants to die for real so that he doesn't have to think of himself as inherently worthless again.
- This of course does not make Walter happy.
- When the Shadow powers up and turns on everyone, it does so because it wants to impart upon them this knowledge, and the way to do that is through a demonstration; fighting and killing them.
- It encourages everyone to fight it, praising their acceptance of knowledge.
Walter's persona is Belial/Beliar, of course \o/ Bonus to the meaning because of how the Shadow talks about "worthlessness". Belial, in the Old Testament, is a word meaning "worthlessness/lawlessness", used to identify people who go against God and therefore are not good for the community, and which was later picked up as the name of a demon (and featured in Paradise Lost as one of Lucifer's main cronies.) If you reject the Biblical standpoint, this "worthlessness" is something to be proud of, as in the Satanic Bible, where Belial is one of the main symbols and represents a grounded mindset and independence from lofty, meaningless philosophies and dogma. Receiving this Persona would be a symbol of Walter discarding the more untenable parts of the chaotic philosophy that he had become obsessed with and had driven his self-destructive ideals, and adopting a more forgiving and human (though still subversive and rather ruthless) moral "code".
Tower Arcana, I think. It fits both what Walter represents to others and the world - drastic change through upheaval and destruction, a force that mercilessly tears down so that new things can begin - and the event he's been through and is so hung up on, his defeat at the hands of Flynn that rocked his faith in the "knowledge" he had based his new feeling of personal identity on.