About the ending of the game （MAJOR SPOILERS）！
I just finished the game and I am having trouble understanding the ending of the game.
When the Nameless One merged with his morality he can now die, but that does not mean he is going to die right a way (he didn’t)
So how did he end up in the Blood war, he could have ignore what he did before and start a new life since he got his morality back, maybe marry one of the girls.
I don’t know much about D&D, what is the Blood war anyway? Is it the same as Hell? I thought the demon is fighting the Blood war, so why did the Nameless One end up there?
thanks
About the ending of the game （MAJOR SPOILERS）！
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fable
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Right.yutong wrote:When the Nameless One merged with his morality he can now die, but that does not mean he is going to die right a way (he didn’t)
Don't you think that after having caused the death of so many people who died in his place, that he'd feel the needs to make amends?So how did he end up in the Blood war, he could have ignore what he did before and start a new life since he got his morality back, maybe marry one of the girls.
I don’t know much about D&D, what is the Blood war anyway? Is it the same as Hell? I thought the demon is fighting the Blood war, so why did the Nameless One end up there?[/qjuote]
I'm a bit surprised you don't know about the Blood Wars, because it's discussed both briefly and at length in the game. Why are you bringing up "hell," when the game has nothing to do with Christian theology? The division of reality into various dimensions is again discussed in PS:T. The NO even gets a chance to visit a city that's on the borderlands, and looks to be slipping over into Lawful Evil.
I don't mean to give you the third degree about this.I"m just surprised, because PS:T does such an unusually good job of building up all that background material. Did you just do a quick run-through, perhaps using a walkthrough to ignore the characters who aren't germaine to quests?
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
thanks for the reply
You are right, I did use a walkthrough, not too much, I just wanted to finish the game a little faster.
I know there is no "hell" in the game, but I thought that when you die you would go to a place depended on your action when you were alive. All the good people would go to one place, all the evil people would go to one place, all the lawful people would go to one place, etc.
Anyway, so your alignment in the game has no effect on your ending?
I mean if NO are evil and remembered all the bad stuff that he did before (that is what happened right? that he regained all his memories), he would actually feel happy not regret, and no need to banish himself.
You are right, I did use a walkthrough, not too much, I just wanted to finish the game a little faster.
I know there is no "hell" in the game, but I thought that when you die you would go to a place depended on your action when you were alive. All the good people would go to one place, all the evil people would go to one place, all the lawful people would go to one place, etc.
Anyway, so your alignment in the game has no effect on your ending?
I mean if NO are evil and remembered all the bad stuff that he did before (that is what happened right? that he regained all his memories), he would actually feel happy not regret, and no need to banish himself.
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fable
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As I recall, only the most "pure" within the four divisions end up as "petitioners," seeking entry into one of the four core realmsyutong wrote:You are right, I did use a walkthrough, not too much, I just wanted to finish the game a little faster.
I know there is no "hell" in the game, but I thought that when you die you would go to a place depended on your action when you were alive. All the good people would go to one place, all the evil people would go to one place, all the lawful people would go to one place, etc.
Who says he loses his memory? The NO becomes himself at the end of the game, the sum total of all the personalities he's been and memories he's had. But the act of having sought to evade his death, and therefore caused it unnaturally to others (ie, wrenched them away from their own fates), leads him to seek some sort of atonement. I suspect we would have known why he chose to fight in those wars if a sequel had ever appeared.Anyway, so your alignment in the game has no effect on your ending?
I mean if NO are evil and remembered all the bad stuff that he did before (that is what happened right? that he regained all his memories), he would actually feel happy not regret, and no need to banish himself.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
Yutong - So you're under the impression that the Nameless One *chooses* to go to the Blood War and fight of his own free will, right? I think this is where the misconception lies: TNO doesn't have a choice but to get banished to the lower planes. He doesn't go there by himself, he literally gets sent there by powers beyond his control. If this wasn't the impression you got from the ending, I would suggest watching the end sequence again. You clearly see TNO engulfed in flames, screaming and literally getting "sucked" downwards. Doesn't look very voluntary to me
As further proof, after he has merged with his mortality and resurrected his companions, Annah says to him, "But I don't want you to go", and he answers that it is beyond his control and that even as they speak, greater forces are on their way to send him to the lower planes.
(If you don't recognise this conversation it's probably because you chose a slightly different ending).
To clarify what this has to do with the Blood War, you need to know that the Blood War goes on on all of the lower planes, so getting sent there would more or less equal having to fight in it. It's also possibly that TNO, in his earlier life, signed a contract to fight there in his afterlife, but that's just speculation
When TNO was mortal he learned that because of his great sins against the planes he would go somewhere terrible when he died (comparing it to Hell works, I think, if you're not familiar with Planescape terminology and that makes it easier to understand). TNO became immortal to AVOID this fate. As it turned out, becoming immortal was not the solution he had hoped it would be, and so he discovers that he has no choice but to regain his mortality, become mortal again and accept the punishment for his crimes.
I would agree with Fable that he decides to seek atonement by the end. However, he was more or less forced into that decision when he learned that if he carried on being immortal he would gradually lose himself entirely. Besides, shadows were trying to kill him all the time (sent by his mortality) so he could hardly have lived a normal, peaceful life as an immortal and ignored his quest, even if he had wanted to. The decision to get his immortality back was inseparably linked with his death. Merging with his mortality made him mortal again, and as a mortal he had no right to further life - he had already "cheated" fate and had far more life than he ever had the right to.
Therefore, he *did* die when he became mortal again - at least in the sense that he had to go to the plane he was always destined to go to when he died.
I'm not saying that he is definitely not physically alive when you see him heading off towards the battlefield in the end. I think that's open to interpretation. But he definitely did not have the choice not to go there, because his life is over.
My personal impression is that we're meant to understand that, although TNO keeps his physical shape (a petitioner would normally become part of their death plane in some way) he has died in the sense that he is beyond rescue or resurrection. To me, this is what makes the ending of Torment so bitter-sweet and so brilliant. The consequence of his choice to become immortal is the inevitable suffering that was always meant for him. All his struggles to get his memories and his mortality back was not a struggle to get his LIFE back, but rather, to finally end it.
If you want to explain to me why you don't believe he died at the end I'd be interested in hearing it though
As further proof, after he has merged with his mortality and resurrected his companions, Annah says to him, "But I don't want you to go", and he answers that it is beyond his control and that even as they speak, greater forces are on their way to send him to the lower planes.
(If you don't recognise this conversation it's probably because you chose a slightly different ending).
To clarify what this has to do with the Blood War, you need to know that the Blood War goes on on all of the lower planes, so getting sent there would more or less equal having to fight in it. It's also possibly that TNO, in his earlier life, signed a contract to fight there in his afterlife, but that's just speculation
When TNO was mortal he learned that because of his great sins against the planes he would go somewhere terrible when he died (comparing it to Hell works, I think, if you're not familiar with Planescape terminology and that makes it easier to understand). TNO became immortal to AVOID this fate. As it turned out, becoming immortal was not the solution he had hoped it would be, and so he discovers that he has no choice but to regain his mortality, become mortal again and accept the punishment for his crimes.
I would agree with Fable that he decides to seek atonement by the end. However, he was more or less forced into that decision when he learned that if he carried on being immortal he would gradually lose himself entirely. Besides, shadows were trying to kill him all the time (sent by his mortality) so he could hardly have lived a normal, peaceful life as an immortal and ignored his quest, even if he had wanted to. The decision to get his immortality back was inseparably linked with his death. Merging with his mortality made him mortal again, and as a mortal he had no right to further life - he had already "cheated" fate and had far more life than he ever had the right to.
Therefore, he *did* die when he became mortal again - at least in the sense that he had to go to the plane he was always destined to go to when he died.
I'm not saying that he is definitely not physically alive when you see him heading off towards the battlefield in the end. I think that's open to interpretation. But he definitely did not have the choice not to go there, because his life is over.
My personal impression is that we're meant to understand that, although TNO keeps his physical shape (a petitioner would normally become part of their death plane in some way) he has died in the sense that he is beyond rescue or resurrection. To me, this is what makes the ending of Torment so bitter-sweet and so brilliant. The consequence of his choice to become immortal is the inevitable suffering that was always meant for him. All his struggles to get his memories and his mortality back was not a struggle to get his LIFE back, but rather, to finally end it.
If you want to explain to me why you don't believe he died at the end I'd be interested in hearing it though
That is my own view of what happened at the end of game. But it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, who or what are the "powers" that sent him to the Blood War? How did they find him in the Fortress of Regrets? Did he actually die when he reunited with his mortality (making him mortal again), or was he simply carried across the planes and dropped into the Gray Wastes, still half-alive? The fact that Fall-From-Grace believes that she can find him suggests that he might be able to travel to other planes even after he has been sent to the Blood War. And besides, there's just no telling how much the Transcendent One knows about death and the afterlife, and there's no telling whether the Nameless One's Mortality ever gained the power to keep himself alive forever. "I can forge planes with my power. I can unmake YOU" implies powers about which we can only speculate. I think the games tease us and deliberately leaves the matter open-ended. After all, leaving it to our imagination is much more satisfying than giving us an ending that might disappoint us.Oubliette wrote:Yutong - So you're under the impression that the Nameless One *chooses* to go to the Blood War and fight of his own free will, right? I think this is where the misconception lies: TNO doesn't have a choice but to get banished to the lower planes. He doesn't go there by himself, he literally gets sent there by powers beyond his control. If this wasn't the impression you got from the ending, I would suggest watching the end sequence again. You clearly see TNO engulfed in flames, screaming and literally getting "sucked" downwards. Doesn't look very voluntary to me
As further proof, after he has merged with his mortality and resurrected his companions, Annah says to him, "But I don't want you to go", and he answers that it is beyond his control and that even as they speak, greater forces are on their way to send him to the lower planes...
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fable
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Nicely put, Oubliette, though it gives away more than I think is wholesome to somebody who really should play the game through to find out all about the Planescape universe, and how it works. In any case, I do believe the NO is self-redeemed by the end, though as you put it, this doesn't mean he's escaped the fate planned for him. However, he now ironically has the means to appreciate it. I'm reminded of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Only after he achieves a measure of wisdom can he truly understand the crime he has committed, and get more from the punishment than was probably intended.
In any case, I do believe the NO is self-redeemed by the end, though as you put it, this doesn't mean he's escaped the fate planned for him. However, he now ironically has the means to appreciate it. I'm reminded of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Only after he achieves a measure of wisdom can he truly understand the crime he has committed, and get more from the punishment than was probably intended.To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
Yes, there is a lot to speculate on.. That last conversation with Fall-From-Grace is the biggest hint that he isn't dead in the normal sense of the word, I think. Not only does she, as you said, believe she can find him, she also asks him not to forget her, when a petitioner would also normally lose the memory of his past life. So she seems to assume that normal rules wouldn't apply to him.VonDondu wrote:That is my own view of what happened at the end of game. But it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, who or what are the "powers" that sent him to the Blood War? How did they find him in the Fortress of Regrets? Did he actually die when he reunited with his mortality (making him mortal again), or was he simply carried across the planes and dropped into the Gray Wastes, still half-alive? The fact that Fall-From-Grace believes that she can find him suggests that he might be able to travel to other planes even after he has been sent to the Blood War...
(Not to go off-topic, but did anyone notice that Pharod remembers Annah when you encounter him in the Pillar of Skulls while Morte didn't remember his previous life at all? Was Morte lying or is it just a slip on the dialogue writers' part? Just a thought)
I often wondered how literal the end sequence is meant to be. If we'd seen TNO waking up as a spirit or larvae, a lot of players would have been very confused, probably not even recognising him. That could be why it was decided to show him waking up in the Grey Waste in his normal shape, and not as a typical petitioner. (It's probably difficult to make a larvae look poignant anyway
)I agree that leaving these questions unanswered is ultimately more satisfying though.
Fable - Well said about Crime and Punishment. I definitely agree that TNO is self-redeemed - he rights his own greatest wrong without anyone telling him he has to afterall, and his whole journey is basically a journey of self-discovery. Merging with the Transcendent One could be seen as symbolic of knowing himself well enough to view himself objectively, and thereby being able to deal with his crimes.
I think that what gives Torment a lot of its literal value is its ability to combine an existentialist theme with the idea of an afterlife. Basically *life* is TNO's problem, rather than death, although death is what the first incarnation was afraid of. The first incarnation's inability to live without committing crimes that lead him to be consumed with fear of the afterlife that awaits him, leads to further existential suicide in the sense that although becoming immortal keeps him alive it also kills his ability to live. This leads me to think that it isn't really that important what precisely happens to him when he dies - it's just important to understand that he finally learned to assume responsibility for the life he has led.
Just thought I'd clairify a few things, since this is actually a pretty good thread.
Your alignment does indeed give a pointer about where you are headed for when you pass on, BUT even a good man can have made mistakes that he hasn't amended for in his life. Such a person would indeed be going to "hell". Depending on his beliefs "hell" can be something different. For some it might be torture by the devils in the nine hells of baator, for another it might be something very different. Only those who have lived up to and after thier chosen ideals and belief would go to thier "right place" (for good people that would be some sort of heaven, like Elysium or mount celesta, and for evil calculating tyrants it might be Baator)
To explain the general nature of things I will use fictive simple examples rather that explain tNO extraordianry predicament...yutong wrote:Anyway, so your alignment in the game has no effect on your ending?
I mean if NO are evil and remembered all the bad stuff that he did before (that is what happened right? that he regained all his memories), he would actually feel happy not regret, and no need to banish himself.
Your alignment does indeed give a pointer about where you are headed for when you pass on, BUT even a good man can have made mistakes that he hasn't amended for in his life. Such a person would indeed be going to "hell". Depending on his beliefs "hell" can be something different. For some it might be torture by the devils in the nine hells of baator, for another it might be something very different. Only those who have lived up to and after thier chosen ideals and belief would go to thier "right place" (for good people that would be some sort of heaven, like Elysium or mount celesta, and for evil calculating tyrants it might be Baator)
While petitioners does indeed loose their memories, I don't think those imprisoned on the Pillar does so. IIRC Morte lost his memories because he was severed from the Pillar (and that pissed off the previous incanation)Oubliette wrote: (Not to go off-topic, but did anyone notice that Pharod remembers Annah when you encounter him in the Pillar of Skulls while Morte didn't remember his previous life at all? Was Morte lying or is it just a slip on the dialogue writers' part? Just a thought)
On the issue of NO not being dead but being in the Blood War and Fall From Grace trying to get him back - well I'm not even close to an expert on the planes, and it's been a while since I ran through the game. but wasn't that old guy in Smoldering Corpse bar (Ebb Something) said that he served a tour of duty in the Blood War for the Harmonium. And he's not dead and he remembers everything.
Doesn't that mean that you can be in the Blood War even if you're not dead and still keep your memories and there is a way out.
I also remember a couple of fiends in that bar that according to Morte might be deserters from the war. So it's possible to get out.
Doesn't that mean that you can be in the Blood War even if you're not dead and still keep your memories and there is a way out.
I also remember a couple of fiends in that bar that according to Morte might be deserters from the war. So it's possible to get out.
Remember the two abishai who knew you in the Smoldering Corpse Bar. They were deserters to the Blood War.
In their mortal lives (be it on the planes or one of the primes) they did evil things. When they died, they were sent to the lower planes - where they became abishai. As devils, they were required to fight in the Blood War for all eternity. However, they deserted... they were pointed out as deserters (by either Morte or FFG, I don't remember) ... this is important, so remember it.
A mortal lives their life and in death is sent to the plane that corresponds to their life's actions. This is explained in the Sensate Hall lecture (where you dare the guy to kill himself).
The Nameless One did something(s) horrible in his first life. He felt regret - regret changed the nature of a man. He went to Ravel to gain immortality to escape an afterlife in the lower planes where he would be conscripted into the Blood War. D&D doesn't work like Christianity - you don't just accept Lathander as your personal savior and suddenly you're "born again" on Elysium.
Maybe Nameless One intended to use his immortality to "work off" the karmic debt. Regardless, the ritual was flawed and the Nameless One was separated from his mortality, that mortality being a physical entity, and the Nameless One lost all of his memories - and thus his ability to atone for his past.
The Nameless One forgot his name, and the Transcendant One never knew it. Therefore, the forces that hold the planes together could never find either of them and force them to take their punishment (??? is it really punishment for the truly evil ???) of an eternity in the lower planes.
At the end of the ritual, Ravel killed the first (who is the Good Incarnation when you meet the three incarnations at the end of the game - you can even discover your true name if you have the bronze sphere with you), and at that time the die was cast. Game over. The Nameless One died and was consigned to the plane which he deserved. Even given a thousand incarnations, there was nothing he could do to repair the sins of his original life. That is why, no matter your conduct in the game, nor your other incarnations, are you allowed any life other than the lower planes.
But, there's always the hope of desertion. Also, FFG can freely wander the lower planes, hence her line that she will find you. She had a mortal life, did something meriting being a tanari and you're meeting her as a planar and not a mortal.
In their mortal lives (be it on the planes or one of the primes) they did evil things. When they died, they were sent to the lower planes - where they became abishai. As devils, they were required to fight in the Blood War for all eternity. However, they deserted... they were pointed out as deserters (by either Morte or FFG, I don't remember) ... this is important, so remember it.
A mortal lives their life and in death is sent to the plane that corresponds to their life's actions. This is explained in the Sensate Hall lecture (where you dare the guy to kill himself).
The Nameless One did something(s) horrible in his first life. He felt regret - regret changed the nature of a man. He went to Ravel to gain immortality to escape an afterlife in the lower planes where he would be conscripted into the Blood War. D&D doesn't work like Christianity - you don't just accept Lathander as your personal savior and suddenly you're "born again" on Elysium.
Maybe Nameless One intended to use his immortality to "work off" the karmic debt. Regardless, the ritual was flawed and the Nameless One was separated from his mortality, that mortality being a physical entity, and the Nameless One lost all of his memories - and thus his ability to atone for his past.
The Nameless One forgot his name, and the Transcendant One never knew it. Therefore, the forces that hold the planes together could never find either of them and force them to take their punishment (??? is it really punishment for the truly evil ???) of an eternity in the lower planes.
At the end of the ritual, Ravel killed the first (who is the Good Incarnation when you meet the three incarnations at the end of the game - you can even discover your true name if you have the bronze sphere with you), and at that time the die was cast. Game over. The Nameless One died and was consigned to the plane which he deserved. Even given a thousand incarnations, there was nothing he could do to repair the sins of his original life. That is why, no matter your conduct in the game, nor your other incarnations, are you allowed any life other than the lower planes.
But, there's always the hope of desertion. Also, FFG can freely wander the lower planes, hence her line that she will find you. She had a mortal life, did something meriting being a tanari and you're meeting her as a planar and not a mortal.