(Spoiler!) Don't Understand Ending...

Judaeus Apella · Post by **Judaeus Apella** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:31 am

Don't read below if you haven't finished the game! It will ruin the whole story!

I don't really understand the ending. The sarcophagus goes boom killing the Prince, then there's Jack and the mummy in some lawn chairs and some guy walks up behind him and mutters something about a vampire.... what… that’s it!? I don’t even know what that guy said!

So…. was the whole thing plotted by Jack? When was the mummy switched for the bomb? Did my character have a hand in it? Who was that guy behind Jack? Was Jack working for the guy behind him? Was Jack playing everyone, or just the Prince and Xiao? Was he really true to the Anarchs or was he just posing as one? Was he using the main character as a pawn the whole time? Was he playing everyone for pawns?

Believe this or not, but when Jack disappeared from the Last Round before I went to Nines and just happened to show up at the best possible time... with a car, I knew he had a hand in what was going on. He also knew what was going on all the time before anyone else. Gee… I wonder! At first I thought he was the werewolf or something, until I saw its head on the bed... unless that too was a charade too and the Anarchs were in on it, and playing me for a pawn as well.

The end was too damn mysterious. I hate it when they do that sh*t, after I’ve played or watched something for hours or even days. So does anyone actually KNOW what happened or is everyone else just guessing too?

Also, who the %@$# was that guy I killed wearing that bomb vest? I thought it was the prince! But then I knifed him in the office upstairs. By the way, I KNEW that knife on his desk was going to be used for something at the end. It was just sitting there throughout the whole game, and it looked really suspicious.

Jonus · Post by **Jonus** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:27 am

Okay, I'm not gonna go through and answer every question you raised, but let me sum up a few things and the rest of the answers can be found on this forum if you search.

(Spoiler hidden)

Spoiler

* Caine was involved (ie. the cab driver)
* The Prince is a Ventrue, therefore Dominate (ergo, Possession) played a factor with the "bomb vest" guy.
* Jack has a history in the World of Darkness cannon, so he's not so much of an Anarch as he is an independent who follows the Anarch doctrine, more than Camarilla.

Turn up the volume, play again, and read everything and it will come to you.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:48 am

You might also want to do a search in this forum on some of the prominent words in your inquiry. A fair amount of this has been discussed in detail, before.

Judaeus Apella · Post by **Judaeus Apella** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:38 pm

Well that answers all my questions except one. Thanks

I just wanna know if my character knew about the bomb. I hope so. I hope she made it out safely. I've developed a soft spot for her.

I wonder if theres any other games similar to this... well except for the DeusEX series, but even that can't compare to this game, not even the newest one. What I loved about this game was the sword fighting, man that was fun.

Jonus · Post by **Jonus** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:53 pm

Judaeus Apella wrote:Well that answers all my questions except one. Thanks

I just wanna know if my character knew about the bomb. I hope so. I hope she made it out safely. I've developed a soft spot for her.

Spoiler cut --

Spoiler

Depending on which ending you chose, you will even see your character leave the building before it blows, otherwise...um...yeah, she might have been boomed along with everything else.

Judaeus Apella · Post by **Judaeus Apella** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:20 pm

:speech:

YOU LIE!! SHE'S SAFE!

Hematic · Post by **Hematic** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:05 am

Whether your character lived depends upon whether or not you listened to the Malkavian thinblood. If you had to ask, I suspect your ashes are floating around downtown LA.

If you want to get my 2 cents on it read here:

First off, recall that Jack was a pirate. He knows a thing or two about boarding and looting ships. Most likely, he got word of LaCriox and Ming's collaberation, and decided to do something about it. Do you remember the news report about the unknown, smelly cephlapod found on the beach? Almost certain it was a Kueijin. Instead of burning from sunlight, kueijin rot.

Because of how Nines stood up for you, your sire had anarch tendancies. It is quite possible that you were sired to get LaCroix from the inside. It is no mere coincidence that Jack and Nines saved you from certain death many times over.

I'm sure there is more info posted, and I'm sure other people will tell you I have no idea what I am talking about. A good story is one you can give your own ending to.

Wesp5 · Post by **Wesp5** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:42 am

Judaeus Apella wrote: I just wanna know if my character knew about the bomb. I hope so. I hope she made it out safely.

Regardless of whether your character knew about the bomb, not showing him alive when you made the right decision was an oversight of the developers IMHO, so using the unofficial patch that will be fixed. You will also hear Jack explaining the whole setup a little more using two restored hidden sentences during the end-cutscene on the hills.

Celacena · Post by **Celacena** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:42 am

Wesp5 wrote:Regardless of whether your character knew about the bomb, not showing him alive when you made the right decision was an oversight of the developers IMHO, so using the unofficial patch that will be fixed. You will also hear Jack explaining the whole setup a little more using two restored hidden sentences during the end-cutscene on the hills.

I always side with the Anarchs and you are shown somewhat singed and smokey at the end scene.

what does Jack say?

we have discussed the ending at considerable length on here and some things are agreed

spoiler
- Jack set up the discovery of the box and planted the bomb
- the nosferatu know more than they let on and are not interfering with Jack's plan
- the cab-driver was supposed to be Caine and whether or not that was finally intended, he is an associate of Jack's
- the mummy is just a dead king, possibly one who had been a ghoul - hence his reputedly extra-long life
- Grout was killed because he suspected some of what was happening - probably by Ming
- the antiquarian vamp also knows some of what is going on
- overall the plot is about stopping the eastern vamps and LaX taking over LA
Unanswered Qs
- who knew
- how/when the switch was made
- is it Jack or the Nossies who keep you informed
- whether it was all Jack's idea or did he involve others
- whether the PC was sired as part of the overall plot

Wesp5 · Post by **Wesp5** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:13 am

Celacena wrote:I always side with the Anarchs and you are shown somewhat singed and smokey at the end scene.

Yeah, but only because I added that sequence in

. I build it out of the solo ending...

What does Jack say?

In the restored unused lines Jack says the following: "Threw that sarcophagus out there and they just tore each other up tryin' to get to it." And dependent on what the player chose: "Too bad about the kid. Ah well, ya can't call 'em all." or "And the kid... worked out alright, huh?"

- The cab-driver was supposed to be Caine and whether or not that was finally intended, he is an associate of Jack's.

I think the consensus is that he isn't Caine but a Malkavian who thinks he is Caine and who is even mentioned somewhere in the PnP game as a friend of Jack.

- Is it Jack or the Nossies who keep you informed?

I guess we'll never find out who sent you the emails but the Nossies were not involved directly as the following restored unused line of Gary shows: "Am I the only one who saw this coming a million miles away?"

Selenolycus · Post by **Selenolycus** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:14 am

I started playing this game when it debuted in 2004, but I got sidetracked a bit around Chinatown time.

I started playing it again about three weeks ago, got sidetracked, and decided about twelve hours ago to finish it. I chose the Anarch-give-Prince-the-key ending, using the patch with 'restored' content.

Overall I am content with the ending, but I feel a sense of sadness with the game being over. The year it debuted was sort of an emotional one, and hearing "Swamped" play with the credits rolling... ahh, I'm nuts. :laugh:

There were parts of the game that felt really, really tedious (read as: the Sabbat and Zombie levels were just painful). I hope there will be another Word of Darkness game at least approaching the quality of this one in the near future. When one gets into it, it's quite absorbing.

Keline · Post by **Keline** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:32 am

My guess is that it was Jack who boarded the Elizabeth Dane and slaughtered the crew (He supposedly was a pirate in life after all!) and then replaced Messerach with the C4.

Backing this up with:
The sarcophagus has not been opened after we've seen it. The museum personel would have "discovered" the C4, the police would have as well. The bloody handprints on the sarcophagus were probably Jack's doing to add more scare to the whole thing!
Therefore the C4 had been planted on Elizabeth Dane. Remember, the key was gone before the Sarcophagus, so Jack could not have planted the bomb inside the Sarcophagus while it was at either Giovanni mansion or Ventrue tower. It had had to be planted the night the crew was killed as it's highly unlikely someone managed to do that after the massacre of the crew with all the policemen were around.
It's also Jack that had Messerach around, so he had opened it at some point.

Now that's said, here we go with speculation.
Jack's intentions are most unclear here. He couldn't know for certain who would get the sarcophagus. However he knew from Cabbie that everyone would be after the Sarcophagus and Jack probably felt like getting rid of either LaCroix or the Kuei Jin. As it plays out in every ending but the Kuei Jin one, he's getting both done.

Now for the last part I don't understand myself
Why was the key stolen seperatly? Johansen knew it was the key to the Sarcophagus, so it was probably stored right next to it on the Dane. So who stole it? The KJ are the only faction we know to have possessed it. The KJ stealing it themselves doesn't make sense because they would have taken the Sarcophagus as well. In fact, the Chang brothers were sent by Ming Xiao to retreive the Sarcophagus. We know the key was stolen from the Elizabeth Dane. Which leaves us with 1 clue. Jack was on the E.D.

Now the only hypothesis I have here is that Jack wanted the KJ wiped out by any means necessary, so he gave Ming Xiao the key so she'd become a target of the Camarilla. The only flaw here is that nobody knew who had the key until MX approaches you after Hollowbrook Hotel and tells you.

I hope there will be another Word of Darkness game at least approaching the quality of this one in the near future. When one gets into it, it's quite absorbing.

I'm not getting my hopes up though. EA just sacked the last company capable of developing decent story-driven RPGs. We may enter a World of Darkness regarding video games for a couple of years until some upcoming studio pulls off a Baldur's Gate and revives the genre.

Wesp5 · Post by **Wesp5** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:11 am

Keline wrote: Now the only hypothesis I have here is that Jack wanted the KJ wiped out by any means necessary, so he gave Ming Xiao the key so she'd become a target of the Camarilla. The only flaw here is that nobody knew who had the key until MX approaches you after Hollowbrook Hotel and tells you.

I think Jack wanted to set up the KJ and the Camarilla against each other and if MX hadn't approached you he would have found the means to give you a tip himself. Either directly or using the emails, whoever was actually sending them

.

Keline · Post by **Keline** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:22 am

That however would have revealed him as a player in the game.

shift244 · Post by **shift244** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:30 am

No necessarily. He could've easily worked through various means to keep himself in the shadow... the chess emails being one (if you think he's the one sending them), then there's a Gangrel professor who obviously has been told by someone about something related to the end plot, so it should not be too much of a hassle arranging for information on the key to end up revealed to him... and various other means, the Sabbat, his "fellow" Anarchs, even the unwitting human cops can be tipped off to it's whereabouts to lead you there... all which does not seem to be beyond his abilities.

armedmonkey · Post by **armedmonkey** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:36 pm

If he's not Caine, how does he know all the stuff he does?

I think Beckett was in on it too. When he stopped you from opening the sarcophagus it was because he knew it got switched up with the bomb and wanted to make sure you weren't around when it blew (because he knew he could not convince lacroix away from opening it)

Wesp5 wrote:Yeah, but only because I added that sequence in . I build it out of the solo ending...

In the restored unused lines Jack says the following: "Threw that sarcophagus out there and they just tore each other up tryin' to get to it." And dependent on what the player chose: "Too bad about the kid. Ah well, ya can't call 'em all." or "And the kid... worked out alright, huh?"

I think the consensus is that he isn't Caine but a Malkavian who thinks he is Caine and who is even mentioned somewhere in the PnP game as a friend of Jack.

I guess we'll never find out who sent you the emails but the Nossies were not involved directly as the following restored unused line of Gary shows: "Am I the only one who saw this coming a million miles away?"

Jhereg · Post by **Jhereg** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:33 am

Keline wrote:The sarcophagus has not been opened after we've seen it. The museum personel would have "discovered" the C4, the police would have as well. The bloody handprints on the sarcophagus were probably Jack's doing to add more scare to the whole thing!

Precisely so. The sarcophagus can't be opened without the key, and it was stolen before the Museum could examine it (hence no x-rays). Nobody in their right mind would have broken the thing open to find out what was inside, it being an ancient artifact and all. The key was stolen precisely so that nobody could know what was inside. The whole 'The sarchophagus appears to have been opened from the inside" rap I don't get. How could a person arrive at such a conclusion without opening it? That concern, however, is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Keline wrote:Jack's intentions are most unclear here. He couldn't know for certain who would get the sarcophagus. However he knew from Cabbie that everyone would be after the Sarcophagus and Jack probably felt like getting rid of either LaCroix or the Kuei Jin. As it plays out in every ending but the Kuei Jin one, he's getting both done.

The part that everybody seems to miss is that not only does Jack have Anarch leanings - he was a pirate. He is an anarch in the truest sense of the word, that being, "I take orders from one person - me!" I'm speculating, too, but I'd bet that Jack couldn't possibly care who got the sarcophagus, just so long as he broke open the hornet's nest, as it were. As the ending attests, his goal may have been to wipe out the Kuei-Jin and the Camarilla in LA, but that was likely more of a desirable outcome than integral to the plan. The "plan", if you want to call it that, is that there was no plan beyond getting that hornet's nest broken open. What comes next is irrelevant.

He's a sociopath. People reflexively try to impose structure on things, but trying to impose structure on a sociopath's train of though is like trying to balance a brick on the tip of a string. It may serve some function as an intellectual exercise, but is inevitably doomed to practical failure. If you want to grasp his intent at all, you have to look at it from that part of your mind that you don't like - the snarling, malicious child who pulls the wings off bugs because it can, not because it has a reason.

Keline wrote:Now for the last part I don't understand myself
Why was the key stolen seperatly? Johansen knew it was the key to the Sarcophagus, so it was probably stored right next to it on the Dane. So who stole it? The KJ are the only faction we know to have possessed it. The KJ stealing it themselves doesn't make sense because they would have taken the Sarcophagus as well. In fact, the Chang brothers were sent by Ming Xiao to retreive the Sarcophagus. We know the key was stolen from the Elizabeth Dane. Which leaves us with 1 clue. Jack was on the E.D.

Now the only hypothesis I have here is that Jack wanted the KJ wiped out by any means necessary, so he gave Ming Xiao the key so she'd become a target of the Camarilla. The only flaw here is that nobody knew who had the key until MX approaches you after Hollowbrook Hotel and tells you.

I'm content that Jack took the key and gave it to the Kuei-Jin, perhaps through intermediaries (not difficult, and the intermediaries need have no clue what's going on). He had a fairly good idea what LaCroix would do with it, but he also had a fairly good idea that the Kuei-Jin would opt for the status quo - at least for the time being. The goal of the Kuei-Jin is to wipe out the Camarilla in LA, and until that is fiat accompli, they won't be distracted by other things. Whether or not you found it wasn't as important as that LaCroix did not, at least not without some major-league bloodshed. The consequences of the key being found were irrelevant, and the bomb is not actually pointed at anybody. If somebody finds the key and opens the sarchophagus (even you or the Kuei-Jin), then KAFLOOIE!!!! A big, satisfying explosion that blows up a few city blocks. Close enough. The one ending that I think would irritate Jack the most is the Kuei-Jin ending, not because of any particular philosophical or political leanings, but just because it's too darn clean. Quel bummer.

As a sociopath, his mind may be a mystery to us, but to a sociopath, we're a large, glowing neon book with pretty pictures and great big typefaces. Jack wasn't playing you - at least not just you. He was playing everybody. Perhaps you were sired on purpose or by accident, or perhaps as part of a different game. One extra monkey-wrench in the machinery couldn't hurt, and he helps to keep you alive only insofar as you keep him entertained by slaughtering everything in sight. As a caitiff, you're closer kin to him than pretty much everybody else - unallied, leaderless, and clueless. The perfect patsy, and he knew everybody would want a piece of that - if you were alive. The bulk of his initial instruction to you consists of convincing you that the 'right way' is through - not around - everybody. Not an accident, that.

I initially thought that the "feeling of dread or pressure" was you. My opinion has shifted somewhat from that point of view, though. That dread isn't an antedeluvian, or you, or anybody or anything in particular. It's L.A. going to heck in a hand-basket. As it shakes out, you play a major part in it, but it's anarchy by committee, and most of the members don't even know they're on it. You merely serve as the Magnesium in his alchemy. You help everything burn hotter and faster - even things that otherwise wouldn't burn.