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reliquiaen · 30 days

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Okay, my Dragon's Dogma 2 thoughts. This is not a review, this is me figuring out the story and its meanings, how it connects to the first game, what it answers, and what questions I still want to know answers to.

'Ware of spoilers 'neath the divide.

“Abandon all illusions of control.” – Grigori

First: some words from our original Seneschal, Savan.

“Show that you’ve the strength to break the yoke that binds you.” – Savan encourages the Arisen to challenge him and rise above the role asigned them to become Seneschal. It always comes back to this idea of willpower being the driving factor of power and accomplishment.

“I command all life into existence.” – He creates a copy of the Arisen, demonstrating that he creates life.

“The world thirsts for the will to live.” – The world requires a strong will to hold it together and give it order, give it purpose and life. It’s the will of an Arisen that drives the world and all existence. With a weak will, nothing happens and nothing is overcome. Which is why all the tests are in place: to ensure only an Arisen of exceptional will can become Seneschal.

“Show that your will is fit to bind the fraying circle of this world and hold it fast.”

“Will you claim your right as Arisen, or shrug the burden and seek peace in oblivion.”

“The forge of my heart grows cold, and the world shivers for it.” – Over time – an eternity of it – even the most steadfast and determined Arisen grow weary and falter in their duty. Savan was Seneschal for so long that he’s become tired (he’s experiencing burnout, as you would if you were caretaker of an entire world for millennia), hence his search for a replacement.

“May you guide the world ever justly.” – These words are interesting specifically because they give insight to Savan’s character and I’m going to come back to these in relation to the Pathfinder.

The assumption I'm working with: The Pathfinder is Seneschal.

On the left, Savan from the first game; on the right, Pathfinder from DD2. They are wearing similar robes. There are colour differences, yes, but I put those down to graphics and mood/disposition. The 'world beyond the rift' looks very similar in both cases, but no screenshots because it's essentially just a big empty void with a thin layer of water for a floor. (The Brine lives in the water. I'll come back to that.)

Things about the Unnamed Sequel Dragon:

“If thou seekest to behold this world in its true aspect, abandon thy reason. Cast aside thine heart and thy life both.” – Unnamed Dragon (at the start of the game)

“Naught but thine ambition can alter the course of the rivers of fate.” – Heard at the start of the game and then again at the end if you refuse to sit on the throne, implying that the opening of the game in first person is actually your Arisen being crowned at the end but without the context of the events of the game.

Upon being defeated the dragon says, “perhaps thine will is strong enough to put an end to it,” which is interesting because it suggests that the dragon IS an agent of chaos and wants the destruction of the cycle which would lead to the unravelling of reality and all existence as we know it. But the dragon is merely a failed Arisen (which we learn in the first game, unless that’s no longer the case in the sequel) fulfilling the duty given them. Not a villain in the typical sense, but an obstacle to be overcome for the good of the world.

Who was this dragon before they were a dragon? That's always what I want to know. Why are they unnamed? (I do like to imagine they might be our Arisen from the first game in a dimension where they failed to beat Savan, but I doubt that would work in a timeline.) How long have they been the dragon? At the end, it looks like the Pathfinder can simply summon a dragon from nothing, so are the rules about failed Arisen becoming dragons different in this game? Where are the wyverns and wyrms from the first game, also, we only have drakes and lesser dragons in this. (I would sincerely love to see those big worm things from the post-game in the main world in NG+ and also proper two-legged wyverns, that would be awesome.)

Things about the Pathfinder:

“You must jump. That is the only path forward.” – The Pathfinder helps you escape the prison camp at the start, encourages you to ‘fulfil your destiny’. The griffin might have even been put there by him for this purpose. Since we see Savan create a copy of the Arisen in the first game, and there are several examples of the Pathfinder creating situations to benefit their goals (presumably*) it makes sense that they could have created the circumstances to ensure a griffin would be there to carry the Arisen to safety. The is especially compelling when taking into account that the griffin didn’t attack the people on the cliffside, it just left, which makes it seem like it, too, was simply fulfilling its duty.

*When the Pathfinder appears in Ambrosius’ study, Ambrosius can’t see him but you can. Then he changes Ambrosius’ mind, demonstrating control over someone, which is what Savan was doing in the first game. We also see the Pathfinder rewind time at least once, by putting you back onto the dragon’s back so you can godsbane it.

“Learn aught you can of this world you must protect.” – Pathfinder wants you to fulfil your role within the cycle, but not to challenge the ‘natural order’, which is counter to Savan encouraging you to challenge him in the first game.

“It is my wish that you should live out that life of purpose.” – This, too, suggests that the Pathfinder doesn’t want you to take their place as Seneschal, but to do what an Arisen is intended to do. This is why we don’t get a chance to fight them, why they show us the world without a Seneschal to safeguard life. Perhaps this is different because this Pathfinder is more vindictive and selfish, more ambitious, more inclined to defend what they see as their ‘right’ to godhood than Savan was. Or perhaps they are simply a newly instated Seneschal (comparative to Savan), someone who hasn’t spent thousands of years as custodian of reality and so doesn’t need to be replaced yet. Their will, then, would keep them in power because they would WANT it. This creates an interesting concept for me, in that a Seneschal doesn’t have to step down if someone of stronger will challenges them, they can simply rewrite the world to change the situation.

While Savan came across as a benevolent god-ruler, the Pathfinder strikes me as far more spiteful. He doesn't seem as if he really cares all that much about things generally, but more that he simply likes being in control and will do anything to keep that power. Savan said, "May you guide the world ever justly," and stepped down as Seneschal gracefully. But when you pursue this Pathfinder (on the assumption that you'll get to challenge him the same as you could challenge Savan), you instead get him saying that you are stepping out of bounds.

Now, I personally play a character I like to consider neutral-evil in disposition, and bumping up against the Pathfinder felt like meeting someone very similar. Someone who acquired this position and simply refuses to give it up because no one else can be trusted to do their job. This is such an interesting contrast to Savan, and I do love the possibility that this Seneschal still has the will to keep the world going, keep the cycle spinning, as it were.

Things about Rothais:

“Time and again have you sent unto me your minions. Yet repel them I have, and so I shall anew, till I might claim the true world as mine own.” – Rothais and the Pathfinder clearly hate each other, but neither has been able to defeat the other completely. Perhaps Rothais was a proper challenger for the position of Seneschal and was punished in a different way because the Pathfinder couldn’t defeat him? (This does not make much sense, but you never know.) Rothais sits on a throne the same as the one Savan sat on in the first game, the Seneschal’s throne. He appears not dead nor alive, but the same wispy sort of spirit image as the Pathfinder, but darker.

“The flesh may rot; the soul fragment. Yet power – power endures.” – This implies that Rothais was an Arisen of such will that time couldn’t kill him – he simply refused to die.

He seems to know more about the cycle than most, but not the entire story. He says, “could ne’er hope to fell the dragon, let alone the watching one,” which suggests that he is aware the dragon is a pawn of the Seneschal.

The godsway are made of broken Arisen souls. The godsbane blade is made of a pure Arisen soul. He pulls a godsbane from his chest, same as Savan does in the first game. Rothais was an Arisen, but he turns his soul into a godsbane, which is something we have only ever seen Savan do as Seneschal. But he’s NOT the Seneschal because he is wary of ‘the watching one’. He says, “the ages have taken their toll; ‘tis as withered as mine own flesh,” so perhaps the ability to create a godsbane from one’s soul is a skill only for the Arisen and time wears away at an Arisen's soul regardless of whether they become Seneschal. Is the purpose of the godsbane for one Arisen to kill another? Is it meant only as a physical manifestation of their unbreakable will? We use Savan’s soul to kill him in the first game, but our own soul remains intact, which is perhaps important to the bestowal of spirit? But in this game, we use Rothais’ soul to kill ??? Ourself? The dragon?? The Pathfinder??? Unclear.

In the post-game: He says he defeated a dragon once and created Vermund afterwards. So he was a successful Arisen in that respect. He says he “ruled the world entire” and that’s how he “came to know of the watching one” which suggests to me that he was a mortal Arisen with very lofty ambitions. It also suggests that this particular Seneschal (the Pathfinder) was in the role before Rothais became Arisen. (So how long ago was that? How ‘new’ are these nations? What happened to Gransys? Anyway.) He forged a mortal empire and ruled it, but because he wanted more power, more everything, he maybe encroached onto the Seneschal’s territory as ruler of the world. He wanted to challenge the Seneschal but was denied the opportunity. Then a new Arisen must have cursed him somehow with the Seneschal’s blessing because he says the watching one sent an Arisen to imprison him in the Seafloor Shrine. So, if he's not the Seneschal, he must be cursed, but why would the Pathfinder want him around?

I do so wish we had a nice little trail of breadcrumbs to piece a timeline together. Because Lamond's there too, being an ex-Arisen, and we know nothing about him. We don't see him in the little collection of character epilogues at the end, so I assume he died when his heart was returned to him, but we don't know for sure and I would really like to know.

General concluding thoughts:

The post-game, then, is a glimpse of what a world would look like with the cycle broken: no Seneschal to keep the world whole and sensible, everything falls apart. Without a guide, all falls to ruin. This properly answers the question left at the end of the first game: What happens if you break the cycle? The end of days happens, good to know.

OR was this simply what the Pathfinder wants you to think? Did they show this vision of the world to the dragon we fight to get him to back down? Were they an Arisen also who gave in and were turned into a dragon by the Pathfinder? Or are the rules different here?

Right at the end, in the final cutscene, the Pathfinder claims that the dragon is meant to embody all the chaos and destruction that we witnessed in the unmoored world. That instead of constant chaos and disaster all the time threatening to destroy all life, we get a single great dragon to ravage the land once every few years (or however long) in order to keep the world whole. A single cycling and defeatable calamity instead of an unending deluge of them that cannot be stopped. And the Arisen, selected to defeat the calamity – the dragon – and grant the world safety and peace for a time afterwards. With the Pathfinder – the Seneschal – to guide and watch and safeguard (?).

“A new world comes. A new tale is set to unfold. Yet it seems I will not be there to watch it.” – So did we kill the Pathfinder (Seneschal) after all? Guess I’ll find out when I do NG+. But it does seem as though the Pathfinder was killed alongside that giant dragon we stabbed with the godsbane at the end. And also that our Arisen vanished, the state of the world is restored and people seem to remember our actions but we - the Arisen - are no longer there. Perhaps we became the new Seneschal? I do so hope that when you get to endgame in NG+ that it's the same as in the first one, with your previous Arisen acting as the Pathfinder, but I doubt it.

Perhaps unrelated: when the Gigantus is powered back up in the post-game, your pawn is sucked into it through the empty eye socket and when that happens, they get the glowing red eyes and writhing purple/red aura that happens when they have the dragonsplague and they get drawn in by tentacles like the brine. So what is the significance of the dragonsplague? Is the brine the dragonsplague infecting pawns to create more chaos and destruction? Is the brine the destructive force the Pathfinder is keeping in check? And what was the Gigantus originally created for? Is it powered by the brine? Are the dragons/wyrms in the post-game that glow and pulse like that (and the lesser dragons also) infected with the dragonsplague? Are the enemies with glowing eyes?

Was the infection taking hold of our pawn at the end a final attempt to break the cycle? Is the brine using the “empty vessels” of the pawns to try and create that apocalyptic version of the world the Pathfinder showed us? Was the will of our pawn – as imbued by us – enough to fight the infection off? Is that why they tried to kill the dragon?

So good to know this game has left me with as many existential questions as the first!

#dragon's dogma #dragon's dogma 2 #reliviews #personal #it's very good to know i'm going to be mentally unwell about this game #for at least a decade #the same as i was about the first #i will be playing the game at least five more times #just to really absorb all the details #and i can't wait to see if i missed any foreshadowing #or other details that will make more sense #now that i've finished the story once #thanks capcom #this was everything i wanted #story dlc when

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