#I'm saying like they required a stand alone video for whatever reason and then later there will be one that has all the stuff

[angiestown]

so is sanrio gonna be the one year anniversary update or do you think there’s still hope for more in that update and that video just got posted separately bc of some sort of reason involving the two companies collaborating?

#*grasps desperately at straws* #I'm saying like they required a stand alone video for whatever reason and then later there will be one that has all the stuff

[writingonjorvik]

Jorvegian Myth: Aideen Is Dead

That's a big claim (and kinda an overdone one in fandom) so let's just get into the reasoning. Spoilers for the most recent quests under the cut.

We've known for a while that Aideen hasn't intervened with, anything on Jorvik really, for a really long time. This started me on two theories on why that might be. Generally, I don't believe Aideen is the only entity of her kind. If that was the case, what about the rest of Earth? Aideen is only described as to have saved Jorvik, but what about the rest of the world? Did is not die? Was is just left alone to recover from Jorvik's survival? This gets supported by a comment Ydris made in the most recent quests if the MC chooses to say that they have faith in Aideen. Ydris laughs at the comment, implies Aideen is unreliable, and suggests putting your faith somewhere else. I'll address the fact that she's unreliable to him later, and just point out that this implies there are other entities to put one's faith in in Ydris's mind.

The assumption then was that either a) Aideen is like a Shinto kami or b) she can no longer be corporal because she was wounded/killed. In the instance of situation a, Aideen can't help Jorvik because there isn't enough faith in her and/or the land has become too wounded. In situation b, which I'm finding more likely, she can't intervene because she's dead. In either situation, I think this better sets up narrative agency for the MC but I will get to that in a bit.

We know that Aideen now is in all living things. She's basically the Force and this reveal from the Catherine quests has been widely debated in the community. However, we also know she had to be, at some point, corporeal. If for no other reason than the fact that we have physical depictions of Aideen, Aideen had to, at some point, be physical enough for people to have the legend of a girl coming to the island, riding over its waters, and healing it (likely started by Fripp and the JWHs). This fact is consistent so far with all three versions of the creation myth of Jorvik. So how did Aideen go from a physical form to an incorporeal one?

The answer actually fits into the myth that seems to be the basis of the Soul Riders, a myth I covered forever ago on this blog: a variant on the myth of the Triple Goddess and her fourth form. Most of you probably know the Triple Goddess myth, Maiden, Matron, Crone/Matriarch. It is a highly prominent goddess archetype in Celtic and Norse mythos, which SSO has always drawn from. But the Triple Goddess excludes a fourth Soul Rider, the Lightning Circle in particular, unless you include her fourth form. The Tempest. And the Tempest is the dead version of the Triple Goddess and the wild magic that came out of it.

So to return to the point, both things are true about Aideen. She did come through with Fripp as an incredibly powerful entity on a cosmic scale, likely to deal with Garnok. In healing Jorvik though (and potentially binding it to Pandoria), Jorvik needed more power to restore itself so that one day it could be cut off from Pandoria again. And Aideen's life force was enough to do that. So Aideen, after gifting Jorvik with horses and the Soul Riders and magic, gave herself to become the life force of the island. She died but her power lives on in the island, feeding it so one day it can survive alone once more. And that's Fripp's job to solve on how to separate. But now that she's dead, like Ydris said, she's not exactly a reliable source to call on.

This I feel is more supported by the comic @ellipuukangas just released with SSO. We see Aideen in a corporeal state here. But the text is what interests me. "Seeds of a dead world." Jorvik was dead, it was a dead rock, that's been in the Jorvegian and witches' creation myth. "Life and death at once." The two are inseparable, trading spaces. Jorvik's survival for Aideen's life. One has to die for the other to live. All magic comes with a price. Fripp has been the biggest proponent of that mantra. Aideen, his friend whom he traveled to Jorvik with, gave her life so that Jorvik would live. He knows the real risk of magic more than anyone because he say the greatest price paid. (There's a whole aside to have here that this specific event might be what shattered Fripp's memory because PTSD can do fun stuff to memory, but not the point now.)

As to how this all comes back to the story now, I think it sets up the opportunity for a better version of the "Aideen is in everything, so everyone is special." Because that message is rather mixed in this medium. I've talked about it before, so briefly, the MC has lacked a lot of agency in the story. They don't have any powers that we as players can actively control and they rely rather heavily on coordinating others to get things done. Which is more of a book hero than a video game hero. The one thing the MC had going for them was that they were Aideen reborn/champion/whatever and the Catherine quests took that away. They made everyone special. Which, grand scale, is an ok message and it sets up for more multiplayer focused narratives, but it takes away the importance of agency and choice for the player themself.

Yes, everyone is special and unique, but there are people who choose to be more. Who drive themselves to be better, to do better, to make a difference. Who stand for the fact that all things are special and therefore deserve the right to live. And the choice to go beyond should be what sets the MC apart, not above, but apart, from Catherine. And that's the same thing Aideen would have done. That some have to sacrifice more so all people can live in peace.

I think Aideen, along with her gifts, foresaw her death has being required to save Jorvik. And in doing so she created a challenge, a series of trials. Someone who was incredibly in tune with her magic, like Catherine and the MC, could choose to take up the mantle of Aideen, could take on these challenges, to become her chosen, to become the solution to Fripp's quest to free Jorvik, and the one would who defeat Garnok. And the choice to accept that destiny is what makes the MC different from Catherine. Catherine choose to reject destiny, to reject that mantle. She didn't want to be a chosen one, she didn't even really want to be a Soul Rider. She wanted to be loved and to love, and she finished that with Justin. However, the MC can choose to take up that challenge and both what Catherine said can be true along with allowing the player to maintain that agency.

Aideen may have died, but her power lives on. Her gift wasn't destiny, it was freedom. But sacrifice is required to maintain freedom from pure chaos. That is the choice of the Keepers, of the Soul Riders, and that the MC has to make. Someone has to make that sacrifice for the rest of Jorvik to survive. That was Aideen's choice, now it's the player's.

#sso #star stable online #star stable #starstableonline #starstable #woj theories #woj writing #ssoblr #sso blr