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fromfelidae · 7 years

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OK guys hear me out on this but- I think that the entire TAZ world, or at least the seven red-robes are running on a constant majoras mask/refuge year long loop that resets with the earth being devoured by The Hunger, and that there is a second voidfish that (up until now) kept this a secret

There will be a tl;dr at the end

SECOND VOIDFISH

UPDATE: CONFIRMED AS OF EPISODE 58

This is up first because its less of a theory and is something I have no doubts about happening in canon. There is a second fully functioning voidfish out there, and it is blocking memories from *everyone*

- First and foremost, the huge memory gaps each of the boys find that they have in the eleventh hour when June is going back through their memories, emphasized by the fact Magnus’ had the biggest gap

- This is made especially evident by Magnus remembering a book floating in the voidfish tank, I strongly believe that this was the book of the “lonely journal keeper” keeping record of all the events of the red robes, it was destroyed by the voidfish, explaining the huge memory static in THB

- Magnus only began remembering because he died, this ones obvious because the episode started off with an explanation of how voidfish cannot suppress memory from beyond the grave.

- The reason it is coming back so slowly (shoutout to Brian for figuring this out) is because of how unconventionally Magnus died, he was seperated from his body, killed, and then possessed another body. If he had died ‘normally’ his memories wouldve been restored in a similar manner to when they drank the voidfish water

- This is also how Barry remembers! he was dead- with this information, we could argue that literally any living person could be a red robe without knowing

update: now we know who the red robes are

- (EDIT): Its possible the second void fish is the “EGG BABE” the voidfish told Magnus about! given that communication is difficult, the voidfish could have matured enough to be able to consume and hide memories as well

LOOP THEORY

Getting it out of the way now, Refuge is the biggest foreshadowing for this theory, (see more at the end of this post), the entire arc in and of itself was basis for what the entire world is like.

I believe that the world, is being looped in a Refuge-esc style.

I’m not sure where it starts, but it ends with the world, each individual plane, being eaten by The Hunger. akin to how each loop in Refuge ended with being eaten by the purple worm.

The only difference being not every loop is exactly the same, things are different slightly each time- which explains why there were two suns, and the sky was purple in Magnus’ memory. I think that was his origin before the loops began.

evidence:

- (UPDATE) The vision the voidfish showed Magnus "12 multicolored circles rotating in perfect harmony with one another" Then a Bright white circle flies into the center, and the circles begin to make more intricate movements and rhythms until a large black circle appears and consumes all the other circles. Eventually the white light breaks from the black circle and the entire pattern repeats.”

It’s unclear right now what the white circle is, but the large black one is clearly the 13th plane, The Hunger. The scene the voidfish is describing is what has been happening over and over in the loop, repeating when The Hunger consumes all (and the white plane escapes).

- In the eleventh hour Griffin tells the boys that something about dying like this is ‘familiar’, while theyve gotten close to death before in the podcast theyve never truly died, how could it be familar if they hadn’t been reliving an even bigger loop unknowingly for years

- Kravitz states the boys have died more than anyone hes seen before! He acts as though he cant understand /how/, this was before the 11th hour so there’s literally no explanation other than they’ve been dying over and over again from the hunger, on a loop (EDIT: it was bought to my attention that Kravitz stated they have different death counts! taako having the least and merle having the most- while this complicates things i still think the loop is possible)

(EDIT 2.0: SOLVED!! by @stalllme in this post here)

- Barry Bluejeans turning to Magnus and saying “next time”, theyve been trying to save the world over and over in each loop, unable to succeed (until now??)

- This quote from Istus "Our existence is made up of countless realities where the same people are just doing the same actions at the same time in parallel worlds throughout the echoes of creation, except for you! The three of you are the only three that there are doing the things the three of you do here in this world! When I say that you’re unique, I’m not being flattering, I’m being quite literal… The three of you are anomalies, and I certainly have god-like powers and I don’t like to brag, but I’ve never known anything like the three of you and I don’t know why that is, but I’m intrigued…”

This is relevant because this is going to be the loop that they break.

- It’s important also, because THB broke the loop in refuge, foreshadowing that they could potentially break the one around the world

- Another helper on the “loops but everything is slightly different” is @martypines’s theory that the second sun in the purple sky that Magnus saw could be a base for the red robes! similar to the bureaus except, well, a sun

every arc is foreshadowing for end game

1 (here there be gerblins) - basically Barry Bluejeans’ origin story, cant be asked to expect much from here seeing as griffin had barely started fleshing out the story until halfway through the arc

2 (murder on the rockport limited) - (UPDATED: thanks to this anon!) murder on the rockport limited taught us and the boys not to trust people by their first expectations, similar to the attitude shown towards the redrobes. that attention to detail, a keen eye and the boy detective are key to solving a mystery

3 (petals to the metal) - Introduces us to the fact not everyone who takes a relic is evil, and more importantly, the sheer strength and power that love has. Hurley is able to break the thrall the sash has on Sloane through the power of her love.

4 (crystal kingdom) - The astral plane got introduced the most prominently here, showing us the ability to pass between them, the fact people live on past death, and that multiple dimensions do exist. There was probably a lot more important exposition I’ve forgotten.

5 (the eleventh hour) - The most important arc imo!! The entire concept of looping is introduced here, that a whole town can be completely unaware theyre reliving the same day over and over again, resetting as they are all killed. It also introduces the concept that red robes arent inherently evil

6 (the suffering game) - Unsure as of the moment, it was very endgame.

MISC BUT STILL IMPORTANT

Magnus and the red robes were collecting information about the loops, and trying to fight against it. I also strongly believe that they are the seven birds in the prophecy.

- This is backed up by the book being destroyed in the voidfish tank, I believe that was written by “The Lonely Journal-Keeper”

UPDATE: CONFIRMED: this is what lucretia was doing

- This would explain the reason Magnus knew to protect the chalice in Refuge! because the red robes had already figured out the global loop that was happening, and it was almost an unintentional test run?

EDIT: I believe LUP was the leader of the redrobes, and might be still alive but very out of action. (UPDATE: Davenport was the leader, chalupa theory got confirmed) I strongly believe she was the one speaking to Taako through telecommunication (no other female redrobe has been introduced by name excluding her, it makes the most sense!)

I think shes the leader, or at least, was very strongly important to their ‘family’ (in barrys words) because of the strong emotional connection Taako feels, he cant distinguish it but its there. LUP meant a lot to all of the redrobes when they were alive, i mean, she was able to convince Taako ‘dont trust anybody or anything’ to trust Barry. (UPDATE: Chalupa theory was correct)

prophecies and their continued relevance

" But I saw a brilliant light heralded by seven birds flying tirelessly from the storm. I saw seven birds: the twins, the lover, the protector, the lonely journal keeper, the peacemaker, and the wordless one.”"

I am almost certain that the birds in Maureen’s prophecy are the red robes. the lonely journal seeker would be the one who wrote the book we saw getting fed to the voidfish. this is backed up by “A Brilliant light[...] flying tirelessly from the storm”, i believe the light is the silver ship we saw in Magnus’ memories.

(UPDATE: confirmed, and

taako & chalupa = the twins barry = the lover magnus = the protector lucretia = the lonely journal keeper merle = the peacemaker davenport = the wordless one)

“In the future, you will be offered a terrible choice, between two options that will determine the fate of reality itself. In this moment of crisis, remember: There is always a third option.”

"And I cannot make the difficult decision that lies at the end of your quest for you, but I can grant you the time that you need to make that decision."

This is the choice that will determine the fate of both the world and the astral plane, it’s also what Istus said she would give the boys time to choose as seen in the second quote. She’s granting them the time they need to find and make that third choice

The first one just looks like an ocean made out of tar, with a black sky above it, and this tar is like bubbling, and you see some stuff moving under the surface of the tar but you can’t make out what it is, and that’s on the left picture. And the one on the right is just a grey world, covered in ash, that is just completely barren and lifeless.

Shoutout to bee for figuring this out a few weeks back! This is what we believe the boys will have to choice between, saving the astral plane (1st) or saving the physical (2nd). I am not as confident in HOW this will play out, but it is relevant.

UPDATE: all but confirmed that these are descriptions of what the astral/physical planes are becoming due to the hunger!!

- "I have one last prophecy for you, Taako. Something you will need to know. In your hour of greatest need, you will find the power that you seek from the man wreathed in flames."

speaks for itself

the patches THB recieved were red robe patches

- And they’re these dark blue circle, like, iron-on emblems. And inside of each of these blue fabric circles, there are twelve more circles, all of different colors around the outside of each badge. And in the middle is a word that’s written in a language that none of you recognize. You cannot read, you cannot make out what the word is, what these badges are for, because you cannot read the word in the middle. And tucked in between these three badges is a note that says, “For Your Eyes Only”

- "(..) Sewn into its breast you see a familiar sight- you see a circular patch with a design containing twelve multi-colored circles and a sort of shifting imparsible text in the middle of it. Only Magnus, you can read that text plain as day, it says “I.P.R.E.”

update: basically confirmed, these were THEIR redrobe patches

TL;DR

Time is looping on repeat, every loop being a slight variant but always ending with The Hunger swallowing the world whole, causing a reset.

The vision the voidfish showed Magnus is the happenings of every loop.

Refuge’s entire existence is foreshadowing for the global loop

There is a second voidfish suppressing everyone’s memories of said loops, especially the red robes. the reason Magnus and Lich-Barry remember is because they died (CONFIRMED)

This means that literally anyone alive could be another red robe without knowing

The red robes are a group of seven, who worked together to gather information about the loop and try to break it.

LUP was the leader of the red robes (it was davenport)

The patches the boys received in the candlenights lunar interlude are red robe patches (CONFIRMED)

Maureen’s prophecy about the seven birds is about the red robes

Paloma's prophecy about making the third choice is about THB choosing between the astral and physical plane somehow, possibly by breaking the loop

Istus used her divine power to give the boys more time to make the third choice, which is, to break the loop

here is my tag for this theory! if you have any additions, questions or find mistakes please send an ask!! i love discussing it ^_^

#the adventure zone #taz #taz spoilers #taz theory #the zone cast #the adventure zone spoilers #i have been talking about this ALL DAY #loop theory

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thatguysamaniac-blog · 5 years

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In roughly a week a swathe of 30-40 somethings are going to relive and re-start a habit in a bid to re-misspend a misspent youth. There is a swell of hype in niche pockets of the Internet as people get more and more excited for the launch of World of Warcraft Classic. But why? Why is there the familiar toot-toot of the hype-train on the horizon for a product that is over a decade old, has a newer shinier iteration currently out and available to play, and a product that held marmite-like, positive and negative criticism when it was out. Just to clear things up I have bought my ticket (ed: and a train drivers hat, matching t-shirt, undies and socks and the special edition coke cans) and I am on the hype train! I am genuinely looking forward to Classic, but my goals and approach are going to be massively different to it, as will it be for much of the community. So I'm gonna play a little bit of devils advocate here... Upon launch many, many people will just be diving in for the pure nostalgia of the game, and very few of us will (ed: should) spend the amount of time and effort that we previously had done in the original WoW. Especially since because of our demographic, most of us are now grownups* with grownup commitments. Being an adult aside, and just comparing current WoW and Classic WoW, part of what I have seen about why Classic has such a following, it that current WoW (retail) sees a bit of backlash in regard to how it plays nowadays, it is considered "dumbed down", the game has streamlined, homogenised, and refined itself to large degree making interaction minimal, levelling, dungeoning and raiding are all infinitely more accessible, and faster. The game has become easier, where, in classic, you would have to learn an individual enemy boars moves so you know how to kill him before he killed you, now you kill several boars, and don't even have time to read what moves it did on you. Where you used to chat to your guildmates or just general chat and group together and adventure your way to a dungeon, it has now been replaced by a couple of button presses followed by a teleport to the dungeon entrance. In short the game has become more of an action fantasy RPG, than an MMORPG. This is in part Echoed by my friend and fellow WoW classic returnee Joldrath: That being said, as we are all grownups* with grown up commitments, is Retail actually just the game we need for our hectic lives?! Is it WoW for adults? The game is so refined that it now sectioned off up into bitesize chunks, rather than the infamous 16-hour junk food stuffing, poop-socking sessions. As with most things on the Internets nowadays, hype lives in a bubble, and a select few loud voices are the ones that get heard. Does Classic exist just for these voices? Does this only exist for private server people? Is it just for streamers? The private server community and the streamers go hand in hand and the tin foil hat theory is that Blizzard just wanna cash in on this... Private servers have been running for years, and streamers sit on their ad revenue, when Blizz ain't even getting a subscription. Will Classic just be a way to regulate private servers will it be World of Warcraft: public private server edition. Probably. The thing is the WoW from 2004 did not have the influencer/content-creator machine to work with, but it did have a lot more eccentricities, character builds and fun to be had in that fashion, that in all honestly it is going to be a great place for content creation! 15 minute bites of "Look at this build kill this thing" or "10 Paladins take down Ragnaros". But is that the reason the folks diving into nostalgia want to play it again? Probably not. For me, part of the nostalgia was that this game was emerging, new builds were coming out, people discussed strategies and new patches brought all sorts of shenanigans with them. WoW was a sandbox playground allowing for meta-gaming of all kinds and involving everyone in the community. With WoW Classic we are getting the final patch of WoW, we are getting "phases" where content is opening up but nothing more, and I think that may be a drop off point for a lot of people, "what's next" is very much a thing in WoW hence the plethora of patches, content and expansions that's essentially kept WoW going and with a few other games created the Games as a Service Hellscape we now live in. What we are getting is a little slice of life, a snapshot of WoW as it existed for maybe a few months (?) and a few things will cycle around it. Yeah, don't worry, I hear myself "Finally, WoW Classic, what's next?", but that is definitely a thing, and I'm sure it's not just me, I wonder what the hook will be to keep people on if there is nothing around the corner... or is there? One hot topic is, what will happen after the phases? simply a reset and start the phases again? there is debate that based on it's success will Blizz just dive into The Burning Crusade and so on... Or it is also speculated that there could be some horizontal development continuing development but keeping the lvl 60 WoW classic experience, Could we see Death knights join us at lvl 60 or could we see Paladins on the horde side? Maybe some pandas could join the fight? Could we see tweaking to see viable Ret-lol DPS?!?? There was also a suggestion that WoW Classic could potentially enter seasonal play, akin to that of Diablo 3 with buffs and effects and such at lvl 60, changing up gameplay. Personally I would love to lift a couple of the non-gameplay elements from modern WoW, Specifically the overhaul to the character models to make them prettier, and hand-in-hand, I heart my transmogging and would love to allow collecting those looks at lvl 60 be made viable (without the masses and stacks of bank room being used up by mats you need to just go to a dungeon in Classic). In any case I do hope there are plans post final phase, given the world we live in for the effort/time we have made with our lvl 60 this time round, it would be nice to have new challenges and change-ups to actually look forward to. So do we need WoW Classic? Based on my grumpy contrarian ramblings above: all we are getting is a non-updated game intended for private server veterans and content creators that due to its time sink qualities will mostly be inaccessible to the commitment-laden nostalgia crowd that actually want to wallow about there! What is the pull to bring people back and, and then stay back? I am fully a part of the mid-life-crisis-got-commitments-nostalgia crowd, I got shit I need to do! I actually spend my evenings with loved ones rather than skulking in "my mom's basement". I cook food rather than picking away at luke-warm kebab on a Molten Core run etc etc. So why should I look forward to a game known to be a time-sink when I can a similar dopamine hit from Retail or even just any other game. Jesus fucking hell, Richie Who's a Debbie Downer! Ha, well unfortunately much of the above is true and quite honestly when this was announced, I immediately thought and realised this was going to be hyped behind a lot of rose-tinted glasses and to echo my parting statement from this post after the announcement, I was always going to play it, just to dip my toe-in at the very least. WoW was arduous, it was not an easy game. And I had to ask myself a few hard questions like: Why do I want to play that grind again? Can I find the time to play again? Do I even want a faithful recreation of that game from 15 years ago? What do I want from another WoW experience!? And Boom! that was the question that re-ignited my passion to play! Personally I love the Paladin class, I played my Blood Elf Paladin at from the first expansion onwards, but in WoW I (badly) played a Mage. I think what I want from WoW Classic is... Drum roll... ...wait for it... ... "Redemption" ... ... ... geddit? Cuz redemption is the name of a paladin spell?... ...Fine whatever, geez... I want to experience the original paladin or play WoW Paladin: Classic Flavour. I wanna do the Paladin Horsey quests (at least the alliance version), I want to do the multitude of Paladin-ish quests in the game, the Scarlet Monasteries and the Scarlet Crusade through Hearthglen, and on to getting Exhalted with the Argent Dawn. And so I realised that I have almost set myself a Goal, a path to go through the game with My goal will simply be lvl 60 hitting the iconic Paladin quests along the way. As much as I have had a grumble about what WoW classic is and if we need it, but it cannot be denied that when WoW came out it was so impactful on everything (media, games, etc), and perhaps this resurgence of Classic can rekindle some of what sparked that zeitgeist. Wow is old, and that cant be denied, just have a look at her face, her non existent nose, and the world is the same, jagged polygonal models, scenery with seams etc etc. However most of the time it can be very beautiful, Each zone has a different flavour, musical theme, and atmosphere, and its hard to any parallels that rival this even today. And it's Huge, yes you can argue that today its huger, with all of the additional zones being added in, but in all actuality because of the addition of flying mounts the world is just so much smaller. Recently I had a chat with Thatguyer, Doppelganger, discussing about how that leap from 16-bit to 3D was so impressive and awe-inspiring, but nowadays you can almost feel like you are just playing an N64/PS1 game, just with smoother graphics. What is the next leap in games? Where do we go from here? logically it should have been VR/AR, but is too much of an ask for the consumer, despite it being forced into our eyesockets. I would argue that mainstream MMO machine of WoW was a leap at that time, moving to online play but at the same time generating community spirit was a massive turning point for games. The traction it gained led the way for the online console experiences and ultimately the community based games we see dominating the Twitch-osphere. Is there more that revisiting this monolith can change/teach the new generation of people who think playing computer games is a job? As the hype-train has been getting ever closer to its destination, I have had to change my news-getting methods, where I used to haunt/feature on WoW Insider, it is now a shadow of it's former self. I have been looking to Podcasts, Reddit and even joined Discord. In particular I wanna give a shout out to countdowntoclassic.com and a big shout out to the shows host Josh on @count2classic who has kept the hype train running with interviews with Class leaders, the original designers and generally great WoW Classic content! It has been a bit part of what is making me excited about Classic! Anyways right, I guess see you in Azeroth? Love and Seal, Judge, Rave, Repeat. Richie X *Grownups absolutely use the word grownups, we're definitely not three cats in a trench coat, fake nose, glasses and a hat. No sir.

http://www.thatguys.co.uk/2019/08/wow-classic-do-we-need-this.html

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