#six grains of gravel is a fucking liar btw

[elk-scribe]

you know what since I was talking about the rain world ending and i rambled a little about the karma system and how its all fake.

Big spoilers ahead and whatever I will be talking thoroughly abt the game lore (excluding downpour i don't consider it canon).

Karma in rain world isn't real and we've all been tricked to think it matters at all.

Here's a list of things we should consider regarding the information about karma.

We start on the lowest karma, and as slugcat rests it goes up until it caps at 5. Each of these karma levels represent the basic animal urges. Violence, lust, companionship, gluttony, survival.

The ancients are the ones that considered shedding the base natural urges of an animal necessary for ascension.

The ancients are also the ones that proposed the idea of ascension, and declared that the cycle of life, death, and rebirth is so awful that no creature would want to be a part of it.

(light blue pearl, outskirts)

Now, a lot of this game is about religion- and in the case of the ancients it touches upon the idea of the opressiveness of religion and exploitation therein. Anytime I think about how the ancients left behind the iterators to "solve the problem" for the rest of the creatures, it makes me think of how missionaries go to places to try and "save" the people there.

The ancients' religion is a manipulative cult. First, they convince (almost) all of their people that life is awful. Then, they continue with proposing the idea of solving that problem- no longer living. But there's a catch! You have to die correctly. You have to EARN this "blissful" release from the horrible fact of living. Either by rigorous torture (living off of tea and starving yourself) or by paying money.

(Bright red pearl, farm arrays)

Then, they make it a societal norm- an HONOUR to die in the way They Think Is Correct. But you HAVE to do everything they say to shed yourself of those nasty animal urges and be ready for ASCENSION. And they put a price on it.

But we have to remember, not only did they create a religion that convinced them all that living is horrible...

They destroyed the entire ecosystem that used to be there and replaced it with ruins or whatever managed to descend from purposed organisms.

The ancients were able to alter cells of creatures- the ability to do such a thing at all is described here.

(Gold pearl, Chimney Canopy)

So who is to say that they didn't alter the cells of their own people? That they didn't create all purposed organisms with that idea of karma inside of them? The gates respond to the slugcat, it reads something about its karma. Its a machine reading something within its genetic data. The guardians respond to creatures with karma- and in fact are hostile to anything NOT at karma 10.

But the guardians were made by the ancients to protect their temples. To prevent anyone "unworthy" from going down.

The iterators are forbidden from altering their own karma- how is that something you can do if its not an actual, physical trait somewhere within them? Somewhere within their genetic code that the ancients tampered with?

But most notably-

Cheesing your way past the guardians using flashbangs and throwboosts is an intended feature of the game, and you can go down and into the sea and ascend with no issue. If karma truly mattered for ascension, then why can we ascend without the approval of the guardians?

Slugcats are descendants of purposed organisms, they have this "karma" meter wired into their bodies.

So anyway karma isn't real and the ancients forced a mass suicide of their own kind as Im sure whoever benefitted from exploiting their own citizens had been long gone, leaving behind nations of people desperate to leave the world behind as they have been convinced its the only thing to save them from the horrors of living.

#There's still a lot of questions to be figured out regarding what the hell echoes are #the whole ending sequence #what even are the worms #etc etc. Which im still mulling about but man if there's one thing I am confident about its that karma isn't real. #six grains of gravel is a fucking liar btw #we found a way my ass you're an echo buddy #you didnt find shit #not art #rain world #rw tag #im having big lore thoughts ok leave me alone