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Starving for Knowledge: A Don't Starve Analysis


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So I've noticed a couple of lore threads pop up recently, and although I'm more accustomed to talking about game play, I thought I'd go out of my comfort zone to see what I could find. Needless to say, I descended into lunacy trying to connect the dots in order to answer a bunch of lingering questions about the game's lore and meaning, but I think I've found enough information to at least point people in the right direction. 

To help readers who don't want a whole science-class lecture, I'll divide up this post into 3 sections: real-world info dumps, in-game info dumps, and analysis. Feel free to skip whatever sections/subsections that don't interest you.

Section 1: Real-World Information

The Moon as a Celestial Object
For anyone who isn't familiar with the lunar cycle, the reason why you see different phases of the moon is because of the moon's position relative to the sun and the earth that allows the moon to reflect sunlight back to Earth; the different positions you see below are the reason why you only see varying parts of this reflected sunlight, hence the appearance of different moon shapes.

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This may seem simple, but when we're talking about eclipses (i.e. lunar and solar eclipses), it gets a bit complicated because the plane of the earth's revolution around the sun is NOT the same as the plane of the moon's revolution around the earth; it's actually tilted by a few degrees. From the earth's perspective, this is what the revolution of the sun and moon actually looks like.
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Only when the moon and the sun are on the same plane (at the nodes) will we get an eclipse. If the moon is between the earth and sun on the same plane, we get a solar eclipse. If the earth is between the moon and sun on the same plane, we get a lunar eclipse (i.e. a full moon that looks red).
Fun fact: even though the moon is in the earth's shadow in a lunar eclipse, the reason why the moon is not only bright but red is because of refraction (i.e. when the space that light travels through changes like from vacuum to air, the light's direction is affected) and a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering (basically, the oscillating electric field of light [that's why we call them EM waves] causes gas molecules on earth to oscillate at the same frequency and therefore "scatter" photons of the same frequency everywhere; the kicker here though is that high-frequency light like blue light gets scattered more than low-frequency light like red light). The sky (AKA gas molecules in the atmosphere) is blue because blue light gets scattered more than red light, but the lunar eclipse is red because red light gets scattered less and reaches the moon more than blue light. 

Another thing to note is that the same half of the moon will always face the earth. This is caused by tidal locking; basically, the gravitational gradient (a not-uniform gravitation field) generated by the earth pulls on the bulges of an oval moon which slows down the moon's rotation to the point where the moon's revolution is synchronized with the moon's rotation, resulting in the same moon hemisphere pointing towards Earth 24/7. As a result, the opposite hemisphere will never point towards Earth and never be visible unless you actually fly to the moon yourself. This is where Mulan's "mysterious as the dark side of the moon" line comes from. 

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Since I brought up the term, I might as well elaborate. Umbra is a Latin word that means "shadow"; in English, it specifically refers to the darkest region of the shadow. Umbra is commonly used in an astronomy context, referring to the deepest region of a shadow created by celestial objects (i.e. the same region that causes eclipses).

Lycanthropy

Lycanthropy is basically a "disease" that causes someone to transform into another animal, most commonly a werewolf. Lycanthropy has a rich and complicated history over in Europe full of variations, but more contemporary works of fiction (i.e. mid 1900s) portray lycanthropy as a hereditary condition that's instigated specifically by a full moon; on top of that, modern werewolves are weak to silver.

Another thing worth mentioning is that lycanthropy is a common motif in Canadian folklore. Unlike contemporary portrayals of lycanthropy, lycanthropy in Canadian folklore involves people who transform every night - full moon or not - in which "most transformed into wolves, but others were doomed to a fate a little less cool: turning into dogs, cats, owls, cows, oxen… there were even some werepigs." 

Last thing to note is that even though werewolves have been historically portrayed as violent and demonic creatures, contemporary fiction sometimes portrays them sympathetically, whether as a symbol of spirituality and nature or a metaphor for discriminated minorities. 

Gestalt

Gestalt is a "collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts". This term is often used to reference Gestalt psychology, which is a branch of psychology focusing on people's perception of "the whole" over "the sum of its parts". 

Artistic Inspirations

Don't Starve has multiple sources of influence, from Minecraft to Tim Burton. From a literary standpoint, however, Don't Starve was mainly influenced by Edward Gorey and H.P. Lovecraft. Gorey is a surrealistic artist with a morbid Victorian-era style who writes gothic "literary nonsense", a genre of literature that tries to break conventional logic and language with a blend of common sense and things that don't make sense. Alice in Wonderland is an example of nonsense literature. Lovecraft writes horror fiction; he's the guy responsible for "Lovecraftian horror". This is the type of psychological horror that puts gore and shock value on the back burner in favor of inherited sins, human existential crises with respect to a much larger universe, and the insanity that comes with pursuing forbidden knowledge that can't be understood. If some of these themes sound familiar to you, you've probably watched a few sci-fi cartoons, and - to be fair - you probably have a high IQ.

Section 2: In-Game Information

The Aporkalypse

Hamlet is a gold mine of information, especially when it comes to figuring out what the moon is capable of. For starters, look no further than the Aporkalypse and the Aporkalypse Calendar, which spells out what the ancient pig civilization believes to be how the celestial objects move. While I don't have Hamlet myself, I was able to find a few pictures of what the calendar looks like during the Aporkalypse.

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In both cases, the entire calendar - tellurion and rings included - stop moving; the symbols and celestial bodies glow red; and the celestial bodies themselves are always arranged in the order you see above. 

Another thing to note regarding the aporkalypse is the appearance of a red moon and the presence of a shadow creature called the Ancient Herald. Not only is the arrival of a shadow creature noteworthy in itself, but the Ancient Herald has an unusual crescent-shaped crown of sorts that resembles the bottom 2 crescent symbols found on the aporkalypse calendar and the ancient gateway in the murals.
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The Aporkalypse Calendar also contains a gate-shaped symbol at the top and a triangle right underneath. Looking in-game for appearances of triangles, I could only find 3 other instances:

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Finally, within the same section of the ruins containing the Aporkalypse Calendar, there's a corrupt version of the Wishing Well called the Ends Well that spits out either purple gems or nightmare creatures.

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The Cursed

There are quite a few characters in Don't Starve that have the lycanthropy curse.

Let's start with Wilba. Wilba is the daughter of Queen Malfalfa and an unnamed father who has the werepig curse. She has a silver necklace given to her by her father that prevents her from transforming into a werepig when worn, and like everyone who has the curse, she will transform when eating monster meat or being exposed to the full moon.

The pig king is the ruler of a more tribal population of pigs than their Hamlet counterparts. Some noteworthy facts include the pig king and his pig followers originating from a "distant land" and the fact that the pig king is adorned with some accessories on his hat. Unlike his followers, the pig king never transforms during a full moon. Additionally, one of the topiaries in the pig city resembles the pig king.

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Woodie is a Canadian lumberjack who also has the curse, but unlike Wilba or the pigs, he has 3 forms, each of which he can instigate at will using idols made of monster meat. That being said, the animated short portrays a Woodie that has complete control of his curse, being able to transform into all 3 at will without idols and even maintaining his human form during a full moon.

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The RoG pigs are followers of the pig king; every single one of them have the curse. These pigs do not transform unless they eat 4 monster meat or they're exposed specifically to the light of the full moon.

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The Moon in DST

Ever since the Return of Them update, the moon has displayed a crack for 1/2, 3/4, and full moons, which is obviously a reference to the piece of the moon that fell from the sky and makes up the lunar island in DST. A thing to note here is that the crack is located in a different spot in every lunar phase, including the waxing vs waning phases. 

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Needless to say, the lunar island - which originated from the moon at the location of the crack - has some interesting information. Every organic material on the lunar island is a mutated version of its respective plant/animal, from pengulls to carrots. The Steeped Lunar Essence from the Hallowed Nights event actually spells out exactly what each mutated thing on the lunar island originally was.

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Another major thing to note here is the celestial fissures. Celestial fissures are only found on the moon-turf portions of the island, and they emit light and an enlightenment aura at a magnitude depending on how close the moon is to being full; a new moon will result in nothing from the fissures while a full moon will result in maximum enlightenment and light. Wickerbottom's quotes for these fissures are likewise worth pointing out.

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The Ancients

I feel like the lore revolving around the Ancients has been covered to death by Youtuber Zeklo, with a video summary of some of his content recently released by another Youtuber James Bucket. Instead of rehashing their points, I'll link their videos on the topic in the sources section (right under the nightmare throne link).  Some things I want to add to these videos are:
1) Metheus (i.e. not Prometheus or Epimetheus) is the name of the character the Fuelweaver mentions, and she is female according to a Klei live stream
2) The Fuelweaver himself is confirmed male in both a live stream and the description for A New Reign
3) Maxwell is the first ever person to sit on the nightmare throne according to another live stream, meaning that the Ancient who is now the Fuelweaver has never sat on the throne

The civilization aside, there are some interesting details about the gateway worth observing.

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Section 3: Analysis and Discussion

The Pigs

It's very likely that the pig king is Wilba's father as evident in the pig king's vignette backstory, the pig king's topiary image in Hamlet, the fact that Wilba has the curse when no other Hamlet pig does, and the fact that all of the pig king's followers do have the curse. This explains a couple of things like why the pig king followers have electricity in their houses and why werepig imagery shows up in the Hamlet cities. An argument I've seen against this claim is the fact that the pig king doesn't transform during the full moon, so he can't be Wilba's father. However, it's established through Wilba that a silver accessory will prevent transformations from happening at the cost of sanity during moments when the transformation would have happened. Wouldn't you know it; the pig king happens to have ring accessories on the horns of his hat that appear to be a mixture of gold and silver, and it's also established that "Wilba's father" knows this because Wilba's silver necklace came from him in the first place. This also explains why there are obelisks next to him in every world; sanity affects the appearance of Mr. Skitts who raises/lowers the obelisks based on that sanity level. Basically, it makes sense for the pig king to essentially have a sanity test lying around. This whole theory on the pig king's origins cements the connection between werepigism and the ancient pig civilization, suggesting that the curse that plagues today's RoG pigs came from a subpopulation of the ancient pigs over in Hamlet. 

Additionally, the presence of a device that can physically prevent a lunar eclipse on top of the nightmare-fueled wishing well indicates that some of the ancient pigs tampered with magic. Unlike the Ancients, the ancient pig civilization did not completely fall as evident in the existence of modern pigs, which suggests the possibility that the werepig curse came about from meddling in said magic without being fully consumed by the forbidden knowledge. This explains why the ancient pigs have convoluted traps and pathways preventing explorers from finding these magical relics in the first place, and it also explains why some pigs have the curse while others don't. 

Woodie

Honestly, this guy is an anomaly. It's extremely hard for me to make sense of Woodie's situation given the information we currently have. We know from the Winona short that Woodie's from Earth like most of the other survivors, and it's very likely that Woodie's curse is the same one affecting the pigs given the fact that both curses are triggered by monster meat and a full moon. However, I couldn't find anything within the game at all that connects Woodie to the pig civilization, and on top of this, Woodie's animated short completely contradicts the Woodie we know in DST. The only thing I could find was an extremely loose folklore connection in which some Canadian lycanthropes were werepigs.

What I find interesting though is that the animated short seems like it's purposefully going out of its way to contradict DST Woodie. On top of the fact that he clearly isn't transforming with monster meat or monster-meat idols, Klei made the artistic choice of emphasizing the fact that Woodie isn't transformed on a full moon at the end of the video instead of literally any other time of the day or any other lunar phase, even though Woodie's full-moon transformation has been a noticeable part of the character since the beginning. Maybe this short is supposed to be a light-hearted, non-canon showcase where Klei's animators get to let loose and have some Canadian fun; who knows?

The Ancients

It's pretty obvious at this point that the tragic tale of the Ancients is supposed to mirror Maxwell and Charlie's tragic backstory. In both cases, you have a male character who's obsessed with dark magic and a female associate who is skeptical of that dark magic. Both male characters create their own downfall through dark-magic overuse, and both female characters end up corrupted in some way by the consequences of the male characters' actions.

Thematics aside though, it's worth noting that the Ancient Herald very likely is one of the Ancients; if the Herald's name and appearance doesn't convince you, Wagstaff's quote hopefully should. The symbol on the herald's head that appears on the Ancient Gateway in the murals also cements this connection. Here's the kicker though; the same symbol that links the Herald with the Ancient Gateway is also present on the Aporkalypse Calendar (i.e. a device that is clearly attuned to the moon), and for some reason, there's 2 of them.

So to simplify what I'm trying to get at, we have a shadow creature resembling an Ancient who's directly connected to the moon and symbolically connected to the Ancient Gateway and calendar. Transitively, this means that the gateway and moon are also connected. If this network of connections isn't enough to convince you that the gateway and moon are connected, the symbols on the calendar almost explicitly spell this out. The calendar's top symbol is an obvious reference to the gateway itself; the triangle in the middle is a linking symbol (i.e. the same linking symbol that mentally links you to dark-magic knowledge and physically links you to a different point in space); and the two crescent symbols at the bottom clearly represent the moon. 

The Nature of the Moon

So first off, it's pretty clear that the thing that instigates the Aporkalypse is a lunar eclipse. The blood moon is a dead giveaway, but if you're not convinced, when the calendar symbols align to signify the beginning of the Aporkalypse, the 3 celestial bodies (the ones rotating around the calendar's tellurion) line up in the order of sun, planet, and moon; this alignment is exactly how lunar eclipses occur in real life. 

With regard to the moon phases, I don't think that Wickerbottom's assessment is completely accurate. Her quote clearly implies that the light from the moon comes from these fissures. Here's the thing; EVERY single fissure on the lunar island illuminates the same amount of light relative to each other no matter the moon phase. If moonlight were exclusively coming from these fissures, we would NOT be seeing these moon phases; instead, we would be seeing different intensities of full moons every night. I'd argue that Wickerbottom's assessment isn't completely inaccurate though because the intensity of the fissures - particularly the enlightenment aura - is at its maximum during a full moon, which explains why it's specifically the light of a full moon that causes strange things like wereform transformations and glowing pig/merm heads. What I'm trying to say here is that it seems like "moonlight" is a mixture of reflected sunlight and lunar essence, and both seem to affect the properties of that moonlight. This theory also explains why lunar eclipses behave differently from normal full moons even though lunar eclipses are full moons, and it also explains why flowers turn into evil flowers on a full moon (in single player) even though they turn into lune trees on the lunar island.  

Some have suggested that the moon and shadows  are fighting each other, with lunar magic being the opposite of dark magic (i.e. light vs dark). The evidence I've presented seems to paint a much different picture; if anything, it seems like the two forces are either in league with each other or are two sides of the same coin (i.e. two sides of the same moon). I'm strongly leaning towards the latter. The fact that the moon is capable of spawning a powerful shadow creature and has the ability to instigate an apocalyptic event is a red flag (no pun intended) that not only shows that lunar magic has some alignment with dark magic, but indicates that the moon (or whatever being controls lunar magic) is an antagonistic force. This alignment is further supported by the fact that full moons affect pig/merm heads by making them glow, and when you hammer these structures down, you get nightmare fuel (i.e. the moon is capable of creating the very thing that fuels dark magic). This "duality" interpretation of the moon also explains a couple of other things like the ancient gateway and Charlie's scene at the end of the Forge trailer. First of all, notice how the mural portrays both a white and black aura emanating from the same gateway, which matches up with the mixture of white and black we see from the gateway in the Forge trailer. Secondly, notice the scene at the end of the same trailer where Charlie specifically absorbs this white essence from the portal. Knowing that "Charlie's machinations have come to a head as she turns her attention towards the skies - and the mysterious entity that awaits there" (official Return of Them description), it seems safe to assume that this white essence is lunar magic. On top of all this, the real-life "dark side of the moon" looks significantly different from the side that always points towards Earth.

To put it as simply as I can, this moon duality theory explains Charlie's motives in the Forge trailer, the activated gateway's physical appearance in the mural, the connection between the gateway and the moon, the two crescent symbols on the Aporkalypse calendar, and the moon's ability to create shadow creatures while paralleling the duality of our real-life moon's light and dark hemispheres.

I'm not going to go as far as to say that the moon is "villainous" though because there is a pattern to lunar magic's effects on organic life. Simply put: plants with little to no sentience like saplings, carrots, dragonfruits, and butterflies (these butterflies don't seem to be animals as evident in the fact that you can plant them to literally make a flower, the fact that they can drop butter when you kill them, and the fact that Wurt is able to eat them as a vegetarian) either become sentient altogether (e.g. saladmanders and carrats) or take on an "improved" lunar form. Sentient animals, on the other hand, become completely corrupt and disfigured, whether it's hounds, pengulls, or spiders. This lunar magic pattern is notably consistent with the lunar gem that created Wormwood in the Lunar Roots trailer. Lunar magic doesn't seem to  be "evil" as much as a metaphor for forbidden knowledge that corrupts those who try to understand it. With that being said, we know nothing about the dark side of the Don't Starve moon. Keep in mind that the lunar island came from one specific side of the moon; we can't assume the lunar island represents the entire moon.

The Theme of Don't Starve

Assuming I haven't butchered anything, if you take a step back to look at all of this from a literary standpoint, it actually paints a cohesively poetic picture of what this whole franchise is all about. People tend to think of starvation in terms of malnutrition, but there's more than one way to starve; you can be "starving for knowledge" for example.

Looking at all of the events in the lore that have unfolded, this Lovecraftian interpretation of starvation seems to be what Klei is going for. Maxwell started off literally starving, but after finding the codex umbra and achieving the fame and fortune he always wanted, his hubris and curiosity never went away; his downfall came from satiating his obsession by escalating his dark magic to the point of no return. The ancients' extinction via overuse of nightmare fuel almost exactly mirrors Maxwell's fall. Wilson, Winona, and Wagstaff were likewise lured into the Constant in their pursuit of knowledge. Even the ending to the original Don't Starve game is Lovecraftian in the sense that the two knowledge-hungry characters both meet a terrible demise. 

The reason why I bring this up is because it seems like Klei is setting up another forbidden-knowledge conflict; this time, instead of Maxwell or the Codex coercing our heroes into a trap, it's the moon's promise of enlightenment. For evidence, look no further than the Gestalts and the Celestial Altar whose character quotes imply that the moon is tempting them with knowledge (i.e. forbidden knowledge).

Lingering Questions for the Future

Aside from the fact that I haven't fully answered my own questions, there are a lot of lingering questions about the world and story. Who's the "gatekeeper" mentioned in the Forge and Gorge? Why are the Forge inhabitants hostile to the gatekeeper while the Gorge inhabitants aren't? What is the Gnaw? How did Maxwell's niece of all people find her way into the Constant, and why is her twin dead? Who exactly is Jack Carter, and how is he relevant to the story other than being one of Maxwell's closest family members? Who is the night monster that coexists with Charlie? Are the "dangerous trained monkeys" from the circus accident connected to the monkeys we see in the Constant? And finally, will any of these questions ever be answered, or will they remain unanswered with a couple clues sprinkled in over time to keep with Don't Starve's nonsense-fiction mystery and Lovecraftian themes?

Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dontstarve/comments/arcof2/question_about_aporkalypse_calendar/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZjQYJvvFHk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_side_of_the_Moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf
http://thisiscanadiana.com/blogposts/2017/11/1/the-werewolf-of-quebec-city
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_fiction
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gestalt
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Civilization
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Herald
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Mural
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Pig_King
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Silver_Necklace
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Vignettes
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Intricate_Topiary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0r0WfV2y5s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve#Conception_and_design
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial_Fissure
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Lunar_Experiment
https://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-nonsense-genre-definition-examples.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
https://lithub.com/on-the-darker-side-of-the-perpetually-dark-edward-gorey/
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_Manipulator
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Electric_Isosceles
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Telelocator_Focus
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/William_Carter_Puzzles
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Metheus_Puzzles
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Reanimated_Skeleton
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Throne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcY8WV9CGLM&list=PL85quN8BGMDh_Jjoa42qMnzE0bMyIk3LI&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paVmu60JfG0&t=179s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vygRnYnPL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hugrMLgDsQ
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Return_of_Them
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Gestalt
https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Celestial_Altar

Anyways, that's all I got. Let me know if there's anything I'm missing or if you have a different interpretation of the lore and message. That being said though, I'd appreciate it if we could keep this thread in the realm of evidence-based reasoning and not speculation. From what I've seen, lore discussions that involve interesting interpretations but lack any evidence tend to go nowhere and occasionally lead to unnecessary destructive arguments.


EDIT: Just realized that some of the pictures somehow didn't appear. I'll try to fix this later.
EDIT 2: Fixed.
EDIT 3: Trivial grammar mistakes, and added picture of celestial fissure

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5 minutes ago, -Variant said:

I see a lot of words and am therefore scared of the post I can only assume it's really good so props!

A TLDR might be nice for the laz-E such as myself.

I really wish I could make a tl;dr, but the lore and themes were so obscure and complex that this entire essay was as tl;dr as I could make it. If you don't want to read the entire thing, I highly recommend skipping to section 3 and read paragraph by paragraph; whenever you run into a reference  that you don't understand (e.g. Lovecraftian literature or the lunar island's celestial fissure), you can then scroll up to section 1 or 2 to find the reference. If you then want to know more about the reference, you can scroll down to the sources section and take a look at some of the links I credited.

All that aside, if you have any questions about the content or feedback, please let me know. I second-guessed myself so many times during the making of this essay, so I appreciate any outside perspective you have to offer.

Also, I'm currently working to get the corrupt pictures back up, so please bear with me for the next 20-30 minutes.

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I read the whole thing, it’s interesting to say the very least... but when I read the parts about mentioning the Forge, The Gorge, Hamlet and Online Lore shorts-

it made me realize just how 100% clueless us Xbox players are without any of this content actually being available within the game itself.

Take Destiny 2 as an example- That game tells its story through in game content, videos, Audio tapes, Character Dialogue etc.. the Lore is there and clear and easy to find.

DS/DST kinda just throws you into the game and expects you to resort to the internet for all the answers.

Which is quite depressing for me because there is a section in the games Menus for specifically titled for Cinematics, However & quit sadly.. the only thing that’s actually found here is the games credits.

This seems like an excellent place to start putting some of the games actual Lore and animated shorts..

Hell maybe even we can find Lore  diaries of Wagstaff (who from what I can gather... was already in the constant before Maxwell ever arrived.) As added actual in-game Lore?

Outside of extremely keen Observations such as your post, and the characters quotes the majority of this games Lore is scattered across the internet instead of in game where it all should be.

Im still questioning how Wormwood arrived from Hamlet directly into DST and Warly Arrived from Shipwrecked into DST, But yet we can’t take a ship in DST and sail into Hamlet/Shipwrecked Biomes.

You would think that with all these people lost in the constant that they’d all have bumped into one another by now.. Can’t wait for the Wurt/Wilba Confrontation.

Also.. can someone PLEASE explain to me why the Ancient Fuelweaver is guarding the portal that takes you to the gorge? that part I’m entirely lost on- you would think a big bad final boss would be guarding something important, not a Cooking Mini-Game in the style of the video game Overcooked.

I’d understand if it guarded like say a portal to a newer even harder world, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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Maybe Pig King doesn't transform because he sleeps through every night? I mean this theory has as much sense as yours about silver in his horns

I would be careful when talking about 'Moon' and things like flowers turning into evil flowers or Pig/Merm heads glowing. These things were added in RoG when Klei didn't even have plans for dst yet, so unless we get some update about these i'd be sceptical

Overall a very cool post

12 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

Who is the night monster that coexists with Charlie?

I've heard a theory that it's the corrupted Torch Wielder/Queen form the metheus murals

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This is some interesting points. I like it.

But, I do have some disagreements with this. I did a post on the gateway and calendar a while back, and I found that there is actually a third object yin the sky. The thing between the sun and moon in the calendar is not the land we’re on, it’s a new object with no real life parallels. This is evident by the hamlet trailer, in which we see something move in front of the sun that is not the moon.

Also I doubt the moon has any harmful intentions, as it has yet to purposely wrong us. All the moon has done is make Wormwood, and try to talk to us in our sleep.

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How weird you bring this stuff up TODAY, I was just watching videos on the lore of Don't Starve in the past couple hours, videos from 1-2 years ago. How the f... This is really interesting indeed. I wish we could have more concrete points in-game for the curious like us.

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4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Maybe Pig King doesn't transform because he sleeps through every night? I mean this theory has as much sense as yours about silver in his horns

I went ahead and tested this claim; sleeping doesn't prevent the curse from taking over unfortunately. Basically what I did was turn this pig into a werepig knowing that it would only stay a werepig for a quarter of a day. The thing about werepigs who transform back is that they always sleep. I timed it so the pig is asleep right before the full moon, and despite that, the pig still transformed.

image.png.cc1f780bb2de03f46a18b2acf62d81a8.pngimage.png.bde3a1adba52c5621b6956c38dcb7cd0.png

Also, could you elaborate on what part of the silver-pig-king theory doesn't make sense to you? I'm more than happy to clarify any points that might've been lost in this sea of text.

 

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

I would be careful when talking about 'Moon' and things like flowers turning into evil flowers or Pig/Merm heads glowing. These things were added in RoG when Klei didn't even have plans for dst yet, so unless we get some update about these i'd be sceptical

This was one of the parts where I did quite a lot of second-guessing, which is why I made sure to clarify that the evil-flower transformation only happens in the single-player version. However, the glowing pig/merm heads does still happen in DST, and those heads still drop nightmare fuel.

 

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Overall a very cool post

Thanks! I appreciate the compliment and the contribution.

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

I've heard a theory that it's the corrupted Torch Wielder/Queen form the metheus murals

I didn't think about that, but from a literary standpoint, assuming what I said about the Ancient story being a poetic reflection of Maxwell and Charlie's downfall had some semblance of truth, that could very well be the case. That being said, do you have any evidence to back this up outside of the literary connection I just mentioned?

3 hours ago, Mooagain said:

This is some interesting points. I like it.

I'm glad you like it!

3 hours ago, Mooagain said:

I found that there is actually a third object yin the sky. The thing between the sun and moon in the calendar is not the land we’re on, it’s a new object with no real life parallels. This is evident by the hamlet trailer, in which we see something move in front of the sun that is not the moon.

Are you referring to this?
image.thumb.png.26d7853dfa37e73a46c9cc373fd4de19.png

This looks exactly like a solar eclipse, which, if anything, seems like Klei's way of telling us that astronomy and an understanding of how eclipses work is important in this game.

 

3 hours ago, Mooagain said:

Also I doubt the moon has any harmful intentions, as it has yet to purposely wrong us. All the moon has done is make Wormwood, and try to talk to us in our sleep.

The moon has also created the Ancient Herald, triggered a lycanthropy curse, and mutated sentient animals. What I was trying to get at was that even though the moon doesn't appear to be completely "evil" in the traditional sense, it clearly has the ability to harm as evident in the creation of these hostile creatures and the "promise of forbidden knowledge" that almost screams "Lovecraftian tragedy". 

1 hour ago, Kuro_kira said:

I wish we could have more concrete points in-game for the curious like us.

I'd also like a bit more concrete info in-game, but part of the fun of a good mystery is having enough concrete info to get some logical foundation while having plenty of information left in the mystery box for people to uncover on their own like a game. It would ruin the fun if we had too much concrete info.

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5 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

it made me realize just how 100% clueless us Xbox players are without any of this content actually being available within the game itself.

Wait, do Xbox players not get DST events at all? That's kind of a shame; I had a lot of fun trying out the Gorge a few weeks ago. 

5 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Also.. can someone PLEASE explain to me why the Ancient Fuelweaver is guarding the portal that takes you to the gorge?

Knowing that the Fuelweaver is the Ancient King whose obsession with dark magic drove his civilization to extinction, it doesn't seem like he's guarding the portal because the portal takes you to the Gorge; he's trying to stop you from activating the portal because the portal itself has forbidden magical properties (e.g. the same magic that killed off his people).

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2 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

The moon has also created the Ancient Herald, triggered a lycanthropy curse, and mutated sentient animals. What I was trying to get at was that even though the moon doesn't appear to be completely "evil" in the traditional sense, it clearly has the ability to harm as evident in the creation of these hostile creatures and the "promise of forbidden knowledge" that almost screams "Lovecraftian tragedy"

Moon in the Constant is pretty weird, the thing with transformations of werepigs and Woodie is nothing really new becouse moon was always associated with transformation though it has the power of bringing plants and dead creatures to life which is something new, it has the power of life it can transform something earthly to something lunar. I find lunar mutated spiders interesting becouse they must've been on this part of the moon all the time and survive it's fall, becouse how would they arrived so fast and get transformed on this piece of moon land? Meaning there are already such creatures and plants on the moon, it seems Constant moon is invertion of Constant earth. Also it doesn't seem to affect our survivors, well except for Woodie but he's already been affected even before it fell.

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7 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Maybe Pig King doesn't transform because he sleeps through every night? I mean this theory has as much sense as yours about silver in his horns

I would be careful when talking about 'Moon' and things like flowers turning into evil flowers or Pig/Merm heads glowing. These things were added in RoG when Klei didn't even have plans for dst yet, so unless we get some update about these i'd be sceptical

Overall a very cool post

I've heard a theory that it's the corrupted Torch Wielder/Queen form the metheus murals

Pigs with the curse cant sleep during full moon because they change his form, then they sleep during day

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2 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

Also, could you elaborate on what part of the silver-pig-king theory doesn't make sense to you? I'm more than happy to clarify any points that might've been lost in this sea of text.

Well to stop her transformation Wilba has to wear a necklace made entirely out of silver around her neck.

Pig King on the other hand has like 2 silver rings attached to his hat.

I don't know but it doesn't seem to me that we could compare 2 pieces of silver to an entire necklace

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1 hour ago, Szczuku said:

I don't know but it doesn't seem to me that we could compare 2 pieces of silver to an entire necklace

The thing though is that Klei never established how much silver was needed to ward off the curse. If I could gradually break apart the silver necklace to see the bare minimum needed to trigger the curse or look up a bunch of silver items to see which prevent the curse and which don't, I would, but sadly, the silver necklace is the only silver item we have.

I considered the possibility that the pig king is just a pig leader unrelated to Hamlet, but it just makes astronomically less sense given that all of the visual connections between the two pig groups and the vignette description are basically screaming "these cursed pigs came from Hamlet" in our face.

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4 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

Wait, do Xbox players not get DST events at all? That's kind of a shame; I had a lot of fun trying out the Gorge a few weeks ago. 

Knowing that the Fuelweaver is the Ancient King whose obsession with dark magic drove his civilization to extinction, it doesn't seem like he's guarding the portal because the portal takes you to the Gorge; he's trying to stop you from activating the portal because the portal itself has forbidden magical properties (e.g. the same magic that killed off his people).

The event you were playing is probably a player created mod because the Forge and Gorge events (on Xbox at least) were limited time events that took place in 2017 and 2018.. but due to Console certification process (which takes anywhere between 2-6 weeks) AND because the events were hosted Live by Klei from their own Servers- By the time the Certification was approved and the event was up and running on Xbox the Event was pretty much already coming to a complete end.

They even fully acknowledge that in this post here: 

The TL:DR the Gorge & Forge were both pretty much “blink and you missed it” pieces of content for Console.. They state here that the cost for running these limited time mode servers was just barely being covered by players purchasing skins and such- so sadly I do not think that these events are coming back anytime soon (or possibly not even ever at all..)

However.. what they COULD do is take the Mods that PC Players have created from the events and make them available as an actual server selection options for consoles- for example: Even though Year of the Pig King & Hallowed Nights are Over I can still choose to host a world with those events still activated.

So What I’m hoping eventually happens is that Klei will add the events permanently into the core game as either a server option or as additional world content (such as a new island Biome themed around them) Doing things this way would solve a lot of problems-

Console players would always have the content stored on their version of the game accessible at any time so if Klei choose to run the events no Certification Process would be required and it could all be ran at the same time as PC without the Cert Delays. But probably more importantly: If the Content is already permanently added into the game then Klei would only have to run the content similar to Hallowed Nights and Wintersfeast where the content is always part of the game & only increasing specific loot drop rates instead of having to host their own special servers for them and further in-cure the costs of running them themselves.

I honestly don’t see HOW this could become a bad idea..

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9 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

This looks exactly like a solar eclipse, which, if anything, seems like Klei's way of telling us that astronomy and an understanding of how eclipses work is important in this game.

 

It is a solar eclipse, but not with the moon. The moon still visible, and it's glowing red. Something else must be blocking the sun. I did a post about it a few months ago 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Mooagain said:

It is a solar eclipse, but not with the moon. The moon still visible, and it's glowing red

I'm not sure I follow. I don't see a 3rd celestial object anywhere in that scene. Maybe I'm just blind, but could you point it out with a picture?

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On 2019/12/29 at 9:03 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Also.. can someone PLEASE explain to me why the Ancient Fuelweaver is guarding the portal that takes you to the gorge? that part I’m entirely lost on- you would think a big bad final boss would be guarding something important, not a Cooking Mini-Game in the style of the video game Overcooked.

Ancient Gateway connect many world. (like Pugna said "hub") Gorge and Forge just two of them.

 

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i put it to my own logic, which i'm sure most of it can be written off

Image result for don't starve torchbearer metheus

 The light/flame from this picture is white and most white light is derived from the moon e.g "full moons" , "moon caller's staff" and of course "the lunar island itself a part of the moon". Moon light also seems to be the natural counter to the darkness/nightmare fuel/shadows examples being full moons and lunar weapons dealing more to shadows and on full moons having all the darkness to be neutralised altogether; this could be represented by the torch bearer fending of the nightmares with the torch/white light.

i know in earlier images the torch is represented by black and red but i believe that could simply be a post nightmarefuel era. so i think that the power of the white light or torch is the moon

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6 hours ago, thomas4846 said:

i put it to my own logic, which i'm sure most of it can be written off

 The light/flame from this picture is white and most white light is derived from the moon e.g "full moons" , "moon caller's staff" and of course "the lunar island itself a part of the moon". Moon light also seems to be the natural counter to the darkness/nightmare fuel/shadows examples being full moons and lunar weapons dealing more to shadows and on full moons having all the darkness to be neutralised altogether; this could be represented by the torch bearer fending of the nightmares with the torch/white light.

i know in earlier images the torch is represented by black and red but i believe that could simply be a post nightmarefuel era. so i think that the power of the white light or torch is the moon

"Your own logic" is more than welcome here; I just want the evidence and reasoning so I can understand that logic. It's the same reason a math teacher asks you to show your work on a math problem.

I agree that the tragic torch's white light is lunar magic, and I postulated that the white light emanating from the gateway in the first mural was moonlight. It's also worth noting that the torch was only able to give off this white light after changing its appearance to the tragic torch, and yet the torch itself looks eerily shadow-like. Lunar weapons (i.e. the glass cutter) don't actually do more damage to the shadow creatures; they just degrade twice as slowly if you swing at them.

All of that being said, I don't see how any of this explains the torch holder physically being the moon. The "civilization painting" even shows the moon already existing prior to the events depicted in these 4 murals.

image.png.febb0e4bde10659cad8fbe27e715c162.png

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On 12/30/2019 at 7:58 AM, Rinkusan said:

The thing though is that Klei never established how much silver was needed to ward off the curse. If I could gradually break apart the silver necklace to see the bare minimum needed to trigger the curse or look up a bunch of silver items to see which prevent the curse and which don't, I would, but sadly, the silver necklace is the only silver item we have.

I considered the possibility that the pig king is just a pig leader unrelated to Hamlet, but it just makes astronomically less sense given that all of the visual connections between the two pig groups and the vignette description are basically screaming "these cursed pigs came from Hamlet" in our face.

Maybe it's not only silver that prevents the curse. The pig king never moves from the place he is, surrounded by Obelisks, maybe that have something to do with holding off the curse? Why would he be surrounded by those magical things in the first place if he moved away from his kingdom to live a "free" life? There are also obelisks blocking the entrance to the Ancient Fuelweaver, I think they are meant to contain shadow magic or curses in some way.

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