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Should Maxwell be forgiven?


Should Maxwell be forgiven?  

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  1. 1. Should Maxwell be forgiven?



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Who to say what good and bad is? Look at how morality is protray in DST, sin is collected but the context doesn't matter, if you have to commit a sin for the greater good are you the bad guy? And all of your good deed do nothing, and krampus themself are hypocrite judging other on their action and punish them for their bad deed why not looking at themself.

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In some iterations Maxwell is a hero who saved the earth from the wrath of the ancients so yea I think he deserves forgiveness. Here, let me quote Willy Tybur's speech on the matter:

r/attackontitan - Modified Willy Tybur's speech on King Fritz to reflect Maxwell from Don't Starve Together.Some hundred years in the past, the ancient conflict was ended, not by weapons nor by the advancement of technology. The saviour who ended the fighting, the hero who saved the world was Maxwell himself. He was plagued by guilt over the ancients' vicious past. He'd grown weary from watching families and countryman haunted by shadows and he wept for humans, a species under constant pressure. So when he inherited the Codex Umbra, he plotted his own downfall with his assistant. Her name, Charlie. Together they created a tragic accident which would drive the magician out. After that, Maxwell moved as many survivors to the Constant as he could, erecting great waves around it. He left a warning, that if anyone threatened his rule, countless calamities would be unleashed in retaliation. However, he never intended to make good on this threat. 

Maxwell made a vow renouncing war, and bound his successors to uphold it, just as he had. Thus, his ideology was passed down to each new occupant of the nightmare throne. And the shadow creatures with the power to invade the world remained in the constant. Wilson didn’t stop the ancients, and science hasn’t kept the world from being haunted by nightmares. It was the king of the constant Maxwell, a man who yearned for peace. That’s it, that’s all he wanted. He said that if the survivors grew strong someday and came in force to shatter his reign and seize his throne, he would accept it. He believed the sins he committed were so horrific that they could never be atoned for. “When the day of retribution finally comes, I will accept it, but until then, let me enjoy this lost paradise free from strife. I ask for nothing but a brief span of peace.” Those were the final words Maxwell left us with.

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What did he even do, really? I'm not too familiar with the lore but from what I can gather he was a poor, debt ridden, failing magician who was starting to turn things around when he found the Codex Umbra. Then the Umbra abducted him and Charlie, which he didn't know was going to happen. While on the throne he shaped a world and started abducting more people, presumably because the shadows want him to instead of him wanting to due to how unhappy he looks at the end of adventure mode.

If that's accurate he seems more like a victim than anything else.

 

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1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

What did he even do, really? I'm not too familiar with the lore but from what I can gather he was a poor, debt ridden, failing magician who was starting to turn things around when he found the Codex Umbra. Then the Umbra abducted him and Charlie, which he didn't know was going to happen. While on the throne he shaped a world and started abducting more people, presumably because the shadows want him to instead of him wanting to due to how unhappy he looks at the end of adventure mode.

If that's accurate he seems more like a victim than anything else.

 

He knows the power of Codex Umbra and the consequences of using it but continues to use it anyway, he was laughing when he kidnapped Wilson and has a large EGO and show to enjoy watching people die.

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6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

What did he even do, really? I'm not too familiar with the lore but from what I can gather he was a poor, debt ridden, failing magician who was starting to turn things around when he found the Codex Umbra. Then the Umbra abducted him and Charlie, which he didn't know was going to happen. While on the throne he shaped a world and started abducting more people, presumably because the shadows want him to instead of him wanting to due to how unhappy he looks at the end of adventure mode.

If that's accurate he seems more like a victim than anything else.

 

image.thumb.png.591fddf9b177b796682d46c8b075acb1.png

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1 minute ago, Waoling said:

He knows the power of Codex Umbra and the consequences of using it but continues to use it anyway

Where is that said?

1 minute ago, Waoling said:

he was laughing when he kidnapped Wilson

His projections sure do a lot of laughing, but he doesn't. You see his projections laugh, enter a rage, and do all sorts of things. But the real Maxwell just kind of sits and sulks.

2 minutes ago, Waoling said:

and has a large EGO and show to enjoy watching people die.

Where was this said?

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3 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Where is that said?

His projections sure do a lot of laughing, but he doesn't. You see his projections laugh, enter a rage, and do all sorts of things. But the real Maxwell just kind of sits and sulks.

Where was this said?

Maxwell uses Codex Umbra multiple time and knows that it can cause some serious damage, and William Carter Puzzles show us that he know what he getting himself into, he could stop so many time but choose not to anyway and cause all of this to happen.

Ha! I remember that one - Maxwell when examing skeleton.

Wickerbottom has a quote about how Maxwell has a lot of egos.

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https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/dont-starve-giant-edition/c0xbnvr137dz
 

Klei has probably changed the lore behind this franchise since the release of the original game but the official product description on Xbox live identifies Maxwell as a “Demon”

They probably threw that concept out the window with DST however it is important to note that Charlie was also a human, sweet, kind caring girl and then.. something takes over her body and turns her into the Charlie we know today.

 

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When you get bounded to a chair, and forcefully listening to a same damn song for eternity, I can at least feel a bit of sympathy for him. And even though he kidnapped people, he made some of their lifes actually better.

Wilson is no longer lonely and gets to do all kinds of experiments while spewing jokes everywhere.

Willow gets to burn things as her wishes

Wendy gets to see her sister again

Wigfrid gets to be the valkyrie she has always wanted to be when acting

Wolfgang gets to actually perform incredible feats of strength

Webber, same as Wilson, as I don't think living in the outside world as a spider hybrid will be a good idea. Even if he is dead back at RoG.

As for Wes, he gets to bug Warly all the time to make him the Crepes which he can only eat like half of it because he is evil.

I can see a few other Survivors will never forgive Maxwell like Warly or Winona.

 

 

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5 hours ago, SinancoTheBest said:

Some hundred years in the past, the ancient conflict was ended, not by weapons nor by the advancement of technology... 

Where all that text come from ? Looks like it's something fan-made.

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Personally, I feel that he, like everyone else, is a morally grey character. He’s done bad things, he’s done good things. We see that he is remorseful (even if it is just Charlie), and it looks like he’s trying to help. 
 

But then, he never did like owing a favor…

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3 minutes ago, jan Mele said:

It's just a screenshot with extra words, I think

Oh so sorry, I quoted the very long text Sinanco posted, that wasn't very clear, edited my post !

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5 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Klei has probably changed the lore behind this franchise since the release of the original game but the official product description on Xbox live identifies Maxwell as a “Demon”

They probably threw that concept out the window with DST

The William Carter puzzles began in the first major update immediately after the game's initial release. DST wasn't even a twinkle in Klei's eye when Maxwell was revealed to be human. And the Xbox version of the game dropped in 2015, long after the William Carter puzzles ended. It's not unusual for cover blurbs for books, games, movies, etc. to portray things as they seem and leave how things actually are to be discovered otherwise.

As for Maxwell's cognizance of his actions' consequences, he can see what he's doing is dangerous, but he can't see why or to whom. As far as I can tell, all of the harm he did deliberately was done after he'd been trapped on the throne. He's clearly twisted, but it seems to me that an outside force did the twisting.

And as for whether he should be forgiven: probably, but that will to some extent certainly need to be earned. I assume he probably will earn it as the story goes on.

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6 hours ago, Cheggf said:

What did he even do, really? I'm not too familiar with the lore but from what I can gather he was a poor, debt ridden, failing magician who was starting to turn things around when he found the Codex Umbra. Then the Umbra abducted him and Charlie, which he didn't know was going to happen. While on the throne he shaped a world and started abducting more people, presumably because the shadows want him to instead of him wanting to due to how unhappy he looks at the end of adventure mode.

If that's accurate he seems more like a victim than anything else.

 

the part where he kidnapped 90% of the survivors and robbed them of their normal lives to face arguable torture for eternity

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It should be noted that understanding does not inherently beget forgiveness.

The games, in their limited lore, have justified Maxwell's actions a bit. Not in the "they were good and reasonable way" but in explaining why he might have being doing what he was doing. It at minimum did away with the idea of Maxwell as an evil, all powerful king even in vanilla DS, with the game concluding with you finding him trapped on the throne where he explains that struggling against a higher power is worthless. While he is the gamemaster for the survivors, its a role hes acting in more than anything rather than actually being his. He wasn't being secretly good, his actions aren't good, but he was in a situation where he also probably had little say in the matter overall. That doesn't justify anything ultimately, but it at least gives perspective past "hes just so evil and twisted"

He at no point gets off scott free. He's still trapped with everyone else in the same hell he put them in, and they're still trapped there with him. Nothing any of them can currently do will change that. Forgiveness won't change that. Not forgiving won't change that. The survivors are in limbo because ultimately any way they decide to swing on the topic of Maxwell ends on "it doesn't change much" so they've seem (to me at least) just begrudgingly accept it doesn't really matter how they feel they're all in this together now. 

And given that they are all in this together now, the survivors can grow to accept Maxwell himself without actually making the choice to forgiving him for his actions. They can appreciate that he helps, that he had his reasons, that hes suffering too- and still not ultimately want to forgive the fact that he has ruined their lives. Frankly I don't think this is the kind of thing that you can consciously forgive a person for no matter what they do- but you can accept with the fact it happened and put it behind you. 

I'm talking strictly from the perspective of how the survivors probably feel about it btw- narratively I don't think Maxwell needs to be redeemed and forgiven. He can be a sad old guy who did some unforgivable stuff.

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I have yet to see an apology from him.

So, no.

From the beginning he used people as stepping stones. He only cared for the power he could obtain and doomed Charlie in process. 

When he realized he was damned for all eternity, he wanted to share his damnation with his worst enemies. Stubborn until the end, though he had lost all hope, he made the worst of it in the most cynical way he could, torturing others. 

He's sorry about what he did to Charlie, but that's honestly just the bare minimum. Maxwell always does the bare minimum.

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