Overanalysing Curse of the Moon Quay Lore (Monkey Lore Monkey Lore Monkey Lore-)

[Scypham]

Hello! If you're reading this you probably want monkey lore. There's not a whole lot to talk about with regards to the lore this time, seemingly intentionally because it's a 'setting the stage' update. With that being said I'll still provide you with all that I can in terms of monkey lore. 

So, the update has alot of crazy things. Monkey pirates, turning into a monkey, bushes that grow bananas........., but most importantly, the Unnatural Portal (and the debris around it).

 

Spoiler

 

Notable Portal quotes:
Wanda - "This... is how it started, wasn't it?"
Maxwell - "Something is wrong with it."
Winona - "Something ain't right about it.",
Wortox - "Poor mortals, they have so much trouble traveling from plane to plane!."
WX78 - "HA HA. THIS PLACE REEKS OF FAILURE"

Notable Debris quotes:
Wanda - "I should've remembered sooner. Too late now, I suppose."
Maxwell - "Someone has been meddling."
Wilson - "This machinery looks oddly familiar..."
Winona - "This looks like the bossman's... but what was he doing out here?"
WX78 - "WHERE ARE YOU HIDING OLD MAN"

 

It looks like our friendly neighborhood inventor, Wagstaff, has been tinkering with dimensional travel and caused what seems to be a tear in space and time to show up. What's interesting about this is we've known Wagstaff's had some success with dimensional travel, having been the one to give Webber's dad the spider which would eventually be part of Webber, throwing WX-78 into the portal, and even scouting the Constant as a hologram in both DS and DST. The best and most recent example in terms of the timeline would be that he was able to siphon the Celestial Champion's energy and contain it in a structure that was a projection just like he was. So evidently, he's able to interfere with things even if he's not physically near them. So the fact that we now see there's some sort of consequence to his meddling with space and time is interesting.

There are other things which allude to Wagstaff as well. Once of which will probably go unnoticed to most people but if you generate enough Moon Quay islands you realise there's a pattern to them.

 

Spoiler

It has a distinct shape of two 'eyes', a mess of 'hair' and three docks which you can interpret as either teeth or a bushy moustache. This could be a stretch but it seems that the monkeys designed the island to look like Wagstaff. On top of that, the Queen of the Moon Quay's 'throne' is labelled as 'Moon Bed' in the image files and if she's happy from being given a banana, she can have a quote saying "THE GREAT SKY BANANA SMILES THIS DAY.". This could just be the monkeys seeing the crescent moon and thinking "Oooooo banana" or it could be related to Wagstaff's tampering with lunar energy leaving an impression on the monkeys. Either way, the old codger's been up to something and whether he realises he's tearing a hole in space and time, who can say for certain. We aren't sure why anything from the portal is spewing out of there, let alone seemingly cursed monkeys. 

I say seemingly cursed because one of the major things in the update is that upon acquiring 10 Accursed Trinkets, which you only get from killing Powder Monkeys, you turn into a monkey yourself. There interestingly isn't any interesting quotes for the trinkets themselves, though while turning into a monkey Maxwell makes the comment that he doesn't recognise the kind of magic it's using. Other than turning someone into a monkey, it's also cursed so that it can't leave your person. The only thing capable of taking the trinkets away from you is the Queen of the Moon Quay, who reaches out to you and has her hand glisten with some magic, before taking the trinkets and just putting it under her crown. She also makes some comments with regards to changing you back as well.

MONKEY_QUEEN_REMOVE_CURSE - "YOU WOULD RETURN SUCH A GIFT? SUIT YOURSELF.", "YOU WISH TO RETURN TO THAT HIDEOUS FORM? VERY WELL.", "I CAN'T FATHOM WHY YOU'D GIVE IT UP, BUT I'LL HONOR OUR ACCORD."

So it seems she sees the form as a gift, perhaps she might even have a part to play in the curse itself since she's the only one who can seemingly remove it. This is all to say we aren't sure whether the monkeys are monkeys who became pirates or pirates who became monkeys, but seeing as how all but the Prime Mate drops a trinket only on death, it seems they could be transformed as well. Walter seems to have the same theory ("Maybe they're pirates cursed to be monkeys! Or monkeys cursed to be pirates...")

All of this to really say, we don't really know what's happening yet? It's clear Wagstaff has committed some mistakes and it's seemingly destroying some of his machinery as well as bringing objects from other planes into the constant. Whether he was using the monkeys or they're just from another weird world in the universe of Don't Starve is uncertain. We know that other strange dimensions exist outside of the Constant, since seemingly Wortox isn't from there but is still a magical creature, and he's canonically gone to the Terraria universe (whether you want to treat that as canon is up to you but for the sake of dimensional tomfoolery, I'm counting it). It's possible Wagstaff's making the world of the Constant even more unstable somehow, only time will tell. But if it is that he's unintentionally leaking other dimensions into it, I think it's a great way for Klei to add stuff that seemingly doesn't fit with the world, like random pirate monkeys and BUSHES THAT GROW BANANAS, I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS KLEI. 

Just to wrap up with some small tidbits: 
 

Spoiler

The Powder Monkey Huts (forget what they're called) strongly resemble the machine Wagstaff contains the Celestial Champion's essence in, which just further cements that it's Wagstaff's influence and could potentially allude that these are either prototype machines that are being dumped into the Constant or he's planning to store even more energy. which is a can of worms to think about. 

There's also an inverted portal animation that seemingly isn't used yet. Based on the way it moves, it seems to be sucking stuff up rather than spewing it out like the one we have ingame. I imagine this might not be unused necessarily, but it's something we might see in the future. @QuartzBeam has the theory that all the 'setting the stage' updates might involve things generating from these sorts of portals, which I could totally see and would love.

ALSO, Wilson made the Nautopilot and I don't know whether to be proud of him or not. The man could've just made a bigger boat but no, a giant magnet to carry around MORE boats is what he decided to make. Never change Wilson, never change.

Lastly, just appreciate how half of the survivors either find surface bananas super weird because they're used to cave ones, or they're wondering why the bananas are growing on bushes:

Spoiler

Walter - "Wait, I thought bananas grew on trees around here?"
Maxwell - "Bananas that don't grow in caves? Preposterous."
Webber - "We didn't know bananas could grow outside!"
Wendy - "Bananas that grow in the sun... how unnatural."
Willow - "Bananas growing outside the caves? Weird."
Woodie - "It's missing the tree part!"
WX-78 - "THIS WORLD ALREADY HAS BANANAS INSTALLED. YOU ARE REDUNDANT"

That about wraps it up. Not much to talk about unfortunately (but damn if I didn't talk...). I could've gone on with some of the sillier lore bits, like how Wendy's quote for turning into a monkey ("Stop laughing Abigail, it's not funny.") shows that Abi's still got her old personality, which you can't really tell otherwise (shoutouts to Quartz for showing me this) but I don't want to keep you guys from reading this more than I already am. Thanks again for anyone who made it to the end, see you next time when it turns out Wagstaff has just been trying to make the perfect treatment for male pattern baldness using some toenail clippings, monster meat, and the essence of an ancient deity. 

[GLERMZ]

Thanks Scypham for your insights on lore once again. I really appreciate this ones a lot. 

[Maxposting]

I think is that Wagstaff tried to pull the actual lunar energy into the "real world"tm but instead created a rift sucking the cursed monkeys into Constant.
Think off it as a Lunar Magic Heist gone wrong.

3 hours ago, Scypham said:

It has a distinct shape of two 'eyes', a mess of 'hair' and three docks which you can interpret as either teeth or a bushy moustache. This could be a stretch but it seems that the monkeys designed the island to look like Wagstaff.

I myself see a more of a Medusa rather than Wagstaff, it would fit the occassional ancient mythology sprinkled in (i.e. salt statues, the king/queen statues missing heads as Romans replaced heads from statues of older emperors, etc.), however Wagstaff also seems just as a valid interpretation, if not more.

[Plant]

Monke Lore

[Moonatik]

3 hours ago, Scypham said:

There's also an inverted portal animation that seemingly isn't used yet. Based on the way it moves, it seems to be sucking stuff up rather than spewing it out like the one we have ingame. I imagine this might not be unused necessarily, but it's something we might see in the future. @QuartzBeam has the theory that all the 'setting the stage' updates might involve things generating from these sorts of portals, which I could totally see and would love.
 

 

Could it be possible for Klei to use all Wagstaff do for creating islands like that, with portals which give us a view of other planes. Monkeys this one and some Shipwrecked style, but as Wagstaff testing his stuff, he could make appear other things, from other planes, on other islands. Until... something ?

[chaosmonkey]

5 hours ago, Scypham said:

So the fact that we now see there's some sort of consequence to his meddling with space and time is interesting

Loved the post, great as always. This stood out to me though -- why is this a consequence rather than by design? Given all the junk on the island, it almost seems like this is Wagstaff's connection to the constant that he uses to project, but also which happens to be used as a convenient garbage disposal.

The curse itself could be explained by this strange energy -- whatever it is that wagstaff is doing to rip open this interdimensional portal. The accursed trinkets could be random items (more junk) coming from Wagstaff's dimension which become tainted by the portal. Or perhaps tainted by the lunar energy which also has crossed the portal boundary. We know the trinkets cause monkeyism, so to me it's most likely that the population of the island are pirates which were transformed to monkeys.

[QuartzBeam]

2 hours ago, Moonatik said:

Could it be possible for Klei to use all Wagstaff do for creating islands like that, with portals which give us a view of other planes. Monkeys this one and some Shipwrecked style, but as Wagstaff testing his stuff, he could make appear other things, from other planes, on other islands. Until... something ?

That was my thought. A trio of Unnatural Portals would be a great way to introduce biomes and creatures that would not make sense as "natural" parts of the DST climate.

[Mike23Ua]

I can not unsee Wagstaff head as the island now..

[RichNCrispy]

2 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

That was my thought. A trio of Unnatural Portals would be a great way to introduce biomes and creatures that would not make sense as "natural" parts of the DST climate.

Imagine if you could change the portal and suddenly the monkeys was something different like lizard people or whatever.

[Ardcrumb]

My biggest takeaway is that Wilson is still a megachad, making dumb s&€@ still. 

I'll never forget the beard hair turf

[Dragonboooorn]

19 hours ago, Scypham said:

There are other things which allude to Wagstaff as well. Once of which will probably go unnoticed to most people but if you generate enough Moon Quay islands you realise there's a pattern to them.

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Huh. While one of them surely looks like Wagstaff the other two reminds me of... Wavey Jones?

[Moonatik]

14 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

That was my thought. A trio of Unnatural Portals would be a great way to introduce biomes and creatures that would not make sense as "natural" parts of the DST climate.

This first island is so small, right ? It let some good space for more.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

15 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

That was my thought. A trio of Unnatural Portals would be a great way to introduce biomes and creatures that would not make sense as "natural" parts of the DST climate.

with this the game now has even more pissibilities

if they dont plan to add new land biomes or rework the redundant ones, would be cool if they remove them to add more islands

[skile]

about bananas. 

from what we know, most characters seem to be from early/mid 20th century and used to live in colder climates (except shipwrecked gang), so there's a solid chance half of the characters haven't even eaten bananas before getting to constant. 

although it's probably just a joke about characters getting used to Constant. 

[ADM]

2 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

pissibilities

more

WAT ?

Please someone, stop Wagstaff !

[Just-guy]

59 minutes ago, ADM said:

3 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

pissibilities

more

WAT ?

Please someone, stop Wagstaff !

(profanity)

[Phizzle]

The Unnatural Portal can be fed moon gleams to temporarily increase the rate of stuff it creates. 

The unused inverted portal looks like a powered version of the Unnatural portal. 

[Creatorofswamps]

[Danirex]

Damn guys!!!!! I think the previous theory that the monkeys could be pirates with the curse if that is true then that dimension leads to Shipwerckedddd if you think about it wagstaff did not have access to the world of Together by himself he could only be in hamlet and shipwercked so maybe his lunar experiment was carried out in Shipwercked and as it went wrong he opened the portal and took them together but maybe they became a monkey because of the curse because of the queen who would originate from shipwercked and maybe because of the Moon essence opted for her powers and since she considers it a gift, perhaps she purposely transformed the pirates as if it were a gift and if you think about it, it is logical that the queen exists in shipwercked since primates have the same skin color and if she is the queen wilbur would be the king I mean for me that is the theory What the fuckkk

[Just-guy]

23 minutes ago, Danirex said:

wagstaff did not have access to the world of Together by himself he could only be in hamlet and shipwercked

But he is in Together:

https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Grainy_Transmission

16 minutes ago, Danirex said:

the queen who would originate from shipwercked

The Queen isn't from Shipwrecked, she and all the content of the Moon Quay come from the portal rift that Wagstaff opened.

[Danirex]

Y por que no puede ser de shipwercked la grieta no dice de donde es espesificamente asi que no hay nada que diga que no puede ser una supocicion

No eso es un holograma el no esta realmente es una proyección

[Just-guy]

19 minutes ago, Danirex said:

No eso es un holograma el no esta realmente es una proyección

Wagstaff on his own appears to be a projection, in singleplayer, the less health he has the more distorted he starts to look and sound. From the wiki:

When Wagstaff is damaged, his appearance and voice will be distorted. The lower his health, the more distorted he will become.

[goblinball]

If wagstaff is able to open a portal on the monkey island, then maybe he’ll be able to open the sealed portal in the archives…

the wagstaff portal has 4 “ends” to it, and the archives portal has 4 orange circles on it. This is probably just a coincidence, but it could be a sign that these portals are related.

[Dextops]

34 minutes ago, goblinball said:

If wagstaff is able to open a portal on the monkey island, then maybe he’ll be able to open the sealed portal in the archives…

the wagstaff portal has 4 “ends” to it, and the archives portal has 4 orange circles on it. This is probably just a coincidence, but it could be a sign that these portals are related.

Both portals are derived from something lunar related so he could probably open the archive portal but problem is if he actually knows about it 

[Danirex]

Yo digo que si tuvieramos el maldito trailer pudieramos planetar más teorias PERO AHORITA PASAN 10 AÑOS Y NO ACABA DE SALIR!!!!!!!!!!!