Lore speculation

[hhh2]

So, I've done all of the stageplay. Who do you think the costumes are? Some are indisputable but others are cryptic like the blacksmith. I'm curious to hear other interpretations of the roles.

What do you think will come next? I think Klei might have hired a writer to clean up the messy story, because with how little there was in this beta, it's the beginning of something cohesive. I'm excited to see what comes in the, hopefully, very near future.

And lastly, I want thoughts upon the new QoL. I do not much care for QoLs but I've always been a more pragmatic person.

[sudoku]

Hopefully they are gonna move the story forward in a big way in the future, weve kinda been stagnating in terms of lore and story since A New Reign.

Similarly, qol are nice, but they arent gonna shake up the gameplay and put the new in "new content". Heck most of the non quality of life new content doesnt even manage to do that either.

Ive been on hiatus from the game and am still waiting for an update that makes me want to play again but i also realize ive been playing this game for a long time so im probably more picky and difficult to please when it comes to wanting a new gameplay experience from DST.

 

[UbiAnomaly]

I think that the costumes are as follows:
The Doll - Charlie

The King - Maxwell

The Fool - An ambiguous survivor

The Mirror - some kind of sentient power? Probably in the codex.

The Blacksmith - Definitely Winona, there's really no doubt about that

[sudoku]

7 minutes ago, UbiAnomaly said:

I think that the costumes are as follows:
The Doll - Charlie

The King - Maxwell

The Fool - An ambiguous survivor

The Mirror - some kind of sentient power? Probably in the codex.

The Blacksmith - Definitely Winona, there's really no doubt about that

I havent seen the plays yet but the fool seems likely to be Wilson since hes the only other main character absent 

[UbiAnomaly]

1 minute ago, sudoku said:

I havent seen the plays yet but the fool seems likely to be Wilson since hes the only other main character absent 

In one of the lines, the Fool says something along the lines of "The King has called us here from far and wide so we can entertain him!", implying that the fool could be any of the original cast.

[sudoku]

10 minutes ago, UbiAnomaly said:

In one of the lines, the Fool says something along the lines of "The King has called us here from far and wide so we can entertain him!", implying that the fool could be any of the original cast.

Oh that makes sense.

As for the mirror isnt there lore about the lunar gestalts or the moon idols whispering and offering the survivors their greatest desires, almost like a reflection of themselves like the Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter. My bet is the mirror is the moon

Edit: Its the Celestial Altar im thinking of thats whispering to the survivors and taunting them with secrets. I guess its sort of similar to how Maxwell brought the survivors in.

It tells Warly it knows how to get home to maman, it has inventions for Wininona etc.

Plus the moon is glass like in appearence so it fits thematically with a mirror

[Garett Skott]

The doll is clearly meant to be Charlie. The first part of the story seems to happen before she met the King, Maxwell. Charlie was a curious person since she was born.
The blacksmith could be Winona herself, overly protecting her sister. She damages the doll while trying to protect her.
Max the King quickly grows fond of Charlie , but she wants to know how he makes his magic "tricks" and Max doesn't want her to know. Charlie eventually finds the Maxwell's hidden room where he studied the Codex Umbra / where the king kept the mirror.
When the king sees them, he tries to attack the mirror, but the doll gets hit instead, making her shadowy. This might be a parallel to something happened in the Constant: Max tried to fight off the darkness, but Charlie became the night monster instead being "brought back to life", like with the Ancient Fuelweaver, maybe?
The king hid away and Charlie tried to get to him but was unsuccessful; until one day, Max decided to bring people to the Constant out of boredom (there's deeper reason, I hope) who are the "fools".
Wilson, one of the fools, accidentaly kills the king and thinks to become the new king, this happens briefly in reality, but the doll takes his place right away in the play.
Now as the queen, Chalie holds a great power, but can't/ doesn't know how to keep her promise to the mirror, which is supposedly "Them". The mirror wants to be freed, and what does that mean for reality? To escape outside the Constant and into the "normal" world? The doll is the one who will finally accomplish this goal and it seems like she will use some lunar magic as well.

What do you think about my interpretation? Can you fill the blanks?

P.S.: what was the tree for, anyway?

[hhh2]

Very, very insightful. Thank you for sharing; I could have never picked up on the sublties myself.

It sounds cheap but I think the "out of boredom" is potent for driving the story. Maxwell is supposed to be human, right? He'd probably assumed it was impossible to find him and, with this in mind, dragged others into the constant for his amusal initally (Wilson was probably the least challanging to fool, but I cannot remember the sequence which the survivors were taken in) Then realising the extents of his power, how he could bridge the real world and the constant, took revenge on his enemies by trapping them in the constant to watch them die over and over until the older, experienced surviors like wilson could advance enough through the world to find him and unknowingly, accidently kill him.

The mirror is too abstract for me to parse, but I hope others can share their ideas.

The tree is a joke I'm sure.

[hhh2]

PS: I really hope they tie up Wagstaff's involvment and make it clear. I originally thought Wagstaff was the "blacksmith" until the script used pronouns: "she". (Klei ought to have not specified for the added mystery).

[RoseAppraiser]

This Rose Appraiser has compiled some of the stage-play into the Timeline, and will gladly update with whatever lore is uncovered. The information is, of course, subject to change with the release of the update.

And to offer this Rose Appraiser's two petals on the lore, the play is fixed from Charlie's/Their perspective. Charlie is furious at Maxwell, and is seeing him as a fool and a fraud. The survivors are unwitting fools who are means to her end, and undoubtedly, Charlie is fixated on her promise to the Mirror.

[lakhnish]

4 hours ago, hhh2 said:

PS: I really hope they tie up Wagstaff's involvment and make it clear. I originally thought Wagstaff was the "blacksmith" until the script used pronouns: "she". (Klei ought to have not specified for the added mystery).

If there's a Winona nearby, she will make a comment during the blacksmith story, signifying it's talking about her.

5 hours ago, Garett Skott said:

P.S.: what was the tree for, anyway?

Often times, some kids get a dud role where they are dressed as a tree, stand there and do nothing. That's what this role is.

[gamehun20]

2 hours ago, lakhnish said:

Often times, some kids get a dud role where they are dressed as a tree, stand there and do nothing. That's what this role is.

Great for wes! (Wes breaks the script if used for any character that talks)

[Frashaw27]

I think the mirror might be nightmare throne itself. While we can already deduce that Maxwell is the King and Charlie is the queen, the mirror is still left to a mystery. The play describes the doll (Charlie) going into the secret room where the Mirror is stored, which parodies the discovery of the Codex Umbra from the William Carter Puzzles. However, what little we know about the Codex is that it's clearly associated heavily with the nightmares, as seen by how it can craft things out of nightmare fuel and in DSA, the book actually spawns Mr. Skits when spawning a Shadow Puppet. This show a clear indication that the book must be related to the nightmare throne. Other Character Examinations Quotes about the book shows that the characters are scared of it (except for a handful like Walter, the danger ignorant, and Wanda, the Nightmare Fuel Addict Enthusiast. Also Warly makes a comment about his Meemaw, but that doesn't seem related to the book itself). This is an important distinction as all the behavior we've seen from the normal gesalts seems to trying to luring the survivors in, yet how can the book be an allegory to the Moon if the book itself (which is implied to be the Mirror in the play due to how it's discovered by the Doll) if seems to be doing the exact opposite of what the gestalts want. This implies that something is speaking to Charlie via the Book, but the Moon is ruled out due to Nightmare Fuel Association and seems to be acting the opposite of how we've seen normal Gesalts/Moon Inhabitants act. On the other hand, there has to be an entity that would lure Maxwell to the Nightmare Throne in the first place via the Codex Umbra, so what if the Nightmare Throne was using the Codex Umbra as a proxy to speak.

I think this fits with play as 1) Near the end of the play, while the fool knocks the king of the throne and tries to take it, it never says were the oh so important Mirror was. 2) There's also the circumstantial evidence that as soon as the King died, the Fool tried to take the throne. This does parody what happens in adventure mode as once Maxwell turns to dust (which is also described in the play), the person who freed him immediately takes the throne (albeit with a little bit more force taken into the decision). 3) The play describes the doll stalking the Fool and then swooping up to take the Throne herself, which parody's exactly what happens in the DST Trailer(?) video. All this to say that the Final Act of the play was acting out the begining of the DST timeline to a near perfect T, however. It's never explained how the mirror talked to the Queen/Doll in the final scene. Originally it used the Codex (As I've been assuming) to talk to the Doll in act one (as that is what's being parodied), but the Codex Umbra left when Maxwell got Thanos Snapped from the Throne. This could be difficult to explain away, if the mirror (the thing queen seized from the fool) wasen't the Nightmare Throne itself/whoever is communicating through that. Without needing a proxy to discuss with the Queen/Charlie, the Throne could talk to her after she seized it. It could also help explain why Maxwell has taken such a hit in power and why Wortox questions his competency with it. Without the throne/higher power talking through the Codex Umbra and having a new pawn to fully control, it may have dropped Maxwell all together.

This is were this turns even more into conspiracy theory territory, so beware. So what if the Throne had already given some power to Maxwell, but he was too resilient to the Throne's words to be swayed into doing their dirty work. On the other hand, this new doll that's already damaged from her familial over protectiveness might be much easier to manipulate. And so the Throne spins a tail of how Max stole it's power away from them, and so manipulates Charlie into making her either make Max do it, or do it herself. I firmly believe that Max never stole any power from the Throne (or at least any significant amount depending how his shadow work has been going) and instead the Throne had their power stolen, by having them sealed away. However the hell that happened is up to interpretation, but it would help make sense of why even after Max had bitten the dust and Charlie seized the throne, that the power is still gone away. It also explains the ending line of how the Mirror found someone who would actually release Them, about why they needed someone. While not entirely sure on the logistics, my theory is that the throne is weakened, and thus needs a proxy to release Them as it's simply not strong enough to do so alone. 

Anyways, that's how I think of the Mirror character.

[Cassielu]

Quote

 

"she found a hidden chamber in the King's castle,"

"The doll searched the castle for the King,",

 

The "castle" seems to refer to The Constant. So "the doll finds the magic mirror in a hidden chamber" could also refer to finding something in the hidden ancient ruins. 

[Garett Skott]

I don't think the mirror is the Codex Umbra itself (although first meeting is clearly mirrored), I've always seen that book more as a manual on how to use magic which shadows can also use as gateway, more of an "instrument". 

 

What if the mirror was Metheus? I used to think "Metheus" was a name of the ancient king / Maxwell, but after seeing METHEUSISHERE in Axium Visus animation (the uppercase letters in the description), that suspicion got dropped. We know that Metheus is associated with shadows and the gateway in particular, where the fuel originates. In mythology, Prometheus was the one who made humans discover fire, allowing them to evolve, similarly to how Maxwell discovered the Codex and learned to use it and the play's king discovered the mirror and stole its power. 

I'm not sure what Metheus physically is, but it might be Charlie's bad side seen in "A New Reign": the two, by fusing, presumably remain in communication like the doll and the mirror.

This is the only "sentient" being that's part of the shadows which I think could actually play a character. 

Maybe the name of Charlie's shadow side is actually "Cyclum" or whatever, but you understood who I'm aiming for. 

[Aquaticbutter7]

The new lore also somewhat expands upon the original Adventure Mode. Before, it didn't really make sense that Maxwell didn't want the survivors to find him, because they couldn't do anything to him. But now we know that he was afraid that if the survivors could find him, then Charlie could as well. Also, if you really wanna read into it, then the last chapter of Adventure Mode being completely dark could mean that Charlie was becoming more powerful as she was getting closer to Maxwell. But I really don't think that was intentional and they probably didn't have the whole story planned out at that point already.

[lakhnish]

2 hours ago, Cassielu said:

The "castle" seems to refer to The Constant.

The castle is maxwell's apartment in San Francsico.

That act describes the scene in Maxwell's apartment when Charlie finds his hidden compartment.

What I've seen from this play is that the current Charlie is not remembering things correctly.

There are too many times in the play where things that Charlie has "experienced" that don't line up with the shorts.

For example, she thinks she defended the mirror from Maxwell's mmmmagic attack during their encounter in his apartment and that's how she ended up in the constant.

But that's not what we saw, as Maxwell saves her from the shadow hands approaching her and writes a letter (a physical piece of evidence)  that after the final act, they should go chill at Winona's place.

But she doesn't remember how the night they both disappeared during Maxwell's final act!

She does correctly remember that Maxwell turns into dust after he's released from the throne, but the release is remembered differently. She thinks the fool oh so magically plopped the king off and there's a giant leap in logic in how she became Queen.

The whole play is riddled with this type of stuff and all of this is to justify what we've finally learn of what Charlie has been planning this whole time (the thing Klei has constantly teased us for).

She's doing all of this to help the shadow entity, aka the Mirror, be restored to it's full self, whatever that full self may be (I have an idea, but it's already long enough as is).

[DDNW]

I'm really curious about this line:
MIRROR: "I was shattered long before I met your King."

That's could be a reference to what Wanda made - brake the border between worlds.

But the ending part:
-- NARRATOR
        LINE15  = "And so,",
        LINE16  = "with the treacherous King gone and forgotten,",
        LINE17  = "the little doll became a just and formidable Queen.",
        LINE18  = "The people rejoiced across the land,",
        LINE19  = "and the magic mirror knew",
        LINE20  = "they had finally found the one who would set Them free.",

makes me so waiting for next year lore, as this is "Setting the stage" for next lore arc.

[maradyne]

3 hours ago, Garett Skott said:

 Metheus?

This is in line with something I've been proposing for a few years. That the Fuelweaver was calling out a familiar name, not just saying something random for a puzzle. That the Fuelweaver is, in fact, the ancient staff-wielder; the one who tried to use the Fuel, and was in turn used by it. Maxwell's reflection. The King.

Which positions Metheus, the name called out, as the other character in the ancient play: the queen. The torch-bearer who pursued and made use of the light.

The same one that was overtaken and left quite literally broken in the mural by shadows, due to the king's foolishness.

The reflection of Charlie, and most likely the one 'possessing' her.

Add to that that Fuely, potentially said king's shreds of consciousness similarity possessing a borrowed body, was murdered and/or yoinked by Charlie...and that she has an interest in the light, and seems to be chasing ever more of its power. Which lines up with the torch-bearer's original affinity, and the play's comments.

 

I don't want to say that I called it back in the Metheus puzzle just yet, but...

I think I frickin called it lmao

 

 

 

...one other thing I've been considering for a while, and then another thing that I just realized.

1) Codex Umbra. M symbol. Metheus.

2) Metheus Is Here may itself be a thought/message of Alter/the Gestalt. Because...Metheus. Prometheus. Yea yea, we've made that connection forever, but...

 

Stealing fire from the sky gods, keeping it in a torch and giving it to mortals who then proceed to light everything on fire with it for eternity.

Alter, the godlike embodiment of light.

h m

[Capybara007]

if the mirror is metheus and the doll is charlie, and we can assume they are the so talked "them"

why is the update chain called "Return of them"? like doesnt that mean that "them" were not already there?

[maxwell_winters]

I naively thought that the tree costume would give us Woodie lore. Gonna put on my clown makeup.

[ZeRoboButler]

In one of the trailers for the end of the return of them, the description states that "they where here the whole time". I think the idea was that the forces of the constant are starting to be more "exposed". like how the moon is apparently a creature named alter, which literally changes things or mutates them under its influence.

I guess we know more about the moon and its influence on the constant, now we are going to learn more about Charlie and what ever that thing is influencing her because clearly her mind is not her own these days. (what with her not recalling the whole story of how she was brought into the constant it seems)

[hhh2]

After reading the repiles, I agree that the play is written as experienced by Charlie. I think the "doll" was in every scene.

[mr. brj]

Whoever the mirror is, they are lying to Charlie, that's for sure. There was a line from the mirror to the doll, something like "the king betrayed me, I need your help", whereas the only thing Maxwell did was to use that power to make awesome magic shows. Another line from the king implies that Maxwell used this power to disappear, a lie the mirror tells Charlie most probably after she is resurrected. Just some things to keep in mind.

[WebberMain]

5 hours ago, mr. brj said:

Whoever the mirror is, they are lying to Charlie, that's for sure. There was a line from the mirror to the doll, something like "the king betrayed me, I need your help", whereas the only thing Maxwell did was to use that power to make awesome magic shows. Another line from the king implies that Maxwell used this power to disappear, a lie the mirror tells Charlie most probably after she is resurrected. Just some things to keep in mind.

He propably did betray the shadows. Betrayal is seen through the eyes of the betrayed. Shadows lended Maxwell Their power in exchange for his service and help with freeing Their Master.He just wanted to have a great life full of showmanship.Thus They turned to Charlie.Metheus has infested her mind and body.

Why is Metheus serving Them though?I think she does it because while she was fighting with the darkness,she had been overpowered and became corrupted.