Let's talk about Ancients

[PunkShark]

13 hours ago, Zeklo said:

Noticing a couple posts stating things as pure fact, and just wanna state a usually unsaid rule of theorizing:
Always use words like "I think", "the way I interpret", "my take", etc.

There are very very few things that we know for 100% concrete fact, and framing them as such is misleading as well as tends to dissuade conversation, since you'd basically be saying "you're wrong". Which is very rarely the case with theorizing, because we simply don't know that. If we had a correct answer, we wouldn't be here!

Just something to keep in mind, so the discussion remains fun and productive.

Agreed, i didn't mean to sound like it was considered a fact as it wasn't meant to sound like that. Just a poor choice of words on my part. 
It was meant to be my interpretation from the start i just didn't use the specific words to articulate that way.
Also i am a bad writer. 

I do think there is something to say though when a theory becomes so mainstream in the community, while still being taken as a theory it is stated as a fact and has become the norm to think this certain theory to be taken as true lore. Which happens a lot in the community i think. Example: Wolfgang's mural quote taken to be the fact they're turning into shadow creatures when the other survivors have another idea of what is happening. The idea that "cyclum" is a name for one of the ancients(I hear this one a lot to be taken as a fact). Things like that. 

But basically i wanted to shine some light on the potential of theoratically why and how the ancients looked different from post to pre fuel and the smaller but noticable details paint a bigger picture of their story that i think people forget at times, following old theories instead of expanding on those theories or build new ones when we get new information.

 

[YouKnowWho]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:58 PM, YouKnowWho said:

I once had a silly little theory that these masks were actually the Ancient's interpretations of Maxwell. The old boy seems more than familiar with their history, after all, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest he'd witnessed at least some of their downfall for himself.

The Ancient Fuelweaver popping up in Maxwell's short kind of muddles the whole thing up, but in fairness to myself, I was never quite sure if they were actually supposed to be one of the ancients themselves. Seems a bit weird for a bug person to have a cow skull if you ask me. Or a skeleton at all, really.

Adding onto this, this could also explain why there are so many clockworks scattered about the ruins. Perhaps he'd gifted them to the remaining ancients as guards?

I dunno. I have this idea in my head of Maxwell actually wanting to do good early on in his reign but becoming sad and embittered when he couldn't manage to save his subjects from the fuel.

[Szczuku]

22 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

Adding onto this, this could also explain why there are so many clockworks scattered about the ruins. Perhaps he'd gifted them to the remaining ancients as guards?

Sorry if this shatters your theory but Metheus murals and Maxwell's quotes strongly suggest that it was the Ancients who had constructed clockworks.

Except bishops. Maxwell confirms that he had misinterpreted the remains of a fountain of knowledge and thus created his original clockwork- the bishop.

When it comes to the 'Ancients were still alive during Maxwell's reign' theory, I think I have a counterargument: Maxwell and Charlie arrived at the same time.

You see in the RoT season finale trailer there is a hidden message 'Metheus is here'. I'm pretty sure it's confirmed or at the very least strongly suggested that Metheus is the name of Ancient Queen/Torchwielder. So if she 'is here' then where can we see her in the trailer? The moon is Alter, Gestalts are Gestalts and Charlie is Charlie. Either Metheus' soul is trapped in the torch... or she is fused with Charlie. After all:

1) Murals show us that Metheus most likely died while fighting shadow magic, good chances that she became corrupt

2) Charlie was originally split into 2 personalities: her own and the night monster, perhaps the monster is what became of Metheus

3) How come Charlie knows so much about the Ancient Civilization. She led the survivors to the gateway, she found the tragic torch and now she had some sort of ancient blueprint for a gateway upgrade

So if Charlie became fused with corrupted Metheus to, as the stage play states, 'reawaken after being broken' it must mean that the Ancients were dead before she and Maxwell arrived in the Constant.

I see many people interpret epilogue maxwell's line 'There wasn't much when I got here. Just dust, void and Them' as him stating that the Constant didn't exist before he arrived. But I think what he meant was the throne room. After all he also states that Merms and Depth Worms existed before he got here, which means that they needed a functioning world to live in. A world where the Ancient's could've lived and died in. And it's not that hard to believe in since when now have it confired that the ds/t universe is definitely some sort of different, functioning dimension rather than a made-up, pretend world for Them to torture people in.

I always liked my own headcanon that after the ancient king's throne became the nightmare throne and that Metheus is fused with Charlie as it paints a nice picture of previous king and queen still kind of present in the current king and queen of the world.

[gamehun20]

2 hours ago, Szczuku said:

I'm pretty sure it's confirmed or at the very least strongly suggested that Metheus is the name of Ancient Queen/Torchwielder.

Isn't Cyclum the torchwielder because you know that puzzle is where you get the torch skin?

And Charlie was lead to places by the survivors that's why the archive entrance gets overrun by shadows

[YouKnowWho]

3 hours ago, Szczuku said:

 

I have a couple ideas of getting around that, but there’s something that I’d like to ask first.

Assuming Metheus is the torchbearer as you say, then it confuses me how Metheus would also be the Mirror as depicted in the play.

After all, the mirror says Maxwell stole their power, but it doesn’t feel right to think that Maxwell is drawing from the power of a single shadow bug person rather than the monster we see emerging from the portal in the mural.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Charlie/Metheus theory quite a bit, but this is something that always confused me.

[lowercase skye]

3 hours ago, Szczuku said:

and now she had some sort of ancient blueprint for a gateway upgrade

I believe the implication is that she got it from the Archives.

[Szczuku]

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho said:

Assuming Metheus is the torchbearer as you say, then it confuses me how Metheus would also be the Mirror as depicted in the play.

what

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be taken as a 'last second reveal/plot twist' that the mirror is Them. Not as 'mirror character represents someone else, not Them'.

The lowercase them and uppercase Them both refer to the mirror. It's just that the uppercase one lets us know who the mirror really represents as refering to the mirror as Them earlier on wouldn't be as impactful

2 hours ago, gamehun20 said:

And Charlie was lead to places by the survivors

[PunkShark]

5 hours ago, gamehun20 said:

Isn't Cyclum the torchwielder because you know that puzzle is where you get the torch skin?

And Charlie was lead to places by the survivors that's why the archive entrance gets overrun by shadows

my intepretation of the whole 'cyclum' thing is that it's not a name. cause it generally doesn't quite fit well. Cyclum is latin, which when translated means 'cycle'. why would they use the word 'cycle' in their puzzle? The DS and DST puzzles have used plenty of latin words in the past so why should cyclum matter more than the others. Here's my take:
Generally my idea is that the reason why it's called cycle is because it shows off Wilson (Together with Maxwell) doing the same steps, word for word that he started with back in the beginning of his adventure. When he was building the original portal that once lead him here. Cyclum showcases the same steps (or at the very least referencing the same steps with some substitute sources) which is why it's called 'cyclum'. events that's repeated in the same order.
 

I generally don't think the ancients (at least the 2 most notable ones) are meant to have names. We have generally never gotten a name for either of them officially except for theories calling them "metheus" and "cyclum". Metheus is a name, since we get it from the ancient fuelweaver who is the king of the ancients and he speaks it once. But who it belongs to is still a mystery, some people think it's the other part of charlie, some people think it's the shadow eye we see in the metheus murals. (i'm on the shadow eye team btw.) The whole puzzle in "metheus" is to show their downfall of the ancients, which ends up opening up the area to the gateway, which i think makes more sense for it to be the shadow eye they're talking about.
but i'm going off-track. I don't think the tragic torch has anything to do with the ancients involvement in cyclum, i think it's just a reward for completing the puzzle as i don't have much other reason to see why it is important. 

 

[gamehun20]

40 minutes ago, PunkShark said:

don't think the tragic torch has anything to do with the ancients involvement in cyclum

But then where does Charlie get the tragic torch in the scene where she looks up at alter (the axiom visus trailer)?

[Cassielu]

30 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

But then where does Charlie get the tragic torch in the scene where she looks up at alter (the axiom visus trailer)?

If Metheus is the torchwielder, it was hers; she would have known exactly where to find it.

[PunkShark]

35 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

But then where does Charlie get the tragic torch in the scene where she looks up at alter?

I don't think that matters regarding the puzzle. But she does get it somewhere. 
the ancient cane and torch is no doubt the ancient's tools they used to keep track of the gateway. 
But the rewards we get in metheus and cyclum is our reward. Not Charlie's. I think Charlie already had it by this point as she is looming around the constant to build up the gateway for scraps and pieces. the archive scroll she found in.. well the ancient archive, the tragic torch imbedded with lunar essence, the dreadstone, and most likely the cane later on.

[YouKnowWho]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

what

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be taken as a 'last second reveal/plot twist' that the mirror is Them. Not as 'mirror character represents someone else, not Them'.

That’s the thing, you see. If the mirror is Them with a capital T, then when is this Metheus character get involved?

[Cassielu]

7 hours ago, gamehun20 said:

And Charlie was lead to places by the survivors that's why the archive entrance gets overrun by shadows

It mean The Atrium. not Archives.

 

7 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

After all, the mirror says Maxwell stole their power, but it doesn’t feel right to think that Maxwell is drawing from the power of a single shadow bug person rather than the monster we see emerging from the portal in the mural.

I think that when The Mirror said The King stole its powers, it meant the Nightmare Throne and not the Codex or Shadow Magic (because apparently Charlie didn't reclaim them). In Maxwell's short animation we see something trying to get into Maxwell's mind, probably Metheus trying to possession Maxwell and use his body to ascend the throne. But because of Maxwell's resistance (and possibly Charlie's intervention?), the possession failed. Maxwell ascended the throne as Metheus had planned, but without her. So as Metheus saw it, Maxwell had broken his promise and stolen her power.

That's why Doll ask the mirror why it's still broken after she become the queen, because the power the mirror was talking about was the throne.

 

[YouKnowWho]

4 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

I think that when The Mirror said The King stole its powers, it meant the Nightmare Throne and not the Codex or Shadow Magic (because apparently Charlie didn't reclaim them). In Maxwell's short animation we see something trying to get into Maxwell's mind, probably Metheus trying to possession Maxwell and use his body to ascend the throne. But because of Maxwell's resistance (and possibly Charlie's intervention?), the possession failed, and Maxwell remained on the throne. So steal the power of the throne from Metheus.

That's why Doll ask the mirror why it's still broken after she was queen, because the power the mirror was talking about was the throne.

 

I'm not sure about that either because that would imply Maxwell would have travelled to the other world (the one with the throne in it) at sometime before his final act.

[Cassielu]

12 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

I'm not sure about that either because that would imply Maxwell would have travelled to the other world (the one with the throne in it) at sometime before his final act.

He didn't do it on his own. Maxwell was placed on the throne as a vessel for Metheus as planed, just the possession is failed.

Like an empty can on the shelf, canning went wrong, but the shipping didn't.

 

On the other hand, the throne may not alaways in a separate world. The throne and Gateway appear together in the obelisk. And the stageplay says, "the King used his magic o hide himself and his throne far away" ("his magic" which is Throne's power steal form metheus, I have no doubt that the Throne is capable enough to do that.)

[YouKnowWho]

34 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

He didn't do it on his own. Maxwell was placed on the throne as a vessel for Metheus as planed, just the possession is failed.

Like an empty can on the shelf, canning went wrong, but the shipping didn't.

On the other hand, the throne may not alaways in a separate world. The throne and Gateway appear together in the obelisk. And the stageplay says, "the King used his magic o hide himself and his throne far away" ("his magic" which is Throne's power steal form metheus, I have no doubt that the Throne is capable enough to do that.)

I'm still confused. So the nightmare throne was on earth at one point? Or are you saying that Maxwell really did travel off earth before the final act?

11 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Sorry if this shatters your theory but Metheus murals and Maxwell's quotes strongly suggest that it was the Ancients who had constructed clockworks.

Except bishops. Maxwell confirms that he had misinterpreted the remains of a fountain of knowledge and thus created his original clockwork- the bishop.

Also touching up on this, if the clockworks in the ruins are the remanents of the Ancient's own clockwork creations then it doesn't make sense to me why the damaged bishop would be there. Seems kind of odd to think Maxwell would have just shovelled them alongside the rest, right?

[lenship2]

18 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

I'm still confused. So the nightmare throne was on earth at one point? Or are you saying that Maxwell really did travel off earth before the final act

i think what they're trying to say that metheus was prepping maxwell for the shadow throne, but didn't realize maxwell would be so resistant to his attempts of corruption in his preparation. so maxwell was still sent to the throne, since that was part of the plan, but metheus goofed up trying to corrupt maxwell's mind.

[Szczuku]

1 hour ago, YouKnowWho said:

That’s the thing, you see. If the mirror is Them with a capital T, then when is this Metheus character get involved?

Well then, here I'll try to make all the pieces of my own theory, common belief, things that are safe to assume fall into place. So yeah, this not at all a confirmed fact.

-Metheus- Ancient Torchbearer

-Mirror character- Them, the shadow eldritch gods

-Current Charlie- a fusion of real Charlie and the Night Monster (most likely corrupted metheus)

-Sentience inside the Shadow Atrium- Ancient Staffwielder

In the murals we see Metheus' mask cracked, with black eyes. The eyes most likely mean that the mask is empty but, given NF's ability to corrupt living beings (AG, Splumonkeys, Ancients) and even turn them into Shadow Creatures (Ancients most likely becoming Terrorbeaks), I believe it's safe to assume that Metheus became a shadow creature.

The eye we see in the gateway is most likely Them. Just as Alter is an eye, They are also an eye. Imo makes sense. And Gestalt's quotes, as well as, Charlie's play show us that these two eyes can be cunning, use deception. In a way, act human-like. So we can probably assume that They wouldn't be too pleased with Metheus, not only wielding the lunar-powered torch, but actively fighting the shadow forces. They wouldn't just let her wonder the Constant as a shadow creature. They'd most likely keep her shadow form, store her, torment her, idk, you can fill in the gap. That is the 'what little power They could spare' used to 'reawaken' Charlie, I think. Use Metheus to make Charlie a powerful, shadow being. After all, Maxwell was bound to the throne, but not Them. They could only watch and influence him, torment him with music to do Their bidding. But Charlie? In a way, she was a trojan horse of sorts. A physical body to sit on the throne, They-bound Metheus' mind to command it. Even after merging into one, she is still someone who They would like on the throne more than Maxwell or Wilson.

Here's another thing: I see that most people regard Ancients as simply 'Yeah, in the lore they are responsible for the ruins and its cool gear'. But here's the thing. Ancients might've actually been the ones to let Them influence the Constant. Take the things I've been saying in this thread so far: The Constant most likely existed long before Maxwell's arrival. Merms and Depth Worms had to live somewhere. Ancients also existed and died before Maxwell and Charlie's arrival, as Metheus would have needed to be a shadow creature to be merged with Charlie. As far as I know, untill Maxwell there were no strange disapperances, no rifts, Wagstaff also wasn't aware of the Constant (he was a snake oil salesman lol). So- before their downfall, lunar and shadow magic were at balance. Idk how, we can only assume that there must've been some sort of god-wars or something before life even developed on the Constant that resulted in Their exile or something. Alter was dormant, not caring about the world below, They (as They still haven't returned) were, for some reason, not in this dimension, some of Their residue magic pooled in the caves. Ancient's happen, they worship Alter and use moonstones to harness its power and use magic. Cool, Alter likes it and They can't do anything as They are somewhere else. Gnaw happens, Ancients flee to the caves, use stored iridescent gems to power their lunar ruins. Gems break, residue shadow magic influences them to venture into the caves. We know that dst's eldritch beings are so powerful that even their magic, disconnected from them can still act in their stead (Alter's limb present in the lunar island, the fact that nightmare fuel moves and has a face), so it's not really a far stretch to assume that a truckload of nightmare fuel, present in the caves, would influence Ancients. They discover/build (most likely build) the Gateway and use it to source lunar/shadow magic directly from its beings (at least that's what the murals tell us, they probably also used it to teleport between dimesions or something). They start using more shadow than lunar magic. Maybe it was better/easier to use, maybe it started influencing the Staffwielder, maybe he was just more imperious than Metheus (in that case all of ds/t would happen because of one bug person's ego lol), idk, that's not really important. What's important is that at some point Ancients crossed the line, too much shadow magic was pouring from the Gateway. Ancient's allowed Them, even if just a little bit of, through. Shadows can now actively influence the Constant (but not enough for Alter to care). The downfall happens, They store Metheus' shadow remains, (heavy headcannon warning) the Staffwielder, now seeing his mistakes, most likely used the last of the shadow power he had to command to bound the gateway's power to his throne, creating- the Nightmare Throne. They immediately punish him by sealing him into the Shadow Atrium. 'What do now, We can't break through Gate, we don't have physical butts to sit on throne'. And so... the Codex Umbra is made and shot through a rift and into our world, officialy creating a link between these two dimesions. Maxwell repeats Ancients' mistake and allows more and more shadow magic/Their influence into our world. He arrives in the Constant and is bound to the throne, protected from Them ('the throne won't allow that'- not 'They won't allow that' when you attack him), Charlie, as a backup plan, is fused with something They already have influence over (Metheus). The rest of the lore we know.

And as a precaution to the 'What about Return of Them?' questions: 1) I choose to ignore the lore of Eye of the Storm as it feels absolutely made up on the spot. 2) Like I said, only a small portion of Them/Their influence went through the gateway before it became broken. Therefore limiting Their power ('I was shattered long before I met your King') and still making Them count as 'not presnet/having yet to return'. Think of this whole 'little bit of influence' like being stuck in a room, but you can put your arm through a hole in the wall and do something in the adjacent room. That's what I assume is Their situation right now.

So like I said, Ancients' might've actually been responsible for this entire franchise (sound kind of silly I know but hey). After all that mural eye is the first time we got anything we could consider as Them. Well, maybe shadow watchers but I think those are just Their servants, kind of like gestalts

[WebberMain]

On 5/22/2023 at 3:42 PM, PunkShark said:

EDIT: rewritten to make it sound less factual.

The metheus murals doesn't follow the same murals we hear the survivors talking about in the atrium ones. in my eyes they're a continuation of the murals which makes it more fitting in a chronological order. 

They're living in conditions under the influence of Alter - afterwards for unknown reasons they're living in terrible conditions - something that happens is scrawned out, lost to time - they get overflowed by nightmarefuel and change their physical appearance - they built a massive technological city - somehow combined both powers to take control over the gateway with both the energy from lunar and the fuel from the gateway to harness its powers to create mass amount of technology, food, gems and whatnot else they used - which evidently caused their downfall by overusing the fuel at the end. as a quick summary of course. 


The mural depictions we have seen in metheus is after they have found the fuel. We can see in this picture that the gateway is in the middle with the staff-bearers staff next to it, indicating this is in the middle of their fuel usage. Their city expanded both on the surface and in the caves. With very little moon related activities or depictions there isn't much to go by that this is before the usage of their fuel. as all of the metheus murals are fuel related (who metheus is shadow related as well) i really don't think it can be considered anything but that. Maybe one day we'll get more knowledge of their moon phase.

 

My take is that the ancients were not changed into corrupted versions of themselves at first. They were changed to be more humanoid and wise, like an evolution, not a de-evolution. which is how they became such a proud race with a dazzling city 
The fuel isn't all bad once you start off with it. it happened to maxwell and he became an entirely different person. Same thing happened to the ancients. 

It is a common theory that the atrium murals depict the ancients turning into shadow creatures, and most of the time used Wolfgang's quote to confirm that is the case. But in my eyes it doesn't make sense of what the other survivors say compared to Wolfgang. Wolfgang is not a very smart man so he takes things at a very basic, face value of what he sees happening. What he sees in his eyes is that the ancients are bursting monsters out of themselves. 

But the other survivors have the better idea of what is happening;

  Hide contents

So my take is this: They're changing their skin. Like an insect shedding its skin, or better said; like a prawn molting their shell. Although taken to an extreme level of course. Which explains their more.. humanoid appearance in the later murals visually.
a physical reaction when the fuel overflowed their city. Not only did this change them physically, but mentally as well. and thus is the reason why the last mural ends with a big, technological city is because of their discovery of the fuel and the physical reaction they had from it. Which would explain why there are 2 versions of their appearance. Their shadowy fate would only happen much later which is where metheus murals ensues where they overused the fuel and caused their own demise. 
 

Let´s look at the Nightmare pig. It certainly looks like a werepig,but-altered. Changed by the usage of fuel. It is stronger, bigger and mostly importantly, smarter. It is able to speak on a really basic level, on a level higher than normal pigs.
I really like your theory,and it seems fitting that it wasn´t really monsters they changed into, it was the next step in evolution. Wolfgang is scared of monsters and he is a simpleton. Spikes=scary. What is scary? Monsters.
What he sees is a dangerous creature,akin to a monster. What others see is just a better, maybe more battle ready version of the same creature

[YouKnowWho]

5 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Well then, here I'll try to make all the pieces of my own theory, common belief, things that are safe to assume fall into place. So yeah, this not at all a confirmed fact.

That's a very preconceived assertion. Your theory might be common belief, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the correct one. I doubt that's how you intended that to come across, but I feel I should reiterate regardless.

5 hours ago, Szczuku said:

 Ancients also existed and died before Maxwell and Charlie's arrival, as Metheus would have needed to be a shadow creature to be merged with Charlie.

I don't quite think I agree. Metheus being dead doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the ancients would've also died at the same time. Had Charlie been possessed outside of the constant then I'd understand where you were coming from, but that wouldn't follow along what we see in this shot from Encore.

Spoiler

As for the appearance of the Ancient Fuelweaver, another look at the mural indicate they'd would have been summoned by the Ancient King at some point before the city's downfall.

Spoiler

This also goes against the idea that the Ancient Fuelweaver and the Staff-bearer are the same person, given that they're stood next to each-other and such. (If you ask me, I think the term Fuelweaver actually refers to an occupation. Somebody who "weaved" the fuel for use by the rest of the ancients, almost like a shaman-type figure.)

Taking all this in mind, I'd argue that it's still well within the realm of possibility that Ancients were still kicking around the same period as Maxwell. I'm not saying that he created them or even the constant, but that the two could have crossed paths at one point or another. I personally prefer the idea that the two did meet. I feel it falls more in-line with the story as you would experience it by playing the game. We're introduced to some of Maxwell's world with these clockworks and the various statues he's made for himself. As we go deeper into the caverns and the past, we see the clockworks again alongside even more, albeit this time very different statues. There's a connection for players to make outside the realm of puzzles and hidden links.

Also, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, I can't help but feel that deciding to pick and choose which parts of the game's lore you'll pay attention to or not defeats a lot of the purpose of theory crafting. I mean, you're free to do whatever you want in your own time, but if you're really trying to really discuss and solve this puzzle then I feel you oughta consider all of the pieces.

[Cassielu]

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

I'm still confused. So the nightmare throne was on earth at one point? Or are you saying that Maxwell really did travel off earth before the final act?

Nightmare Throne is located in the atrium or "throne room"

In the stagplay doll finds the mirror in a "hidden chamber" in the King's "castle" and immediately chooses the mirror side between the king and the mirror. But in the puzzle and the short, Charlie first discovers Maxwell's secret in his apartment, and the complete shift to the Shadow side comes after the events in the Atrium.

So I think the story in the play is a bit of a processing, where things don't exactly correspond to the real world, and the "Hidden chamber in the castle" is not just Maxwell's apartment and the chamber where he studied the Codex, but also The Constant (or The Hub?) and the Atrium.

Like here, it certainly can't happen in Maxwell's cramped apartment.

Quote

        LINE3   = "The doll searched the castle for the King,",
        LINE4   = "and found him cowering behind his throne.",

 

54 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

As for the appearance of the Ancient Fuelweaver, another look at the mural indicate they'd would have been summoned by the Ancient King at some point before the city's downfall.

Fuelweaver has three eyes, and the third eye on his forehead was not part of his original anatomy, but acquired, which is his unique feature. only the Ancient King has the same feature too, you can see a suspended black eye between his horns.

The skull in the picture has only two eye sockets. So whatever it is, it hasn't really become a Fuelweaver yet, it's probably just means ancient king find the skeleton.

 

[Szczuku]

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

That's a very preconceived assertion. Your theory might be common belief, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the correct one. I doubt that's how you intended that to come across, but I feel I should reiterate regardless.

I'm not sure I understand you. I did say that what I was about to present is not a confirmed fact.

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

shot from Encore

Idk why Ancient Fuelweaver is there. Untill Encore I thought it was basically confirmed that AF was only brought back once, by the survivors. Maybe this is supposed to represent Charlie being fused with Metheus and AF was the only 'Ancient' Klei could animate without having to confirm their design. A Terrorbeak or something would've been a better pick imo. Though maybe not as impactful as AF

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

Ancient Fuelweaver and the Staff-bearer are the same person, given that they're stood next to each-other

I very much don't think this is supposed to be AF. Not at all in fact. That's just a reanimated skeleton, it's supposed to show us that Ancients used nightmare fuel to: make clockworks, create food/gems and to reanimate the dead and make them their slaves of sorts. After all why would they want to summon a giant, powerful skeleton, that actively wants to turn off the Gateway?

6 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

I can't help but feel that deciding to pick and choose which parts of the game's lore you'll pay attention to or not defeats a lot of the purpose of theory crafting

For the record, I did openly state that my theory actively fights against the Lunarune Statue's depiction of Ancients, as I thnik that the developers have made a mistake. I see no reason to retcon solid lore just so 1-2 of your artists don't have to redesign a statue for a day. And I'm not going to jump through hoops like 'Oh maybe they just drew themselves differently for no reason at all', 'Maybe their apperance changed the other way around and for some reason they decided to not be historically acurate in their murals'.

Murals show clearly 2 different ancients, the 2nd one appears only once nightmare fuel overtakes the city and the lore of 'First their physical bodies changed, then they became shadow creatures- Terrorbeaks' is probably the best take on their story, as opposed to 'Yeah they all just died' or 'First they looked kind of like Terrorbeak, then they grew heads but then became Terrorbeaks'

And, just for clarity, the lore of Eye of the Storm that I'm ignoring is the 'They were here all along' as... I mean come on, it was clearly made up on the spot so that us fans wouldn't be able to complain that Return of Them ended abruptly without Them actually returning. I mean do you really like 'They is just a nickname for Constant's eldritch gods' more than 'They are the shadow eldritch gods'? But sure, if you want my theory to be more lore-accurate then reread my posts and replace 'Them' with 'unnamed shadow eldritch gods'.

As a note, another thing that I find very dumb with EotS's lore is Maxwell's constant 'Oh I don't know that, oh what are They actually, oh I thought...'. Like come on, what is that even supposed to be. The only saving grace of this lore is if Maxwell means 'I thought that They were the most powerful beings here, but Alter seems to be equally powerful'. That is the only explanation for these quotes I'll accept.

[YouKnowWho]

12 hours ago, Szczuku said:

For the record, I did openly state that my theory actively fights against the Lunarune Statue's depiction of Ancients, as I thnik that the developers have made a mistake.

I know. I’m saying I personally don’t agree with the idea dismissing everything that goes against a theory as outdated or some mistake by the developers.

Eh, I dunno. I really don’t have the energy for this right now. Thanks for answering my questions y’all.

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Szczuku said:

And, just for clarity, the lore of Eye of the Storm that I'm ignoring is the 'They were here all along' as... I mean come on, it was clearly made up on the spot so that us fans wouldn't be able to complain that Return of Them ended abruptly without Them actually returning.

This is really really silly. Klei doesn't plan things a week before doing them. Also a certain level of spite towards the fanbase is implied by this which I don't really enjoy, I don't think Klei is coming up with random pieces of lore to "stop fans from complaining"

[PunkShark]

9 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

 

As for the appearance of the Ancient Fuelweaver, another look at the mural indicate they'd would have been summoned by the Ancient King at some point before the city's downfall.

This also goes against the idea that the Ancient Fuelweaver and the Staff-bearer are the same person, given that they're stood next to each-other and such. (If you ask me, I think the term Fuelweaver actually refers to an occupation. Somebody who "weaved" the fuel for use by the rest of the ancients, almost like a shaman-type figure.)

 

The way i see it is that the skeleton is nothing but a host for the soul of the ancient king. (as without a heart or something to take control of the skeleton it is simply just... a skeleton.)
The fact that he says things like "my city... in tatters..., "How we've fallen." is him mourning for his city and his people. the skeleton itself seems to be much older or just created generally from the fuel as it's all visually black. Now what they were going to use this skeleton for is beyond me, but at this point the guy was just making things at a rapid pace. 

Or you know there is also the possibility that if the fuelweaver was its own character it also had a city and a people who also praised the fuel and suffered from it. But i think that's going too deep into the rabbit hole.^^;