hi! id like to know about your interpretation of the Wild, because its just about the exact opposite of mine, which i find very interesting!
for context, i personally feel that Networked Wild is the unhealthier but easier outcome and a very toxic form of fake peace while the Wounded Wild is the healthier but more unpleasant outcome and about acknowledging when harm has been done.
stp is a really up-for-interpretation game so i dont think ur wrong i just wanna hear more about ur thinking :]
ok SO. yours is absolutely a very common opinion but it was also kind of a culture shock for me when i initially started engaging with the fandom lol. i absolutely get it there's just a lot that i feel has gone overlooked in terms of What Is Happening in the networked wild? anyway yeah i can absolutely get into it!!!!
i first encountered the wild for the first time on my second ever playthrough, after leaving with the shifting mound as my first 'true' ending. i hadn't gone into the game completely blind, but the overarching narrative of you being these powerful things, literally halves of the universe and each other, and having been TORN APART VIOLENTLY and forced to killed each other was by far the most compelling thing to me aside from obviously the characters and the philosophy involved. it really shaped my interpretation of every character and especially routes like this one.
given that, I don't see breaking free together as an "easier" outcome at all. it's HARD to put aside your differences, to care more about freeing each other and yourselves from the thing that's actually pit you against each other in the first place than to allow yourself to hold onto resentment so much that it gets in the way of that. it is absolutely also hard and valuable to confront that resentment, that fear, the harm you've put each other through, but the harm you were both put through by being torn apart is so much deeper and TO ME there is a real and genuine power and relief that comes with mending those broken bonds and working together AS EQUALS. it's realizing the tragedy that you never should have been enemies in the first place. and while you'll never be able to stay like that forever, and you'll never be able to erase the past, the Immediate Issue is still that you're trapped in this place that is keeping you small and forcing you to fight each other.
and i don't think there's any sort of malice that comes with the princess holding you together either. the emotions you've gone through seem small in that moment because you ARE something so much bigger than that. and im incredibly sympathetic to the princess being absolutely terrified of falling apart again. no matter which version, it's the first time any of you have actually felt safe, and no version of the princess actually wants to be separated from you. so yeah, they're absolutely terrified by you trying to find and define the edges again. i think a lot of people see that as lashing out to control you or out of anger but it really is entirely out of fear, to me. if you tell her that it feels wrong to be together, she's genuinely devastated when she asks "how could you say that?" being safe and whole and free is all that matters to her, and you used to be that together.
and then i look at the voices. how every single one of them reacts to you splitting apart, to you working together. how truly hurt so many of them are by no longer being one with her. i could go into so much detail on each one but it definitely would be too much for this because that's a full other analysis per character throughout the entire game.
that's just like, base emotional takeaways. onto toxicity. as i perceive it there's nothing healthy about the way you form OR the way you break apart, and to me breaking apart just doubles that harm. you both already know that you can't hold onto each other like this forever, and you don't have to break apart by listening to the goading of the thing that trapped you here and amplifying the fear and hate you've held against each other up to this point. i like the wounded wild. i appreciate the path where you face those emotions and reconcile directly. but it's still, to me, the least healthy way for that processing and reconcilation to happen. you're tearing open wounds that have always been there and will never fully scar over until you learn what has actually happened to you and who you are to each other. it's an incredibly raw and unsafe way to confront trauma, because it literally harms you to do. it reminds me of, to pick a less painful example, someone confronting a phobia by doing "exposure therapy" where you immediately throw yourself into being surrounded by your phobia with no escape. irl that "method" is just as likely or more to make the phobia worse as it is to help in any way. you're recreating a literally formative traumatic event, and the majority if not all of the people involved are badly hurt by it.
while networked, you acknowledge those wounds by soothing them, by realizing that you are still in an inherently confining and unsafe place, that you are trapped and that you CAN free yourselves if you work together. overcoming the narrator and finding the edges and being able to fully trust each other feels just. so incredibly healing, a balm to wounds you've carried unknowing all this time, as you discover more about what and where you truly areโit's like you were falling down a cliff face, fighting and stepping on each other to try and get back up, and then you look down at the rocks below, and you grab onto each other, and you climb up the cliff to safety together. full healing and reconcilation can come after you're no longer on the ledge, when you have a newfound basis of trust and positive experiences to build back from. while wounded to me feels like you catch each other, and then you push her away and you both fall into the rocks because you just couldn't stand to help her, to have her hands on you to help because you can only remember how her hands have harmed, and you're too untrusting and afraid to think that she wouldn't just let you fall again, and then either you apologize and help bandage each others' wounds after the fall or you truly do hate or fear her enough to kill her as she's helpless and broken. it's far from a perfect metaphor but i hope it illustrates my perception well enough.
throughout this game, one of the most powerful things you can do is trust and forgive each other. to me, networked wild is the pinnacle of that trust and forgiveness. i find it beautiful beyond words.
