quietcorvid

The Good Ending isn’t my preferred, but I don’t really understand why people detest it so much. Conceptually I don’t think it’s terrible. It’s only terrible if you think you absolutely have to do something with your life, which obviously cant happen in TGE as it is stasis.

I have yet to hear one good reason that TGE is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ other than a personal dislike of the idea. I also feel like it isn’t helped given it’s a game, and obviously you want to explore things further. So TGE doesn’t end up satisfying from a gameplay standpoint.

But like if we engage in the hypothetical, I can’t really find an issue with a constant blissful existence. But I also don’t really care for having ‘meaning’ in life because ‘value’ is a subjective concept and one we entirely made up. Nothing has an inherent value or lack of it.

I guess you can argue that TGE isn’t really ‘real’ considering its manufactured by The Narrator, but that also fails to consider that TLQ, so long as he perceives that happiness to be real, then it is real. He is happy in the good ending as long as he believes that he is.

Also you can argue that it’s ‘fake’ and ‘doesn’t matter’ for pretty much everything in the game. The construct is just that—a construct. But does that necessarily mean that those experiences didn’t affect you and shape you?

When you say it’s fake you’re failing to engage in what the game is trying to tell you. When you don’t acknowledge anything presented and try to just detach yourself you end up unfinished. Held by her hands forever. How is that any better than the eternity in The Good Ending?

Like, I do understand why people dislike The Good Ending. It’s unsatisfying from the standpoint of it leaving you wanting more. But I don’t get why people claim it is a ‘bad’ ending other than a reactionary reason, or simply disliking Narrator so you automatically dislike TGE too

An unchanging world falls apart the moment you put it through too much scrutiny, especially if it's a world that was previously changing. @cymatile said in discord how The Good Ending is very anthropocentric because it only really cares about the whims of people. All animals will still have their instincts to hunt and breed, and will be unable to cuz of the new nature of the world. And nature itself won't be anymore, as it relies on growth and rot.

“Light, burdenless, an endless pattern of forgetfulness leading into the joys of rediscovery.”

It is distinctly not like HEA. They share similarities for sure, but what makes HEA so tortuous is that it lacks change. The Narrator clearly knows it’s miserable that way—He even gets miserable within HEA Himself. If He didn’t realize that a world fully without change would suck, He wouldn’t have clarified that TLQ still holds a bit of change within him.

Presumably the stasis in The Good Ending is only for The Narrator and TLQ, because remaining within the construct is the only way The Narrator can continue to exist. As far as we know The World itself is fine, and people still can change, can learn, can grow. If anything it provides them extra freedom and opportunity to do so considering death is now out of the picture.

It is somewhat selfish to force that on people I do agree, but is it not also selfish to keep death, when many peoples stories are cut short long before they wanted? Is it not kind of rude in a way to give a sapient being life, only for it to inevitably be taken from them?

If given the opportunity to make that change, to rid the world of death, I argue it’s more ethical to take it. You could again counter argue with ‘life with death is just the way things have always been’ but it doesn’t have to be that way in this context.

Inevitably people will move on—they will not be miserable forever. Forever is a long time and they still have the ability to change. In the real world why do you think we choose to help people with depression rather than just letting them succumb to it? Because there is always the chance that helping somebody will lead to something good, even if at the time they don't want it. If you asked me 4 years ago I would have vehemently opposed that, but now I’m very much glad I’m still around.

As for the argument about it being more centralized on people, yes it is. I don’t really have any solid counterpoint. Though I always just interpreted the question of ‘is death good or not’ more of a philosophical one and not really about the logistics of what exactly a world without death would look down to every minute detail. It’s going to be centric to people when the question is proposed by a person, there will always be that bias.

Though I’ll oblige, and give my thoughts on that, too.

I can’t really say I care too much about what it would look like for animals. I personally definitely care more about sapient beings on the line here. The self-awareness is what makes this question so polarizing. A beetle wouldn’t care if I lived or died, I wouldn’t care if a beetle lived or died.

Not to say that animals don’t care for each other, they do, just not in the same capacity that people do. Most animals wouldn’t care as much as we would either way—at least not that much. And the animals that do care? Most life strives for survival anyways. Crows hold funerals for each other, elephants mourn, swans die of heart-break. Never again would they have to worry about that.

So regardless it is still looking like removing death is ultimately the best outcome here.

Without death, there is no rot. Life isn’t all happiness, sure. It is also pain, anger, hurt, mania, and a multitude of other emotions, but those emotions and feelings aren’t constant. And the bad doesn’t neutralize the good. I don't need to be pelted with rocks to know being pelted with rocks feels bad, and that I’d rather not be pelted with rocks.

And a world where only growth is possible means that eventually there'll be an overflow till there's so much stuff that there simply can't be space anymore. Because how can you stop people, and especially animals, from just breeding and creating more and more? I can imagine an end of the world in that way, not with an endless nothing, but with an overflow of 'stuff'.

Whether or not we can trust that The Narrator was able to make things work in the way he proposed is an entirely different matter, right now I’m only arguing for this hypothetical under the condition that His proposed world is what He says it is going to be. In which I think it would be the best option. Practicality I don’t believe matters as much here because this scenario is an entirely made up concept, and one that we can’t actually examine under a practical framework. We will never know what it would look like.

Though I will try to shift my argument over to the practical. While not my preferred way of examining this, It’s still worth breaking down.

So practically, if we go off the information presented by The Narrator, and look at what we know to be true within the game, I still think it adds up. I think it’s easier to lean more towards He was being truthful and was able to make things work in the way he set out to do, rather than not, and here’s why.

We do know at the very least he wasn’t lying about the split being rough, and we know that it definitively worked. After you slay the heart of the Princess to trigger A New and Unending Dawn, TLQ comments on the fact that a part of her still remains within him.

That sliver of change is enough for more interpersonal growth, but we don’t fully know if that change is enough for people to literally grow. It remains untold whether or not animals would keep breeding, or whether people keep aging.

Though I would assume not, and I assume that because of what removing death would actually entail.

Death isn’t really a hard rule. Matter will always exist even in the heat death of the universe, but given the fact that The Narrator mentions the bones of the universe are old, I think it’s safe to assume that he wants to prevent natural degradation and entropy in general. He wouldn’t say that if it didn’t matter.

If it were the case that people would age and animals would breed, there would kind of have to be death and degradation in some capacity, but in this situation we have removed it. Practically speaking nothing could age because to age you have to form new cells, and old ones must die. For things to grow, cells have to die, and they can’t do that in a world without death.

In A New and Unending Dawn, you are met with the stillness of a dying star. The star now not able to degrade, because you removed death from the equation. I think it’s safe to say we are using ‘death’ in a more loose sense here.

So, everything in existence would remain in existence in the state that it is in, along with non-living things remaining in their same states. There would be no new life, but the life that is in current existence is still able to experience things and learn. The inanimate things still around only being able to be manipulated through intervention, and not natural means.

The Good Ending isn’t my preferred, but I don’t really understand why people detest it so much. Conceptually I don’t think it’s terrible. It’s only terrible if you think you absolutely have to do something with your life, which obviously cant happen in TGE as it is stasis.

I have yet to hear one good reason that TGE is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ other than a personal dislike of the idea. I also feel like it isn’t helped given it’s a game, and obviously you want to explore things further. So TGE doesn’t end up satisfying from a gameplay standpoint.

But like if we engage in the hypothetical, I can’t really find an issue with a constant blissful existence. But I also don’t really care for having ‘meaning’ in life because ‘value’ is a subjective concept and one we entirely made up. Nothing has an inherent value or lack of it.

I guess you can argue that TGE isn’t really ‘real’ considering its manufactured by The Narrator, but that also fails to consider that TLQ, so long as he perceives that happiness to be real, then it is real. He is happy in the good ending as long as he believes that he is.

Also you can argue that it’s ‘fake’ and ‘doesn’t matter’ for pretty much everything in the game. The construct is just that—a construct. But does that necessarily mean that those experiences didn’t affect you and shape you?

When you say it’s fake you’re failing to engage in what the game is trying to tell you. When you don’t acknowledge anything presented and try to just detach yourself you end up unfinished. Held by her hands forever. How is that any better than the eternity in The Good Ending?

Like, I do understand why people dislike The Good Ending. It’s unsatisfying from the standpoint of it leaving you wanting more. But I don’t get why people claim it is a ‘bad’ ending other than a reactionary reason, or simply disliking Narrator so you automatically dislike TGE too

An unchanging world falls apart the moment you put it through too much scrutiny, especially if it's a world that was previously changing. @cymatile said in discord how The Good Ending is very anthropocentric because it only really cares about the whims of people. All animals will still have their instincts to hunt and breed, and will be unable to cuz of the new nature of the world. And nature itself won't be anymore, as it relies on growth and rot.

“Light, burdenless, an endless pattern of forgetfulness leading into the joys of rediscovery.”

It is distinctly not like HEA. They share similarities for sure, but what makes HEA so tortuous is that it lacks change. The Narrator clearly knows it’s miserable that way—He even gets miserable within HEA Himself. If He didn’t realize that a world fully without change would suck, He wouldn’t have clarified that TLQ still holds a bit of change within him.

Presumably the stasis in The Good Ending is only for The Narrator and TLQ, because remaining within the construct is the only way The Narrator can continue to exist. As far as we know The World itself is fine, and people still can change, can learn, can grow. If anything it provides them extra freedom and opportunity to do so considering death is now out of the picture.

It is somewhat selfish to force that on people I do agree, but is it not also selfish to keep death, when many peoples stories are cut short long before they wanted? Is it not kind of rude in a way to give a sapient being life, only for it to inevitably be taken from them?

If given the opportunity to make that change, to rid the world of death, I argue it’s more ethical to take it. You could again counter argue with ‘life with death is just the way things have always been’ but it doesn’t have to be that way in this context.

Inevitably people will move on—they will not be miserable forever. Forever is a long time and they still have the ability to change. In the real world why do you think we choose to help people with depression rather than just letting them succumb to it? Because there is always the chance that helping somebody will lead to something good, even if at the time they don't want it. If you asked me 4 years ago I would have vehemently opposed that, but now I’m very much glad I’m still around.

As for the argument about it being more centralized on people, yes it is. I don’t really have any solid counterpoint. Though I always just interpreted the question of ‘is death good or not’ more of a philosophical one and not really about the logistics of what exactly a world without death would look down to every minute detail. It’s going to be centric to people when the question is proposed by a person, there will always be that bias.

Though I’ll oblige, and give my thoughts on that, too.

I can’t really say I care too much about what it would look like for animals. I personally definitely care more about sapient beings on the line here. The self-awareness is what makes this question so polarizing. A beetle wouldn’t care if I lived or died, I wouldn’t care if a beetle lived or died.

Not to say that animals don’t care for each other, they do, just not in the same capacity that people do. Most animals wouldn’t care as much as we would either way—at least not that much. And the animals that do care? Most life strives for survival anyways. Crows hold funerals for each other, elephants mourn, swans die of heart-break. Never again would they have to worry about that.

So regardless it is still looking like removing death is ultimately the best outcome here.

Without death, there is no rot. Life isn’t all happiness, sure. It is also pain, anger, hurt, mania, and a multitude of other emotions, but those emotions and feelings aren’t constant. And the bad doesn’t neutralize the good. I don't need to be pelted with rocks to know being pelted with rocks feels bad, and that I’d rather not be pelted with rocks.