#s!forest

Ok, so…I’m kinda nervous about this xD

I’ve been wanting for a while to share my thoughts and analysis about the lore, and what I think will actually happen. This is always the part I enjoy the most, connecting the dots, interpreting a driving direction and thus giving the whole sense to the events occurring in the story. So...

Beings above

From what we know for now, Shelter is under the control/supervision (?) of some entities, I straight up call them gods xD It's mainly because s!Artea’s straight up used this term and referred to this idea. In general, there is a recurring theme of religion within this universe. 

I also think that the gods are common knowledge for everyone, and we, the audience, are the only ones left out about indepth details about them and their nature. They seem to have great power over everything. For me, they’re in this kind of neutral-bad area, as the control they have over this world is not something we could call…legit. 

They don’t seem to be the kind of superior beings granted with perfect moral standing and act upon a greater good. They’re straight up doing what they want, based on their own rules, and get away with this only because THEY are the superior beings. And how much they’re a big deal to you depends on how much you oppose their rules. 

That's why a lot of characters can actually have a chill life under them, as they either don’t have any reason to oppose them, don’t care, are fine living here as it is implied some came from worst places, and so and so. The “before Shelter” of the characters is something interesting to figure out for me, in order to understand everyone’s position and personnal struggles. 

For now i’d say :

s!Shade and s!Elk are chilling and the gods aren’t a big deal to them, at least not yet.

s!Hoot, s!Sweev, s!Ram, and maybe s!Heiwa, were in such a bad spot before coming in the Shelter, they just love being here despite everything.

s!Hayden and s!Luh have their own personal struggles to deal with for now. Maybe sAmora and s!Veni as well ? There are small moments where they seem to have things going on in their life, but we didn't see much yet.

s!Forest and s!Void, when they talked about it, seemed rather skeptical about the god situation, but just made the best of it without making trouble. 

In between, some of them seem to have a personal struggle related to the gods. The obvious one is s!Artea, I also kinda think there is something up with s!Miel and s!Void and their relationships with god entities that are still unknown. s!Lea seemed to have kind of an involvement with the magic gods altho it’s still mysterious. And finally, s!Mine didn’t get involved with gods yet, but some hints could make us think she’s a goddess. 

Safe or fair ?

The only one for now who seemed to straight up oppose to the gods is s!Cherry, thus showing us that this opposition have consequences. And the said consequences seems to also have collateral damage sometimes. That’s why gods’ opposition seems to be a collective deal : if you get in trouble, there is a chance you’re not the only one who will suffer from it.

Actually, there is also a chance that s!Ana is the one containing them, preventing them to go even harder on people. As if the “gold sacrifice” was a ritual that allowed the good to be less likely to lash out on people. 

In general, everyone is having a rather nice life, this world is still described as “safe” and a place you can enjoy living in. BUT it may not have always been that way, because some conversation give this sort of impression that work have been done in order to make it the way it is now. Again, I think it’s greatly linked to s!Ana.

If this world is peaceful, this world doesn’t seem fair. It can become an issue when, in parallel with this overall god situation, the members have their own backstories and motives. At the end, some people are in a fairer situation than others. Clearly s!Cherry is not happy with her current situation. And some people seem in a tougher spots than others. Altho we need more details, I think it could be the case for : s!Miel, s!Lea, s!Hayden, s!Luh, recently s!Void etc. 

It’s where stand the dilemma of choosing between doing things in order maintain  peace, or doing things in order to make things right. And I IMMEDIATELY thought about s!Pomme involvement in the story. s!Pomme has the goal to keep everyone safe, and surely will make actions in order to keep everyone peaceful, I think she’ll likely side with s!Ana. But s!Pomme has also this side of her who can’t stand unfairness, who doesn't accept abiding to the will of selfish beings and their arbitrary rules, who wants to burn everything. But would she risk to put danger upon her and her friends for this ? 

Losing battle

And we finally get to s!Ana’s case. I really see s!Ana as the driving force of the story. Her goal is to keep everyone safe and peaceful, in order to do so she both have to deal with satisfying the gods and preventing them to come after them, and with the member’s personal struggle when the said struggles can be a threat to the peace. 

s!Ana is a good soul and she cares for the well being of her found family. But I also feel like she worked so hard to keep things the way they are for her efforts to be wasted. She’s currently submitting 100% to the gods, she’s doing actions for everyone's common well being. It’s such a huge burden she have to carry when she’s only one person who doesn’t always know best.While I still have not listened to the playlist, I saw that a lot of the songs allude to her not feeling adequate or strong enough. But she’s also driven by love for her family.

This being said, I think I already see how flawed her character is even if her goal is really fair, and why it seems like it’ll be the main source of challenges in the story : s!Ana is in a situation where she’s imposing this “ideal” of peace to everyone, and wants to keep the status quo. But she's not taking into consideration that the “status quo” is not ideal for everyone. And sometimes her ideal can directly conflict other’s, again s!Cherry who will really find happiness through freedom and not submission. 

She also wants to get rid of conflicts and make sure everyone reach a mutual agreement. But on hand, she’s fighting a losing battle, as she could never end up satisfying everyone, and will always end up feeling like a failure. On the other hand, I also feel like thinking too much about “solving” a conflict is ending up neglecting the reason why there was conflict in the first place, and preventing people from expressing and working out deeper issues and feelings who are the cause of the occuring tensions.  

It seems like there are a lot of communication issues in general, and people don’t get to share their struggles with others, outside of some really close relationships case, like s!Ryan and s!Miel seem to be. Again, I think this is one of the main element that will push the story forward.

I'll quickly mention s!Shade, what I find interesting is that as much as not involved they are for now with the god situation, it seem they're the most strong and loyal ally to s!Ana, along with s!Lumi. He's one of the less likely to be a threat to the peace as they're not really opposing anyone nor going through big struggles that s!Ana would have to deal with, he's mostly doing his things and minding his own business. And he seems to be in agreement with s!Ana's goals and acting to serve her best interests.

Villains

I think we're in the story where there isn't really "antagonistic" character, but rather character that have antagonistic “potential” for some arcs. We have the morally gray characters who only plays by their own rules, I’m thinking about s!Pancks and s!Bipeo, both really interesting to me.

More about s!Bipeo :

More about s!Pancks :

On a quick note, s!Pomme is already upset with s!Pancks actions when he killed the children, I think it may come up later.

Going into antagonistic potential, we have s!Jean and his hot tempered actions, but I don’t see him as a “long term” villain. Just putting here my previous analysis about s!Jean for more details :

There is s!Ryan who is in my opinion the main antagonist of this arc, she’s a slow paced villain as she’s carefully planning everything. I really love her character because her actions are driven in my opinion by inner scars. She feels really deeply human, embracing the “villainess” role in order to not be hurt anymore.

More about s!Jean and s!Ryan as villains here :

I suspect s!Miel, while not having hostile attention, being a potential chaos element bringing mayhem all around. And finally, I think s!Ana has the great potential of being both the hero/main character, both the villain in someone else’s story. 

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