#the beasts

SHADOW MILK COOKIE AND SILENT SALT COOKIE ARE NARRATIVE FOILS!!!!!!! THEY ARE MEANT TO BE DIRECT REFLECTIONS OF EACHOTHER, SPECIFICALLY IN HOW THEY VIEW THEIR RESPECTIVE CORRUPTIONS!!!!!!!!!!! AND I WILL PROVE IT TO YOU IN THIS ESSAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The parallels between them are kinda hard to describe without just listing shit but bear with me- first of all, I think it's really important to note the way we're introduced to both of them, because the contrast is VERY strong. While he wasn't the first Beast to become playable, Shadow Milk was still the first Beast to get properly introduced, while Silent Salt was introduced last. So they're already book ending all of the Beast Yeast shit, but then there's ALSO the fact that Shadow Milk Cookie is introduced when the Beasts are escaping the Silver Tree, while Silent Salt's entire introduction is basically just the story of how they were trapped there in the first place. Shmilk is introduced first by breaking out of jail while Silent is introduced last by putting everyone in jail.

Jumping off of that, you can already tell from how they're introduced that they have VASTLY different oppinions on their time in the Silver Tree, and if that wasn't enough Shadow Milk literally screams about wanting the witches dead for putting him in there later on in I thiiiink episode 2? Quote "MAY THEY BURN IN THE OVEN", this bitch wants those motherfuckers to SUFFER. Honestly, I'd even go as far as to say Shmilk is the angriest out of all the Beasts about their imprisonment, given the fact that he's the only one to express any active rage about it. Shmilk and Silent Salt have complete opposite views on their time in the Silver Tree.

Now, putting a pin in the Silver Tree stuff, let's move on to another massive parallel between them- their corruptions. Like first of all, obviously Salt corrupted last and Shmilk is heavily implied to have corrupted first, so once again they're book ending the Beasts. But even further than that, the way they treat their corruption is VERY different. Silent Salt obviously fucking hates himself for it. He views himself as a failure, renaming himself out of shame and then coming to Elder Faerie in complete shambles and literally asking Elder to kill him. Then, he locks himself and the other Beasts in the Silver Tree, hoping that the 5 of them will just rot in there forever. When that doesn't work and they all escape, instead of doing. Anything, really. He locks himself up in a tomb in the hopes that no one will ever come looking for him. He's fucking MISERABLE. Meanwhile, Shmilk fucking LOVES being the villain. He plays himself up, he puts on little shows, he revels in causing chaos, and he completely buries any evidence of who he used to be, even from us the players. He is Shadow Milk Cookie, and you will fear his name!

The only thing Shmilk and Silent have in common post-corruption is that they constantly vilify themselves on purpose. While the other Beasts' actions mostly speak for themselves, Shadow Milk REALLY plays up the evil factor. He makes it clear that he is the bad guy, that he is not to be sympathized with. The only time he paints himself in a sympathetic light is during the puppet show he puts on about the Beasts getting trapped, which Imo is more evidence that he REALLY hated that fuckin tree but I digress. This purposeful vilification is why Pure Vanilla gets to him so fucking much, because PV is willing to completely ignore all of it and forgive him on account of being. Jesus. And Shmilk can't fuckin stand that.

Meanwhile, Silent Salt doesn't have a lot of in game evidence of this beyond the stories that got passed down about him, but his wiki makes it VERY clear that he views himself as beyond redemption. I mean look at this shit-

I have no clue WHY he's the only character with a customized wiki like this, but he is, and oooohhhhh boy does it say a lot about him. Oh boy. He does NOT want you looking any deeper into who he is or why he's like this, he wants to be viewed as lost cause. He does not want your sympathy. WHICH IS A LOT LIKE SHMILK!!!!

Overall, these two are clearly meant to intentionally parallel each other. They're not only the beginning and the end of the Beasts corruption, but also the beginning and the end of their imprisonment. They both make themselves out to be one dimensionally evil villains, just for very different reasons. They're both medieval themed. But what I find the MOST interesting about these parallels is how it ties in thematically with what tore the Beasts down in the first place; the fact that they were created to be just their job and nothing else.

BECAUSE LIKE OKAY HEAR ME OUT!!!!!!! Shadow Milk Cookie is clearly DEEPLY affected by the way he was treated as the Fount. From what little we know about his backstory, the reason he corrupted is because cookies wouldn't listen to him. He failed at his job because nobody wanted to hear the truth, they only wanted sweet lies, and I think it's probably safe to say that people fuckin HATED him for the things he said. It's possible that the reason he corrupted first is that he was the only virtue nobody liked. All of the Beasts were screwed over from the start, but his position as the Fount of Knowledge, fittingly, made him the most likely to realize how inherently fucked their existences were.

Now, post-corruption, he's an absolute control freak. He's clearly trying to take the reigns of his life back, forge an identity for himself through any means necessary. Choosing a name for himself and making sure that everyone he encounters KNOWS IT. Controlling the narrative through lies and manipulation. Shapeshifting constantly. Taking his personhood by force. Nobody gets to choose who he is but him, not the other cookies, not his fellow Virtues, not even the witches. The need for control, to be his own person outside of the Fount of Knowledge, also makes his clear rage at being locked in that fuck ass tree make a LOT of sense! Because, from his perspective, he's been forced into a role he didn't want since his creation, and the minute he starts trying to find a place outside of that role, expressing his anger and resentment at being put in that position at all, he's locked in sensory deprivation hell for thousands of years and LITERALLY FUCKING REPLACED!!!!!!! It's another attempted blow at his personhood, another form of objectification. He's the only Beast to express clear, unbridled rage at their imprisonment because he's the only one expressly motivated by how awfully the virtues have been treated for their entire existence.

Can you tell I have a lot of feelings about Shadow Milk Cookie-

Anyway, let's look at Silent Salt now. The Salt of Solidarity had arguably the best job out of all the virtues. He was the only one who's job allowed him to be viewed as an actual person by the cookies around him. As the virtue of Solidarity, his job was literally to Show Solidarity to everyone, no matter who they were. You can't do that if you're supposed to be an untouchable god, it's just not possible. Because of this, he was the one to face the least amount of objectification while actively working as a Virtue, allowing him to have an overall positive view of his job that most of the others didn't get. But that doesn't mean he was completely free of of that objectification. Because not only does he still go by exclusively his job title like all the other virtues, but he also integrated his job so deeply into his personality that he had no idea how to live without it. He never actually viewed HIMSELF as an independent person. He doesn't think he needs to be. So, when the Virtue DehumanizationTM from other cookies catches up to him, painting him as a tyrant and taking away his support network, he doesn't have any sort of identity left. He loses everything, including himself. Only Silence remains.

Then, after his corruption, he's just. Completely given up. He's so horrified that he failed he asks his boyfriend to kill him where he stands. Taking on a new name not as a show of his personhood, but as a mark of shame. Shame that he failed his job, that he isn't the Salt of Solidarity anymore. Again, he's the only Beast to have his corrupted virtue in his name. He's an empty husk of a cookie, a walking corpse, and, as a final act of sacrifice, he seals both himself and the rest of the beasts away in the Silver Tree. He doesn't believe they deserve anything else, he thinks they deserve to suffer eternally for what they did, for their failure to serve cookie kind. The fact that the tree created new virtues in their place only solidifies the fact that he had no plans on ever letting himself or his former colleagues free. No plans to maybe, one day, get them all help. Find new purposes. In his mind, they were only their roles, and now that they can no longer perform those roles they're all as good as dead anyway.

All of this also makes him an amazing antagonist for White Lily btw. Like this essay isn't abt her but all of this is VERY thematically appropriate given her Dark Enchantress shit and I'm very excited to see where the story goes.

ANYWAY. When I write it all out like that, the parallels become REALLY obvious, don't they? But the real kicker here is that they both- directly or indirectly- tore the others goals and senses of self directly out from under them. Shadow Milk may not be aware of the full extent of the damage he did to Salt and the Kala Namak, but that doesn't change the fact that, thanks to Black Sapphire's presence, he was still the Beast with the most direct involvement in their downfall. Meanwhile Silent Salt, who viewed himself and the other virtues as nothing outside of their jobs, ripped Shadow Milk's independence and identity away from him, replacing him with a new virtue like you would a broken microwave. They caused eachothers worst nightmares to come true.

So uh. In conclusion. CookieRun's storytelling is fucking amazing. Shadow Milk and Silent Salt are narrative foils and you cannot convince me otherwise. And uh. These two make me physically ill. Okay bye-

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@pufthebirb

THE FALLEN BEASTS

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Eternal Sugar Cookie

Mystic Flour Cookie

Shadow Milk Cookie

Burning Spice Cookie

Silent Salt Cookie

They were once great scions of chaos, apostles of evil that were formerly divine emissaries sent by the Witches themselves. But then, their worlds turned upside down, and the universe did not grant them its favor. No cookie, not even the Beasts would've thought that greater evils would take their place - much less their other halves.

((Silent Salt design was made directly by Oswald on Twitter ^^ please go follow and like their stuff before anything else))

🤍❤️💜🩷💙

Y'all I'm so happy to have these pages done ^^ I'm looking forward to the next comic page I have which may recontextualize a bit of this 😈😈😈.

Aww she took a trait from each of them

Cue insane parallel analysis:

I've always been under the impression that our starter team (Gingerbrave, Strawberry, Wizard, Chili Pepper, and Custard III) paralleled the Ancients (Pure Vanilla, Hollyberry, Dark Cacao, Golden Cheese, and White Lily).

As for the one-to-one parallels, my original line up four years ago was:

Pure Vanilla-> Gingerbrave

Hollyberry-> Custard III

Dark Cacao-> Wizard

Golden Cheese-> Chili Pepper

White Lily-> Strawberry

My reasoning?

A lot of it was personality, but the characters also have to embody virtue (i.e. truth, freedom). 

In hindsight, Gingerbrave doesn’t fit the virtue of truth as much as I thought he would. He’s not completely off the table (he does lead the team after all) but it’s due to one scene during Episode 10 of World Exploration in which Gingerbrave tells a lie that has consequences for characters literal entire arcs later.

He denies that cookies are made to be eaten. I understand, he was in a tough spot. Admitting Dark Enchantress might have some reason would have been agreeing with the villain but the ramifications for this ONE lie are arguably a worse outcome. 

When we’re introduced to Strawberry, she’s the one who reveals to us the core truth of the game: cookies are made to be eaten. Strawberry wasn’t told the truth, didn’t assume the truth, she saw the truth. Literally two seconds into her existence, her reality was shattered.

Now remember that, because that’s the truth that shattered White Lily’s soul, gave birth to Dark Enchantress, inadvertently led to the first and now second Dark Flour War, is extremely secret and sacred knowledge in Saint Pastry Order, got Doughael their new form, and drives the main conflict against the Witches. 

Got it? Now completely forget about that because Strawberry never mentions it again. 

Dark Enchantress ‘reveals’ to the team that cookies are made to be eaten during WE Ep10 and Strawberry says NOTHING.

At the time, Gingerbrave, Strawberry, and Wizard were the only ones who knew. Well, aside from Pure Vanilla since he was trapped in a jar, Dark Enchantress told all the Ancients during the Final Battle. To which Pure Vanilla immediately denies.

Now where have I seen that before…

The point is, that I always thought Strawberry and White Lily were thematic parallels. 

Both cookies are quiet observers, anti-social, self-conscious about their ingredients (more specifically fragrances), have evil counterparts (Dark Enchantress and Wild Strawberry) and perhaps the strongest parallel: witnessed a Witch eat a cookie.

You could even make the argument they both embody freedom (an argument I will in fact make).

But when I started roaming the interwebs (as the youngins say) I heard line ups anywhere from Gingerbrave as Dark Cacao or Custard as White Lily.

The ONE consensus everyone had was Chili Pepper and Golden Cheese. A close second was Strawberry as Hollyberry. Although most of the reasoning I heard for that line up was that they were pink, berries, and defense cookies. And fair enough but it’s kinda unfortunate because Strawberry and Hollyberry can share a lot more than that (they strive to protect their friends for example).

And don’t get me wrong, all of these are obviously valid. I’m here to propose/talk about my own line up, not invalidate yours. Because in the end, these are just theories/speculation. It may turn out that the starter team isn’t like Beasts and Ancients and are not meant to parallel anyone. 

So naturally, I thought I totally misinterpreted the story. I stuck with my line up, but I just relegated it to headcanon I might write and post a fic about (and I finally bit the bullet earlier this month).

So imagine my surprise when this image dropped around March (?) of last year.

Yup.

Pure Vanilla-> Custard III

Hollyberry-> Gingerbrave

Dark Cacao-> Wizard

Golden Cheese-> Chili Pepper

White Lily-> Strawberry

That’s right, I switched two. Not only that but Strawberry and White Lily being thematic parallels held up.

Now, this image is from the Crk China server (specifically relating to the Bear Jelly Balloon Expeditions) so, you can argue how canon it exactly is and even then, anything could have changed from then to now. However, that fact stands that as of right now, this is our most canon line up (at least to my knowledge).

Then imagine my surprise again when Silent Salt came into the picture. Because to me, this is where it all stands:

Strawberry and White Lily parallels-> Saw a cookie being eaten by a Witch (and keep it a secret), generally smart characters, want to protect their friends, self-conscious about their ingredients.

Elaboration on the second point: 

-> White Lily is an actual genius. She skipped multiple grades, top of her class at literal magic school, conducted experiments with books that the Academy restricted for only professors, and got access to a BUNCH of information in an attempt to reach her goal of helping cookie kind (location and date of the Witches' Banquet, ingredients for baking cookies, and managed to get to the Faerie Kingdom and seal the Silver Tree, and Dragon tongue).

->While Strawberry isn't a "genius" academically, we know she's got a good memory. She recognizes Pure Vanilla's statue in WE Ep9 immediately and she's the first one to do so. She was also the one who remembered the original reason the team began adventuring: the cake hound with a crown. Wizard didn't remember that he said that they started chasing Choco Werehound Brute. That's wrong (this isn't to dog on Wizard or anything, he's my son how dare you-) but canonically, he's smart, it would make more sense for him to remember. Similarly, she solves a lot of the clock riddle when waking up Moonlight in Ep16, was about to say that Wild Strawberry looked like an evil version of her (Blazing Dragon's Valley Story), and she’s the one who actually puts it into words that White Lily isn’t Dark Enchantress but that her soul got shattered.

-> Side point: Early on in World Exploration, you could argue Strawberry takes a liking to White Lily. She likes the scent of lilies and asks multiple times about her when she’s not with them and I just think that’s adorable. Then when we get to BY Ep8, Strawberry figures out Pure Vanilla is thinking about White Lily and asks about her.

Strawberry and Silent Salt parallels-> Arguably the most sympathetic to others out of their respective friend groups, utilize melee weapons, loneliness.

We have yet to get like a bulk of Silent Salt cutscenes (post-corruption), so I’m gonna wait on this for now but we can make surface level observations for now.

-> Their weapons are a sword and a lollipop respectively, so they’re both on the front lines although Silent Salt is an ambush.

-> Both characters talk about being alone. However in Silent Salt’s case he has nothing left, not even his friends.

Silent Salt and White Lily parallels-> Soul Jam wielders, betrayed their friends, care for cookiekind as a whole.

More is bound to come out but for now, this is some of what we have.

-> Basically the entirety of BY Ep11. I’m not even joking, the ending scene lays it out extremely clearly.

Strawberry, White Lily, Silent Salt parallels-> Quiet, deeply connected to the Witches, like their alone time, green in their design (pre-corrupted or otherwise), presented as morally gray/neutral.

-> Side Point: Shadow Milk seems to hate all of them more than the others. He’s angry at Silent Salt for sealing them in the Silver Tree (Edit: I don't think Milk 100% knows it was Salt who sealed the Beasts but he is mad at Lily for re-sealing them, so I'd be willing to be bet he'd be a little upset), ditto for White Lily. For Strawberry, he’s a bit more underhanded. During BY Ep 8 Shadow Milk describes the trio as, “The Brave, the Smart, and the… Cautious.” This felt like an unnecessary jab because he specifically pokes at Strawberry who quite literally did nothing to him. But y’know, maybe that’s just Shadow Milk being Shadow Milk. However, when they’re playing chess, Shadow Milk makes Strawberry the queen chess piece, the piece with the most power and it kinda puts a spotlight on her. Y'know a spotlight on the character who arguably wants it the least. (You could also argue that Shadow Milk deems Strawberry the most powerful piece in the game or the most powerful cookie in this whole conflict).

This behavior has been around since BY Ep2 when Shadow Milk ties up Pure Vanilla, Gingerbrave, Strawberry, and Wizard, he places Strawberry right in front of him.

That’s not even mentioning the tarot card he turned her into, the reversed hanged man.

Strawberry’s kind, sympathetic to others, and fights for her friends not herself, like Silent Salt and by extension the Kala Namak knights. Elder Faerie himself notes this.

I know what you’re thinking, Strawberry might embody solidarity, but does she embody freedom? All she does is follow her friends around, that's not freedom.

And to that I say, that’s the whole point. 

We’re shown time and time again that Strawberry’s being chained down by the adventures. The reason Strawberry is adventuring is to protect her friends. 

Take a look at any of her voice lines, it’s clear she doesn't wanna be there.

“Do we really have to go there...?” -> Cookie info.

“Do we really have to...?” -> Battle.

“Um... let's go…” -> Battle.

And that’s considering that these are the new voice lines, the original voice lines were changed. Originally her lines were more positive but now a slightly more negative narrative is being pushed.

Now, you can also argue Strawberry is (understandably) reluctant to fight. But to explore with her friends, she has to fight. To explore in game you have to pass battle stages which the cookies are canonically fighting. It’s kinda the whole name of the game, she can’t get around this. 

She could quit, but then what? She stays at the Cookie Kingdom constantly anxious about their safety?

The reason Strawberry is still fighting and adventuring is to protect her friends. Unlike Gingerbrave and Wizard to an extent, she doesn’t want to be a hero, she’s just along for the ride in an attempt to protect her friends. 

When you really think about it, what's her motive other than to protect her friends?

Heck, when they were looking for the Vanilla Kingdom during Pilgrim Path Ep 3, she’s one of two who don’t explicitly state a reason to be looking for the Pure Vanilla Cookie. Chili Pepper wants riches, Wizard wants knowledge, and Custard wants a statue. We know Gingerbrave’s in it to be a hero and Strawberry well…

Nothing.

Yet… she doesn’t voice her discontent to her friends. All these voice lines, these are all said in private either in Strawberry’s lobby area or in your kingdom, or in the arena.

She’s… silent. That’s right, if you wanna take this further, you could make the argument Strawberry embodies silence as well. She witnessed a cookie be eaten two seconds into her existence and shattered her reality? Nothing. She’s being dragged across Earthbread in an attempt to protect her friends? Nothing. She’s extremely self-conscious about her ingredients? Nothing.

So, besides the fact all this would make for an amazing villain arc (amazing job on Devsisters part for writing Strawberry so well that even the audience forgot about her/j), what does this mean?

Strawberry’s alone. 

One of her worst fears is quickly becoming a reality. To her, all she has is her friends.

...Who can't fully understand and comprehend what's she been through.

As far as she knows, the only cookies who know cookies are made to be eaten are herself, Gingerbrave, Wizard, and Dark Enchantress. And out of those three, only Dark Enchantress actually witnessed it. Dark Enchantress is the only one Strawberry is sure can understand her.

Man… it’d be really unfortunate if say… Dark Enchantress convinced her to join her side and… betray her friends.

But who ever heard of that happening, am I right?

That would have to mean… no. 

How would Strawberry even pull something like that off?

It’s not like she has a secret hideout or something.

It’s not like she was gone for a long period of time without a singular mention.

It’s not like she’s paranoid of someone following her.

It’s not like one of Dark Enchantress’ former minions took interest in Strawberry while they were working under her.

Yeah. White Lily and Silent Salt must be outliers.