#until recently

In media, the concept of the narrative foil refers to a character who contrasts another character; by setting the two characters and their plots side by side, the audience is better able to understand the traits of the central character.

And by setting two surprisingly similar characters in opposition to each other, it becomes very clear how even those facing similar circumstances can take diametrically opposed paths in life.

First, let's start with the basics:

Aventurine and Sunday are both characters whose real fathers were never in the picture, and who lost their mothers right in front of their eyes to traumatizing events.

They both experienced the violent deaths ("death" in Sunday's case) of their sisters.

They both were "rescued" by people who intended to use them by growing them ("grooming them" in Sunday's case) into a figure of authority.

They were both told they were "chosen ones" growing up. And yet ultimately this status as the chosen one is in doubt: Aventurine isn't sure if his family's faith is real, while Gopher Wood tells Sunday that Penacony's chosen should have been Robin all along.

They both became self-sacrificial, Aventurine through his obvious willingness to throw his life away, and Sunday through his plan to remain outside the sweet dream to be its keeper while everyone else got to live in "paradise."

They both are trapped by their situations, Sunday by his inability to leave the cage, Aventurine by his inability to accept the life he isn't able to throw away.

They both became the "villain" of their respective patches and both faced "death."

Personality-wise, they both strongly favor being in control, to the point that their scene together is an aggressive power struggle over each other.

This is how the "future" Aventurine describes himself:

Does it sound familiar? It should, since that's exactly how people describe Sunday.

But they also both prioritize their families, and they are equally altruistic at the core while seemingly self-centered on the exterior.

They both, of course, have the blessing of an aeon.

And here's where I'm going to take a massive tangent, but it's important: I do tend to be among those who think there is at least some connection between Ena, the Order, and Gaiathra.

I've heard all sorts of reasons that they can't be two different concepts for the same being, from the whole "Gaiathra is a goddess of trickery and that's not related to order" to the whole "the Order's followers worship with song while Gaiathra's followers specifically don't," but I think something that has been missing from the discussion of Ena and Gaiathra's possible connection is that "Order" as a concept has entirely different definitions depending on which cultural context you approach it from.

The most mainstream modern concept of "Order" is something that is imposed: A power from on high descends to quell the chaos of the mortal world, to "bring order" through guidance to humanity. This is very Abrahamic, very modern Christian, and that is reflected in the imagery surrounding Sunday. Sunday, as a manifestation of the Order's power, believes he will be able to uplift Penacony from the mire, free people from their unfulfilled desires and confusion, and bring about perpetual peace by enforcing his understanding of harmony on the populace trapped in the dream.

Sunday's Order is not the natural state of the world but something that must be carefully cultivated and maintained, a constant battle against the chaotic forces of life and its temptations. This type of "Order" promises an idyllic future, but at the cost of the present freedom of everyone who submits to the law, who must surrender their original fate for a structured sweet dream.

We understand this concept of "Order" because at its core, it's the one that modern societies largely embrace--ruling authorities establish laws that must be followed at all costs, even when they risk the freedoms of individuals, because they ultimately (supposedly) support a greater good. A majority of society adheres to the laws handed down from on-high, and life functions relatively stably.

Yet this conception of "Order" is predicated on the idea that the course of people's lives is decided first and foremost by the people themselves--which is why they can make mistakes, go astray, and need to be shepherded in the first place.

Without imposing structure through authoritarian power, this type of "Order" will crumble away in an instant, because this view assumes that rightness can only created by humanity, and that chaos--not order--is the natural state of existence.

Ena, who holds worlds tidily contained in her hands, who is tangled in puppet strings, who wears a hood like a nun or the Virgin Mary, and who is haloed like a Christian angel, clearly represents this definition of "Order" to a T.

But... this is not how humanity has always defined "Order."

It was not always taken for granted that people had the power of self-determination, and in fact, for many centuries and across many cultures, the concept of "the order of the world" was tied directly to the concept of destiny. Whether a volcano would explode and destroy your entire civilization, whether floods would swallow your city, whether the crops would grow or fail all depended on the pre-made decisions of supernatural powers, who were in turn often personified concepts of the natural world itself. What happened to any given individual, what twists and turns their life would take, whether they would achieve their dreams or not--all these aspects were also predetermined, decided not by the actions of the individual but by fate itself.

Thus, the world and everything in it has a natural order. Things may seem chaotic, they may even seem unbelievably horrible, but all events in existence unfold as they should. We may not understand why, but everything occurs in due course, woven into an endlessly repeating pattern on the fates' loom--spring becomes summer, life becomes death, disasters happen and are healed from, children are born and grow old. If it is your fate to die, you will. If it is your fate to fight and live, you will. To reject this natural order would be as futile as telling the sun not to rise.

The words "order" and "ordained" have the same origin.

Enter Gaiathra. First of all, she is the Star Rail equivalent of a pagan goddess--her worship exists separate of the confirmed existence of aeons, by an uncontacted and non-space-faring race. Even her description, being triple-eyed, evokes other "triple goddess" figures across history, both in modern interpretations (the triple goddess of Neopaganism) and in ancient mythologies (the three fates of Greece, the Tridevi of Hindu culture, etc.).

She is strongly associated with the natural world: The planet of Sigonia is said to be a manifestation of her very body, the rain is her blessing and acknowledgment, and she goes through a yearly cycle of death and rebirth (calling the cycle of the seasons to mind). She is said to be a goddess of both fertility and travel (likely in the sense of nomadic wandering by the time Aventurine was born). Avgin worship of the goddess manifests in the form of sacrificial cyclic knots.

Which might call to mind another pagan culture well-known for their cyclic knots: the Celts, whose famous Celtic knots represent cycles of eternity, unity, and the interconnected nature of life itself.

The Avgin prayer to Gaiathra focuses on elements of a person's life that all might be determined by "fate"--will your blood keep flowing, will your journey be peaceful, will your schemes stay hidden? It hopes that things will be as they should, that the future ahead of you is predetermined to be a good one, and that the cycle of life decided by the goddess will be in one's favor.

But while the Avgin hope for good things, they also strongly espouse embracing the reality of one's life, with suffering and hardships seen as manifestations of fate that should be accepted as facts of life. It is said that any society blessed by the Order ultimately falls--is it not the natural fate of all societies to one day fall? For mankind to return to the dust and be reborn anew?

Whatever will be, will be.

There is a reason--a logic--an order--to everything that happens.

I hope you can see where I'm going with this: While Sunday and Ena represent the concept of "Order" as a result of self-determination, a power "the strong" can wield to overcome the inherent chaos of reality, Aventurine and Gaiathra represent a different, older concept of "Order" (I can't help but see the entirely separate eye lurking behind Ena?): existence is not inherently chaotic but instead is foreordained, following endless orderly cycles life and death, weal and woe, rise and fall.

PHEW! Okay, so all of that to say Aventurine and Sunday make perfect parallels through a mirror darkly, even when it comes to the blessings they've been granted: One imposes order from on high; one continually rolls the dice despite knowing the inevitable outcome.

Both of their stories are entirely intertwined with the concept of fate, whether by opposing it...

Or accepting it.

And even at the end of Penacony, we leave both Sunday and Aventurine in precarious positions. Aventurine, while ostensibly "victorious," faces another roll of the dice immediately after Penacony, when his future as a Stoneheart is called into question. Yet "fate" comes through for him again--his bet, as always, comes true. His future isn't in question--it is the question itself. What's next? He finally wants to live to find out.

Sunday, meanwhile, ends Penacony's arc in a truly difficult place. He's virtually exiled from the only home he's ever known, a flightless bird tossed out of his cage into cold hard reality. He has to find an entirely new way forward and may even be forced to reckon with an entirely new definition of "Order" itself.

The parallels between these two characters are entirely intentional and very, very blatant, and I am exceedingly interested in seeing whether their paths diverge or continue to reflect similar fates moving forward.