#whoo!!!

possible tws for suicide/suicidal idealization, mentions of slavery, and a massacre

ok there is. a lot to unpack for this mission but I would like to focus on the references to The Waste Land (by T.S. Elliot, fucking amazing poem btw) that were in Aventurine's parts?

First of all the achievements- the "Sibyl, what do you wish for?" and "She answers, I wish to die" or something like that. That is the very first thing in the poem we see- to put a long story short, it's a reference to how there was this oracle named Sibyl in Greek Mythology, blessed to live forever by Apollo. Apollo got angry after she refused to have sex with him and cursed her so that while she would live forever, her body would slowly waste away, eventually becoming dust kept in a jar. A couple of boys one day come up to this prison jar and ask her "Sibyl, what do you wish for?" and then she answers that she wants to die. This could be a reference to Aventurine, who is always so lucky but at that moment truly didn't wish to be lucky, and really did want to die. Yet he was stuck, unable to live- considering he is something of a "chosen" of Gaiathra Triclops, she could be the one who cursed him, in disguise of a "blessing" of good luck.

second, the maze scene. there were two references here, both from the fifth(fourth? it's been a hot minute since I read this poem, the details aren't all clear) part of the poem. it talks about a deserted waste land, where rain never falls, there is only lightning and rocks/sand. this matches up with descriptions of sigonia, as a desert planet that's referred to as "the unclaimed desolation", and also some of those lines are directly said in the white text that floated around the maze(which i'll be referring to as floating text from now on). the second reference was also in the floating text, which talks about how "there is another presence/person beside us", or something very similar. I don't have the direct quotation, but this is also a direct reference- within the poem, there are two travelers in this "waste land", and the narrator mentions feeling a presence that wasn't truly there. According to Elliot himself, his inspiration for this part of the poem was from an account of an Antarctic journey, where the person who wrote the account said he and his men were so out of it due to exhaustion they had begun to hallucinate another presence who wasn't actually there. this is probably referencing how mini-aventurine and present-aventurine both exist, and have existed, but the future-aventurine technically does not exist yet and literally is just popping up, clearly not "real" in the physical sense but definitely there. within the poem, there are a lot of speculations between scholars about why Eliiot decided to add this hallucinated dude in but one popular theory is that it's Christ, in disguise, which is really interesting considering The Family's Christian imagery. something to watch out for when Aventurine returns to the story (he def isn't dead, but as to when he's returning... :( i can't get my hopes up) or if anyone else analyzes this more deeply.

now, why the waste land? it's universally considered a pretty depressing poem, about how the world after World War I was torn apart and collapsing in on itself, and portrays a lot of characters who aren't living life to their fullest at all. it references many famous texts and literary works, pointing at literature as an amalgamation of all other literature and also acting as a metaphor for how everything builds off each other, so one thing collapsing could result in everything collapsing. there are a lot of references to different religions as well. perhaps the best way to put it is that Elliot was portraying a world under threat of total collapse, and asks the reader if there is anything humanity can do to save it, or if we must simply salvage what we can. the ending also implies peace is a far-off, perhaps unreachable thing since everything is so discordant. but you get the idea at this point- the poem is about decay and rotting over time. I don't have the greatest grasp on either this poem or aventurine's psyche, but the 2.1 quest revealed a lot- he is an incredibly lucky person who is in a lot of bad situations but gets out every time, and has never lost a bet (despite his life otherwise being absolutely terrible). the waste land itself could simply be sigonia, and then perhaps aventurine himself is a representation of the characters within the poem. practically all scholars agree that in this poem, all the female characters coalesce into one character, and the male characters do so too, and then there is one uniting character between the "male" and "female"- tiresias, who according to Elliot has "foreseen and foresuffered all". he is described as the most important figure in the poem by Elliot himself. Tiresias is an androgynous figure, but is referred to with he/his. he also is the only one to say "I" in the poem, and despite the fact he is blind he can see all, even the future- in mythology, he was a prophet like the Sibyl. "what Tiresias sees is, in fact, the substance of the poem", as Elliot says- in other words, what he sees seems to be the closest thing to the truth you will get.

now obviously that's pretty valuable, considering literally everyone is lying in penacony (in the livestream they said the entire guest list is filled with question marks in place of names, implying everyone's identities there were fake- other than Sparkle's, but she's a Masked Fool and will trick people just for the hell of it, so not exactly the best ally). however (this is where speculation starts) I think this could be possibly very subtle foreshadowing for Aven's return! and I know this may sound delusional but. it's established he's not dead. his stone is out, but that's quite possibly because he's next to a fricking black hole and also Acheron possibly had "freed" him, in some sense? that conversation he had with her obviously changed a lot of things for him as a character, and she said she could break the harmony's bonds on him... also, clearly if he wasn't dead while waking up next to a black hole, that's certainly a surefire way to tell his luck hasn't run out yet. the entire mission was spent establishing his luck is perfect, given by the goddess of his planet, and will never fail him. this is like near emanator-level shit- obviously not quite in terms of any special power, but he was specifically chosen by this goddess, was born on a special day, and due to sheer luck is the last one standing of his clan (apparently). literally everything was set up against him and he's only still alive due to a literal goddess-given power, which is absolutely nuts and almost overpowered if it weren't for the fact that he also seems to be in many scenarios where luck and gambling is the only way to get out at all. the massacre, the enslavement, killing his old master, the weird warlord thing that got brought up, penacony... his luck is purely for getting out of bad situations, it seems.

that was kind of a tangent. anyway! the whole mission was establishing how good his luck was. he got into this situation where the only solution is to walk into a black hole and see the other side of penacony- that is a classic example of "there is an extremely, extremely narrow chance of getting out alive". acheron did it, or something similar, so clearly it's possible- but luck and chance would be the only way. this is the cycle of his life- he's in an absolutely shitty situation, but he will get out due to luck. imo it's a terrible idea writing-wise to keep him explicitly alive up to the very end and going into a situation- alive- which he can survive in due to his luck, right after giving him fulfilling conversation with both acheron and his past self and seeing the uplifting note from Ratio... just to offscreen him, or kill him for some reason related to this "other side of penacony". it wouldn't line up with all that we know about him now. granted, I can't imagine it'll be pleasant and his mental state will be even worse at the end of it... but he'll be alive, and he's made it through a lot of hellish situations. he might not like his luck all the time, and it can be either a blessing or a curse given the scenario, but he's kind of stuck with it- until he withers away, just like Sibyl. Death does seem to be inevitable, but as of right now it's not knocking on his door.

tldr: for now, our boy isn't dead and his luck might be a curse to him but it's clearly going to keep him alive for quite a bit longer :)

So I hc that the king has kept growing out his hair in an attempt to desperatly reconnect while Siffrin’s hair is short and messy.

After death it’s believed that the deceased becomes a star in the sky and then the deceased works together with other dead family members to make a new constellation thousands of years from now. So each family has their own.

Siffrin’s habit of keeping souvenirs and knick-knacks is actually a remnant of his culture where it was usual to keep objects you found washed up on the beaches along the coast. Because if you found the object and it wasn’t owned by anyone else it was seen as a gift from the universe given to you. It wasn’t unusual for families to have keepsake boxes where you had an object that each family member had found as a way to remember them.

Freckles are seen as a sign of beauty because of how they resemble stars!! The universe is watching you….

On the island they often used plays to tell stories about constellations and other things in the stars.

You dont use the word ”wish” very lightly, so in the islander language they have another word that basically means wish but exaggerated and something you don’t ACTUALLY wish to happen.

Siffrin and other islanders dislike whistling! This is because in theatre whistling is seen as bad luck

Names are really special and important because they’re a part of you and your way of following the universe, each name has a different path to follow, choosing a new name means abandoning that path and starting a new one (opinions on name changes vary throughout the country and the person)

Names often come from stars and such, it’s not often that two people have the same name

The sense of community is very strong, cause everyone is a star meant to share the nightsky together

There are different kind of wishes that are sort of seen as taboo in the way that you would indirectly be telling the universe that it leads wrong or that it made the wrong decision

It’s a usual death ritual to have your ashes thrown into the sky together with dandelion seeds