Gambit on 18/3/2008 at 03:04
I just wondered how different Garret interacts with dying people thorught the games...
T-1
Garret meets Cutty. The poor bloke is dying but Garret is just a little annoyed and even manages to be a little sarcastic to the poor guy (saying it´s a good thing he is dying so he wouldn´t need to do it himself for not getting paid).
T-2
Garret meets another dying person. An almost frozen pagan spy. He seems to be a bit more caring this time. Even calling him "friend" if I remember. Something interesting if you consider his alliance to the pagans is only out of interest because they really hate each other and just want to destroy a greater enemy.
Garret even puts the spy out of his misery...
T-3
This is a bit bizarre... But we can consider the little girl as a dying person. Or, in better words, someone trying to 'really' die and reach the other world. This time it´s just not a small chitchat, Garret confronts hell on earth (because there is no other definition to that level) to save her soul. Ok, you can say he HAD to do it to find a way out... But I think the old Garret would just complain about some of her requests (No, there is no way I would go back to these cells for a TAFFING night dress ! It´s not even worth the money !)
So all in all I think Garret became more compassionate and less selfish to other people´s misery. A cool anti-hero tale where the rebel ends becoming his master.
jtr7 on 18/3/2008 at 03:28
The whole thing with Lauryl was playing off of Brother Murus in Return to the Cathedral. It's the whole, "Yeah, yeah, just help me get out of here," thing, only in the case of Lauryl, its pretty much tied to the end-game, not a follow-up to a major first step. It was given more depth and tied to the overall plot.
Lotus the Pagancicle was after Garrett had become spellbound to side with Viki. That's the only way I can make sense of that bizarre, character-breaking moment.
Garrett's words with Cutty really could seem like playful banter if the Mr. Russell had been told to treat it that way, but they went with a tone that shows Garrett's disregard for Cutty. It really is the money he's after. It must've been worth the trouble for Garrett to take the risk to bust Cutty (and Basso) out. It seems to suggest he's more than just angry at Cutty, more like, fed up with him, as if the only reason Garrett put up with him was the pay-off, but the rest he really could do without.
Thief_4 on 18/3/2008 at 04:27
what about in thief 2 when on the trail of blood map,he sees that ghost of the girl and she tells him he can have dewdrop,that was one of my fav conversations
User was banned by Digital Nightfall on 8-4-2008
jtr7 on 18/3/2008 at 04:40
Since Garrett doesn't talk to Lily, nor does he have to put Dewdrop in his inventory, nor stick around to listen to the conversation, and Dewdrop has no connection to objectives, it doesn't quite fit to mention Dewdrop in yet another thread. It's getting less cute every time.:erg:
d'Spair on 18/3/2008 at 13:50
i find it a pretty logical character development cycle here
through the trilogy, Garrett changes as a person dramatically. You can even compare how all three games finish. In The Dark Project, Garrett doesn't care at all about Keepers' prophecies and 'their books' and, in the last cutscene, doesn't even want to talk to the Keeper (Artemus?). He is just a plain thief here, not interested in Keepers' business and just willing to live his own life.
In The Metal Age, Garrett starts to care more about the City and the Keepers' words. You can see that at the last cutscene, where Garrett asks the Keeper (again, Artemus was that?) to tell him what was written in the books. And, finally, there is Deadly Shadows, where Garrett is really interested in the fate of the Keepers' order and the City, thus becoming 'the one true keeper'. I find this character development process throughout the trilogy to be be one of the most interesting aspects of Thief story development in general. It's pretty amusing to see how a cynical, rude and selfish thief eventually becomes a City saver and pretty much a caring person.
jtr7 on 18/3/2008 at 19:09
Interesting. I don't believe he cares at all. I don't believe he ever really did.
In TMA, he still doesn't care about anybody but himself, but what the Mechanists are doing is affecting him personally. In TDP someone tries to assassinate him, he trails the assassins to find out who they work for, then dispenses his brand of justice. In TMA someone tries to assassinate him, and he works a little harder to find out who it is and tries to make it work in his favor, only to get caught up in deep doo-doo.
After what he goes through, and what he witnesses, and--here's the key--all the while he believes he's not in anybody's control, or he is and hates the idea, only to find out that it was all predestined...it is then that he asks to see the books, to see what else is in store for him.
If everything he does has been written down already, he wants to know what the hell it is. In TDS, he's going with the flow, grudgingly, but he is. It scares the Keepers for many main plot reasons, but another reason is that Garrett seems too empowered for a loose cannon. Instead of fulfilling the prophecies by trying not to care or know about them, he's fulfilling prophecies by making seemingly goofy interpretations of them, which happen to be correct anyway.
By wiping out all the glyphs, he can finally stop feeling controlled by them. The one true keeper eliminates all the unbalance around him while staying true to himself. The one true keeper makes sure the secrets of the glyphs are kept, the secrets of the pagans are kept, the secrets of the Hammers are kept, the secrets of the Thieves Guild, the City Watch, the nobility. He's no gossip. In TDS he embraces his destiny, knowing no matter what he does will fulfill the prophecies. Then he wipes out the prophecies, and saves the city for the third time so he can continue looting and living to loot. He's not a secret society, he's a master thief. His complete disregard and loathing of the glyphs, factions, and prophecies, and his desire to be left alone to do his own thing, are what make him the one true keeper. He won't be sharing, cultivating, or hoarding secrets the way the Keepers had. He's the one true keeper because he's an anti-Keeper. He cancelled them out. He stopped the nonsense. The buck stops with him (all the bucks, really).
Thief_4 on 18/3/2008 at 21:00
there is one glyph that was not wiped out in thief 3,look at the top of garretts hand,he is now the sole owner of the only glyph left
and i am sure when thief 4 comes out we will be finnaly about to create glyphs with garretts hand,like the hag did,it will open thief up in a new direction breating new life into it.
User was banned by Digital Nightfall on 8-4-2008
d'Spair on 19/3/2008 at 01:09
Quote:
He's the one true keeper because he's an anti-Keeper.
that's an interesting point that deserves some hard thinking about
but i'm still not sure that you're completely correct about your perception of Garrett's role (neither am I sure about my perception :))
he was literally born in the streets, he lived in the streets for years, he was a child of this City - i don't think he completely didn't care about the City at all. It might be the reason why destiny chose him as the one true keeper - because he knew about the City more than any actual Keeper out there did. Speaking about parallels between T1 and T2, i don't think there is much in common. With Ramirez, yes, he just wanted to find and teach the bad guy some good manners, that's true. In case with Karras, i think it's obvious that he acted not only out of pure cynicism, but also out of the desire to stop the shit that was about to happen. And i think that the last cutscene in TMA clearly pictures his interest in Keepers' books and prophecies, though we can never be sure.
In TDS, Garrett actually could easily quit the game, stop messing around Keepers' secrets and treacheries and just concentrate on his own business, but he didn't do that. He preferred to dig to the roots instead, and only when the story with Gamall finally became obvious, he really had no way back.
And, obviously, i don't think that the phrase 'it's not an easy thing to see a Keeper, especially the one who does not wish to be seen' pronounced by Garrett to a little lad on the street shows that he is an Anti-Keeper:) i think it illustrates exactly the fact that he realized himself as a Keeper. He finally realized that it was his fate since his own very birth to protect the City, and was a logical ending of his previous actings (he saved the City three times, after all). By the way, the above phrase, used both at the very beginning of TDP and at the very end of TDS is a classical example of a circular narration structure - in our case, it practically means that there are now no differences between the Keeper in the first TDP cutscene and Garrett in the last TDS cutscene. He just took the role of a Keeper instead of Artemus, whose mission is over.
Well, anyway, it's good to have a game that provokes such kind of discussions, isn't it. :)
jtr7 on 19/3/2008 at 01:48
I usually enjoy these, yes. And yes, I know my theories are mostly mine, but I'm pushing for a whole story that accounts for everything, and never dismisses something for a lack of comprehension, or out of inconvenience. People keep asking about a novel or movie, so maybe this will lead to something.
Like I said, he finally embraces his destiny. He's an anti-Keeper, but he's pro-One True Keeper--himself. No more Keepers, no more Glyphs, he's happy. By the way, he became the One True Keeper when his eye was used to fuel The Eye, he becomes attuned to The Eye's destiny, the Sentient's final purpose--to bring about the Unwritten Times--the Dark Age, the END of KEEPER corruption:
m99v03a: "We share flesh and blood, thief. It is through your eye that I see. Painful, was it not? To lose it. But that's why you are the One. Only you are attuned to me. And only I can initiate the failsafe."
Again, like I said, he reads those books in TDS to discover what it says about his future, and why he keeps cropping up in the texts, and why the Keepers keep bugging him, and he finds out how to make the bothersome Faction go away. By getting rid of the Prophecies. Orland pretty much seals the deal for Garrett, more than Gamall ever did. He really just races her to be the one to use the Sentients for his own purpose--to activate the Final Glyph which he knows will bring the Unwritten times all the Keepers are scared of, even though he says:
gar9905: "Now for the last artifact...The Eye. Let's hope this Final Glyph does something useful."
Okay. He can't really care about The City too much since he robs from EVERYbody. He blackmails his landlord. All the factions end up wanting him dead at some point. The civilians want him dealt with. He has admirers but they aren't the good kind of admirers. Those in the games that don't want him dead are trying to use him, manipulate him.
When he's told that the trees are dying because of the impending Metal Age, he replies with sarcasm and pisses the Keepers off. When they tell him to look around and see what's happening, he dismisses them and their concerns so completely that he pisses them off further, and plants a seed of hate into Orland. "I'll take care of me." Then "Artemus" gives Garrett a tip about someone hiring Truart to kill him, and the plot moves forward to the next step, another, and on to Blackmail Truart. Garrett's only concern is still his own future, heedless of the Metal Age. He stated earlier that he knows the Keepers never lie, and yet he's looking out for himself.
He soon sees the Mechanists killing Pagans. Why does he follow the Courier and the Trail of Blood? For information about the threat to himself. Garrett doesn't know this Karras guy, even though Garrett's metal eye came from him. Anyway... So what does he find out? "So... it's been the Mechanists behind my problems this whole time."
The City Watch was killing Pagans, too. Garrett never cared. After hearing about Karras's mutox weapon, after seeing the Massacre at Beck o' the Wills, he finally says, "I could really learn to hate these guys," and "These people didn't have a chance against the Mechanists."
d'Spair on 19/3/2008 at 03:58
The only thing that i can come to after reading this is that i really really need to replay Deadly Shadows again (it's been 3 years)
you might get point here
but why Garrett actually calls himself a Keeper at the end of TDS then?
