Jarvis on 30/8/2009 at 03:36

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I don't really know how to communicate what I'm speaking of. People just do things. Not because they are being watched, or because they believe it will do any good. I'm a survivalist, and when I make fire by friction I always put the left over punk in my tinder bag for "good luck". I know full well that it won't do anything for me. The next time I make fire it'll be because of my skill and knowledge. But I do it anyway, even when I'm alone. How can I put it in to words? I do it just for kicks? Not really. I just do. Luck has nothing to do with it.

Garrett throws around the term luck like everyone does. There's no meaning behind it. One minute he's tossing coins at the watcher, and the next he's sarcastically commenting about his poor luck. I see no real progression in the character in the first two games when it comes to superstition, except to say that he is willing to listen to Keeper prophecy at the end of Thief 2. That's a *gain* of superstition if anything. In TDS he was practically their lap dog (though that was more a symptom of poor writing, so in general I don't count TDS).

But anyway, I fear we may be arguing semantics here. Maybe you would call me superstitious for my fire-making antics. I wouldn't. I call religious people superstitious, for thinking that praying will make their problems go away. But I doubt they agree.

So no ill will intended. I'm certainly content agreeing to disagree.

jtr7 on 30/8/2009 at 08:14

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Yeah. Like I said, I never do that stuff when I'm alone, and when I'm with someone, I do it very tongue-in-cheek. Garrett never believed in the gods, until he met one, and from then on he was just irreverent. Anyway, if there was a wishing well nearby, I'm sure Garrett would keep it coin-free.:sly:

The Keepers were always his lucky charm, pointing him in the right direction, even if it meant to Hell and back, but only because they were confident enough about their best guess of what the Glyphs were telling them.

Jarvis on 30/8/2009 at 23:40

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Now we're teetering on the edge of a theological debate, and as willing as I am to wax philosophy I'd rather not awaken that beast here and now.

However, with careful and measured steps, I'll step out on the following branch:

Prophecy, no matter how real it may seem, is by its nature unknowable and unprovable. Even Keeper prophecies are inherently cryptic and ambiguous. The Keepers were sure of themselves, and maybe they were close to a lucky guess in TDP and TMA, but were clearly wrong in TDS. That falsehood demands that their previous judgments be drawn into question. They had no monopoly on truth.

No matter how much they claimed to know about the events of the first two games before hand... they were still drawing conclusions based on interpretation. Our world is full of people who can't agree on the correct interpretation of texts that they all claim to be the infallible word of God; a text that makes claims on many many and many prophecies. Were they prophecies? Did they really come true? Or do we bend history to match ambiguous wording? I'll not answer that, as I don't need to in order to make my point:

To trust in a prophecy, no matter how real it might seem, requires faith. So does superstition. Really? What's the difference?

-Strange, I just created an argument for the position that Garrett had to become more superstitious in order to listen to Keeper Prophecies, after trying to argue why Garrett is not inherently superstitious. I make this new argument to the guy who initially stated that Garrett has superstitions, but more recently tried to argue to me that he was not superstitious in his desire to listen to Keeper prophecy.

Debate takes you down windy paths, doesn't it? Allow me to back up a bit:

I don't think Garrett is superstitious inherently. Especially not on the grounds of the Hand of Glory or the Watcher's statue. But he did seem to become so in light of Keeper "prophecy". Their ability to make prophecy was exposed to be false in TDS, all the while Garrett seemed pretty cynically driven to do whatever he wanted despite their convictions.

It all came to light in the ending of course, begging the question: were the texts prophetically true? This is debatable, in my opinion. I refer to my rant on present day theology and it's validity. (and again, I feel as though TDS was poorly written. Prophecy stories are the final bastion of foolish writers).

But more relevant to this discussion: what did Garrett think of all this? Did he really accept his role as "the one true Keeper"? If so, then yes, he became superstitious in the same way any creationist is. It would mean he believes in prophecy, which has much deeper implications.

As a personal examination: I don't want that to be true. Maybe my contention that Garrett is not superstitious stems from my opinion that he and his story was ruined by prophecy and TDS.

So in conclusion, it appears that I have defeated myself in debate.

*bows*

Well spoken, friends.

Jarvis on 31/8/2009 at 19:11

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Then you speak on an inherent difference in the way the two of us perceive the world. I doubt I'll be changing your mind, and vice versa. But to pay the argument lip service anyway:

The Prophecies were vague, just like real life prophecies. I may have to go back and listen to them all again to make a cleaner point, but then maybe I'll get lucky and jtr7 will post them all here (he's awesome like that).

But going on what I remember, the crux of the prophecy was this: The "dark age" will be brought around by the brethren and betrayer. That's a very ambiguous qualifier. I'd be impressed if the prophecy said "The dark age will be brought by a betrayer, by the use of forbidden glyphs to extend life and change form." The prophecy would be even more prophetic if it said "Gamal is the bad guy".

This prophecy was so ambiguous that it was thought to be Garrett. Wasn't it even thought to be Keeper Orland for a time? It could honestly be used to describe any of the Keepers in the compound. ANYONE there could be a brethren and betrayer, and if any Keeper ever did anything to betray to group that also happened to bring around something that could be considered a "dark age"... they would fit the prophecy.

How about the "One true keeper?" Can that not be used to describe anyone who came out of the mess as a heroic figure? The prophecies came true based on Caduca's interpretations. How do we know she didn't get some of it wrong? Sure, the key tattoo appeared on Garrett's hand, so I guess that "verifies" the prophecy. But isn't that just too easy? Why a key tattoo? Is that like Superman's S?

I'm fighting an uphill battle here, since clearly the writers intended for the prophecies to be true. So technically speaking, you've already won. But what are the implications of a prophecy story here?

Who wrote these prophecies? The Precursors? The early Keepers? What made them prophetic? The Builder? I doubt it, because the prophecies themselves demanded keeping the Hammers in check. It wasn't the trickster either (the trickster is a "demigod", by the way... and I can argue for him being completely mundane too... but another day perhaps).

It couldn't have been just purely glyph "magic" (dumb idea anyway), because the very notion of a prophecy being true demands that everything is already preordained.

Well who preordained it? Why? If it's preordained, then what was the point to begin with? Where's the tension in the story? If Garrett was *meant* to succeed, then the story teller wasted my time. The writer tried to trick us all into believing Garrett is special because the cosmos demanded it to be so. But if Garrett was "selected" to do these things before he was ever born, then who cares? He didn't do any of it of his own grit, determination, or decision making.

What I liked so much about Garrett and the story of TDP was that though Artemus blabbed on about things being "written", there was nothing there to indicate that any of it happened by any divine decision. The Keepers were just a bunch of very clever and skilled philosophers, but still fallible men trying to accomplish their own ends. It gave their words meaning, and gave us something to think about. We could stop and consider whether the Keepers really had truth, or whether they were deluded.

When the writer forces the answer to that question on you, then you've been cheated. Up until TDS, the Thief storyline allowed the player to make these decisions on their own. Up until then, we could speculate as to whether the Builder was really "God" and just what happened to the Trickster when he "died" anyway? Are they all deluded too? Or is there deeper meaning? Just where does all this magic come from anyway? Why does holy water work on one hand, but then why do Hammerite corpses become Haunts? Did their God forsake them? Or are they all fools?

But with the notion that prophecies are true with out a shadow of a doubt, all of that is ruined. The Builder can't be real, otherwise he'd grant his prophecies to his most devoted children. The Trickster can't be anything special, because the prophecies actively thwarted him. Garrett's choices (and morality) are meaningless, because it was predetermined. The Keepers were proven to be wrong and foolish, so we don't get to wonder about that anymore.

See? Prophecies are notably a -bad- thing. Just a magicians trick to fool you into believing the story mattered. It's used when the story itself can't stand on its own merits. What makes me so angry is that Thief COULD stand on its own merits, but that potential was undermined in one fell swoop by a crappy sequel (TDS).

My apologies for the long read here, but I'm passionate about these feelings. I made to points in all that mess. Allow me to sum it up in conclusion:

1: No prophecy can be verified to be absolutely true beyond any shadow of a doubt (realistically speaking, of course. Of course a writer can force it on you when they want to insult your intelligence).

2: When writer's DO force the truth of prophecy on the story, it retroactively ruins everything that happened before it. The more rich the previous intrigue, the more meaningless it all becomes in hindsight, because it was all preordained to begin with.

Jarvis on 1/9/2009 at 00:46

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Then it wasn't really a prophecy then was it? It was really wishful thinking, and a lot of effort to try and get things to work out as it was "supposed to".

My apologies if I appear cross. I think I'm just wordier than most. I assure you, I'm not as wound up as you might think. Just free from work for a few days, and lost in thought. This is a rather philosophical debate, and I can get carried away.

But I think it's educational. Already it's gotten me thinking about things from different perspectives. After all, I've already admitted defeat a couple of times in this thread.

So my apologies if I've given the wrong impressions.