jtr7 on 14/12/2008 at 07:21
A Hollywood movie would have the vines continuing to grow the whole time, slowly filling the room, reacting violently to the cutting knife, and rapidly separating Garrett from the Keepers with too much growth by the time he gets to his feet, which are snagged by vines to trip him up, leaving the Keepers to have to back into the hallway without him, as the vines close and/or completely block the doors, forcing Garrett to move stumblingly in the less-viny opposite direction.:laff: Keepers without glyph magic or elemental weaponry.:eww: :joke: Oh, and the vines would've been groping for his bloody socket, too. :eww:
Good thing Viki made a clean incision. If there was any time to use a healing potion, offered here by a prophecy-knowledgeable and sensible Keeper, it would be at this point. If the blood drips on any plants, they should sprout new growth in seconds, or show rapid feeding. This is suggested by TDP canon, enforced by TG and TMA canon, and asserted by TDS. (As a bizarre coincidental bonus, it would also show disappearing blood splashes, without meaning to. Heh heh.)
Thistleaides=Viki's viny ThistleBeasts which are her aides when she needs something bound up right quick. I'm kidding...kinda...mostly... Did you notice the other life form in the room before Viki even begins to move her hand toward Garrett? After she shoves him backward, it then grabs his wrists with tentacle-like vines and pins his arms down while Viki binds him to the pillar. In TMA Viki asks who Garrett wishes to fight, her or her thistleaides, or the sycamore (was it a sycamore that killed the Mechanists, then stuck a gnarly foot root out into the light before Viki formed from a whirlwind?).
The Shroud on 14/12/2008 at 18:00
Yes, that was the sycamore. As for Garrett's wound, in the script the Keepers don't treat it, but Garrett tends to it himself when he gets home. He uses a flask of some disinfectant solution and a cloth, then wraps a bandage around his forehead and empty eye-socket. We can say that the flask is a healing potion. We don't see the results of the potion's effects though.
Speaking of Garrett's eye, in the script he really does "get his eye back".
jtr7 on 15/12/2008 at 00:39
Quote Posted by The Shroud
Speaking of Garrett's eye, in the script he really does "get his eye back".
Of course, that can be misinterpreted in many ways.:sly: :D
I think The Eye, though, should disappear at some unknown moment, and Garrett only notices when he gets out of the Maw. Canon supports the fact that it mysteriously goes where it wills. And just to be sure, it needs to retain Garrett's no-longer flesheye in its stony grip.
The Shroud on 15/12/2008 at 12:57
That reminds me - in the cutscene following Return to the Haunted Cathedral, the first thing we see is a small, round, fiery, bluish glowing object coming into Constantine's grasp. What are your theories about this? My theory is it's the Eye's "eye" - which Constantine takes in order to transform into the Trickster (manifesting as the Trickster's magical third eye), thereby leaving the Eye "blind". But I'd like to know what you and others think.
Update, as of the 49th voter:
Lockpicks: 49 (100%)
Blackjack: 48 (98%)
Rope arrow: 47 (96%)
Water arrows: 47 (96%)
Flash bombs: 46 (94%)
Broadhead arrows: 45 (92%)
Fire arrows: 43 (88%)
Constantine's sword: 42 (86%)
Compass: 41 (84%)
Holy water: 32 (65%)
Gas arrows: 24 (49%)
Noisemaker arrows: 24 (49%)
Moss arrows: 23 (47%)
Healing potions: 18 (37%)
Gas mines: 17 (35%)
Breath potions: 16 (33%)
Explosive mines: 14 (29%)
Speed potions: 14 (29%)
jtr7 on 15/12/2008 at 22:20
Naw. It's a will' o the wisp, of which there are three canon variations. At that point, Garrett hadn't given him The Eye yet.
The Keepers have something like it in TDS, and the early TDP concept art shows cool bluish-white spheres giving off a trail of smoke, as well, also associated with the Keepers and the Trickster's threat to the Hammers. Will o' [the] Wisp, Trickster's Flame, Fairy Spark...
Inline Image:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7487/elementorbtdsfd9.png(
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/darkproj/keeper.html)
(
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/media/paintings/showimage.asp?source=./t1-darkposter2.jpg)
The Eye is what Garrett hands over. The Eye is already blind in the sense Tricky soon shows he means, and it retains the spherical clouded blue tip when Tricky feeds it Garrett's flesh. The in-game object has no roundness, and is a five-sided pyramid, but the blue clouded tip is there.
In DromEd, when The Eye first speaks to Garrett, it is not triggered by proximity, but by "seeing" Garrett through the window. Behind-the-scenes, it was given sight! Haha!
The Eye is mounted onto the end of a sceptre. Confusing, eh? A bit of story that got cut, but there are canon remnants. These aren't in-game, but the concept is clear, and the concept is left intact in the cutscene.
Inline Image:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6527/eyesceptretopbotwhopw8.jpgInline Image:
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9278/garretthandstheeyeoverxh1.jpg(
http://img125.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eyegivensightsequencefa4.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/4538/eyegivensightsequencefa4.th.jpgAfter The Eye has been fueled by Garrett's eye, he becomes the One True Keeper, fulfilling the prophecy, now attuned to The Eye as the key, The One to activate the Final Glyph (all TDS canon). The base turns from blue to red-orange and black--a detail from TDP continued in TDS. The "teeth" were originally at the top of the sceptre handle, as seen in the unused objects, and not part of the base of The Eye, as the TDS Eye was made to show. And they are, in fact, called "teeth", according to the game-files, while the twiggy grasping fingers are called "prongs".
In a silly-sounding way, and almost physically but certainly symbolically, The myopic Eye sees through Garrett's perfect lens. Even funnier, if it weren't possibly "true" in its gruesomeness, The Eye may be pressing it's milky-blue cataract into the back of Garrett's eye to focus the lens, melting itself through, then hardening the eye into a kind of mineral contact lens. Note how when The Eye begins to transform, the flesheye sits atop the milky-blue tip, and as The Eye glows "hot", the prongs grip tighter, just starting to encroach onto the pupil, but gripping the cornea, causing extra blood to run down, and after the transformation is complete, the milky-blue tip is missing. Instead of two little spheres on a larger sphere, there is only on little sphere. I propose the flesheye covers the whole milky-blue part, at that point, not just held against it. Okay, I'll stop. :laff:
(
http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eyegivensightsequencefiab1.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/6991/eyegivensightsequencefiab1.th.jpg(
http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tdsartifacttheeyepy0.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5800/tdsartifacttheeyepy0.th.jpgIn the
Thief Gold "Goodies" folder, there are cursors that are actually The Eye sceptres. The filenames are
DARK.CUR and
Help.cur.
Inline Image:
http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/8317/eyesceptresfl1.pngThe Shroud on 16/12/2008 at 07:00
Interesting. I always assumed it was his sword. I never realized he was handing over the Eye. It does make a lot more sense though, since I could never figure out why Garrett would just leave the Eye for Constantine and come later to collect his payment. Well it turns out the screenplay matches the cutscene after all then. Heh.
I wanted to mention something on the subject of the Maw's destruction, since there were strong feelings that the Maw crumbling was a bad idea. Last night I played through TDP again, all the way from Return to the Haunted Cathedral to the end. I knew there was something that bothered me about the argument that the Maw shouldn't be destroyed but I couldn't quite remember what - until I read this scroll again:
Garrett:
All we can offer you in aid are these crystals and this passage from one of our oldest books:
"The Trickster's works, such as they are, are made of the unformed stuff of the world, not the proper materials the Builder hath taught. Fire and water, earth and air -- these are for the Trickster as brick and beam are to us. But, like their master, they are flawed. His Maw is anchored by raw elements, and therein lies its weakness. Destroy each of its anchors with its opposite, and the Maw must then follow in their wake."
This passage isn't just talking about shutting down one lousy portal. It's talking about unhinging the Maw itself. Now of course we all know Garrett didn't destroy the Maw in the game - he just shut down the portal that was spawning the Trickster's minions (where were they being transported from? Some other dimension of the Maw?). And four elemental crystals probably aren't enough to destroy the Maw's "anchors" anyway. But the Talismans are powerful artifacts preserved from ages past - I have no difficulty believing they could seal off the Maw.
In the screenplay, what happens is the fake Eye opens and unleashes its "visions" of reality - just as the Trickster had planned in his ritual, except these particular visions are of the Builder's works, which directly oppose everything the Maw stands on - science, enlightenment, and order countering magic, mystery, and chaos. When these elements are released into the heart of the Maw, the two realities clash. The laws of science and reason contradict the metaphysics of the Maw's makeup (streams and pools that defy gravity, floating force fields, etc.) and the Maw's reality begins to come apart at the seams. This is why Garrett has to hurry to get out before the realm collapses in on itself completely.
jtr7 on 16/12/2008 at 07:22
Thanks for pointing that out.:thumb:
I still prefer a Chaos storm, with all the elemental constructs failing and falling apart and canceling each other out, but not a collapsing of the caverns. They can be damaged, but no complete collapsing. The Hammers could fill the gaping entrance with rock while the High Priest invokes the Builder's Blessing upon the seal, all in the background, or something better.
Or simpler still, just the cavern branches the Trickster himself inhabits become uninhabitable. The Maw is not gone, it just undergoes a major disaster. Like a house damaged in a hurricane, with the walls still standing. It's still a Hollywood ending, but the Maw continues. The "heartsmaw" remains to pump life into the rest of the Maw's branches, and Viki continues living in there, in her forested branch.
There's too much evidence to suggest The City is resting on so many used and unused tunnels and abandoned sewers, and sinkholes, and lava tubes, and cave networks, and the Maw fingers its way through much of it.
Adhering strictly to canon, not for arguments' sake, but as a curiosity: Looking in DromEd, the Maw portion below the Hammerite Temple is actually almost totally just north of the Temple itself, but the Hammers' dungeons and storage spaces would be ruined or rendered unusable. Anybody benefiting from the underground spring might notice a change, until the Hammerites restored its course.
It's pretty sad that Burricks aren't allowed anywhere near the Maw, either. :laff:
The Shroud on 16/12/2008 at 20:42
You know, it's not really necessary for the Maw to survive to maintain the story in TMA. Recall that the place shown in Trail of Blood, the cutscene following it, and the final cutscene was actually supposed to be deep in the woods outside of town. That one part of Trail of Blood where Garrett enters a Maw-like realm isn't really essential.
Regarding the Eye disappearing, in the screenplay it actually falls down a wide chasm into lava (after granting its "rescuer" his eye back - a sort of gesture of gratitude) and is presumed destroyed.
jtr7 on 16/12/2008 at 21:58
Oof!:eww:
Well, I see we're going to be at odds over just about the whole end game, so I'll let you be. It was fun! Thanks, I had a blast.:angel:
The Shroud on 16/12/2008 at 23:05
I take it you feel the mechanical eye is essential for the story?
