Accignite Vos on 25/10/2013 at 23:57
I apologize if this has been posted before; I've been combing through ideas for some Thief fiction and the Halloween story contest, and this idea popped up in my brain while I was reading through the lore.
As it stands in the canon, it's a bit vague whether or not Constantine was the Trickster from the primordial start, or if he was some sort of powerful mage who became strong enough that he was considered a god, and took on the guise of the Trickster. The second idea had me thinking about Karath-Din and the Kurshok, who were banished because they tried to rise up against the Woodsie Lord. A little bit of lore then came to the forefront of my brain: in Karath-Din, there were god-kings. Va-Toran, the last god-king before the Cataclysm, was considered greedy and a schemer, if I remember my lore right. The Karath-Din civilization considered their kings ascended to the power of divinity; perhaps he managed to back it up with magical talent. After all, in Sumerian lore, god-kings such as Gilgamesh were said to be able to perform incredible heroic feats; I wouldn't be surprised if the god-kings of KD got that way from magic in the blood. What if - and this is a big what-if, in my opinion - the story of the Woodsie Lord and his overtaking with nature is because of the fall of Karath-Din?
Whatever happened to Karath-Din might have been caused by divine nature; some of their gods appear to have a Lovecraftian vibe, and sinking an entire city beneath the earth is something a Lovecraft god would do. If Va-Toran IS Constantine, the Leafy Lord of Kurshok lore, the Trickster of legend, perhaps the sinking of Karath-Din was related to him trying to do something similar to his stunt with the Eye in Dark Project. The merging of the Maw's energies and the mortal world was said to have cataclysmic consequences for the city, and the survivors of Karath-Din's fall could be the ancestors of the Pagans we know. They worship the Woodsie Lord as a destroyer of cities because the Trickster HAS destroyed a city with his magic: Karath-Din. The Kurshok play into this because their sunken citadel, in my opinion, is probably only a little younger than Karath-Din. It fell in a manner much similar to Karath-Din (sinking below the earth), and the "advanced civilization" it spoke of might have also caused the Trickster to resent advanced civilization in general. With the peoples under his control finding the urge to break free as their power grew, he sought to make them afraid and with only basic technologies, hoping to instill a sense of fear and repression from the lack of education. It's pretty hard, after all, to kill something you think is an overall undefeatable force of nature.
qolelis on 26/10/2013 at 08:11
Quote Posted by Accignite Vos
As it stands in the canon, it's a bit vague whether or not Constantine
is the Trickster
I suggest that you watch the cutscene in which Garrett loses his eye...
Accignite Vos on 26/10/2013 at 08:22
Quote Posted by qolelis
I suggest that you watch the cutscene in which Garrett loses his eye...
My original post was somewhat vague, I apologize. What I meant to say was, though we know Constantine and the Trickster are the same guy, it's not said whether the Trickster has always been around, or if Constantine was a human mage that became powerful enough, and thus became the god known as the Trickster.
DiMarzio on 26/10/2013 at 22:02
I've always thought that Trickster "created" Constantine just to give him a disguise and a body to manifest into. That theory sounds also possible that Constantine summoned Trickster. But I think also that they were never the same person, one needed the other for one's reasons.
Vae on 26/10/2013 at 23:19
There is no separate person...Constantine was a polymorphed disguise of the Trickster god...This was clearly revealed when the Trickster transformed from his disguised (Constantine) state, back into his true form.
Fish Preferred on 28/10/2013 at 23:53
I like DiMarzio's idea of Constantine being another mortal pawn in the plan of a more powerful deity. Him being no more than an ancient wizard-king, however, with no more divine aid than the water mages who drown in their own tower seems highly implausible to say the least.
To say more than the least:
-The Constantine described in the first post seems to me like some sort of bungling oaf who can't pull off a simple parlour trick like forcibly merging two planes of reality together. While Thief villains may not rate very highly in terms of forethought and decision making, utterly destroying an entire kingdom with every failed attempt seems a bit too much.
-God-kings don't have to perform magical feats to rise to power. Most of them are born into that role, as was Va-Toran.
-Va-Toran was a shrewd businessman, but according to the Guild of Enlightenment, he was also quite careless and gullible; tying into the whole bungling oaf theme.
-There is no record of the Kurshok rising against the Leaf Lord. Their own texts clearly indicate that it was a pretentious statement by Gruliac which led to their downfall.
-The Kurshok civilization was not suppressed. The Leaf Lord regarded them most highly and they flourished under his watchful eye (until the aforementioned incident).
-The Pagans worship the Trickster out of reverence, not fear, because he is everything to them. They see him as an agent of death, but also a life-giver, honey-maker, bringer of dreams, food, magic, and most importantly mead!
Vo-Toran on 4/11/2013 at 22:12
I always interpreted it this way:
The Trickster is a powerful diety that men worship as long as they were not well developed and kind of need to accept it's dominance as they are still living surrounded by nature.
Then a civilisation and a city rises and rejects the old ways of living in unity with nature and it's protector.
This arrogance and the destruction of nature (out of the view point of Trickster apologisers) then leads to the revenge of the Trickster who destroys the society to make people fearful, uneducated and avoiding of technologies so they may never question his power again (Lost City, Lost Citadel and The City-attempt).
Kind of biblical like Sodom, etc.. Your typical old testament angry god believe in me or you get the apocalypse stuff.
I also got the message out of the game, that the reason for the existence of the keepers is to keep the Trickster at bay, which explains their devotion to the cause - the survival of the civilisation depends on them. By keeping the balance between technology and nature they make sure that the Trickster doesn't freak out and kills everybody. They looked at what happened to previous societies and tried to avoid that same mistake.
For me that is reason why Garrett left the keepers. Being the cynical taffer he is, he just wasn't willing to devote his life to appease a -what he thought - made up deity. Which also explains his constant rejections of the keeper prophecies in the first, but slightly less in the next two games. Now that he has seen the Trickster.
Out of that I can only draw the conclusion, that the Trickster has always been there and Constantine was just a physical form he used to walk amonst men unnoticed (like ancient greek gods sometimes did - usually to for sexy time with human women). Just like Victoria who also had a more human form.
downwinder on 5/11/2013 at 01:14
good question,it was never relieved who came first Constantine or woodsie lord aka trickster,or any combo that can be imagined
but if i had to guess i would say it would be impossible to know forsure as looking glass never said
DiMarzio on 5/11/2013 at 21:40
Quote Posted by Vo-Toran
Just like Victoria who also had a more human form.
I think she was just a pagan witch, like the others. Well, except maybe the most powerful one.
Vo-Toran on 5/11/2013 at 22:51
Quote Posted by DiMarzio
I think she was just a pagan witch, like the others. Well, except maybe the most powerful one.
Yeah I wasn't actually implying that she was a deity, only that she appears as suitable for a normal city walk in the Thief 1 cutscene when Garret and her meet for the first time, but quite magical and tree-skinned in Thief 2, so clearly someone helped her maintain a human appearance in Thief 1 (which in my opinion was Constantine). If it was Constantine then it would make sense, that he applied the same "spell" to himself to hide his true Trickster form. Which is another proof that he is in fact the Trickster.
In Thief II the Trickster is dead(?) and Victoria can not hide her true form anymore. At least we do not see her that way in any cutscene. One could argue that she doesn't need to, because she's with her woodsie friends (lack of evidence not being evidence, I get it), but I still think it's something to consider.
