Keeper Jonas on 23/12/2004 at 07:25
I've said it before, and it is obvious, that one of the greatest strengths of the Thief series is the certian freedom the games give users to interpret and assemble the various pieces of information as they see fit. Obviously there are a couple universal commonalities and in contrast there comes a point when we have to say that figuring out the Byzantine story is up to us.
That said, Thief: Deadly Shadows left a lot of loose ends. Perhaps the only substantial bone I have to pick with Thief: Deadly Shadows was the end cutscene.
-What Garrett actually became was only alluded to, very poetically.
-It seemed as though the Keepers were either finished or genuinely out of work but again, it was unclear.
-Because of the destruction of the Glyphs, the main end result seems to be that things would just go on as they had. Maybe more "balanced"? I.E. There are now Pagans and there are still Hammers but for a little while they aren't at war? Or Not? I don't know.
-Okay, so Garrett is the True Keeper. Is he some kinda superhero? Anti-climax for the guy who always walks away after the world is saved.
:joke: Now the rich people in The City are really Defense-less. :joke:
-Many people here have commented, and I am forced to agree that the end scene of Thief: Deadly Shadows seem too much like something out of the Matrix?
-I don't know, let's keep the X-Box factor involved, maybe they were trying to appeal to a huge audience. But the cutscene it nothing like the wonderful, fully legitmate, on par story writting that Terri Broisus did for Thief: Dealy Shadows.
-The cutscene feels forced, alien. The dialog, I would argue is inconsistent with the rest of the game and the series generally.
-I have read rumors around here of Thief The Movie or Thief VI, do we even know yet how well Deadly Shadows is retailing?
So To The Point:
-what exactly is Garrett now?
-What is he gonna do with himself?
I can't answer these questions to my satisfaction in the way I mentioned above.
The cutscene here seemed to have a tone of finality, whereas the end scene of Thief The Metal Age was totally "tune in next week for our next episode..."
Both Thief I and II lead me to believe that they would be sequels, the third game did not. If this is the end, why was it so, unspecified?
I am open to suggestions. -Keeper Jonas.
theBishop on 23/12/2004 at 07:43
Well the keepers bit is all done unless in the next game there are evil keepers that use knowledge to worsen the world....or something where he has got to save the world again
He becomes a regular thief its sorta like him freelanceing now he is no longer a keeper or prophecy he is just a master thief named Garret
The ending of the movie showed that prolly the prophicies never stopped and the same thing will happen to this kid as to what happened to garret
"as it was prophisized" <--------remeber that famous saying...
the sequal to theif 3 would probably be along the lines of thief 1 and thief 2 so it really wouldnt be anything new....
All we can do is let Garret live on in our hearts
uncadonego on 23/12/2004 at 10:34
Garrett's marking shows he is the One True Keeper. The Keepers have always been responsible for maintaining the balance of the city, so that won't change. They may have erred, but only the One True Keeper would ever get the mark, having refused to be swayed by the temptation of the glyphs, and placing all of the sentients in their proper place. Gamall wanted them all very badly to have absolute unconquerable power, and Garrett actually did possess them all, but didn't want them for that. For certain, he will continue to maintain the balance, whether he passes his training on to others as it seems or not. Garrett said he was through in T1 at the endcutscene, got dragged in again in T2, but at the end wanted to know more. He became more accepting of Keeper prophecy gradually. By the end of T3 it seems natural that he would finally accept things as they were and realize he was the "one", yes.....kinda like Neo in the Matrix, but without two sucky sequels.
Strider on 23/12/2004 at 18:58
I think it would have been anti-climatic if Garrett had just walked away. Then nothing would have changed. Thief 3 was supposed to be the conclusion to his story and his character arc. The idea of a character arc is that the character changes. If Garrett had walked away he wouldn't have changed or learned anything and this whole journey would have been pointless. my problem is that his character arcs in Thief 2 and 3 seemed to come rather suddenly and with no real reason. Near the end of Thief 2 he suddenly starts getting all sentimental, like when Victoria dies. Some evidence that Garrett was changing before that point would have made it believable when it happened. Same with his character arc in Thief 3. The inevitable character arc for the cynical loner is that he eventually accepts his responsibility, but with Garrett there was no transition. He's a loner and then suddenly he's not.
My main disappointment with the ending was that not enough changed besides Garrett. I thought Garrett was going to have some sort of major impact on the city. Instead he just sort of mantained the status quo. The hammers and pagans are still fighting each other. The city is still the same as it was. Garrett's just going to do the same thing the keepers were doing ie. keep the balance. It's like a revolutionary overthrowing a monarchy and then replacing it with another monarchy.
And yeah, the ending did seem like something out of the Matrix. I had the same feeling after Revolutions as I did after Thief 3. I was hoping my reaction would be "so that's what Garrett's destiny was. That's what this was all about" Instead my reaction was "So what?"
Keeper Jonas on 23/12/2004 at 20:21
Interesting responses.
It now seems to me like we each have to learn Garrett's destiny for ourselves.
The game itself just doesn't say that much.
Who, then, was the Keeper in Thief: The Dark Project that brought Garrett into the fold.
Now throughout Thief: The Dark Project it was the same voice actor for that "True Keeper" with the ring, which I'm assuming was his version of the mark. This is lent credibility by the fact that Garrett did the same to the kid at the end of Deadly Shadows. In Thief, I think the True Keeper Character was still around, as Garrett's "Keeper Friend". The voice acting credits for Thief II mention Keepers Caduca and Gamall, though they weren't named, Keeper Nate, Keeper Orland and Keeper X.
I believe and of course I could be wrong that Keeper Artemus is the same as the "True Keeper" in Thief: The Dark Project. Would that not make sense, there can only be one mature True Keeper? Atremus got himself killed in Deadly Shadows before Garrett Served his true function.
So the new True Keeper is still just a pup, Garrett probably has a normal life span ahead of him. The kid could always mess up, but so did Garrett, and the Keepers warned Garrett that he can't escape destiny. Maybe Garrett won't die exactly the way Artemus did.
Well all of this is just a theory, but in reading your responses and then writing this one, I think now that the endscene to Thief: Deadly Shadows makes some kind of sense to me, whereas my initial reaction was HUH??? :confused:
What does everybody think of this?
theBishop on 23/12/2004 at 20:34
something along those lines but...Garret can not excape his destiny well if he didnt serve his purpose the Garret is not over...
What would tight is if Garret transfered his powers to the kid (the kid would be much older by now) useing magic and a great master thief is born...leading to a more possibilities the combiniation of master thievery and magical powers .... liek combining magic with weapons, reviving ppl to tell you wut happened, temporary invisibility many things along those lines :wot:
Strider on 24/12/2004 at 22:06
I think Garrett's destiny was centuries in the making. I don't think the 'true keeper' is a task that gets passed on from one keeper to the next down the generations, with Garrett simply being the next in line. I think the 'true keeper' is someone who's been referred to in the prophecies for centuries, maybe since the keepers first began. He'd prevent three dark ages, the first caused by the pagans, the second by the mechanists and the third, ironically, by the keepers, who were supposed to be protecting the city from the dark ages in the first place. That's why the keepers had so many writings on the first two but none on the third, because unbeknowest to them, they were going to cause the third.
Seems more dramatic that way anyway. Makes Garrett seem more unique. That kid he meets at the end was probably just going to be his first apprentice in a new 'glyph free' keeper organization, not the next 'true keeper'. Either that or she was just an excuse to repeat the intro from Thief I.
Bumbleson on 28/12/2004 at 13:19
I can't quite follow all of those theories. For me, the overall message of the end cutscene was rather clear. Garrett has become the One True Keeper. The "old" Keeper organization had failed to uphold balance in The City. The last glyph was intended by the first Keeper's (those who lived centuries ago) as a safeguard against this case. For me, Garrett, in his function as the True Keeper, is the one who will reestablish balance again and probably form a new, better Keeper organization with the child being his first recruit. Balance was the Keeper's only concern during all that time. Why should that change now? But Garrett will do it differently. Now that he has understood everything (how should he have done so before, not knowing what he knows now?), he will not make the same mistakes again (like being as stuck-up as the old Keepers). And maybe he has, in place of the glyphs, gained some new powers which will enable him to do so.
Mugla on 28/12/2004 at 13:36
Hmmm. Indeed. Theoretics and theorems. Now it might be belittling from me to say, but the developers perhaps never thought this all out. Anyway, the vague, suggestive manner everything is portrayed is the key-ingredient for this great story, just as Jonas first wrote; usually if everything is made clear, people start complaining about the inconcistency of the plot, but now when everything is folded in shadows, they try to explain it instead (just look at the City-map project).
I'd say every answer was made to be as good as the other; if the player wanted Garrett to become the True Keeper, then he would question the character arc; if he would go with the psychological explanation, he would deduce that he didn't become a keeper, but remained partly in the thieving-bis.
That way no-one, how different a fan, gets truly disappointed. And that is why I'll leave my opinion out. :p
uncadonego on 28/12/2004 at 15:37
Garrett just may reason that since the balance has managed to be maintained all this time with thievery going on, there's no need to think he has to stop thieving now either, and he can still maintain the balance of the city. After all...."some people are too rich for their own good"... :sly:
