r/enderal

Since I first played Enderal, and I'm still thinking about it constantly!

Never before have I been to absorbed by a games lore, characters and story. It was all so beautiful and I wish I could experience it for the first time again. I still can't believe that my favourite game is technically a free mod for a much shittier game. I've been listening to the amazing soundtrack a lot while studying for university exams and I think the music might be one of my very favourite parts of the game.

I recently read Nicolas books as well, parting with Jespar has been hard. But I can't wait to see what his team gets up to in regards to the game they're developing!

So, I don’t believe the nightmare at the end of the quest is proof of it being all a dream, I see it as the opposite. I interpret it as the death of a potential new high one, with it being in its cradle, burning. Dying. Even if it looks like a grown man, it’s in a cradle. I think that’s symbolic. The Dreamflower ending is, in actuality, the good ending where you and your lover survive. The high ones in the dream are unleashing their wrath on you mentally. Anger over the death of their newborn. That’s my theory anyways.

Please be weary of spoilers if you haven't beaten the game or have done its side quests.

To preface all of this, I do not claim to be fully knowledgeable about all of the lore of Enderal, much, much less in regards to the previous games in which I haven't played.

I feel hope. Despite the losses as they were massive and just as devastating. I feel hope.

I am still trying to fathom what it means to realize that all that had happened was done through somebody's decisions. Choice is what all of us should be given, and yet for many, it is often taken away. People like Tealor Arantheal is a man with great power, the kind of power that rules kingdoms. That same power that can bring those kingdoms to ruin. His choice was to take away the choices of his subjects, by not allowing word of the Light-Born's deaths. To continue ruling a dying theocracy which already restricts the choice of the people, and has brought hardships under its rigid system of paths and its near fascistic views on those who dare not abide by it. And I believe this is the reason why he inadvertently causes the "cleansing". His and some many others inability to change, to CHOOSE to change is what causes the pain and suffering of so many.

All of this to say, all of his actions were HIS fault. Not some high power, not the "High Ones" who just merely pull at the strings of our protagonists and antagonists alike. Not some type of mind control, just manipulation from those we can scarcely understand.

Not that these "High Ones" are blameless, not at all. They have, although minor, some influence over our realm that is intangible to them overwise. The Red Madness, for example, I believe is when a contradiction arises in someone's belief system. Be it...say, some woman was going to leave her husband, and the husband believes that he has done nothing wrong, or he believes she is breaking the rules of whatever coven they might've had faith in. Leading to conflict within, and I believe the physical effects begin to happen once they aren't able to reconcile, or that they cannot accept they are wrong.

Another connection to it, I believe is when one's faith is utterly broken. Our infamous Magister Yero, for example. And honestly, I don't want to go into too much detail over his case.

The Red Madness takes root, and festers within, like a nightmare that you cannot shake. I do not believe that people succumb because of weakness, or lack of effort or care. Like I said before, sometimes our choices are taken away.

So much can have easily panned out differently if the influential people of Enderal, and Nehrim, for that matter, had done things differently. It wasn't fate, or some godly being that caused it. It was people.

The reason why this idea brings me hope, is that I deeply believe that anyone and everyone is capable of changing. Not that everyone will, but that it's possible. And I think Enderal pushes and reinforces that belief.

Once you've played the game once, you know when that little messag will appear, the one that tells you that once you proceed, you'd never be able to go back. No more exploring, no more questing, no more going to the marketplace and talking to people, and enjoying the sights.

And everything you see around you will be gone and everyone would be too. Our character doesn't know that of course, they don't feel that sense of foreboding but we, the players, do. And walking around Ark or taking a trip somewhere else in Enderal, you just don't want to go and finish the game, you don't want all of this to be gone.

I found myself wandering aimlessly around, buying stuff from merchants I won't ever get to use, visiting the taverns, dancing to the bard music (with the help of a mod of course). I feel like the game designers knew this was the feeling this part of the game would make you feel on replay. It's why Jespar's final companion quest kind of contributes to that feeling too. Having you visit the Dancing Nomad one last time, listen to musicians you'll never hear again. It's kind of dreadful in its own way.

I guess those are the perks of a game that ends on such a sad note unlike others where you can just keep questing after you save the world.