Topic: The ending moral I wish Lords 2 had finished with

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Given the ambiguous nature of Lords of Shadow 2's ending, I really wish they'd clarified things a bit, but that's like trying to put a silk dress on a pig at this point.

Still, looking at the final few shots, Gabriel is still immortal, Trevor is still likewise, but they depart together into the rising sun, for the first time in a thousand years with nothing holding them back from finally really living...

And then, according to Eric Alvarez, they then take over the freaking world and rule over it forever as "benevolent dictators" with the full endorsement and support of God Himself.

Dafuq?

Couldn't they have had a flash forward, with Gabe having taken up being among humans? Maybe he's fallen in love a few times and rather than having mourned the deaths of each loved one, simply has learned to cherish the time he spends with them?

The problem with Gabe having infinite life was that he wasn't using it for anything. He just sat around moping for a thousand years (and wasn't all that cheery even before that). That would make anyone go crazy.

An ending where Gabriel learns to finally live his life and embrace the positive side of his immortality would have been such a poignant and beautiful ending to the story we'd have probably forgiven the earlier narrative flaws.

But, as usual, Alvarez fucks everything up by opening his mouth.

[Belmont Stakes]

I am curious as to what Gabula saw in the Mirror at the end before crushing it. Playing the mystery card at the end is not really a compelling plot device. It doesn't matter that it leaves off with the moral of choosing one's own path and not handing one's destiny over to....destiny. Vampires in the modern day with the type of garb they possesed didn't fit the time they were in from my standpoint. I am surprised Alvarez didn't try to do a Gumble to Gumble angle with Dracula and Alucard as vampiric crime fighters.

[JayDominus]

I'm going to just ignore anything that's not in the game because this whole "Rule the Earth" nonsense comes completely out of the left field and wasn't alluded to in never. I hated the fact that the game has no real ending and just stops, but I will take no ending over that.

[TatteredSeraph]

The other issue with the claims made is that they still feel very contradictory to what was suggested in the Revelations DLC with Alucard.

[Aceearly1993]

The final event's fuckness was Alvarez's fault.
Also they cut a boss (Satan's Devil form) before release; If added just as planned it would be MUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH better in plot-wise or other

It sucks, even some of the sub-weapons/abilities (bat sawrms move/time-control ability) were cut for Alucard's DLC and caused further fuckness. Alvarez's moves was questionable

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I'm going to just ignore anything that's not in the game because this whole "Rule the Earth" nonsense comes completely out of the left field and wasn't alluded to in never. I hated the fact that the game has no real ending and just stops, but I will take no ending over that.

The only fairness that I'm gonna give Alvarez on this point is that it's kind of in vogue for creators to retroactively edit their work via interviews and Twitter.

For instance, there's little if anything in Harry Potter to suggest that Dumbledore is gay (or that he even has a sex drive at all), but according to JK Rowling (in interviews she conducted YEARS AFTER Deathly Hallows), he and Grindewald were totally doing it in the butt back when Dumbledore was young and bishonen. There's virtually nothing in the books to support or back up these claims, and it was just something Rowling came up with because (to her at least) it was a politically correct thing to do. It didn't add to or improve the story, it was just something she felt she could tack on after the fact. It's worthy of note that there aren't any revised versions of the books that include this detail either, so it's a plot point that exists SOLELY in late night tv interviews and social media posts. Yet, because Rowling said it, fans were expected to take it as canon, and many do.

What Alvarez did here was no different. He retroactively introduced a plot point after the fact via social media despite the fact that there was nothing in game to support that conclusion -- and in fact, quite a lot to actively oppose it, given that the whole story revolves around Dracula trying to cease to be the sort of person who would take over the world. On TV Tropes, we refer to this sort of stuff as Word of God, and it's a concept anathema to Death of the Author, which basically states that the author should not offer interpretations of their own work, or, alternately, that their interpretations of anything not directly stated in the work are no more or less canonical than any given reader's interpretations.

I tend to support Death of the Author because Word of God is lazy writing like releasing a blatantly unfinished game and then patching it to completion after everyone has already beaten it is lazy game development.

Basically, if it's not directly supported by existing canon, I treat it as noncanon, or at the very most, an interesting fan theory by the author.

Alvarez and Rowling (or any other creator for that matter) can make all the claims they want, but until they make a defined work that directly addresses the point in question in some way, their interpretation is no more or less valid than yours or mine.

[JayDominus]

I tend to be selective on whether I believe the Word of God or play Death of the Author. Depends on the author and the work in question, after all, there are different circumstances and all. Like in my favorite video game series of all time, Legacy of Kain, in which there was going to be another game that would  tie all of the loose ends, but it never materialized. In Alvarez's case, he's no Amy Hennig, he knew LoS2 would be the end and I'm not taking his word. If he wanted to say something story-wise, he should have done it inside the game. A text prompt after the final cutscene and before the credits would be enough.