Spoilers for the ending(s) of Stray Gods
Butch:
All done.
I liked all that. The epilogue went on a tad long, but that's OK. I'm not sure I get the themes, though. My last image was Grace and Freddie kissing, which was nice, and, certainly, after all those songs the idea that love is your sail, your lighthouse, being honest with yourself is important, etc, is a great message! Here's Freddie finally being "Brave on time," saying how she's grown, is ready to be in love, etc. Here's Grace telling the idols that the real way to be is open and honest and true and part of the world! Yay!
Great message!
Unless, of course, you're an idol.
See, I got this weird juxtaposition of Freddie and Grace happily kissing, happy ending, yay, and the idols…well… Hecate and Asperion were happy. They were in love. But Apollo is going to run away and mope, Athena is a mess, Pan is nowhere to be found (what's with that? You'd think Pan would be loving the fame), Persephone is still Persephone, Aphrodite's leading a cult, they're a mess! Except Hecate and Asperion.
What am I to take from this? That love is what's important because those who have it are great and no one else is? That this isn't happy ending, but a selfish ending where Grace got hers and fuck everyone else?
I'm a tad confused.
Oh, and Femmy, you did back this! You were in the credits! Meatball noticed your name.
Feminina:
Well, now I'm both glad that I wasn't misremembering backing it, and disappointed with myself for not noticing my own name. But nice catch, Meatball!
I don't know that I thought the ending message was that all the Idols were a mess. I thought it was more like they were taking weird little baby steps into their new acquaintance with the world, and it wasn't always looking perfectly smooth, but none of them seemed like total disasters to me.
I would say the message is more like, you have to change and grow, and that doesn't always look smooth or tidy, but it's better than being stuck. Aphrodite is leading a cult, sure, but that's kind of her job as a goddess, right? And at least she's not killing herself anymore!
Apollo phrased it, in a couple of my endings, as "I'm not running away, I just want to see the world with my own eyes." So he just wants to travel and look around and engage with things. Pan is off planning something probably kind of shady, but he's mostly harmless – no one seemed concerned that he was going to start demanding human sacrifices or anything. Hermes is a social media darling.
I don't know, it seemed OK to me. What was your Persephone doing?
Butch:
Yeah, about my Persephone, what she seemed to be doing was setting things up for as sequel, and what's with that?
She was all "I've been spending more time in Hades. Seems it matters again, now that people know about the idols. Some complicated things are happening there," and Grace is all "Like what?" and Persephone said something like "That's for later," and that was it.
This seems like a tricky one to sequel.
My Athena was certainly a mess, which was odd because I forgave her. She was up in the north or something, and Apollo said something like "She'll be up there torturing herself until her time on this earth is through." It didn't seem pleasant. Nor did the picture of her I got. Much sorrow and self-flagellation. It was a tad jarring because Freddie had just been all "I just taught Athena how to ride a bus, can you believe it?"
Loothound:
Yeah, trying to figure out a takeaway from this game is really tricky. I'm thinking of my playthrough, and as much of Feminina's as I can, and it's really hard to distill down to something that feels like a point or THEME. Part of the problem is that in terms of time, I saw way more of her games than of my own, but I was only paying partial attention to all of them so I'm not 100% on which bits strung together into a cohesive storyline. The other part is, because of the modular nature of this game, maybe there isn't really a single point or underlying message. Maybe it varies depending on the choices you make, at least more than on other RPG type games.
I keep coming back to the title, too. Stray Gods. Which meaning of 'stray' are they going with? Wandering away from the group? Out of their correct order and place? Unfaithful? Accidental? Extra? Idle? Is this about Idle Idols? The closest thing to a consistent bit is when I look at the Hecate/Asterion thing, Athena's song about waiting too long to do something about the war, and the ending where the idols decide to go public. They all involve something happening that has been sitting idle for too long, and in sitting has kind of festered or atrophied. The good came from someone actually doing something.
Didn't Grace have some kind of line like that for Athena? That she was actually doing things and achieving more in her week-odd as an idol than Athena had done? Maybe it's that. Maybe all it comes down to is "do something."
Feminina:
Yeah, I really do think the message is more "do something" than "do a specific thing." There are a lot of references to people being stuck, tied to the past. In addition to those Loothound mentioned, Orpheus just hanging out in an abandoned Hades for centuries is pretty on point. And Apollo mentions feeling like an old man a few times. At one point Grace says to Athena that she's trying so hard to save the Idols, she's holding on so tight that her knuckles are turning white, but every one of the people she's saving is "lost or broken or worse." They aren't able to move on from their trauma – most obviously Aphrodite, but all of them to some extent.
I think the point is, you have to move, you have to grow, you have to be willing to accept change, or what's the point of even being alive?
For Persephone, I got something like that when I gave her back her throne. What does it mean, indeed, if the souls of the dead now have a literal place to go? It's an interesting question.
That's weird about teaching Athena to ride a bus…so she can take a Grayhound to the frozen north to punish herself forever, apparently! Odd juxtaposition.
I had Athena lurking in the north once, but not with the bus comment because that time Freddie was dead, and then another time Athena had simply disappeared, and once she'd taken a ship to the Old Country and there was speculation about whether she was looking for Naked Zeus. (Well, Zeus, but the Nakedness is assumed by me.) That also sounded like a possible sequel setup, although it's not at all clear how that would work.
So, OK, Athena sounds like kind of a mess in most of the endings, this is true. But she was the killer, so maybe she deserves that! Everyone else seemed to be more or less holding it together, thought.
Learning, changing, growing in sometimes-awkward but also somewhat-promising ways. I think that's the point.
As for the title, I was thinking earlier that it might be a bit of a joke on 'stray dogs' (among other things), and thinking about how stray dogs don't belong to anyone, and the Idols are gods that no longer belong to anyone, in the sense that the religion that worshipped them is no longer practiced.
Athena was trying to keep her little pack of stray gods together, but this is no longer a sustainable way for them to function in the world, and so things are falling apart.
Butch:
Naked Zeus? Athena's his DAUGHTER, dude! Jeez.
I can see the "do something." "Brave too late" is Freddie's love song. In that groove. Even Apollo's twist on asking "what did I do?" which is what we usually see people ask when they drive something away turns to "what didn't I do?"
Not sure how Pan fits into that (or anything) though. Pan is a very live in the moment dude, isn't he? Without much of an ending for him, I'm not sure what to make of him.
And yeah, see? Athena looking for Zeus. The underworld up to something. Someone (I forget who) asking if we can go find Hephestus. All smells of sequel but how?
Or maybe it's all just about ROBOT DINOSAURS.
Feminina:
I'm sure Naked Zeus doesn't give a damn who sees him being Naked, as that is his normal divine state.
I think Persephone mentioned that Medusa had been put in touch with the mortal military (uh…good idea?) and that said military was so pleased that there was even a chance the Idols might get to see Hephaestus again, although "who knows what he's been doing since the war."
There was also an ending where Medusa was running Underworld (the club) and doing very well. Unclear if the chance to see Hephaestus was still on the table in that timeline.
Butch:
Yeah, see, how on earth could there be a sequel to this?
As much as I liked it, I hope there isn't. Would I play more musicals? Sure. But this story, too complex to continue, I think. Not everything needs a sequel.
Feminina:
Oh, I don't know. I could see them winding the various differences back toward one uniform new starting point, if they wanted. Athena stopped moping in the north, if she was, and went looking for Zeus to match the way she did in one ending, or alternatively, she didn't find Zeus and decided to go north to mope…Medusa left the Underworld/the military and started doing x, Apollo returned or went somewhere to meet another version of himself. Persephone went back to take over Hades by herself, if you didn't help her get the throne, or she got tired of it and came back to the mortal world if they want her there. Astarion and Hecate broke up/got together in the end after all…
The only really difficult divergence is Freddie being dead or not. That would be a tough one to handle.
As for Pan, I think he's meant to be kind of a free spirit who, probably, has been impatient with the existing order for a while. He showed up right away to start pointing Grace at different sources of information, suggesting he was interested in the potential for shaking things up, and he had that bit, if you tell him about the prophecy, where he says his advice is to let it play out: "Maybe we shouldn't continue. Change is overdue, and I for one would welcome it."
He's sort of the god of nature and wilderness, so he, maybe more than many of the Idols, was probably restless with the static nature of their lives. And being kind of wild, is it that strange if, once he gets free, he just disappears?
Loothound:
Yeah, I'm also of the mind that a sequel would be tricky, primarily because of the Athena question. She left to go looking for NZ, etc. in mine and that is a very different endpoint than in most of the other ones. I punched her. She killed Calliope. I have no qualms.
So, yeah, "do something." Also, maybe, "don't pay attention to prophecies." Athena's whole thing was over that Last Muse prophecy. Apollo was the inert lump of abs that he was because of the damage that prophecies can do. So not letting what you think will happen in the future freeze you in the present? Which is interesting, because Hecate. She knew everything (almost) and was able to roll with it just fine. Not sure about that one.
Butch:
Except Hecate didn't. She was wrong more than once. She THOUGHT she did, and that's what paralyzed her. It's what paralyzed a lot of them.
But "don't get too hyped up on fate" is a good message we can take from this, too. Sure, Athena killed Calliope, but she died trying to contact the fates. Trying to muck with fate, or even figure it out, got her killed.
Freddie would pose a problem to a sequel. Her being dead, her being the muse outright, etc. I also checked the trophies (as one does) and a minority of people saved her, so my ending is a toughie.
Feminina:
I finally got around to checking the trophies a couple of days ago, and since we were only short 4 aside from platinum, decided to trophy-hunt.
Only missing two now. Gonna be listening to a lot more versions of musical numbers.
The question of fate is an interesting one.
Hecate was wrong about Calliope's death, because apparently it was not written that Athena would call the Furies on Calliope. (Which is something she could apparently do even though everyone thought that was impossible, but fine, she was the leader of the Chorus and that came with powers, and I'll accept that she would have kept this ability secret because she thought people didn't need to know.)
But anyway, Athena, in trying to change the Idols' fate (which she thought was death, but which may actually just be change: they "cannot continue," which everyone agreed was vague), actually brought that fate upon them, as she should have expected since I'm sure she's heard stories about people trying to change fate.
But also, Athena DID in fact change CALLIOPE's fate.
Calliope's destiny, as it was written, was altered. Athena's use of the Furies did change fate, just not the way she expected. And not, in the end, in a way that maybe altered the threads of fate all that much, since she was going to die in 11 months anyway.
Again, presumably this is because Athena was the leader of the Chorus and had access to powers we never heard about. It just makes you wonder whose fate is changeable.
Also, speaking of Athena's powers, I did like her final admission there. "Yes, it was me, all right?" There was a sort of "who else could have done this?" that is both kind of smug, and perhaps speaks to the fact that, indeed, she had powers no one else had or knew about.
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