I think its much more than that. Saint continues to reach max karma, ascend, and then ascends a void worm. If I'm not getting the whole ascension/echoes thing wrong, ascension is supposed to result in a permanent end, while an echo is effectively stuck in purgatory. So it seems that Saint is in a loop of botching ascension to kill void worms each time. My theory is that Saint is literally staying in the cycle solely for his desire or plan to kill all void worms and possibly by extension the void? or he's just a speedrunner and is trying to perfect his route for techno-buddhic clout?
Makes me wonder then why the ending shows an echo version of the Saint, as we only associate echos with the overwhelming ego concept so far. Actually this conclusion leaves us with more questions than before... I kind of like that.
@@2142jerbo I thought Saint did it on purpose to return to the world, not to get rid of the void worm. Mostly because of what Moon and Five Pebbles say to Saint. If you ascend Moon and Five Pebbles, part of the dialogue is: "Only those who have seen the other side can know the answers, but by definition they can never venture back to deliver the knowledge they have gained." "Perhaps that is why you need to wake up, little visitor."
Further notes: 1: after completing gourmand's food quest, your able to find slugpups across all other playthroughs. They are followers what act like mini players. Keep em fed, and alive. 2: you can ascend both moon and 5P as saint. This offers dialogue in Rubicon 3: as gourmand, going around the site that you've permanently died as the hunter, you'll find... Something ;].
@@checkurcloset SEVERE SPOILERS FOR THE TRUE TIMELINE OF HUNTER!!!! . Basically, hunter canonically succumbs to his rot and dies before he can ascend. He becomes the pink rot, stuck in that room. It also explains what hunters turbo cancer was!!! It was rot!!! What the fuck NSH!!! why did you do that to my boy!!!
I now desperately want to see either a mxtx/rain world crossover or the ancient’s reactions to the fluffy scug becoming enlightened better than any of them ever could
13:43 This echo is concerned for / intimidated by Saint, is what I'm getting. "Swim with the tide or against it" referencing the void sea. Saint is neither ascending nor becoming an echo, it has instead chosen the path of perpetual burden, to assist in the ascension of others, until every last one is done.
I dont think so, if u ascend 5 pebbles and big sis moon, and meet them in Rubicon, they will give u dialogue stating this place isn't real like a "dream from the outside", they could see their past lives and versions of themselves, while for saint his goes own for eternity with no end. Because of this saint most likely became an echo.
@@PA-1000 I don't think Saint became an echo. due to his abilities, he was able to effectively ascend while still alive, witness the Rubicon, discuss it with Pebbles and Moon (if they are ascended) and fight off a Void Worm to come back to the living world. He is well and truly a saint, one who saw the realm beyond ascension and returned to the living to offer guidance. Not to achieve it but to abandon it as it is not a worthy goal.
Although sometimes reading into something deeply is the best way to figure out the truth, It's easy to overthink things... After ascending the art for each slugcat changes to their ascended form, and in the case of the saint, it *very clearly* shows the saint as an echo. In addition to that, helping others ascend is exactly the thing the echoes do.
It is much like the Bodhisattva of Buddhism, people who are mere moments from trancending the entirely of the samsara, the very cycle of rebirth and death itself across all the realities, choosing to instead stay in order to help others gain true enlightenment, in doing so they are ironically bound to the mortal realms but are elevated to such a degree that they experience their own cycle that is parallel to the circle that is life and death, interesecting only with time and space. Saint seeks to accend every possible being across all realities, they exist in a cycle that is separate to the one all others are subjected to, to repeat its pilramages to the echos as to re-learn true ascension in the mortal body, to then accend others who otherwise are unable to do so themselves. At every end where they return back to the golden sea, to face the void worm the guardian located at the edge of ascension, to proclaim that its work has not yet been completed, repeating the cycle anew returning to where it began its pilgrimage, seemingly the same exact way yet it isn't. Saint moves to the next reality and is not stuck in the current one, to aid all possible outcomes to ascension. This is why during ascension, when playing as the other slugcats we see countless others doing the same, all of them swim in the same manner towards the same direction, this is most prominent when ascending as The Gormond as the other slugcats are very conspicuously rotund. Those aren't different slugcats, they are all you, all from different parallel realitites that have done the same exact thing.
i love how Das got posessed by 5P for a moment; "i will not have my run ended by a squidcada" just the.. anger, the darkness, the.. spiteful edge? The VENGEANCE in that.
Saint was always an echo, Saint was the Triple Affirmative, Saint is both the weakest slugcat and the strongest slugcat, Saint is the most Karmic and the Least, Saint can walk the line between ascension and the cycles.
@@imbadatusernames6295 the karmic cycle works in strange ways and it could be that the journey to the local group cost saint alot and locked them down to the karma we're given at the start of the campaign.
Rubicon is a river in Italy. Ever heard the expression "Crossing the Rubicon"? It meant bringing the army in Rome, something drastic, that you couldn't call back, once done.
For context: When Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his Legions, he was henceforth legally invading Rome with a hostile army and the Senate had him declared an enemy of the state. Crossing the Rubicon, which served as part of the border of the province of Rome, was arguably the point of no return after which Caesar's ever increasing grabs for power led inevitably to the devastation of the civil war, Caesar's own assassination, the downfall of the Republic and the beginning of the dictatorial monarchy that was the Roman Empire, beginning with his own adopted son and heir, Augustus.
"Crossing the rubicon" is also a scoring method for certain games, where you have to cross at least 100 points or lose the bout. I wonder if there's an easter egg if you somehow manage to score less for saint..
26:19 this needs to be animated. the whole scene is so amazing. >saint gets thrown into the void by a squidcada >you hear the sound of saint taking flight off-screen >sait slowly rises up again >das does his best 5P impression while ascending the squidcada with like a sliver of power left
8:45 Also implies that in the final exodus the ancient leaders forced people into the void sea. Which is on a whole other level of fucked up even for them.
I actually made up an entire fanfiction like backstory for this echo (my favorite, rhinestones beneath shattered glass my beloved) where they were just kind of thrown in. Imagine the struggle of not wanting ascend in a society that wants it so bad they near permanently changed the landscape. I might’ve made them basically an oc in the process but who else is the perfect vehicle for my ancient headcanons
My other favorite thing about the echos besides this revelation is how one of them managed to have character development as a giant eldritch blob of tentacles
Maybe Saint was the solution Sliver of Straw found. I mean, Saint starts with the ability to communicate, but none of the iterators gave it the mark. Clearly Saint regularly enters and leaves Rubicon, and, assuming this is where all ascended beings end up, this would be where Sliver is. So maybe Saint originated in Rubicon, or was transformed after ascending. The iterators, when encountered in Rubicon, if ascended, talk about how you can't find an answer to the Great Problem without having ascended yourself first, but then you can't communicate your solution to others. Maybe Sliver realized this too. Just a stupid theory. Edit: spelling
If you don't mind spoilers, the very final challenge in the game reveals that Sliver of Straw was indeed ascended by Saint. It's very hard to beat, I personally haven't seen what comes after yet. But I'm definitely excited
@@big_sis_moon It's in the game, go to arena, and challenges. You have to complete every other challenge to unlock it. It's a boss fight with sliver of straw, 4 phases. Extremely difficult, I myself have only done 2 or 3 of the phases
@@nts0n Aw, damn. I was under the impression Saint was the triple affirmative, but I didn't know the devs confirmed it was non-canon. Oh well, still an extremely fun boss fight. And seeing sliver was amazing, but nothing will top the moment I (mistakenly) "realized" Saint was the triple affirmative
i absoloutely loved the saint campaign, it just offers the most delicious lore ever concieved for this game it really makes you wonder if it is truly virtuous to give up on a happy life in the hopes of an afterlife that may or may not exist, the echoes, the iterators what really was the point of it all and was it rally worth it? as i said the most delicious lore questions
With all that we know of the Ancients, I'd definitely argue that they were massively projecting hard with their desires for utter annihilation from existence, which did lead to a lot of crummy stuff during timeframe of the game (yknow, like 5P's (emotional) meltdown and causing the long-legs at the absolute bare minimum, but lots more overall in the world)
@@carsonthompson4260 He is saying that the downpour DLC is unneeded stupidity? m8, think about this very slowly. average youtube moment. At this rate I might get youtubed by an entire comment section.
@@chee.rah.monurB the only thing i know is that its normaly used to open gates,It increases by hibernating,decreases by dying and you can have a buffer/shield for when you die If you eat a karma flower. Thats all i got from watching videos tho
So Spearmaster, Gourmand and Rivulet had wholesome-ish endings Artificers was just murder every scavenger and Saint is just total wtf. (Spoilers but like that's obvious here) first it gets max karma and then it becomes a god and then it goes to hell or something and then it tries to ascend Jerry before becoming an echo and turning back into a slugcat?? Moon talking about how they just met but their perceptions have to part but their cycles will meet again makes it seem like Saint has gone through this whole cycle of get max karma go to Rubicon and then go back to the start multiple times and who knows how many times Saints actually gone through that. Then there's Rubicon which makes no sense first its a distorted version of the Depths but then its just various different areas stitched together but half of those areas aren't even IN Saints point in the timeline (I'm probably missing some parts of the lore since I haven't seen what the Iterators say in the puppet chamber if they get ascended but who knows how much it would help). Edit: Ascended Pebbles and Moon talk about how the solution they were looking for was technically impossible for them to find which was already obvious but then they say that its time for Saint to wake up which makes it seem like the entire Rubicon area and even Saints journey could just be a dream which does make sense since Saint is sleeping at the start of their journey but saying all this cool stuff is just a dream is lame.
my thought process is that Saint is based off the idea of a bodhisattva, someone who can achieve nirvana as is but instead stays to help others ascend first. They restart because their work isn't done yet, maybe?
@@dumbsterdives I'm wondering what happens if you try and ascend all the creatures. A vow of the bodhisattva is to postpone ascension till all creatures have been helped to ascend as well.
My theory is that Saint ascended, but then realized he didn't want to ascend. He traveled across the world to get max karma and kill the void worm so he could become an echo to anchor himself permanently in the world.
It makes a lot more sense if you ascend Five Pebbles and Moon and listen to their conversation in the Rubicon. They basically acknowledge that what's past the ascension isn't worth it, but the only way to figure that out is to ascend. Unless someone can go back and let everyone know the truth. And then Pebbles says that Saint needs to go and wake up.
@@hornetisspider he is the one farthest along in the timeline, could be that evolution and random chance finally generated a slugcat uniquely attunned to the void. One that not only managed to weild karmic energy as he saw fit, but also that was able to reach the rubicon while still completely lucid and without fully ascending.
I think you're mostly right. But I don't think he really became an echo. Echoes are those who want to ascend but are held back by vices, so they're caught halfway between attachment to life and desire to ascend. I think Saint grew to value life (especially through talking to the echoes) and thought ascension was a false or unnatural solution, and that living life was the true gift. When his 'echo' body returns to his normal form, I don't think there's any echo to him at all.
@@shame2189 i think she says: Put it back where you got, im sure whatever is left of him is still enjoying it. I agree, this only makes it worse, it makes me want to cry, but not as much as when i first encountered five pebbles almost dead. i never cried so much because of a video game as much as i cried from seeing him
@@isaquedopao6667 it's sad because you are witnessing literal final stage Alzheimer's, and it is hard to imagine that ever happening to a person. He is clasping on to one of the only things he faintly recalls experiencing during better times, and taking that leaves him with only broken thoughts and memories. He cannot think well anymore, only feel, and that makes it even harder to see him knowing how he feels about everything that happened, forever in ruin and regret but not completely being able to grasp why.
saint needs a poem, i shall deliver. "Not a god, and not a beast. Nothing material begins its release. And onto which it meets the gods It spares them no mercy, as it knows no god. And onto which it ascends beyond its limits It returns perfectly, with a chalice of perfection, made for it to sip it.
@@archivedchaos00256 correction. it uses the root of perfect in it and also, saint is perfect, but i am not also also, it is really hard to rhyme god with god without leaving the topic of godlike beasts
Am barely starting to watch the video 0:09 and I already know this is not going to be easy at all. Hunter spawn and basically defenceless, this is gonna be challenging. Edit: Love how the saint went from the weakest out of all the slugcats to literal god. Also love how while all the other slugcats *descended* into the void sea, the saint *ascends* into it. Goes to show how he is properly attuned and has become what is essentially a perfect being.
Saint is one of my favorites because of the lore. Him, and I can't decide about the rest. Spearmaster is great, he's extremely fun, artificer well she's obviously going to keep you on edge, and Ruffles is the cutest lil guy, and he has some fun ass movement. But the absolute LORE of Saint is delicious
Perhaps the saint's mission is to ascend everything and everyone, including the void worms, which would cause it to be forced to go through the ascension process multiple times until everything is ascended, perhaps with the saint, there is still a sliver of hope for everyone to ascend, echos included, it seems to even know a way to shield itself so it can escape before becoming a complete echo and continue it's mission of ascending one void worm at a time.
I dont even know how to put into words how confused i am from the ending. If understanding saint's ending is being a fair enemy, then i am miros vulture as saint. I dont know what the fudge just happened.
It makes a lot more sense if you ascend Five Pebbles and Moon and listen to their conversation in the Rubicon. They basically acknowledge that what's past the ascension isn't worth it, but the only way to figure that out is to ascend. Unless someone can go back and let everyone know the truth. And then Pebbles says that Saint needs to go and wake up. Saint then purposefully went and became an Echo so they can be around to warn people that ascension is not what they want to do.
Its so crazy, as soon as I received the power to forcibly ascend things my first thought was "oh shit I can help moon and pebbles" so I went to moon, ascended her, was just too damn interested in the ending to go do the same to pebbles and just went and ascended myself. THEN I encountered moon in Rubicon and I was like "is she here BECAUSE I ascended her here and pebbles isn't?" Turns out, thats EXACTLY what happened, too cool man, but damn this ending is even more incomprehensible than the base game ascension was my first time seeing it
The theory i like the most is that saint is the triple affirmative and the reason this campaign happens so far into the future is that they had spent all that time ascending all the other iterators in the world. And if you have Lttm and/or 5p in the rubicon puppet room, they basically talk about how saint is trapped in a massive cycle. Thats why the campaign starts with the saint in the void cutscene, cause saint trying to ascend but cant, and gets sent back to the beginning of their adventure here. The reason saint can’t ascend is pretty simple: think of the ancients and iterators. The ancients made the iterators to figure out a way for them to ascend, but the iterators themselves can’t ascend. The same for saint, the iterators (sliver of straw) made saint in the same way, purposefully or not. Saint has to be the saint their name makes them to be, ascending all the iterators who have given up, but in return never being able to break their own cycle. The closest thing to that for the saint is becoming an echo, forever stuck in the world.
NOOOOOOOO, HE DIDN'T PUT THE CLIP OF HIM DOING THE MARIO IN THE VIDEO (for context during the stream he talked about how he doesn't work out and that he once did a meme workout where he "did the mario" with weights. Then someone donated 100$ and told him to "do the mario" and so he did
I didn't think i could get an even bigger acid trip than my first playthrough of Rainworld. Turns out i was wrong, because the fucking Rainworld Downpour DLC is even MOAR trippy than the main game because of this singular green fucker. And don't let me started on whatever the fuck the secret Sofanthiel run is. This game melted my brain and gave me a headache for two days. Would recommend.
I binged watched your last 5 videos including this one... I think I cried.... oh Big Sister Moon, you poor thing..... I was never one to play the game for more than a few hours (some of the creatures terrify me to death and I have yet to learn even the basics of the movement), but I was once invested in the lore as I am now. Your videos are amazing (even the non-Rain World ones) and I'm happily awaiting your new developments of Downpour. Its been so long that I need to refresh my memory, the sins, the logs, all of it.
when i heard Past Echos, all i could think was ":0 THE AETHER RIDGE MUSIC" lmfao, Aether Ridge is one of the oldest custom regions and its still my favorite after all this time :>
19:13 i never noticed that karma flowers gain a voidworm-like halo when you bring them near an echo. interesting! also, monk symbol = karma 0? does that have any implications? do all echos have karma 0?
Slugcat review: Pros: is green Has small food meter Has big tongue Is spider man Can fly and one shot anything at max karma Cons: can't throw spears Is vegan One shot is hard to activate and use Rubicon is absolute pain Can die from the cold Verdict: 5/10 cool slugcat but wouldn't play again
It's not hard to activate, you just gotta know where you can activate it. You gotta be airborne before it can trigger so you gotta jump before trying it, this also means you can't trigger it in tight spaces so plan accordingly
The Echoes: Stuck in the mortal plane with no way out due to their hubris, doomed to endlessly survey a dying ecosystem. Das: YES, SO COOL, GOD I LOVE IT
Squidcada: "Fuk outta here with tha shite." Das: *ascends, floats back calmly* "I will not have my run ended by a squidcada." *vine boom sounds effect*
It is quite true that Rubicon is a memory because some rooms look very familiar, most of the rooms are taken from their respective regions and are just slapped into Rubicon. For example, room HR_C02 is from Room SI_C02 from Sky Islands. However, these rooms have different layouts.
PULSE GANG FOREVER!!!!! I SAID IT BEFORE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: PULSE GANG PULSE GANG ⭐💫✨!!! Saint’s ending hit me like an actual freaking speeding truck….hooh boy wow. Still shaken by it, especially after watching this again XD. Wow…the emotion throughout this entire thing, it’s just beyond me. Comprehensible, but wayy out there and I’m at a loss for words. It’s a spiritual experience, Rainworld. It’s beautiful, truly beautiful. Life itself is an experience and we only understand how beautiful it is once we’ve come to the end, and that’s the same for Rainworld. They fit a valuable moral lesson into this game, that you never have to handle stuff alone, and I’m astounded by that. That message reached thousands, millions even, as the community has grown through this long and extremely worthwhile wait for this game’s DLC. I am beyond words, although haha, I apparently have a lot to say. Sometimes you can be both at the same time. I’m extremely glad you enjoyed Saint, the editing for this video is again incredibly well done ^^💫✨!! Pebbles is shown and alive (barely) but you didn’t see him (unfortunately) 🤷. He’s so sad and precious…aaa I wanna make stuff better for him but I can’tt 😭😭💝💖💕. The chamber in Rubicon is waiting for Pebbles and Moon after their ascension…it’s a…wow. Waiting for something you don’t know will come. Interesting idea that if Pebble did fall into the void sea though…that’d be neat 👀✨. Rubicon is the definition of trippy, surpasses the void walk and maybe even the void world mod you played XD. The devs were watch you struggle and secretly snicker like “we’ve got more hehe” and watch you suffer 👁👁. Anyways yes haha, this has been getting kind of long, but Rainworld holds a place in my heart that I hope won’t be replaced (doubt it ever will), and I’m so glad you enjoyed the DLC :)✨. Have yet to watch the Sofanthiel thing but that’s for tomorrow 👀 (watched all these in a day haha). Thank you for the videos :D💝💖💕
Theory with almost no proof: saint always returns to lust karma, which i will call desire in this case. Despite his overcoming of almost every karma level (violence: unable to throw spears/kill without assention. Glutony: has only a decently low number of food pips needed. Greed: idk thats up to the player. Self-preservation: at this point, the player makes a habit of just throwing slugcats into the void)He never gets past his desire to assend everyone. Thus, sending him back to karma 2.
I love how the slugcats just went from random ass animals to beings who interact with machine gods left behind from a dead civilization and can take on any creature in this world.
What I love about this champain is how it implies that Echoes have a karma of 0, That their existence is made of up of constant visits to their version of Rubicon, but always refusing the Void Worms.
@38:00 Haha, I just got the game today and watching these videos makes me wonder if we're playing the same game...I'm glad you were just as shocked and confused as I was at the end. It seems to be related to the cycle of life where nothing really dies, but I can't believe the game goes from the starting levels to these crazy things and that there's a complex story when at first it looks like nothing is explained.
Theory! Saint is an Echo which does what Echo’s do, give their karma to others. It’s just that Saint is a… well Saint and has massive, near infinite, amounts of karma to give.
