The Butcher Of Ark-Does it gives us a clue?

[MyLongestJourney]

Well after finishing the book series "The Butcher Of Ark" I begun to wonder if everything we experience is only in the protagonist's head.

The book(s) contain the "confession" of a priest who claims became a member of a secret assassin cult which murdered for justice.
He claims his adventure started when a veiled woman visited him in his dreams and told him he was dying and had to do something etc.He leaves the village and travels to Ark.On the way he has an incident that attracts the attention of a mysterious stranger who thinks the priest shows enough promise to become a member of their assassin group of vigilantes. He joins after a painful initiation test and commits numerous murders for justice but in the end he abandons the cult and stops killing,due to moral conflict.In the last pages of book 10,another person notes that the priest just went mad and murdered innocent poor people,not rich sinners that had managed to escape both divine and man's justice.

There are similarities between the story of the mad priest and ours.

Both have traumatic childhoods with abusive fathers and weak mothers.

Both are insignificant and too powerless to bring justice on their own.

Both have weird dreams that torment them.

Both are visited by a veiled woman in their dreams who nudges them to begin their quest.

Both became awesome fighters,when before were weaklings.

Maybe our character is also crazy and the veiled woman is guilt or madness personified.Maybe nothing is real and it all happened in our heads.

[svaln]

If I remember right, it is in no way confirmed that the notes in 10th book are truthful. Maybe the books actually tells us more truth than official version, maybe the notes are lies, and in such light our encounters with the Veiled Woman could actually be considered as a proof to the Butcher version of events.
But well, I actually like such explanation. It makes the endings way less depressing

[simtam]

So you think that the role of "The Butcher of Ark" in Enderal is more significant than that of "Tales of the Black Freighter" in the Watchmen comic-book?

[ArsCortica]

I wrote a rather lengthy analysis of this in the German forums. Apart from what you've already mentioned, here's the abridged version of the stuff I additionally saw in the story:

On the the player and NPCs:

- Jespar, Player Character: Guilt-ridden over being unable to save someone close to him from danger
- Calia: Has an inner demon implanted into him by a foreign force (his father, via his superstition about demons)
- Player Character: The Butcher is seem as a "tainted" child because his mother is a prostitute. The player character is seen as a "tainted" child because s/he was born from bedlock (there's still debates on whether or not the tainted child actually was the PC's little sister).
- (New) Tealor: Both want to save the world from doom, even if this comes at the cost of others

On the veiled woman:

- If the Butcher saw her, but also is delusional, then it could be deduced that the PC also must be delusional, or the Butcher must be sane.

On the Butcher being Fleshless

- The initiation ritual: The Butcher had to ritually kill himself in order to become part of the order, but someone felt just fine afterwards. Seems similar to a certain someone who drowned (PC) and a certain someone who froze to death (Tealor).

- As you've rightfully stated, the Butcher the speed at which the Butcher learns new skills mirrors that of the PC

- When the Butcher realizes that his last victim only became what he was because he previously had murdered his father (pay attention to the bear emblem), he quickly realizes that he does not remove the corrupt, but rather creates a cycle of murder and cause for murder. Qualian outright tells him that it is a cycle. Like the bigger cycle we know from the main game, where the High Ones merrily influence the foolish mortals to their own demise and misery. Pretty much the most obvious connection.

The Nectar of Sin (Unsure of the correct word for the English version of the text)

- Mirror's the PC's ability to look in the past, especially towards violent events - even if on a much smaller scale, and with other triggers

On Mitumial Dal'Joul:

Mitumial actually mirrors the character of Jael - both suffer from an abusive father who only sees weakness and corruption everywhere, and who mistreats their respective mothers. Unlike Jael, however, Mitumial realizes that the behavior of his father is not him being plainly evil, but him being weak and helpless. Mitumial originally refused to become like his father, but tragically, the latter's death at the hands of Jael seal Dal'Joul's fate and turn him into an equally sociopathic person as his father was and the Butcher is.

On the Idea that the Butcher is bonkers:
Giving the addendum in the tenth book, it seems that the Butcher is completely delusional, murdering the homeless and the sick as he imagines himself as some sort of Vigilante. However, the PC in the main game can find a weapon called "Qualian's Salvation" (again, not sure if this is the correct English name), a two-handed warhammer bearing the name of a character that, technically speaking, should not even exist outside of Jael's head. Furthermore, there's the entire thing with the veiled woman.

So, the Keeper who wrote the addendum seems to have done the Butcher quite some injustice, but as the OP has also rightfully started, there's also a fairly reasonable chance that the PC is as bonkers as Jael is, and in particular, that the entire events of Enderal are nothing more than the PC's "Light at the end of the tunnel"-scenario as s/he drowns after being thrown overboard.

The latter theory is too big to go into to much detail here, but consider that the most important NPCs (Jespar, Calia, Ryneus, Tealor, the Aged Man) all somehow mirror the PC's fears and ambitions, that the entire Fleshless/High Ones plot could just be a metaphor for the PC seeking absolution in his last dying breaths (or the lack thereof), and that the Veiled Lady only shows the PC "What could have been".

[MyLongestJourney]

. However, the PC in the main game can find a weapon called "Qualian's Salvation" (again, not sure if this is the correct English name), a two-handed war-hammer bearing the name of a character that, technically speaking, should not even exist outside of Jael's head. Furthermore, there's the entire thing with the veiled woman.

About the hammer:Well somebody maybe read the book and got inspired by it to name the hammer?Maybe is is just a coincidence?Maybe there is more than one person named Qualian?.Furthermore there is the matter of the victims.Either the reviewer was lying about the identity of the victims slandering Jael as a part of a coverup or he was not.If he was not then delusional Jael only murdered innocent poor victims in the Undercity and was truly a paranoid schizophrenic murderer.

The veiled woman just might be a personification of madness.Or that click that happens in a traumatized person heads that starts the spiral into total madness.

So you think that the role of "The Butcher of Ark" in Enderal is more significant than that of "Tales of the Black Freighter" in the Watchmen comic-book?

I am not familiar with them so I can not really say.

Edit:So I come to this conclusion:If Jael was indeed a paranoid murderer then our protagonist is also paranoid.He/she probably heard of the story of the Butcher in the past and incorporated it as a "book" in the fictional world his/her mind created.

If what Jael wrote is true and he was simply slandered by the order (but why by the order?) or Black Libra (understandable) then his story is simply an allegory of the cycle of misery human hatred and violence creates.

The most significant question the game poses to us is if humanity can break that cycle.

In the first ending where we sacrifice ourselves to give people another chance,we trust that the old humanity will do it,learning by the past mistakes.

In the second ending where we flee to the starts letting the old humanity perish we face the problem of creating a new humanity that will not fall again to cycle of violence.

[simtam]

It's a story within a story; a fictional book that exist within the fictional universe, that we occasionally see fragments of, telling a story which is theorized to mirror that of certain character(s) in the main story.

[ArsCortica]

. However, the PC in the main game can find a weapon called "Qualian's Salvation" (again, not sure if this is the correct English name), a two-handed war-hammer bearing the name of a character that, technically speaking, should not even exist outside of Jael's head. Furthermore, there's the entire thing with the veiled woman.

About the hammer:Well somebody maybe read the book and got inspired by it to name the hammer?Maybe is is just a coincidence?Maybe there is more than one person named Qualian?.Furthermore there is the matter of the victims.Either the reviewer was lying about the identity of the victims slandering Jael as a part of a coverup or he was not.If he was not then delusional Jael only murdered innocent poor victims in the Undercity and was truly a paranoid schizophrenic murderer.

The veiled woman just might be a personification of madness.Or that click that happens in a traumatized person heads that starts the spiral into total madness.

Regarding Qualian's Salvation - if we were talking about the everyday world, sure, it might very well be that it's based on someone by the same name, or that somebody just read the books and named the warhammer after the character. However, we're talking about a specific game narrative here - what are the chances the writer choose that specific name for this specific weapon just to create a coincidence?

Regarding the victims - it's the Undercity. I'm fairly certain there's more than enough people that would merrily cut up people down there, not just Jael.

Regarding the veiled woman - she may very well be the personification of madness, but it's odd that two different people have an identical image of her.


HOWEVER: I do not actually want to deny that Jael and the player characters are insane. Again, this all may just be in the PC's head as s/he is drowning.

[MyLongestJourney]

- she may very well be the personification of madness, but it's odd that two different people have an identical image of her.

But there aren't really two people if we go with the madness scenario.There is only one person going mad and creating a complex but fictional world.The book series Butcher of Ark is in his/her head too,and so is the hammer.So the veiled woman is imagined by one person and implemented in the world in various places and times including the book.Same goes for the hammer.It is part of the imaginary world.

[Casper]

a few things here, just mind candy...

assuming the main character's dreams aren't being completely influenced by the high-ones (i actually think they're altering the dreams to warp a vital moment in the character's development in an attempt to break him/her), s/he is suffering from a traumatic childhood drama, and likely survivor's guilt. i have to wonder if the main character is actually getting a clearer picture of this past trauma, or if s/he is slipping deeper into psychosis and the dreams are a part of this. given the events in the game (assuming most of this isn't a delusional episode) i would say that the character is being exposed to more trauma, worsting his/her mental condition. though such things can go either way (as far as i know, i'm not a medical professional so don't quote me), new trauma can open old wounds, causing one to revisit the event or it can cause the individual to warp events within their head.

(note: i actually think the later is wrong, as i actually think the high-ones are altering the mc's dreams)

as for the butcher, i don't actually think he is the mc, nor are the books related to the player character directly... however i think it is likely that he was supposed to become this cycle's profit, and the veiled women interfered to force him from the position so the mc could assume the role instead.

(note: i haven't found all the butcher books, so i don't have the complete picture.)

if this whole story is a figment of the main character's fractured mind or a vision within the last few moments of the character's life before drowning... i think the game and the ending would have been more positive, especially the endings or they would have been far more unpleasant.

(but as i said earlier i'm not a head shrink, this is just an unprofessional opinion)

[Makesin]

I'll have to replay Enderal to get a clearer look at some (a lot of) the foreshadowing, but if I remember clearly, in the beginning, the main characters tells Sirius that they are having a recuring nightmare (i.e. the dream that starts the game, with a father accusing his child of murdering the entire family and trying to devour as much flesh as he can while burning). And yet it is the only time we see this dream, because all the other dreams are different (the second dream has the whole family dining, the third dream has the father listening to himself arguing with his pregnant wife, the fourth dream showing either four graves or the love interest based on the ending).

It would be strange if recuring nightmares suddenly changed so dramatically on their own, especially when, in my opinion, the game story, while dramatic, doesn't seem to be something so terrible as to worsen the condition of someone who witnessed his whole family being burnt at stake. So I'd personally would also sign to the High Ones Altering the Dreams theory.

As for the Butcher, wasn't it mentioned that that companion of his also saw the Veiled Woman?