Calling Dr. Shingo, Dr. Ragashingo *Spoilers* (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, March 11, 2019, 19:43 (2153 days ago) @ Harmanimus

A caveat worth double checking: My understanding was that Jaren Ward didn’t fire on Yor. He saw the “strike me down” ploy. The follow up being that the ploy worked on Shin. Leading to the rest of all this as being in some ways the plan the whole time.

No, we know he fired all the way back in Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 3

We all woke that night, closer to morning than the previous day.

A crack of gunfire split through the wood. Then more.

Far off, but near enough to pump the blood.

A familiar ring. "Last Word." Jaren's sidearm. His best friend.
Then another. A single shot, an unmistakable echo calling through the night. Hushed, cutting.

One shot, dark and infernal. Followed by silence.

The cadence of the shots fired told a story none of us cared to hear.

"Last Word" it hadn't been. And somewhere in the world, close enough for us to bear absent witness but far enough to be a dream, Jaren Ward lay dead or dying. And there was nothing to be done.

In Ghost Fragment: Thorn 4, Jaren Ward's Ghost converses with Dredgen Yor: (It's an open question which Ghost this is. I think it's Jaren's Ghost, because in Thorn 3, Dredgen Yor intends to part ways with his own Ghost.)

[u.1:0.8] You’ve just murdered a good man.
[u.2:0.8] He shot first.
[u.1:0.9] Yet you stand.
[u.2:0.9] Guess he missed.
[u.1:1.0] He never misses.

And most recently in A Shadow's Worth:

Yor wasn't faster than Jaren. And Jaren didn't miss. Yor was just more than Jaren. Yor was other. It took fire to burn him down, and Jaren, for all his gifts, was lacking in fire.

So, when Jaren faced him down, Yor gave him the first shot, offered freely. But Jaren's lead wasn't enough.

As for the strike me down ploy... No, I still think this all points to Dredgen Yor falling to the Darkness but finally doing some last sliver of good at the end by goading Shin Malphur into killing him. I thought this way back when Ghost Fragment: Thorn 4 came out with The Taken King:

[u.1:3.1] The cannon. You wish to tempt the boy. To spur him on and fuel his rage. There is intent there. The actions of a man, monstrous, mad or otherwise... you are nothing more.
[u.2:3.4] And what value does your conclusion bring, flawed as it may be?
[u.1:3.2] That a hurricane can only be weathered, not stopped. Not redirected. A force of nature is uncaring and without intent, but a man...
[u.2:3.5] Yes?
[u.1:3.3] A man is none of those things.
[silence]
[u.1:3.4] A man can be killed.
[silence]
[u.2:3.6] And there it is...
[u.1:3.5] There what is...?
[u.2:3.7] A sliver of hope.

Yor see's his potential death as a sliver of hope. Back to A Shadow's Worth, we get Shin Malphur's perspective on what Dredgen Yor was doing:

But when Yor and I finally met on the flat, high ridge, I was ready, and, as I would come to find, so was he. Ready to offer his final lesson, his final gift. A final push toward my true destiny.

One that would put me at odds with heroes in order to ensure our worlds are filled with fewer monsters. It was a path I was sure to walk alone, until I found others, until I found trust.

And in Faith in Monsters:

The moment of Jaren's death played on repeat in my mind. Rapid fire. Jaren's cannon, then Yor's. Then silence, long ago, in a nowhere forest out west.

Jaren never missed. Yet he did. Yor, then, didn't. But Jaren was no easy target. Was Yor? He hadn't flinched when I pulled steel. No movement. No change in his tone or words. I gunned him down mid-sentence, as if he didn't care. He knew I would. Knew I'd draw. Knew I'd fire. So, why the talk? Why have words when he knew mine would be loud, mine would be death?

Maybe you'll understand this without further explanation. Maybe you won't. But the answer is—and it set my course for every moment after—

Because he believed in me.

Shin Malphur then asks a very interesting question in The Pain of What's Right:

Did the fact I began as a victim color your perception of me? Is my path—my cause—more righteous because I was owed justice and vengeance?

For the longest time I thought so. But then—and here is where the truth of it all begins to gain focus—

What if the villain of the story believed so? What if the villain tore apart my life, and countless others', as a terrible means to an end? What if I was lost, and he offered guidance by gifting me vengeance?

What if I told you…

He was right to do so.

In some ways, I'm not sure that the story of The Last Word was ever meant to go down this path. I wonder if I might be happier if the story "ended" with Shin Malphur as the Man with the Golden Gun who hunts down Guardians who slip and who offers no exceptions. But in other ways, the story has now taken on a new, interesting twist. And for all the evil that Rezyl Azzir (Dredgen Yor) did, this new twist ultimately sees him redeemed. And now we have the Shadows, a group of Guardians:

Offering two paths in order to draw out those eager for power beyond their means.

There is a theory going around that Shin Malphur fell to the Darkness in the say way Dredgen Yor did, but I really don't think so. In Revelations and Invitations he says this:

The Shadows are a danger. We are guided by the evolved and controlled methods of Dredgen Yor, except instead of death and destruction, I am offering the mysteries and powers of the Darkness as bait for those who would otherwise go freely into the abyss.

I have built the perfect trap with which to cull the weak-willed.

And it is working.

So we have Shin Malphur, aka Zyre Orsa, aka Dredgen Vale carrying out that same ongoing mission to prevent Guardians from falling to the Darkness by any means necessary, but now it's been revealed that some of those means are actively tempting at risk Guardians. Is that better or worse than trying to encourage those Guardians back to the Light? Or is that job already well taken care of via the Vanguard and each Guardian's Ghost? Maybe Shin Malphur's temptation of at risk Guardians is a necessary evil to catch those who don't want to be encouraged?

Interesting stuff!