dividedheartkeeper

[dividedheartkeeper]

going very so much insane over the fact that the beasts, once called the Five VIRTUES. hmm. hmmmmmmmmmm

yeah no they aren't. "virtues" yeah that's going in the dumpster.

a theory: the beasts were given ABSTRACT CONCEPTS as their powers. abstract powers, likely disguised with "virtue" as a label.

there's so much i could/should say about this but lowkey...

if we define "virtue" as "having high moral standards" or "the quality of being morally good" there's some things we can see here

for example... knowledge, if we define it as "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject" (taken from google definitions)

as you can see. having knowledge isn't explicitly defined as "being virtuous". however, apparently having knowledge is a FACTOR for being virtuous. or being morally good, in that sense.

because you can apply knowledge anywhere. both in good and bad ways. you can learn something "good" or "bad" it's how people act on that knowledge is whether it can be considered "virtuous". and even that's a morally grey ocean i'm not going to even dive into yet.

but as you can see with Shadow milk and Pure vanilla (and also their diverged forms) there's a HUGE difference.

Shadow milk uses deceit for his own selfish desires, and that being hurting others. and it's glaringly obvious he doesn't give two shits about anyone other than himself and those on his side.

the Sage, while seemingly different than shadow milk, leads others to the cruel truth (and he KNOWS it's cruel) but he could care less anyhow. he doesn't care because all he does care about is enlightenment. because what is there to fear when you know the real truth?

Pure vanilla uses truth for the good of others. he seeks the truth for this purpose. though, he knows how terrible it can be, shown with Recluse in canon. BUT, after both embracing truth and deceit when awakening, PV carefully treads the line of how to use his own knowledge to help others because he cares about them.

Diverged Recluse is similar in that vein but he's all for avoiding the cruel truth for the good of others. he doesn't want to see them get hurt. and while he embraces deceit, he leads others away from what will hurt them. Recluse uses his knowledge of the truth because, like PV, he cares about them.

if you notice, shadow milk/sage does not care about whether their actions are being "good". and, well. pure vanilla/recluse does. very much. tying it back to the definition of "virtue", you can say that pv/recluse is "virtuous". and smilk/sage is not.

the fount of knowledge is a bit of a grey, foggy area since we don't know much about him specifically, but going by the notion of he does what he's created to do, which is spread and teach knowledge to the cookies - he's most likely unaware of what the potential consequences of knowing can do. that potential being hurting others, though it mostly helps them. presumably, it's because he was never told this side of it so.

fount's just doing what he's been told to do, and not because it will help or hurt others necessarily. and if we try to apply the definition of "being virtuous" to him it gets confusing. there's not necessarily a motivator for him to care about others, especially since he's an omniscient-like Cookie and revered for his power. he's so distanced from his followers it's likely he doesn't care about them on the level like Pure vanilla does. not because he hates them (or does he?) it's just because there's no close connections forming.

which brings up some... interesting things.

like... at this point, can you even call knowledge itself a virtue?

because it's supposedly not. it's an abstract, subjective concept. anyone can take a concept and twist it into something good or bad. it's how people act on the knowledge is being "virtuous."

this can be applied to happiness, volition, change, and solidarity, (though solidarity's a bit of a vague one since silent salt's not released yet, and also it involves unity/agreement between people. but i guess that's another topic for another day)

i'm not going to go into depth with those since i'm tired but i'll probably expand on that later. but anyway.

the beasts were given abstract concepts, labeled falsely as "virtues" and were likely, only taught the neutral/good things about their "virtue". that's why when discovering the "bad" side they got corrupted, since they literally DID NOT KNOW that the side of their concept existed in the first place. because it was there, all along. they were given SUBJECTIVE powers, with the potential for being seen as "bad."

man the witches are really being the narrator from slay the princess rn, slapping labels on their creations without thinking WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE. can we put them in a mirror. and shatter them please /ref

i can be wrong about this though, after all! i definitely missed some details with this (and also it's my interpretation of smilk and pv, all of this anyhow)

also i'm just some deranged idiot rambling about this stupid ass theory when i should be sleeping, and i'm like. dead tired rn lmao (also first post on this blog... a ramble... yayyy...)

very curious what other people think of it all though!!! even this theory is subjective lol, i'm literally only (softly) yelling this out here to a void because talking directly to other people about my weird as hell philosophical ramblings frightens me haha... and i'm going to explode if i don't drag anyone into my eldritch horror reality with me somehow at some point, intentionally or unintentionally. welcome to my world!!! /silly