What are the Tones?
Whomst've asked me this. You're fuelling my unending obsession, thank you.
I posted about the tones before! Most of it is listed in this post! But I'd like to add some stuff now that it's been some time since then.
The tones are noises made by the spires on Mercury (Lighthouses). Whenever someone dies, the spires emit a tone. They basically react to death in various ways, depending on how the death happens; there's different tones to dying to Light as well as different tones to a perma-death. This is peculiar because nobody could hear them except Brother Vance.
He made Trials of Osiris to study them (because it's an endless source of Guardians dying over and over). Mara knew about his research (Trials was accessed in the Reef in D1) and warned him to stop because it's dangerous. It's unclear why. Osiris did the same years later. As a matter of fact, Osiris was super dramatic about it:
"What I have discovered…"
"…is dangerous enough to destroy every man, woman, and child in existence. You're meddling with forces outside your grasp," Osiris reprimanded.
The tones are interesting because they're still largely unexplained. Mara implied that they symbolise Guardians being attuned to Darkness and being able to wield it, which is true, but Osiris' reaction implies something more. And it has to be more, because Osiris detected the same tones as coming from the anomalies of the missing planets and from the Pyramids. Long post under:
In my previous post I also connected that to the fact that egregore seems to be emitting some sort of sound/frequency attuned to the same thing: anomalies, Pyramids and, obviously, to the source of it all (the Witness). So there's some sort of frequency in Darkness that is audible and comes from all places connected to the Darkness network (and that network manifests physically as egregore). And in this case, anomalies and Pyramids (and ships infested with egregore like Glykon and Leviathan) are fine; it makes sense that they link to the Witness!
But spires on Mercury? Why them? My bestie made a post recently after we went unhinged (again) because the same lore book that deals with the tones also makes a really strong implication that the Vex were deliberately led to Mercury by the Pyramid Fleet in the Collapse. There, the Vex drained Mercury of Light, hollowed out the planet and used its materials to make the spires (and the Infinite Forest, a simulation engine) and then they waited for the Pyramids to return. Which they did, in Arrivals.
To make things more complex, after Titan came back, it was confirmed that the Witness did not take the planets randomly. There was a purpose to each one being stolen. Mars was taken to search through our Golden Age and Collapse database in order to find where the Veil may have been hidden. This could've been just a random coincidence, but then Titan came back and we learned that the Witness wanted Ahsa dead because Ahsa not only knows the origins of the Witness, but also how to get through the portal (and who knows if she has any other potential powers to helps us get in there or help us otherwise).
Io is unclear, but there are many options; it may have been taken for the Pyramidion and Vex stuff which Asher got ahead of. It may have been taken to study the Tree of Silver Wings (the Witness had another seed it gave Calus in Lightfall), or it may have been taken to study the Traveler's past or the Light in general or maybe something else. The point is, there are options that we can understand.
But Mercury? Zero clue. The only thing that may have been of interest is the Infinite Forest, but Vance sealed it so if the Witness took Mercury for that and couldn't get into the Forest, then Mercury would've been useless and probably released sooner unless the Witness is just keeping it out of spite or thought that maybe it would be able to find a way inside. And of course... there's the spires and the tones. Mercury is somehow linked to Darkness and the Witness, it has to be, and we have no clue what the Witness wants with it.
Not only that, but there's another curious thing about Mercury, or rather, the anomaly of it. It was mentioned in Duality dungeon, by Calus. When Calus tried talking to the Witness on the Glykon, the Witness eventually responded and it told Calus to come to the anomaly of Mercury:
Through the Crown of Sorrow, the Voice in the Darkness called out to me, beckoning me to the absence of Mercury. At first, I feared the Leviathan would not survive the journey, as the Glykon had been rent asunder by a similar journey. By my Leviathan, it is strong. Its heart beats anew, and as it pierced the veil of creation... the Voice greeted me. There were such sights to behold.
So when Calus disappeared off the Glykon, he went back to the Leviathan and bolted straight for the Mercury anomaly in which he was able to communicate with the Witness. Why Mercury? Glykon went into the Mars anomaly. Why couldn't the Witness speak to Calus in there? Or in any of the other anomalies? Why specifically Mercury? This is driving me insane.
But if Mercury is somehow connected to the Darkness network through the spires, is it possible that it serves as some sort of a communications hub? Maybe that's why the Witness is still keeping it? And it still is! We can see it in Root of Nightmares, in the Witness' room. Titan is still obviously there as well because it came out before Titan returned, but Mercury and Io are still trapped. This is also confirmed by the tiny excerpt we can see from the TFS Collector's Edition which I talked about in here.
Or the reason for Mercury is something completely different. We have no clue why Mercury was taken and what's going on there and why the Witness called Calus there and why the tones happened and why are they the same tones that can also be heard from anomalies and Pyramids.
To fuel me even more, they decided to drop two lore pieces in Season of the Deep that relate to Mercury and the tones tangentially. I know literally everyone and their grandma thinks that Targeted Redaction is just there to be funny (and so did I at first), but I genuinely can't accept that as being just a joke. The gist of it is that Osiris has no clue who Vance is and that is, to put it simply, impossible.
Obviously Osiris did not like the Cult and they were annoying to him, but he knew Vance. He spoke to him only once, but Vance is the one who told him to "plant the seed," a message that Mara gave him years before. This literally sets up the entire Season of Arrivals. Not only that, but Vance told Osiris about the tones and Osiris was deeply troubled about them. He's the one who continued the research and went around the solar system after planets disappeared, investigating anomalies and discovering that they emit the same tones. He mentions Vance, by name, twice in Immolant:
"Do you hear that?" Osiris asks, turning to Sagira. He turns the ship's scanning array toward the anomaly. "Like the tones Vance described. From the spires, and then the Pyramids. It was coming from the anomaly that replaced Io as well."
"We could use the Crucible right now. Your trials. This will be very helpful. You mean to stay, yes?"
"I will. Long enough to show you how to implement the simulation; but tonight, I must disembark," Osiris says.
"So soon?"
Osiris tenses his jaw in forced silence. He twiddles with code. "I'm worried about what Vance found."
At the same time, Osiris also sends us the seasonal artifact from Hunt, Fang of Xivu Arath. In it, he mentions:
The zealots that followed me to Mercury have proved themselves useful… twice now, actually. They possessed an artifact in their stores: a Hive fang.
The zealots being useful "twice" refers to Vance telling him about the seed and having this artifact kept safely in the Lighthouse (technically, it's three times: in Curse of Osiris, Vance told us where to find the machine to bring Sagira back and it was being kept by the Cult, but it's unclear if we told Osiris the details). Osiris, again, specifically mentions Vance when he recounts where he got it from, in Immolant:
Sagira had chided him for storming the Lighthouse and ransacking Vance's possessions. "They're my relics," he said to silence her protests.
I know Osiris has been through a lot, but his memories are completely and perfectly intact... Except for Vance. That's bizarre to me, given that there's several important points that tie them together, like planting the seed on Io (something he wouldn't have known to do without Vance relaying Mara's message) and research of the tones, something that Osiris spent a lot of time doing and was explicitly worried about; so worried, in fact, that he was willing to part ways with Saint just to continue that research.
In my old post I also mentioned how Osiris even went to Ana to tell her to ask Rasputin if he heard any tones in the Collapse, but Rasputin wasn't up yet. And when Rasputin was finally up, we had much bigger problems to deal with so I assumed that Osiris never asked because the priority was to find what's on Neptune. But now I think that Osiris didn't ask because he doesn't remember. Because the memory of Vance and tones and whatever they mean was deliberately removed from him while Savathun had him imprisoned. Or, perhaps, the Nezarec tea messed with it. After all, Darkness is memory.
This would obviously imply that the tones are something so important and dangerous that Savathun (or someone else) wanted Osiris' knowledge of it removed so that maybe she could have leverage or to know something we don't or perhaps for some other purpose by some other actor. This was such a big point that the entirety of Immolant part 1 is almost exclusively dedicated to Osiris inquiring into the tones.
Another possibility is also that Osiris' memory of Vance was messed with because of Io and the seed and Tree (and then as a consequence, obviously, he would also forget about the tones).
There's also a possibility that Savathun is literally right now messing with me and she did it for no reason at all just to generate imbaru or mess with Osiris or maybe she even wanted to do one nice thing for him and remove the memory of the weird Cult and the tones aren't important at all.
But I don't know. The fact that they're the same thing that the whole Darkness network uses and that ultimately leads to the Witness seems like something that should be important. However, I don't think Mercury will return before TFS, especially since TFS CE has Eido writing about how Mercury is still in the Witness' grasp. But, consider also that we don't know the timeline of when Eido's writing is set. It has to be set after Ahsa's reveal about the Witness' origins, but before TFS. We don't have enough information to tell more. There's also Vex shenanigans to consider, something that will certainly be a plot point post-TFS and Mercury is a prime location for that.
Either way, there's something going on here, added also with the second lore tab release in Season of the Deep that tangentially ties to Mercury, which is Unexpected Resurgence. In it, Shayura is approached by Sister Faora, an incredibly niche character who was leading the Cult of Osiris before Vance. She's shown still wearing the insignia of the Cult. We never learned why she stopped leading them and why Vance took over; she just kinda disappears from the lore book (Trials and Tribulations, the one about the tones). But apparently she's in the City and she's still wearing the Cult robes and she's back in the story... for some reason??
It honestly feels like some sort of a setup for something in the future, something that might deal with Mercury's return. I need to stress just how small she is as a character: she only actually appears in three lore tabs before Unexpected Resurgence, all in the same lore book. The rest of her stuff is just flavour text on the Kairos Function armour pieces from Curse of Osiris. That's it. Why return her in Season of the Deep? Mind boggling.
This whole thing about the tones and Mercury consumes me every day and night. The fact that Deep mentioned Vance in a way easily dismissed as a joke (but also, note the name of the weapon: targeted redaction) as well as Faora coming back is just too wild to me to be a random throwback or a just a joke. Not when it's beyond clear that Osiris should remember Vance, the Cult, the tones and the rest of it. It's even unclear at this point if he remembers that he planted the seed on Io.
So what are the tones? What are they indeed. They're music from the spires of Mercury that reacts to death and uses the same frequency as the entire Darkness network with the Witness at the top. What is their purpose and what is the purpose of Mercury and why did the Witness take it and what is this plotline and when will it be resolved? Summary:
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Some thoughts on Asra's route...
Replaying Asra's route after having played Muriel's really hits different...
In one of the other routes Asra and Muriel appear to start a romantic relationship, and in Asra's route it's very clear that Muriel cares very deeply for Asra and dislikes the Apprentice. He mentions in one of the paid? dream scenes that he's worried about Asra and the Apprentice fading into their own world and leaving everyone else behind (again, apparently), and that he's determined to stop this from happening. His concern for Asra and initial hostility toward the Apprentice may be rooted in jealousy, not only because his oldest (and only) friend was more or less taken from him, but perhaps with romantic connotations as well.
In Book XI: Justice, Asra and Julian stage a mock trial by combat against Muriel. Though he apparently agreed to participate and is implied to have returned to the Coliseum of his own volition, presumably out of concern for Asra, who has been accused of being Julian's accomplice... he is still more or less backed into a corner and forced to play along with Asra and Julian's plan to stage a fight.
Now, to be fair to Asra, he states after everything goes wrong that it wasn't supposed to end this way, and it appeared that he was attempting to not only exonerate himself and Julian from their charges but somehow help Muriel overcome his past (he does disintegrate Muriel's chains during the fight no matter what choices you make). There was a point during this that I thought I could guess what Asra's plan was regarding Muriel's past, but being refreshed on how it actually pans out, I can't remember it now. Something about making the people of Vesuvia realize how barbaric the Coliseum was under Lucio.
The thing that stands out to me throughout this whole ordeal is that Asra knows about Muriel's trauma. He knows he was enslaved to Lucio and forced to fight and execute people in the Coliseum. He knows that Muriel is terrified of hurting other people, especially those he cares about. In Asra's route, the only person Muriel cares about is Asra, so hurting him is triggering for him. He literally is in a stupor after the board he was using as a weapon splinters off and hits Asra in the mouth, making him bleed. This is clearly meant to make the reader worried about Asra, but Muriel reacts as well, and appears hypnotized by the blood. I remember the first time I read this I thought he was going to have some crazy berserker-Hulk sort of reaction, but having read his route, it's way more tragic.
Though Muriel did seem to return to the Coliseum of his own volition, it does seem that Asra took this as a sign that he was coming to terms with his trauma. He was willing to exploit Muriel's care for him in order to save his own skin so he can be with the Apprentice. Though I recognize Asra's other toxic traits to some degree, I also have similar ones myself so they don't really stand out to me. This, however, where he more or less disregards Muriel's feelings on the matter, is actually really crushing. In Muriel's route, his whole thing is that he DOES NOT want to fight, he DOES NOT want to even spar with the Apprentice with blunt sticks out of fear of hurting them, so why would he willingly go along with this unless he was more or less in the same position Lucio put him in? Fight in the arena, or something bad will happen to Asra.
Asra knows this, and puts him through it regardless. During the whole fight, Julian's actions are written so as to make it seem like he's the one messing things up--he takes the "finishing blow" that Muriel was going to deal to Asra and gets knocked unconscious. Asra spends most of the entire time doing flashy, dramatic magic tricks that get the crowd cheering for him. After he "wins", he and the Apprentice are carried out of the Coliseum like heroes. Though Asra will try to soothe Muriel if the Apprentice so chooses right before the end, and he does look for Muriel in the crowd, he seems otherwise unbothered or unaware of the impact this may be having on his oldest friend. Which is pretty shitty.
Of course, Asra, Julian, and Muriel are all playing characters during their fight--Asra is the flashy magician, Julian is the rogueish BDSM dagger guy, and Muriel is the Scourge. Asra obviously can't show his concern even if he wanted to because he's supposed to be fighting Muriel. But putting his bro into this situation in the first place says a lot about his character. Though Julian is the one whose route is based around self-loathing because he believes he hurts everyone around him, Asra is the only one who gets what he wants out of this ordeal, and he even says so right before the chapter ends. Muriel was forced to relive his trauma and didn't get the resolution that was intended, and Julian gets KOed by a punch that literally sent him flying across the arena (though he probably enjoyed it tbh, he's a nasty little man like that lmao).
I wonder if this dynamic between Asra and Muriel was intentionally written this way in order to further amplify his tunnel vision when it comes to the Apprentice. Is this is how he acted in the past, causing Muriel to hate the Apprentice as he does and remark that he won't allow it to happen again? Maybe (probably) I'm reading too much into it, but as a survivor of abuse and trauma it rubs me the wrong way much more than Asra's obsessive, clingy nature. Of all of the reversed ends, Asra's is the one that actually scared me and kind of haunted me, because it hits a little too close to home.
These are all just thoughts that I wanted to spill out because I thought it was interesting and I wasn't sure if anyone else has talked about it before.
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╰┈➤ VI TALKS ABOUT THOR/MCU / anon / no longer accepting !
🔥 ( Thor and his relationship with Frigga )
||. Oh, man, Thor/Frigga is an interesting topic - because I feel the thor/mcu fandom tends to really characterize her one of two ways, and both are right and both are wrong.
The FIRST WAY is that "Frigga is a saint who can do no wrong, absolutely adores both of her boys and is the perfect mother" and... while I think that Frigga is certainly a perfectly loving and caring mother (and person tbh.) she very clearly had her FAVORITE son. There's a huge element of neglect towards Thor that goes overlooked in this take that I don't agree with, even if I don't subscribe to the idea that Frigga was purposefully neglectful, either.
....Which happens to be the SECOND WAY that the fandom (mostly the mcu!loki fandom, as usual) mischaracterizes Frigga, and by proxy Thor/Frigga's bond as well. In this take, they make Frigga's favoritism and doting over Loki go too far. To the point where she's passive-aggressive and borderline toxic, just because Thor isn't her precious uwu frost-baby. I am a FIRM believer that even if Loki was her favored son to hang out with, Frigga still didn't love Thor any less. It's just a very complex relationship, overall.
My personal take on Frigga is as follows:
Ultimately: Thor is her son! Her only child! And so is Loki, and I think she loved them BOTH so dearly. At the end of the day though, Thor has to spend his time with the other aesir in the family, and that's not Frigga, it's Odin. Not only that, but Frigga has more in common with Loki, so they have more to talk about in 1:1 moments together. What I think this led to was an unfortunate cycle in which she spent so much energy doting over Loki, making sure he felt seen/heard and had "some sun for himself" that she COMPLETELY neglected to see that her other son was in just as much pain as the youngest was; that while Loki is the underdog, Thor still needed his mother, and DID NOT have it all together. She was completely fooled by Thor's façade just like everyone else. And only realized how estranged they had become when it was too late, and she couldn't reach Thor anymore. (She also died before she could make it right.)
To further explain these two opposing takes, the first characterization comes (presumably) from the following:
Frigga being a very wise and clearly empathetic individual. The "glue" that keeps the family together. (a general observation due to how she interacts with her family. specifically: "[Odin] kept the truth [about you being a frost giant] from you so that you would never feel different. You are our son, Loki, and we your family. You must know that." thor (2011), and immediately accepting jane as her daughter-in-law in Thor: Dark World comes to mind. )
Frigga arguing with Odin about Thor's banishment (deleted scene.)
Frigga (attempting) to assuage Thor's anxiety pre!coronation (deleted scene)
I think this particular take is relatively accurate in characterizing Frigga's motherly nature, yes. But what it neglects to keep in mind is that:
Frigga was complicit in the lie of Loki's heritage. Her line about "Odin" not wanting Loki to feel different can also be read as her using Odin as a bit of straw-man for her own feelings. (@mischiefmodig and I have actually come to the conclusion "not wanting loki to feel different" was originally HER idea when Loki was very small. Odin is too pragmatic to come up with it. BUT when he got older, Frigga changed her mind, and Odin didn't want to tell Loki at that point because it'd cause a meltdown. Which it did.)
Frigga arguing for Thor's sake post!banishment was NOT done while Thor was aware of this development. HE IS NOT AWARE THAT THIS HAPPENED. From his perspective, she never fought for him, and more importantly: even if he did find out AFTER the fact, during his banishment, THOR DIDN'T EXPECT HER TO. In fact, Thor accepts that Frigga disowned him the second Loki lies to his face about that detail in THOR. (Re: "Mother has forbidden your return.") It makes no sense for Thor to believe this so immediately if they were close. (he WAS close to Loki, who he trusts implicitly, especially because he's family.)
While Frigga does attempt to assuage Thor's anxiety before the coronation, the key word here is ATTEMPT. She doesn't succeed. It's actually staggering how badly she misses the mark, and he continues to be largely unfocused and anxious about it. Even though Loki's scene with Thor happened before Frigga's, it was Loki who was able to say what needed to be said to calm Thor down where Frigga couldn't. ("You're my brother, and my friend [...] never doubt that I love you." / T: "How do I look?" L: "Like a king.")
The second take comes from a very loud and large portion of the loki!fandom in particular who absolutely despises Thor as a character and prefer Loki in every way. To the point where, I suppose, Thor is "an abusive brother"... Which makes no sense. It's ultimately a lot of projection. HOWEVER, I can't say it's entirely inaccurate to the favoritism displayed either. Some things I can say Frigga messed up on are as follows:
The official marvel comic (taking place between thor 2011 and avengers) in which Frigga endlessly searches for Loki and refuses to believe he's dead instead of mourning his loss with her husband and son. (Which is saying a lot, given that Thor and Odin both saw Loki attempt suicide by letting go into a black hole.) While she was right in the end, this is ... really negligent at the end of the day. (it puts SUCH a bad taste in my mouth that I refuse to consider it canon since it's not the movie's material anyways. I do think she searched for Loki, but more that she was searching for his body so they could have SOMETHING to bury.)
This scene of Frigga telling Thor that "[he] and your father cast large shadows"... Which is true and not necessarily a bad thing to say, but the line that preceded this was ultimately Thor just asking Frigga if she regrets teaching Loki her magic because of all the trouble (and war crimes) he’s committed with it…. And her answer was no —> proceeds to remind thor that he overshadowed Loki. (I don't think he took that personally or was bothered by it, but the answer isn't exactly well-timed or considerate of ... everything.)
TL;DR: Thor and Frigga aren't close. They're "close enough", but the fact that he doesn't shed tears at her funeral, (he weeps for loki THREE TIMES and is utterly enraged by Odin's death. Hers is the ONLY death thor is witness to where he does not actively react to at all.), speaks of her as if he's speaking highly of a well-esteemed stranger, has no reaction to her attempts to meet his emotional needs, responds minimally to her physical affections (mostly talking about body language, he's very stiff with her in a safe environment vs. a battle environment, as shown respectively), actively shuts her out in a time of mourning (she has to ask sif how her OWN SON is doing post!loki's death), and fully believed that she would not have fought for his right to return home —and in fact, FORBADE IT — with no questioning shows me as much, even if they do have some very soft moments together.
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