#this is a thought-in-progress since I'm probs only halfway through the dlc. for all I know I'll change my mind soon but I strongly doubt it

[isaac-roc]

So, here are my thoughts on my little meow meows from the dlc (yes, I'm talking about the owls):

The first word that comes to my mind is ''victims''. These people are victims of the Eye, and of the game itself; the first one is easily explained by that one slide reel, which really broke my heart, in which one of those owls scans the Eye and then falls to the ground in horror after getting a nightmarish vision of what's to come. Just the expression on their face, man. I know I'm still pretty early in the dlc, but so far they present as people who just wanted to protect themselves, or take (very understandable) revenge. I'd say the former.

The second point sounds a bit strange, but it's the best way I can put it: they are "victims" of the game (this is not me saying the game did a bad thing, I think it's brilliant actually), in the sense that everything is made to give them a bad rep. The game itself warns you about being scary, and it's obvious that they're the ones you should fear, gigantic deer-owls with glowing eyes, intruding in our solar system with an eerie invisible ship filled with some dark and frightening mysteries.

But I find them sympathetic in every possible way. First, let's look at their stuff. Second only to Timber Hearth, the Stranger is the most welcoming place in the game. The only danger comes from the structures breaking; as a place itself, it's harmless (unless you're dumb enough to swim in rapids). It's way more friendly than Brittle Hollow and its horrifying annoying black hole, or the Ember Twin, which has the worst death in the game. Now, I'm not blaming this on the Nomai, they did what they could with what they had. But the owl people put a lot of effort into making their spaceship a perfect replica of nature, and they're the only ones to do that in the game. As for the contents and structures of the ship, you'll see a lot of personality - and art - there. Decorated houses, rugs and carpets with pretty geometrical patterns, custom furniture, and gorgeous paintings, not to mention the little stylized stuff, like the sun-shaped rotating plates on the doors. Then there's the decorations in the houses, and now we get to look at the owls as people. Their houses have individual and family portraits in them, which shows that they treasure family bonds, and in the slide reels, you can see that they are a pretty tight-knit community (barring that one portrait which is vandalized, which I'm sure will be relevant soon). You see them working together, sharing discoveries, and in that one very sad scene, comforting each other. To me, they are like the Nomai; an alien species of engineers/artists, who have a penchant for discovery, families, bonds, and an interest in the Eye. Oh, and a bunch of corpses lying around too.

But, unlike the nomai, they are presented as scary. Which definitely works, I am personally playing with a heart rate of 500 bpms, but they are only scary according to our horror clichés (and fear of the dark), and if you forget what they are: owls. Of course their eyes glow in the dark, they're owls. Of course it's dark as hell in their world, they're owls, nocturnal people. (I won't comment on the corpse-rooms yet because I'm not that far in the game.) And yeah, green fire is eerie, but all of their light-based tech is green. And having finally gotten the first jumpscare, I'll say... they're chill. Sure, it was terrifying, and for a second there I thought that bird was getting some slow-mo momentum to go for my fucking throat carnivorous style, but all they did was take a huge breath to... blow out my light. That's it. They just kicked me out of there.

So most of the things we find scary about them can just be explained by "they just live in the dark, man". They're just chill birds, who got betrayed by the one thing they worshipped, and are doing... something about it, not sure what yet. Sure, they're stupid huge and their eyes glow, but that's no reason to assume the worst in them. Or even fear them.

I'll wait till the sun comes back up to play though.