Astronomer / Robot Enjoyer / Sci-fi Enthusiast / Artist (Sometimes)
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-> Check out my Artfight!!! <-
My Blogs:
Art Blog (I post my artwork here.)
Three Stars Above Clouds (An ask blog for my Rain World iterator OC, with a focus on worldbuilding, Rain World lore exploration, and speculative astronomy)
Vague Soma (Posts vaguely related to the game SOMA.)
Soma Archive (My archive of SOMA fan content.)
Main interests at the moment:
Rain World (!!!)
Project Hail Mary (!!) (new)
SOMA
Tron
(Check my featured tags to see other things I mainly post about)
a truly exhaustive analysis of all of the colored pearls in rain world: the watcher: pale pink pearl + bright blue pearl
major spoilers!!
welcome back to the party folks, this is part 2 of the madness inflicted upon me by this game.
essay under readmore to save your dash:
lets get it out of the way: haha funny copper merchant Ea-Nasir reference, its pretty obvious, i think its hilarious and doesnt detract from the canonocity of the pearl; i appreciate it honestly, I'm glad the devs had fun with it.
Two main topics I want to cover on this one; the naming conventions and titles, and the "bonemeal brick."
The names of these two benefactors break away from the vanilla names significantly enough I think we are seeing the naming conventions of a completely different society from... wherever in time.
First, "Pathel of Twelve Spoked Wheels, Grey House Facility".
Grey House Facility is probably not a title and actually a physical place of address, possibly their home or place of employment.
"Pathel" to my knowledge is not a real word? I couldn't find anything except for the Indian surname "Patel", meaning "chief" or "landowner." Ironic since they have no mention of land ownership in their title; recall the subject of the deep magenta pearl:
"In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids, Count of 8 living blocks, Counselor of 16, Grand Master of the Twelfth Pillar of Community, High Commander of opinion group Winged Opinions, of pure Braid heritage, voted Local Champion in the speaking tournament of 1511.090, Mother, Father and Spouse, Spiritual Explorer and honorary member of the Congregation of Balanced Ambiguity. Artist, Warrior, and Fashion Legend."
Wheel here has all of these titles, including one that seems to imply landownership, "Count of 8 living blocks", going off the definition of "count." This pearl is a treasure trove for finding clues about benefactor society, but thats a different essay.
Interesting that both of these people have "spoked wheel" in their names. Possibly just a common motif, or a signal of connection? I don't know.
Now, the other guy, "Three-Carafe Nine-Frond, Grand Manufacturer, House of Astor Leaves".
Their titles line up with 17 Axes', presenting both their job title and their "house" (i personally think these are like family clans). However, their actual name is wildy different. This is the first time we've seen the use of dashes in a name. As well, there are two words of particular interest to me.
A "carafe" is a glass vessel used to pour coffee or wine. Alright, perhaps this guy enjoys their beverages. But "astor leaves" don't exist. the only thing i found searching up "astor" was that it was the surname of a very wealthy family in the 1800s. The only other explanation I can think of is that "astor" is very close to "aster", a family of flowers, so would that indicate a typo? Very odd.
alright. the important part. The Bonemeal Bricks.
from bright blue pearl in industrial, we know of "bone masks" that were once made with "bone plaster." One of the many white pearl dialogue options mentions "bone ash." these people have a running thing for bones.
so my question is: are these bricks and various items actually bone, or are they just named bone due to some quality? If they are actually bone, where are they getting enough bones to make bricks out of them, and assumed enough for entire structures? Are the bones cremated or something into a moldable form? Why do they like bone so much?
We can also look at the masks in the karma murals and see they are golden, not bone-white. Did they gild them, or just use solid gold with no bones for those masks? or, are bones golden in this universe?
This essay wouldn't be complete without also looking at the aforementioned bright blue pearl when placed in the pearl reader. Two for one!
So I have so many thoughts about this
The file name for these are bone masks! That's pretty irrefutable. They sure are... unique. I struggle to imagine how they exactly fit over and attach to the face. To me, these look like various kinds of microorganisms:
(top; image of Diatoms in an artful arrangement; bottom; sample of zooplankton from the central north sea; credit linked)
Look at all those weird shapes. I think they're neat.
So! We know that the benefactors originally created bone masks to abandon a sense of self and become egoless. Over time, the masks become more personalized, until we got to the extravagant gold masks we see in the murals. I think what we are seeing in this pearl is an example of this transition. These masks clearly are not metallic, but have a rough texture I would associate with plaster, and are clearly very individually unique. They're even colorful - did they dye the bone plaster? God, I love these designs.
Unfortunately, thats all I've got right now. I am no closer to solving the mystery of where all of this bone is coming from, or even if it even is bone at all!
I wanted to work on Artfight attacks today but instead I’m melting from the heat + have a pounding headache + probably coming down with a cold. Hell on earth
