Another headcanon I have for Malroth is, human Malroth is very verbose and he always has something to say for everything, but God Malroth basically never talks outside of one or two lines....
In fact, the 10 lines or so we get from B2 account for the majority of God Malroth's lines ever.
(No, II HD remake does not count, he got possessed on that one.
Moonahan is also possession by Hargon, so doesn't count either.
Only the few lines T A L K I N G L I K E T H I S in b2 are actually God Malroth)
Anyhow. So Godroth is not one to speak, while Malroth speaks a lot.
And I really wanted to somehow reflect that dichotomy in Malroth somehow
So I really like the idea that when he's really really stressed he goes nonverbal, to counter the yaps he has.
So a happy Malroth is a yappy Malroth. An upset Malroth is a ranty Malroth. A paralyzed and overwhelmed Malroth is a nonverbal Malroth.
I want to talk about Creation and Destruction and their relationship with eachother for a bit.
There are different types of opposites
The game talks about "Destruction and Creation" being opposites, or 2 sides of the same coin, "best friends", etc. But I want to go further than that. It is far more complex that that. There is more to say. I want to say more.
With creation and destruction, they're not the type of opposites where !Creation = Destruction or viceversa (that is, if you don't have one then it means it must be the other.)
Think of Light-Dark. Light and Dark are the type of opposites where one negates the other. If you have an empty room, it's dark. If you turn a flashlight on, it is now light. You CAN have a half-light half-dark room, but you CANNOT have both full light/full dark at the same time, nor can you have neither.
With creation and destruction, it is completely unlike that. You CAN have neither. If you have a floating room in the middle of nowhere and nothing is happening, you have neither creation, nor destruction. It is static. Unchanging. But, if you HAVE either creation or destruction, one means that the other is present too.
What I mean is, you CANNOT have creation without destruction, or destruction without creation. If you create a door, you're destroying the wall. If you destroy the room, you create rubble. You cannot create from nothing, and you cannot destroy into nothing.
Creation and Destruction are both sides of the coin of transformation/change. It is the whole "energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed" thing. By creating something, you are destroying what it was before. And by destroying something, you are creating something new.
Like the game says "They're best friends! They go everywhere together."
Dichotomies like Light-Dark or Chaos-Order/Balance are like a gradient from one side to the other.
Dichotomies like Creation-Destruction, or something like, i dunno, "Kill-Be killed" are different angles of the same thing, either none exist or both exist at the same degree.
In the bigger picture, the REAL opposing force to creation and destruction is stagnation. Something unchanging, inert. Something that refuses to be destroyed. Something that refuses to be created into something new.
This is why I think that Malroth, ultimately, loves building. He doesn't know at first what it IS, because he sees the world and its transformation through the lenses of Destruction:
"Building a city" would be "Destroying the forest" to him. "Building a farm" would be "Spreading seeds so they consume the soil". "Building a mine" would be "Blowing up the earth". "Building a fire beacon" would be "Melting the snow". Things like so.
But, at the end of the day, creation is just destruction. The main difference is that the Builder transforms in order to obtain something new, while the children transform in order to get rid of what was originally there. It's the intention behind that what differs.
But back on topic. What the builder really is doing, from the lenses of destruction, is still destruction, but from a new angle. The builder causes destruction to help people. To give a better world to others. To make people happy.
The Children of Hargon destroy (in their philosophy) to rid the world of what is "bad". To protect. To cleanse.
Coming from neutral, the builder destroys to make things better. The children destroy to remove what makes things worse.
So, in the end, Malroth destroys in B2 with the motivation of building something better. He destroys the landscape to gather materials, to make space for buildings, in order to build a better world.
But, at the same time, he also destroys to protect and remove the threats that want to ruin what the builder is creating.
On the other hand, I don't think arguing "oh the builder the creation, Malroth is the destruction" is really accurate, at all.
Sure, Malroth might be bad at building, but the builder is absolutely not bad at destruction.
After all, the builder also has to gather materials, and clear out the space to put the buildings in. (If you've ever spent any amount of time building for fun in Furrowfield before finishing its plot you know how many trees must be sacrificed in order to supply the amount of wood you'll be going through)
And the builder fights alongside Malroth just as eagerly as he does.
It must be funny for Malroth to see people talking about how the Builder is a heretic to destruction, while they beat the shit out of any monster that attacks them and level entire forests to have enough wood to then ruin the farm ruins with their thingamajigs.
But, going back to the first post now. Malroth and the Builder are the same force. They teach each other (more like Builder teaches Malroth) different perspectives of what they are and do.
But if they are the same, what is their narrative foil?
You know, the force that opposes them.
And I have never heard anyone talking about this, and it makes me crawl up walls but think about it.
The main element that interacts with the builder is the illusory world. You have a builder that builds. The story then gives said builder, (who is a descendant of B1's "legendary builder" btw) a completely empty world to build in, with stories of a legendary builder of long past that brought creation, that has been long gone, with only their ruins and memories scattered all about the land.
It is a completely clean slate, all for them to build to their hearts content.
It is a land devoid of creation. The only one who can change that is the builder.
But if it is devoid of creation, then, as I said before, it is devoid of destruction as well. Isn't that why Hargon brought the builder here, after all? To allow the power of destruction to grow alongside creation?
Let's look at it from the other angle. Destruction's angle.
Let's remove the builder from the equation too.
What IS the illusory world to destruction?
It is a stagnant land. Nothing happens in it. It is empty. Devoid of value. It brings noting. It is nothing.
Despite being nothing, meaning nothing, said world refuses to die. Even past what it should have ever been, it refuses to die.
Hargon created this world to confuse the Scions back in DQII. That failed. The moment it ceased to serve any purpose, it should have been destroyed. Still. It remains.
Hargon faced the Scions. He was defeated. He sacrificed his soul to Malroth. Malroth was defeated.
Yet even still. Despite Hargon's defeat. Hargon is still here. Malroth is still here.
The moment DQII is over, Hargon should have died. Malroth's incarnation should have died. The illusory world should have died. It is over.
But Hargon refuses to die. Not only he, but he REFUSES to let Malroth die, and he REFUSES to let the illusion disappear.
He is STILL here, still with the exact same motivation, same plan. Keeps Malroth in a stagnant world, refuses to let go.
Hargon is denying his own destruction.
And, it's not like if Hargon had gone "ah well, plan sucked, let's make another one". The things that we see in B2 are not "new things" to continue his plan, they are just remainders of the old plan.
What Hargon, and the illusion, and the Children represent, is something that, despite everything saying that they shouldn't be here anymore, they have continued to exist, unchanged.
It is unclear how long it has been in the real world, but it has been a whole lifetime minimum in the illusion.
A whole lifetime of neither creation, nor destruction.
A whole lifetime of stagnation.
The builder is not only creating a world out of these remnants. They are destroying said remnants and what they represent.
They finally end what should have ended a lifetime ago.
What I mean with "I haven't heard anyone talk about this" is, that the illusory world is the antithesis of destruction far more than creation could ever be. Hargon's plan completely spits on the face of destruction, far more than the "creation hypocrisy" thing does.
If you really worshipped destruction like you claim, you should have accepted your own destruction. (You literally sacrificed your soul to said destruction god how did you screw that up)
If you really worshipped destruction like you claim, you should have accepted the destruction of your plan.
Of course, Hargon never cared about destruction. It was a means to an end. And the moment said means disagreed with said end, he discarded them like nothing.
(Not gonna open up the "DQII remake true ending" can of worms. Because. Wow that's a whole thing.)
In the end, the Builder literally destroys the illusion. By making it real. It stops being the remnants of an old plan that should have been long gone, and becomes a whole new world.
I like how in DQB2, for all the story islands, women are the main leads on almost all of the story islands or have a big supporting role in the story of the game. Rosie, Babs, and Annessa all help him learn human traits like hope, sacrifice, and, perseverance.... There's like so much more to this but I lowkey tired
Thinking a bit too much about the fact before the builder shows up nobody on the islands had nearly enough food to survive and ended up writing about it. uh I did my best but not everything is completly accurate.
(Because this is about food I do mention food poisoning a couple of times but nothing in detail if anyone's worried.)
Food options
Throughout all the islands, before the Children of Hargon were defeated there was very little in the way of food thanks to not being able to cook, farm, or raise animals.
What they have
Kelp
We see this ourselves, as it's a very easy food to get thanks to them living on islands and is the first thing you eat in game. My best guess for what kind of kelp they have is wakame kelp.
Also Shane, Brittany, the Hairy Hermit, and probably others say it directly that that's what they ate, and Rosie says to collect it from the beach if you're hungry on Furrowfeild.
I'm pretty sure you can't get it in Khrumbul-Dun, or at the very least it's hard to find.
Same with Moonbrooke on that front, though they might have beaches where it just washes up?
Fruit
Shane directly says people will pick fruit from trees in Furrowfield for food. We never find fruit trees ourselves on the island, but on the surrounding explorers shores you find plumberries, which might be what he was talking about. They could have been on Furrowfield but been killed off by the Ill Wind.
In Khrumbul-Dun you can get vineapples on the surface, though a majority of them are in the mines. There's also prickly pear fruit from the cactuses for them to eat.
I'm not sure if Moonbrooke has ever come out of its internal winter, and there's no fruit you can get in game so nothing of that kind over there.
Meat
Brittany says they ate raw fish in Furrowfield. They have the ocean and bog, so it's possible that was a source of food, though without anything that would be effective at catching them I doubt they would get fish often.
I presume all the livestock has been killed or starved by the time you get to Furrowfield, either by the Children of Hargon or humans for the food, or thanks to the Ill wind since it killed almost all grass.
There are also bunnicorns that humans may have hunted in Khrumbul-Dun and Moonbrooke.
Maaaaybe crab? But not that common as well.
There's the big problem of them not being able to cook it, so they likely dealt with food poisoning even if they got meat, so probably went with other options if they could.
In the Hairy Hermit’s journal on Furrowfield he mentions that “An acorn wrapped in kelp is considered a delicacy” before he brought building to their island. Kelp’s already been covered, but acorns are edible, you just need to get rid of the tannins in them first. (For that you need to boil them, so they might do that. Or maybe they just ate the acrons raw, which you can do but not in large quantities because of said tannins.)
So how bad off were all the islands?
Furrowfield
They get top place, not only for having good amounts of kelp and fruit, there's bound to be other places where people would grow extra food secretly so they had more to eat. Definitely got harder as time went on and the Ill Wind destroyed more land, but could be a lot worse. They're also the only main island with any animals so that helps, even if the dog you find on Furrowfield is a cursed human.
They have lots of kelp from their beaches which aren't that dificult to find if you know where to look and in pretty large amounts which is good for them.
They aparently had fruit at some point
Khrumbul-Dun
Surprisingly better off than I thought considering they live in a desert. They have limited amounts of vineapples on the surface, along with prickly pears and meat from bunnicorns, (and wheat, but I doubt many even knew about there being a crop of it on the island.) they have some stuff that they would have eaten. Also, the Children of Hargon while still having control on the surface, a lot of them seem to be in the mines aside from some shamen, so it might not be a stretch that if you're desperate you could secretly cook something. They have quite a bit in the way of fruit so that's good for them.
Moonbrooke
And to the surprise of no one, the award for "Shittiest island to live on" goes to Moonbrooke. While they have kelp, they live in eternal winter, making swimming to get stuff not already washed up a horrible idea, so it's not the best option. The problem with that is every other option has it so you have to risk cooking it and face being punished/killed if you're caught, or can cause digestive issues/food poisoning/parasites if you don't properly cook them.
Potatoes can be eaten raw but large amounts cause stomach issues (Or in rare cases give you parasites), and it's not a good idea to eat the raw ones, but there's definetly been people who were desperate enough they did it anyway. It doesn't help the only potato field we know of/see is in the castle guarded by monsters.
You can find wheat seeds, so they might have had wheat in the earlier days of the war, but it's not a good idea to eat wheat (or flour for that matter) raw because of the threat of food poisoning. Also the same for the seeds by themselves.
Meat's probably easier to get, as monsters drop it, but yet again this comes at the risk of food poisoning or parasites, which is a really bad idea when you're already starving and fighting in a war. The only good thing is because of the snow they can make things last longer by burying them in the snow, but still that doesn't help if they don't have food in the first place. So yeah they're fucked.
Side effects (Less here but I don't know as much about this topic)
So for starters we're assuming that their diets mostly consist of kelp and/or fruit, with the occasional raw meat.
For kelp I'm going to assume the kelp you eat in the game is similar to the real life type of kelp called Wakame. So from what I've seen, a lot of people's diets included kelp, because it was easier to get, and is not punishable by the Children of Hargon because it's safe to eat uncooked. But the problem is, wakame kelp is low in calories and high in nutrients. Most of your diet having something low in calories and the other food sources is just going to lead to malnutrition. Sure, they have other stuff, but kelp is mentioned by far the most. Wakame kelp is also really high in iodine which isn't great if it's one of the only thing you can eat.
Fruit is most either the vineapples, prickly peaches, or whatever fruit grew on Furrowfield. There's still foodborn illnesses to worry about but I'm pretty sure it's not as big of a deal with fruit.
For meat, it doesn't matter as much what kind it is, because if they aren't cooking it then they run the risk of it being contaminated with bacteria or having parasites in it.
Malnutrition (Because almost everybody likely has some type of it)
This is going to affect people badly. Aside from muscle atrophy, there's children being stunted in growth and development, and it causes a breakdown of the immune system which makes everyone even more likely to get sick or an infection, with wounds and these illnesses taking longer to heal.
And medicine isn't being made because it's considered building, so when someone is injured or sick, there is very little anyone can do for them.
Malroth doodles aaaaaah still figuring out how to draw him I much prefer these attempts... Im not very good at drawing other expressions than pokerfaces sry hhh
Y'all ever think about the sheer amount of family members the characters in dqb2 lost, either directly stated or implied? Cause you think about it for too long and just OH. That's... That's a lot.
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