#crk analysis

[flicklikesstuff]

What.?

(Edit: We got her folks! One more to go!!)

(Edit 2.0: You think Salt broke the trend? Nahhhh.)

(In a literal sense of saying “What-?”, then yeah he did. But the core essence of this post? Nope. I don’t think so. The man has just been stunned into silence. I’d consider that a “what-?” moment.)

Ramble :3 ⬇️

White Lily IS calling out his flawed views like the heroes before her had. His self-hatred and vengeance had made him blind.

Salt believes that silencing evil by destroying them and have them face eternal punishment is the key for the greater good. That’s how he could grant Cookies freedom.

Earthbread will be rid of hurt. He seals himself and the Beasts for eternity. He wishes to keep that truth a secret because he is evil and “All evil should be silenced” so that every cookie can be free. Ever thought about how many cover-ups he’s made?

However, White Lily challenges this.

Silence didn’t stop more evil from happening, did it? It is fruitless. Bad things will always happen regardless. The problem is:

If those bad things were simply all a cookie will ever be and are thus, should be destined to remain silent forever, then what does it truly grant?

Freedom? To who? And truly for how long? What’s stopping another cookie from pursuing that path as well? What is there to learn from if all wrongs are kept a secret and never to be heard from?

Ultimately, history repeats itself. It will stay as a never-ending cycle that is hard to break out of.

Because staying silent doesn’t fix anything. Maybe for a short time, but not forever.

We must accept that what has been done has already been done. Yes. Feel some regret, sure. But it’s not about ridding the world from all evil that truly grants freedom. It’s having the choice yourself to SPEAK and actively CHOOSE to change and push forward despite it all. That is what really means everything.

Lily said it herself: “Freedom is not what one can grant. True freedom comes when every Cookie finds the strength to confront their own destiny.”

That is what sprouts fruit. That is what grants hope and change. That is what Lily considers true Freedom.

And she gets to call out Salt for the bullcrap that he calls a “punishment/judgement” he keeps inflicting on to others, including himself. As a result, man is stunned speechless.

[burningcheese-merchant]

I know I'm probably late to the party with this observation, but I just really wanted to take the time to put my own thoughts about it into my own words, because I'm actually quite pleased that an idea I (and plenty of others) had about the Beasts, their relationships with mortalkind as Virtues, and what helped cause their corruption, has more or less been solidifed as canon to the narrative (not that it really needed that help, I don't think, but this update really drove the point home)

Basically, I always stood by the idea that what helped spell doom for the Virtues was their failure to form meaningful connections with people, whether that be mortals or even with each other. Not only did they stumble and ultimately collapse under the weight of responsibilities they did not choose to bear, such a fate was assured because no one was there to help prevent it. None of them had a support system of any kind anywhere.

Except for Silent Salt.

Silent Salt was the most insulated from threats of corruption right from the start, both because of his virtue being Solidarity and simply because of his own personal character/integrity. From the beginning, Salt preached unity, understanding, and friendship no matter anyone's differences. He allied himself with the poor, with the hungry, with the sick and injured, to such a degree that this devotion to society's outcasts is baked into the Kala Namak Knights' vows: "Embrace the downtrodden. Remember the tormented." Anyone and everyone was welcome to join the Knights of Kala Namak; the only true requirement was believing in and fighting for solidarity always. Salt's willingness to mingle with mortals, to embrace them as his friends and his comrades and his equals, is so exemplary that other characters actually notice and comment on it:

Salt was no one's king, he was no one's teacher, he was no one's master. He presented himself as a trusted equal to ALL people, everywhere, going out of his way to protect and serve even those that the world had long discarded. He was a god that stepped down from the heavens to stand side by side with mortals as though they were him and vice versa. Doing that drew people to him, earned him their trust and loyalty and unwavering friendship. People who loved and appreciated him for who he really was and what he really did, so much so that they were willing to fight and die not just for Salt himself (not that he would've wanted that, he'd rather die for them than the opposite), but for his ideals. He had a vision for the world that he wholeheartedly believed in and other people believed in it too, because they believed in him.

And that's what saved him in the end. That's what kept him from corrupting for as long as it did. When the other Virtues began to falter, he stood firm. While they succumbed to hatred and despair one by one, he continued his endless march across the world, searching for people in need of help. When the other Virtues vanished from the public and Salt was all that remained to continue fighting for the greater good, he did so. Even when he himself learned the touch of rage and misery after losing everything, he retained his lucidity and moral compass and immediately made his way to Elder Faerie so he could confess his sins, and beg Elder Faerie to kill him so he did not risk tainting mortalkind's good future with his presence. And in the end, Silent Salt made the ultimate sacrifice and sealed himself away inside the Silver Tree along with the other Beasts, in service of Elder Faerie, in service of his fallen knights, in service of his dream for a better tomorrow led by heroes better than he and his.

And he never lost that heart because Elder Faerie, and the Knights of Kala Namak, and that little boy, and everyone who Salt came to know personally, never let him lose it. Because Salt allowed himself to experience life beyond his status as a deity sent to lord over the world, he was ultimately able to resist the evils that tempted his fellow Virtues, whom on the other hand did not and/or could not find joy and meaning in existence beyond their duties. Salt let a child ride around on his horse and accepted the flowers he gave him, not caring that they dried and turned brittle, because "petals might wither away, but the intention remains". Salt embraced every man and woman who came to him in need, and trained and fought alongside all the ones who chose to stand with him, because they loved and respected both Silent Salt the Virtue and Silent Salt the man. Salt forged an ironclad and lifelong friendship with Elder Faerie, who stood by him to the bitter end, accepting Silent Salt even when he came to him coated in jam and crumbs, the bright light of Solidarity having dimmed into a cold, dark Silence. Who paid that friendship forward by helping to plant and nurture the Silver Tree, and offering support and counsel to Silent Salt all throughout his ordeals, who mourned his self-imprisonment and honored his noble sacrifice by standing guard (and instructing the other faeries to stand guard as well, thus instilling in them the same duty to justice and the greater good that Silent Salt always championed) over the seal until Elder Faerie's own death. People loved Silent Salt because Silent Salt loved people, and Silent Salt loved people because he made an effort to, divinity and power be damned. And it was through him loving people, and in people loving him back, that he was able to hold on for so long.

...And Silent Salt's love for people and vice versa continues to be paid forward in the future. That kid was most likely Charcoal's ancestor, who went on to instruct his family to tend to the graves of the knights and the ruins of the Kala Namak stronghold, which they've done for generations out of gratitude for what Silent Salt and the Knights of Kala Namak did for their family (even if the true purpose lies forgotten in the current age, the sentiment remains). The tree that grew from Salt and Faerie's camaraderie and dedication created new Virtues, and those Virtues were inherited by worthy heroes who actually use their power for good and have resisted corruption time and time again. His own successor has come for him, and is likely to try to reason with him and urge him back to the light, because she empathizes with his plight and believes he can change. Silent Salt's support system was and is so strong that it even transcended lifetimes. While he may have finally fallen from grace, that does not make that fact any less apparent nor powerful. Grace remained with him far past the time it remained with the other Virtues because it was the warmth of all those people he embraced that kept the fire burning. A fire that, sadly, never had the chance to ignite within the other four.

Silent Salt actually letting himself live and feel and understand others not only helped him, but by eventual proxy, it helped countless others. In the end, it truly was and is Solidarity that saved the world

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

*BREAKS DOWN THE FUCKING DOOR*

SHADOW MILK COOKIE AND SILENT SALT COOKIE ARE NARRATIVE FOILS!!!!!!! THEY ARE MEANT TO BE DIRECT REFLECTIONS OF EACHOTHER, SPECIFICALLY IN HOW THEY VIEW THEIR RESPECTIVE CORRUPTIONS!!!!!!!!!!! AND I WILL PROVE IT TO YOU IN THIS ESSAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The parallels between them are kinda hard to describe without just listing shit but bear with me- first of all, I think it's really important to note the way we're introduced to both of them, because the contrast is VERY strong. While he wasn't the first Beast to become playable, Shadow Milk was still the first Beast to get properly introduced, while Silent Salt was introduced last. So they're already book ending all of the Beast Yeast shit, but then there's ALSO the fact that Shadow Milk Cookie is introduced when the Beasts are escaping the Silver Tree, while Silent Salt's entire introduction is basically just the story of how they were trapped there in the first place. Shmilk is introduced first by breaking out of jail while Silent is introduced last by putting everyone in jail.

Jumping off of that, you can already tell from how they're introduced that they have VASTLY different oppinions on their time in the Silver Tree, and if that wasn't enough Shadow Milk literally screams about wanting the witches dead for putting him in there later on in I thiiiink episode 2? Quote "MAY THEY BURN IN THE OVEN", this bitch wants those motherfuckers to SUFFER. Honestly, I'd even go as far as to say Shmilk is the angriest out of all the Beasts about their imprisonment, given the fact that he's the only one to express any active rage about it. Shmilk and Silent Salt have complete opposite views on their time in the Silver Tree.

Now, putting a pin in the Silver Tree stuff, let's move on to another massive parallel between them- their corruptions. Like first of all, obviously Salt corrupted last and Shmilk is heavily implied to have corrupted first, so once again they're book ending the Beasts. But even further than that, the way they treat their corruption is VERY different. Silent Salt obviously fucking hates himself for it. He views himself as a failure, renaming himself out of shame and then coming to Elder Faerie in complete shambles and literally asking Elder to kill him. Then, he locks himself and the other Beasts in the Silver Tree, hoping that the 5 of them will just rot in there forever. When that doesn't work and they all escape, instead of doing. Anything, really. He locks himself up in a tomb in the hopes that no one will ever come looking for him. He's fucking MISERABLE. Meanwhile, Shmilk fucking LOVES being the villain. He plays himself up, he puts on little shows, he revels in causing chaos, and he completely buries any evidence of who he used to be, even from us the players. He is Shadow Milk Cookie, and you will fear his name!

The only thing Shmilk and Silent have in common post-corruption is that they constantly vilify themselves on purpose. While the other Beasts' actions mostly speak for themselves, Shadow Milk REALLY plays up the evil factor. He makes it clear that he is the bad guy, that he is not to be sympathized with. The only time he paints himself in a sympathetic light is during the puppet show he puts on about the Beasts getting trapped, which Imo is more evidence that he REALLY hated that fuckin tree but I digress. This purposeful vilification is why Pure Vanilla gets to him so fucking much, because PV is willing to completely ignore all of it and forgive him on account of being. Jesus. And Shmilk can't fuckin stand that.

Meanwhile, Silent Salt doesn't have a lot of in game evidence of this beyond the stories that got passed down about him, but his wiki makes it VERY clear that he views himself as beyond redemption. I mean look at this shit-

I have no clue WHY he's the only character with a customized wiki like this, but he is, and oooohhhhh boy does it say a lot about him. Oh boy. He does NOT want you looking any deeper into who he is or why he's like this, he wants to be viewed as lost cause. He does not want your sympathy. WHICH IS A LOT LIKE SHMILK!!!!

Overall, these two are clearly meant to intentionally parallel each other. They're not only the beginning and the end of the Beasts corruption, but also the beginning and the end of their imprisonment. They both make themselves out to be one dimensionally evil villains, just for very different reasons. They're both medieval themed. But what I find the MOST interesting about these parallels is how it ties in thematically with what tore the Beasts down in the first place; the fact that they were created to be just their job and nothing else.

BECAUSE LIKE OKAY HEAR ME OUT!!!!!!! Shadow Milk Cookie is clearly DEEPLY affected by the way he was treated as the Fount. From what little we know about his backstory, the reason he corrupted is because cookies wouldn't listen to him. He failed at his job because nobody wanted to hear the truth, they only wanted sweet lies, and I think it's probably safe to say that people fuckin HATED him for the things he said. It's possible that the reason he corrupted first is that he was the only virtue nobody liked. All of the Beasts were screwed over from the start, but his position as the Fount of Knowledge, fittingly, made him the most likely to realize how inherently fucked their existences were.

Now, post-corruption, he's an absolute control freak. He's clearly trying to take the reigns of his life back, forge an identity for himself through any means necessary. Choosing a name for himself and making sure that everyone he encounters KNOWS IT. Controlling the narrative through lies and manipulation. Shapeshifting constantly. Taking his personhood by force. Nobody gets to choose who he is but him, not the other cookies, not his fellow Virtues, not even the witches. The need for control, to be his own person outside of the Fount of Knowledge, also makes his clear rage at being locked in that fuck ass tree make a LOT of sense! Because, from his perspective, he's been forced into a role he didn't want since his creation, and the minute he starts trying to find a place outside of that role, expressing his anger and resentment at being put in that position at all, he's locked in sensory deprivation hell for thousands of years and LITERALLY FUCKING REPLACED!!!!!!! It's another attempted blow at his personhood, another form of objectification. He's the only Beast to express clear, unbridled rage at their imprisonment because he's the only one expressly motivated by how awfully the virtues have been treated for their entire existence.

Can you tell I have a lot of feelings about Shadow Milk Cookie-

Anyway, let's look at Silent Salt now. The Salt of Solidarity had arguably the best job out of all the virtues. He was the only one who's job allowed him to be viewed as an actual person by the cookies around him. As the virtue of Solidarity, his job was literally to Show Solidarity to everyone, no matter who they were. You can't do that if you're supposed to be an untouchable god, it's just not possible. Because of this, he was the one to face the least amount of objectification while actively working as a Virtue, allowing him to have an overall positive view of his job that most of the others didn't get. But that doesn't mean he was completely free of of that objectification. Because not only does he still go by exclusively his job title like all the other virtues, but he also integrated his job so deeply into his personality that he had no idea how to live without it. He never actually viewed HIMSELF as an independent person. He doesn't think he needs to be. So, when the Virtue DehumanizationTM from other cookies catches up to him, painting him as a tyrant and taking away his support network, he doesn't have any sort of identity left. He loses everything, including himself. Only Silence remains.

Then, after his corruption, he's just. Completely given up. He's so horrified that he failed he asks his boyfriend to kill him where he stands. Taking on a new name not as a show of his personhood, but as a mark of shame. Shame that he failed his job, that he isn't the Salt of Solidarity anymore. Again, he's the only Beast to have his corrupted virtue in his name. He's an empty husk of a cookie, a walking corpse, and, as a final act of sacrifice, he seals both himself and the rest of the beasts away in the Silver Tree. He doesn't believe they deserve anything else, he thinks they deserve to suffer eternally for what they did, for their failure to serve cookie kind. The fact that the tree created new virtues in their place only solidifies the fact that he had no plans on ever letting himself or his former colleagues free. No plans to maybe, one day, get them all help. Find new purposes. In his mind, they were only their roles, and now that they can no longer perform those roles they're all as good as dead anyway.

All of this also makes him an amazing antagonist for White Lily btw. Like this essay isn't abt her but all of this is VERY thematically appropriate given her Dark Enchantress shit and I'm very excited to see where the story goes.

ANYWAY. When I write it all out like that, the parallels become REALLY obvious, don't they? But the real kicker here is that they both- directly or indirectly- tore the others goals and senses of self directly out from under them. Shadow Milk may not be aware of the full extent of the damage he did to Salt and the Kala Namak, but that doesn't change the fact that, thanks to Black Sapphire's presence, he was still the Beast with the most direct involvement in their downfall. Meanwhile Silent Salt, who viewed himself and the other virtues as nothing outside of their jobs, ripped Shadow Milk's independence and identity away from him, replacing him with a new virtue like you would a broken microwave. They caused eachothers worst nightmares to come true.

So uh. In conclusion. CookieRun's storytelling is fucking amazing. Shadow Milk and Silent Salt are narrative foils and you cannot convince me otherwise. And uh. These two make me physically ill. Okay bye-

Tag list:

@pufthebirb

@magpies-are-really-cool

[jesterlovescookies]

WAIT WAIT WAIT I JUST REALISED SOMETHING

ITS NOT SHADOW MILK. SHADOW MILK ISN'T THE MOON OR SUN

ITS FUCKING ELDER FAERIE AND SILENT SALT I THINK

SEE ELDER FAERIE HAS THE MOON BEHIND HIM AND SILENT SALT HAS WHAT LOOKS LIKE A SUN LIKE STRUCTURE BUT THE STORY.

they can only meet on an eclipse. THE SUN IS ECLIPSED.

[yannastarlight]

I wish I could’ve saved you

I wish I could’ve killed you

Something, something, parallels I don’t know

Just kidding, I do know! :D (Analysis undercut)

(I will be making moon fanart so don't go no where!)

[chessboredom]

wait, did i misunderstand? i thought sage of truth was what shamil used to be like before he went beast mode, and the costume story was about an alternate universe where he remained normal while pyuba got corrupted from seeking out the truth and turned into the hermit

Nothinf could ever make me forget about you Pioneer of Knowledge. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Some of my older analysis...

1 . 2 . 3

[sylvieserene]

I noticed some interesting parallels and similarities between Eternal Sugar Cookie and Pure Vanilla Cookie

Firstly, even design wise, Eternal Sugar Cookie and Pure Vanilla Cookie are the only bare-foot characters in their respective ancient/beast groups. (Look at the way they present themselves too, one hand raised and the other holding their significant object as their hover/fly)

Both are capable of flying, albeit one without wings and one with wings (cuz features of the beasts got swapped with the ancients and GC got the wings)

Both come off as the "Friendly/Easy to approach" ones of their respective groups

Both their kingdoms are floating

Both wear almost fully white robes/dresses (often associated with purity)

Both have been shown dealing with babies

We all know Pure Vanilla Cookie is based off on Jesus + Moses, Eternal Sugar Cookie has heavy influence from Biblical Angels

Even in their title screens, they hold things very similarly

Perhaps better seen here:

Both their kingdoms were regarded as "Paradise" in their own way

Now this is a bit speculative BUT even Eternal Sugar Cookie has heavy incorporation of snakes in her design just as Pure Vanilla Cookie is big in white lilies.

Snakes in Eternal Sugar Cookie's association:

Perhaps a reference to a certain Jester hmm? (It even has blue colours incorporated!)

White lilies in Pure Vanilla Cookie's association:

And we already know Pure Vanilla Cookie loves White Lily Cookie, could it be that Eternal Sugar Cookie loves Shadow Milk Cookie?

Basically if PV x WL is Robstar from Teen Titans then SM x ES is basically RobRae. Or a verse where evil PV and evil HB fell in love... And RobRae is canon in the evil verse of TT03 (Teen Tyrants verse) so could it be a similar situation? Just like them PV and HB see eachother platonically but maybe when evil they date?

Highly speculative ik but very interesting I believe as idt this is a coincidence

They even have angels in eachother's design

What do y'all think?

[alienpepper]

eldersalt theory

ok sooooooo like many others, i was playing through episode 11 when i spotted the opportunity for some delicious doomed yaoi between elder faerie and salt of solidarity

i've seen a couple people point out how they talk about the silver tree like they birthed it or something, but i have a different opinion about it

notice how the tree is introduced by the both of them alternating, and they use words like together, our ancient power, and our waiting

this shows how the silver tree was only made because they both used their power and energy to combine it into one and fuel the tree. neither of them could've made it on their own, it functions codependently. they needed each other.

or more importantly, the salt of solidarity needed elder faerie.

the tree is a metaphor for their love and you cannot convince me otherwise-