Picking up the pieces of Nightbringer’s Ending: The End of the Beginning?
Part 1: MC is an Unreliable Narrator | Part 2: A Clash of Ideals | Part 3: The End of the Beginning?
So on December 2024, the Obey Me team decided to do a funny and implemented scrollable dialogue choice menus as well as two hidden scenes, depending on your past choices, on the final chapter of the game.
[Look! Technology!]
Being the chads that they were, they did not tell us what choices caused the branches and just sodded off to their next project, leaving us in chaos as everyone started getting different normal mode and hard mode endings.
I have meme’d enough about the first hidden scene in Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
Now, I want to bring your attention to the second hidden scene because I find it a crime that’s it’s so under-discussed, since it has Nightbringer’s identity and motivation staring right at us
(Warning: Long post. Major NB spoilers ahead. I reference my past posts but you don't need to read them to understand this)
Now, here’s the scene I’m talking about:
If you selected these two options in Chapter 59 in normal mode in response to another one of Barbatos’ roasting sessions, you unlock these few lines in Chapter 60 HM:
So yeah, at first glance it’s not really anything we don’t know. Everybody and their mums suspected Barbatos to be Nightbringer, or at least, have had a hand in MC going to the past. We know this guy is shifty and hiding something about MC’s situation. Everybody and their mums were hinting at some “great conflict” where MC would have to choose sides (except there’s zero suspense cuz they’re obviously going to side with the brothers even if it damns the three realms so idk what this build-up is). But then here’s the question: Why was this hidden?
I believe that’s the key to understand what is happening in the story.
When I first heard it was that ostrich scene that caused the change in the dialogue, my first thought was that this extra scene is here to reward readers who are paying attention to the story and who then call out Barbatos for being incredibly suspicious. It’s only when you outright call him out on his one-sided beef with Solomon, we get Solomon suggesting that it may be because of time travel and this elicits a strong reaction from him. When players agree, he breaks the fourth wall to tell players not to reference past events (as he stews on past events? Hypocrite...) And that’s what triggers this hard mode scene where he (lowkey) confirms the player’s suspicion that yes, Barbatos is aware of time travel shenanigans, the vague power struggle, and how he believes the MC would side with the brothers to stop conflict from happening. I thought they simply added this scene to confirm that he is Nightbringer, and his goal was to make the MC stronger and have them as a pawn on the Devildom’s side.
But when I came across this comment on Reddit a few months ago, it completely changed the way I interpreted this scene.
[Credit to their wrinkly brain]
And then, everything in my head clicked. The weird dissonance I got reading through normal mode and then the seemingly random hard mode shenanigans all made sense now.
Theory: Hard mode Lessons 41-60 take place shortly before the beginning of NB
Traditionally, the normal mode in the games would be focused on the MC, plot filler and fanservice, while the hard mode scenes would have some moments "behind-the-scenes" between characters that add on to the current plot and give more insight to events happening in the main story, for those who want to dig a little deeper. Be it further characterization of the key players (OG S1, OG S4), showing what other characters are doing behind the scenes to move the plot forward (OG S2, OG S3), or in NB’s case, major plot reveals that flip the way we interpret the main story right on its head.
But the hard mode scenes between lessons 41-60 in NB didn’t fall under any of those categories at first glance. It didn’t even directly reference any of the things happening in the main story. Rather than running parallel to the normal mode storyline, it was its own self-contained story of “A day in the life of the Little D.’s, with guest appearances from the rest of the cast.”
So me and some people in my circle were getting increasingly irritated at the Little D.’s having more screentime than Diavolo and that this was how the team chose to allocate their very limited story mode scenes (sorry to those who like Little D. content, but maaaaaan they really overstayed their welcome.)
But what if the storyline being disconnected is intentional? Maybe it just seems disconnected to us because this storyline is deliberately presented to the readers in the wrong order. Granted, the pointlessness of the Little D. shenanigans doesn’t change one bit. But if we think about the hard mode lessons that way, it changes the context of Barbatos’ final words immensely.
When Barbatos says “he sees the Celestial Realm is meddling with their affairs again”, he might not even be referring to some event in the future… but to the events that have already happened in the past two seasons of the game, specifically, Raphael’s Michael’s ultimatum and the Cocytus imprisonment incident. So Barbatos is not just warning the players of a future conflict (after the SF), but telling himself of the action he needs to take to prevent the conflict. He’s not just telling himself “MC will surely side with the seven brothers” as an assurance, but he’s also telling himself that he will make sure of it… by sending MC to the past to do exactly that.
This even ties back to Nightbringer’s words to Solomon back in Lesson 10 of of the game (I discuss them briefly, but in relation to my crack-theory-but-actually-not-really). During that conversation, Solomon believed that the main character would have the same goals as him, but Nightbringer is confident that it’s not the case and tried to hint that to him as well. Very similar to Barbatos’ confidence in MC now, hm?
The only thing that is against this idea of Barbatos knowing about the Cocytus incident is that Barbatos doesn’t look into the past without Diavolo’s permission. In this case, perhaps Barbatos found out about the Celestial Realm’s plans through other means. There is still that hanging plot point of an entire group of people across the 3 realms that had wanted to get Lucifer imprisoned and went off unpunished. That group is still likely lurking even in the present. Moreover, in the present, Solomon had shaded Diavolo and Lucifer for taking advantage of MC's bonds and the trust they have placed in the demon brothers to get them to align with the Devildom's goals. He likely knew what was coming up as well.
Alternatively, Diavolo may also have had a hand in orchestrating this plot. In Lesson 60, Solomon is surprised that Diavolo did not question his and MC's secretiveness regarding MC's strengthened powers. Diavolo is an interesting case, as he usually has a good idea of when he is being lied to, but chooses to let things play out initially (recap past Diavolo's attitude towards MC in the beginning. As well as Diavolo's actions when Lucifer hid Belphegor in the attic in the original game).
The hard mode scenes actually taking place before the start of NB does two things. First, it checks out with how Obey Me usually tells its story, where hard mode adds more details to the plot, or changes the way you interpret the story. Second, it provides a stronger justification for why this particular dialogue was hidden and why it required those choices in Lesson 59 to be made in order to unlock this scene. It signals to the game that the player is aware that Barbatos knows more than he is letting on, and this allows the players to access the hidden scene and get the final piece of the puzzle to get the context of what happened before the start of NB. For those who miss that choice, they then continue playing on, forever oblivious to the true sequence of events and Barbatos’ plan.
Going back to the beginning of the game
So a possible sequence of events could be:
Barbatos finds out the Celestial Realm is going to cause conflict in the future/the past. He believes the MC is the key to stopping that conflict
His goal is two-fold. He aims to send MC to the past so they can strengthen their bonds with the brother and stop the meddling of bad players from the Celestial Realm who aimed to imprison Lucifer in Cocytus. After having their bonds strengthened, MC returns back stronger. This way, the Devildom will have a nuclear weapon against enemies of Diavolo’s vision of harmony between the three realms
As Barbatos prefers not to directly meddle with problems unless absolutely necessary, he does not tell the MC or the other brothers of the plan. He’s perfectly content to send MC over and watch the pieces fall in place
Who else knows of the plan? Diavolo, probably, which I have mentioned above. Solomon as well, since he was the one who went to the past to bring MC back and make sure they don’t fuck anything up (just that Solomon also had other motives that differs from Barbatos). Simeon….maybe? I had a feeling Simeon was colluding with Solomon in the past, at least. This part is just based on vibes.
As for MC’s own awareness, it’s a bit suspect. I don’t think Barbatos would have told them of the plan, but we can’t be certain they don’t have a suspicion of who’s responsible. They’re the only person other than Solomon to directly communicate with Nightbringer after all. I have mentioned before that I found their texts with Nightbringer in the beginning and their subsequent actions quite suspicious. Unfortunately, there’s not enough information to draw a conclusion on MC’s involvement. Realistically speaking, I don’t think they would make them have way more knowledge than the player because it doesn’t vibe with the whole self-insert thing. At most, we may get the players signaling to the game that they knew it was Barbatos the entire time, similar to how players could say they already know why their powers suddenly got stronger.
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Believing the OM writers went full Uchikoshi with Lessons 41-60 in hard mode is a tough sell, especially with how disappointing the normal mode story writing was getting in that same arc. But the way the pieces fit seem like too much of a coincidence. It’s not the first time the team had snuck in some complex tropes that seemed out of place in a supposedly 6+ rated app. For example, NB Lesson 30 has a clumsy example of this:
...which I don't think most people can pick up on.
It also feels very odd. You have the predominantly juvenile writing and excessive hand-holding in the Nightbringer storyline which leads you to believe the story is catered to the common denominator. However, in the midst of all that, you get allusions to darker themes, complex scenarios and tropes that are controversial even in well-written stories, unreliable narrators, and imposter Raphaels running around which is what keeps the lore enjoyers (or maybe only me) excited. And it’s worth noting that this season utilised the branching system most heavily, and was the first season to have extra scenes triggered by choices made 30+ lessons beforehand. If Nightbringer didn’t get cut abruptly, the meme of an over-arching storyline may not have been a meme anymore.
The Obey Me storyline really couldn’t decide which audience they wanted to target up till its bitter end.
