I fully blame @nickcaver and @yoshiintheweb for letting Reflections On the Lake au break containment. Not that containment protocols were really upheld very well.
haunted winter spoilers below but i want to propose my potential theories for what the hell happened at the end there
hi people still finding this in the tag. you should read the reblogs on this post for important updates before i lead you astray.
so first of all to get us all of the same page about what "what the hell happened at the end there" is referring to: those voices that were repeating "again" (i counted six voices as far as i could tell). some of them were definitely decem (i clearly identified the warrior and i'm 99% sure the one at the end was the seer) but some of them were not. so what the hell happened?
option a: members of decem sound different or have been permanently or temporarily recast. this is entirely possible. i want to be clear that i know decem's voices, but it's been a while since we heard from them, it is entirely possible they sound different now (especially since i just learned at least one of them has transitioned since we last heard from them). additionally, legundo mentioned that the voice actors for that moment were brought together very last minute, so it's possible the regular vas weren't available or no longer wanted to be involved in the project. however i am inclined to say this isn't the case because legundo (and probably sierra, legs' former editor and a person very involved in this series) has almost certainly seen all the discussion about the voices that has been happening both here and in his discord. in the past when we've had trouble with voice acting like this, we've been given hints or clarification on the situation and nothing of the sort has happened here. if a recast had occurred or we were just totally wrong i feel like we would've been told by now. it's not impossible that this is true! it's certainly the simplest option. but i don't think it's right.
option b: so episode 4 confirmed for us that this "soldier" character is not a new name for the warrior or a misremembering of his title, because both the soldier and the warrior were mentioned in the same sentence. so who the hell is this guy? well, first of all, lets assume that he's the one voiced by doovid (the only new voice i recognized personally), just for convenience. decem's plans have evolved a lot as time has gone on. first, they were solely focused on getting legundo back to restore themselves to their full power. and that is still their goal (see: the warrior's 2k days monologue), but they seem to have become aware that maybe they can't in this current state. so they started asking us for help. started asking us to help free them (the senator's 2k days monologue), and started asking us to join them (the philosopher's 2k days monologue, the end of DO YOU WISH TO TAKE HIS PLACE "if we can't have him, perhaps you will be enough"). it's a reasonable strategy! not only are we a whole lot more manpower than just legundo (at least theoretically), but we're also "shapers", whatever that means! but then we uh... dropped the ball on that one. we were not helpful at all. some of this is on purpose (we don't like them) but also there's the fact that we've run into so many issues with the puzzles.
so maybe they started looking elsewhere. now, i couldn't tell you how they found these people, but maybe they've recruited a new tenth member, a temporary one until they can get legundo back and get back to normal. and maybe that's our soldier. but if that's doovid, who the hell are those other new voices? maybe they've recruited more than one new person but like, they do have a pretty clear ten theming going on, so why would they drop it? i recognize that's a pretty cheap shot at this theory but we do need to acknowledge the fact that i have no idea who tf those other people are. also i'll admit i've become very attached to my third theory which lowkey has less legs to stand on than this one lol so.
option c: those new voices aren't decem, they're the alterans. okay, yeah, pretty simple, i've discussed this one before, but it doesn't answer the "who the fuck is the soldier" question. except that maybe it does.
obviously "soldier" is a pretty similar title to "warrior", we thought legs was just confused at first for a reason. but they're clearly different people, so if decem's picked up a new aspect, why doesn't this new aspect have a more unique name or role? well, what if the solider isn't a part of decem? the thing we need to remember for all of this is that legundo does not know the alterans exist. he only knows about decem because decem have made themselves known to him through many venues. the alterans have never made themselves known to legundo, only to the audience, because why would they? they need him to focus his anger on decem for their plan to work, they cannot risk making him aware of their role in this whole thing and turning him on them. but the alterans have been losing power, they've been getting sloppy. they know this, decem knows this, it's just been a matter of time. so maybe at some point they became sloppy enough that legundo heard a new name: the soldier. and he assumes it's decem again, because why wouldn't it be? but that of course raises the question, why would an alteran be called something so similar to a decem aspect?
in the past, decem has referred to the alterans with a lot of familial terms in the past (siblings, cousin, brethren). the warrior also once called them "the name we left behind". all of these things suggest a very close relationship between the alterans and decem despite their hostilities. it suggests a level of sameness. and not only do we have the solider, very similar to the warrior, the alterans also have/had (it's worded vaguely) some "diviners", another word for oracle, another word for seer. there's also the obvious relationship between "shaper" and "architect", but we haven't heard that word applied to the alterans yet, so i'll acknowledge that that connection is more flimsy.
so basically what i'm trying to say here is that time honored theory: what if decem were once alterans? what if the aspects' titles evolved out of their jobs or their skills when they were alterans? what if what remains of the alterans still have those original titles of their own and are using those similarities to their advantage? if the alterans and decem shared such a close relationship, it would explain a lot about how they've got a power level that can match decem, how they know enough about decem to know legundo's name before, it would explain that "Can you change what a person values by reminding them of things they once discarded?" thing from one of their books, it would explain a lot.
and, hey, this is a real small piece, but i think it's important to mention. decem is quite fond of chess metaphors. the alterans have used them a few times as well. and lest we forget, chess is a game between two sides that are basically the same, except for their colors.
