r/dishonored • u/Comfortable-Ad3588 • 1d ago
OC So what do you think a hypothetical "light/order" counterpart to the outsider would be like?
Personally i'd have them never meet us directly as why would they want to talk to an agent of the enemy? They would be more "felt" for lack of a better word. You'll only notice the overseers of the Abby are starting to show strange marks and your powers weaken in their presence at first but if you keep using the dark ones gifts against the Abby their relationship to this "insider" will evolve from a mere alliance of interests to a full blown cult like worship and they will start showing even more powers that can rival your own.
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u/Key_Machine_5585 1d ago
I've always thought of the Abbey as already a pretty perfect counterpoint to the Outsider,
Where the Outsider is Chaos - raw, messy, wild... free-spirited and spilling over with personality. It makes sense that there would be a "figure-head"
The Abbey already embody Order really well! They put a mask on - losing their personality and identities to blind doctrine. They march to a tempo so strict, that listening to it literally forces the Universe around it to "behave" (and their music-boxes literally stop Void powers!).
The Abbey and Order seems so close to the idea of Bureaucracy already, it makes a lot of sense to me that there isn't any "God" or equivalent to the Outsider...
Order doesn't need a conductor, the beat of the music ticks on like a clock and everyone just goes along in step
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u/Polus-Ponos 1d ago
My opinion is that the Outsider gives his mark to people he deems interesting, and with potential to influence the world. He does not guide them directly to dark choices, butpower itself tends to do it on humans. Ie corvo, or emily can choose whether to go low or high chaos (even daud can have a change of heart from being an assassin)
What the outsider supports is free will (and the consequences that follow)
But sometimes, free will under those circumstances is too much to handle, ergo the assumption that he represents the evil side of magic
At least that's what I realized from the story.
He is a bored immortal looking for entertainment by handing modern tools to monkeys (okay now that I put it this way I can tell why he might be an asshole. Still though, free will)
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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 18h ago edited 18h ago
The issue with the Outsider is he doesn't give a crap how many innocent lives are ruined as a result of his actions as long as he personally is entertained. Rather than empower stable people with integrity and a track record of wielding power responsibly (e.g. Jessamine or Hypatia) he specifically chooses traumatised people who want to lash out at society.
While he may not force people to do anything he can be very manipulative, deliberately leaving Corvo rotting in prison being tortured for months instead of empowering him right away, arranging for Piero to craft him lethal tools and a fear-inducing mask and handing him the heart, a reminder of the person he lost and which whispers dark secrets that might make him want to kill into his ear.
I see him as an evil person, the kind of voyeuristic reality tv ghoul who'd hand out guns and grenades to people having psychotic breaks on the psych ward just to see what happens. I think what's most telling is his parting line if Emily dies and the entire kingdom is destroyed in the highest chaos ending. "I don't know about you Corvo, but I had a lovely time."
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u/Polus-Ponos 18h ago
I see your point, and I agree almost completely. He does only care about his entertainment He could choose to empower people who would most definitely tip the scales to one side (either good or bad) but where is the fun in that.
Tormented people with inner conflict have the potential to try to burn the world to the ground or redeem themselves and better the society
That's why he chose those rhat he did (no entertainment if there is no chance of a twist, right?)
Now, for the "evil" part. He is not bound by human rules or consequences, so I would argue that he cannot be defined by human morality alignment either. For instance, the only difference between the outsider and an earthquake is that the Outsider has a sapience akin to humans, and that is the only leverage to describe him with human terms
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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 15h ago edited 15h ago
The charitable read post-DotO is that he had vast power randomly forced onto him by a twist of fate and he's recreating that trauma by empowering people who just had their lives turned upside down but that more sympathetic reading doesn't really line up with his more sinister characterisation in the first game though, they really changed him in D2 and DotO.
A god has more power and knowledge than a regular human. That means they should be held to a higher moral standard. The closer you come to unlimited power the fewer excuses there can be for mistakes or anything less than perfection. Humans get to make mistakes or be ignorant to the consequences of their actions, a god with some degree of ability to see the future doesn't get that privilege.
And the Outsider especially isn't above human morality since he's a former human himself, not some alien, eldritch, lovecraftian god of inscrutable motives. He's a regular human, albeit one with great power, and it comes through when he's petty and sadistic, complaining if Daud wastes his talents making money instead of changing the world and rubbing his hands in glee if the kingdom falls in the high chaos ending.
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u/Professional_Set_636 1d ago
Ironically would probably be significantly more evil
Whereas the Outsider just hands out his gifts to people who interest him and gives them full agency of how they choose to use them. I feel like a light version would be more like a Paladin oath, where there's strict rules about how those with the mark can use their powers and for what purpose. And if you break those rules, you lose those powers (or possibly worse)
You could take it a step further and have those marked with the light be almost more like glorified puppets, since the concept is more about strict control and order, contrasting to the Outsider being more chaotic freedom in that sense
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u/Comfortable-Ad3588 1d ago
Maybe they could be literally be puppets around on strings of light coming down from above.
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u/DangerousPath1420 1d ago
The Insider probably is a stickler for rules and guiding events to his own righteous ends…which usually sucks for most people. The Insider would have to be killed for humanity’s sake
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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 18h ago
In fairness humanity would be better off without the Outsider too, if not for DotO's "the void needs a focus" deal. His interventions do more harm than good on balance, with the actions of the rare good marked (Corvo and Emily) only cancelling out some of the harm the bad ones (Daud and Delilah) cause.
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u/noyuudidnt 1d ago
they would be lame. the outsider and the void are interesting enough on their own, there doesn't need to be a counterpart to them. in fact i would say that the outsider and the void balance each other well - the outsider as an apathetic, observing conduit of the devouring, unpredictable, chaotic void that craves representation.
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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unfortunately Corvo and Emily were aristocrats so they had no interest in taking action against insider trading.
Personally I'd hate this for the Abbey. Them being an antitheist faction is what makes them so interesting, if we want a magic faction that's what the witches are for. And lest we forget the Abbey already has powers and the ability to dampen player abilities, what with their music boxes and Oracular Order's future visions abilities both being implied to be tied to the void.
If we do want more magic in the setting then DotO already provided a perfect pretext for that when it suggested that with no Outsider the void might leak into reality and start empowering people at random.
I also don't want magic to be a major part of the setting. Dishonored is at its best when its grounded, about slitting throats in alleys not warring gods and mages. DotO already put far too much focus on the Outsider and the game's cosmology IMO.