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Atreus Revival

Wrathof300·11/20/2018, 4:28:24 AM·1 votes·1,879 views

Hey all,

This is a small "theory-crafting" thread to discuss the possible 'return' of Atreus to the lore. Pantheon has an amazingly compelling story in my opinion, Atreus is the perfect embodiment of Pantheon's character from the old lore and his rivalry with Pylas could contend for one of the best champion relations in the entire lore.

As we know, Atreus' persona was erased from his body and it was taken host by the Targonian Aspect of War, Pantheon. Since the lore retcon we have essentially been left with no backstory and very little characterization behind Pantheon. Jaredan at the time confirmed plans for Atreus in the future, and while these plans most certainly could have changed, this is how I would meaningfully write Atreus back into the Targon lore:

A well written and fleshed out character with the connections and insight the we expect the Aspect of War to possess, could be a really influential character in the story. Therefore I don't believe that Riot should do away with him completely in 'revival' of Atreus, rather...

"In fact Atreus, while you are a worthy vessel, you fail to realize you were chosen." Pantheon's voice echoed, "You were not the only warrior that passed my trial." As Atreus pushed the Aspect's influence out of his body for good, eyes rolling backward as he fainted from exhaustion, he managed "Py...las..." Atop the mountain, a figure burst from within the stone and snow, rising shakily to his feet. Preserved for months, and restored by celestial magics, his eyes ablaze like that of a burning star. "I am the Pantheon." the figure proclaimed.

I would revive Pylas' body through the relinquish of Pantheon's hold on Atreus. Reviving also Atreus' rivalry with Pylas, however due to Pylas' death, this is Pantheon acting out Pylas' role for him. I think this is a good way to give Atreus a reason to truly hate Pantheon once he is brought back, and it also gives him a goal that keeps him relevant to the Targon story, his objective being to eradicate Panth from his best friend's body and give him a proper burial. I also always theorized that Pantheon's action were a reflection of Atreus' desire to kill the enemies of Mt Targon, so with him now possessing Pylas' body this could bring to light aspects of Pylas' personality e.g. Pylas secretly envying Atreus' conviction as a person, something maybe he lacked in life.

What do you think? How would you write Atreus to be an important character back into the Targon lore?

2 Comments

mrmeddyman11/20/2018, 5:58:31 AM1 votes

I talked about this in an earlier thread. I WANT a fully fledged Pantheon in the game but I know what Riot will do. A lot of story hooks in Mount Targon is nestled in the secrecy of the Aspects of Silver City Targon and to what extent they control the people of Targon through the religions practiced there.

Leona Diana Taric Zoe

All the other Aspects are described as "still themselves, but not exactly human anymore" and have their own personal memories mixed in with hazy memories of the Aspect. As such from a story perspective they are ignorant narrators and we cannot glean anything about the silver city of Targon from them. A convenient plot device to maintain mystery.

Pantheon does not have this excuse because he obliterates the consciousness of his host unlike other the Aspects and is just Pantheon. The dude from the sky. Who knows all their plans. And how they work. Riot can't just have an autonomous Pantheon in the game and refuse to tell the player what is going on, that would be cheap, but if they do tell us the Mount Targon region would have all its' information available and become bland, so the convenient thing to do would be to bring Atreus back, but then that's just a cop out.

Lose-Lose-Lose situation.

I do like what you propose though. Having both in the game, Atreus as the playable character and Pantheon as a story antagonist would allow Riot and lore junkies to have their cake and eat it. It's not a cop out anymore it's an interesting story hook now that calls back to two recent cRPGs that I enjoyed recently: Pillars of Eternity 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Torment is centered around a guy called the Changing God a man who has effectively lived forever by creating lifelike artificial bodies and transferring his consciousness between them for millions of years. The funny thing is that once he leaves these bodies they begin to develop consciousnesses of their own and become autonomous. In the game you play as the last body the Changing God inhabits and after developing a consciousness of your own you go after him for any number of reasons. The game actually sold pretty poorly, it has very simplistic boring combat that seems rushed and it was a Kickstarter that had an entire third act of the game cut due to time and budget constraints. What I love about it though is that it was one of the purest RPGs ever created. So much agency in how you define your character as they are essentially an infant in an adult body, a "clean slate" and the game has one of the coolest "morality" systems I've ever seen that also interacts with gameplay.

I would love to see Atreus confronted with this situation: abandoned by the very god he used to revere now aware that he was never nothing more than a pawn and knowing he has to do something to wake the people of Targon up to the situation going on.

The other side of the coin is that now Pantheon is no longer a character played in game but a story character. I always found it interesting how different he was from the other Aspects. He is a bit of an outsider. He isn't based on a celestial body but a more earthly concept like war, and he takes complete domination over his hosts instead of leaving them on autopilot. It's not far to suggest that maybe up there in the sky things are not as unified as one might think...

In Pillars of Eternity 2 the God of Life and Rebirth: Berath, takes control of a massive crystal statue and starts walking across a massive ocean destroying everything in his path. You as the player become a servant of the other gods who disapprove of Beraths' decision to manifest on the material plane of existence and tell you to sail after him and bring him down. Wouldn't it be cool if Pantheon disagreed with the Aspect of the Sun and Moon, The Protector and Twilight and decided to take control of the situation to accomplish some ulterior motive? Maybe something having to do with the looming presence of Aurelion Sol?

A vessel given new life and a god gone rogue. A VGU like this would not introduce the problems inherit in keeping Pantheon as the focus or just Atreus but these two stories together might be something worth telling.