The Beast is a metaphor for human nature

First person to joke about how the beast is a metaphor for his dick gets nothing.

So the new Awakening patch is out, Act 4 is now in the game. At the end there's a beast that left me puzzled, as you never fight or see it directly. One wonders why the story would even mention it then. Instead of the beast, you confront Malachai, the former chief thaumaturgist to emperor Chitus. Their relation is similar to Doriyani and Atziri before, and Piety and Dominus after.
Bait and switch aside, the beast obviously symbolizes something. Like the cataclysm that destroyed the eternal empire, lore and dialogue concerning the beast is deliberately alluding and vague, yet central to the story. Supposedly the beast is the source of all thaumaturgy as well as the source of the skill gems, it blurs the line between reality, dream and nightmare, and many major characters are fighting it in some way. Those that end up serving it become your enemies. Thematically alot of act 4 points towards 'hunting' the beast, or in Dialla's words, catching and frying a nice big fish in the tides of nightmare. I believe Oyun calls it the beast within at some point. But it's never explained, within what? Within the mountain, some might say. Within man himself, I'd argue.
Indeed, the player character is hunting the beast, but since we never see the whole thing, we're just chasing a metaphor. And the association with man's primal nature is clear, after all, what is more natural than a man hunting a beast?

Path of Exile is low on story. Similar to Dark Souls, the story basically already happened and the player character amounts to a one man clean-up crew killing whoever's left, so the human survivors can have a slightly less shitty life. Currently Wraeclast is in the middle of it's third gem-fueled apocalypse, because people are greedy and always lust for more power. This brings me to the first major plot point: man's pride.

Aside from pride before a fall, the game alludes a great deal to corruption. As we all know, power corrupts. As is common in fantasy stories moral and ethical problems are personified in enemies like dragons or evil wizards, and here too the loathsome morality of the inhabitants of Wraeclast finds expression.
However, unlike it's spiritual predecessor Diablo 2, there is no unified source of evil in Path of Exile. There is no Satan, hell or army of demons. All enemies are corrupted wildlife, undead, or human. The beast is merely referred to as slumbering and hungry. Man's pride and corruption is what caused everything to turn out bad.

So why this philosophical shift? The fear of seeming too similiar to Diablo can safely be ruled out. The game goes to great lengths to stay true to it's Diablo 2 heritage in other places. Dominus even turns into mini-Diablo during the last stage of his fight, yet the game seems to forget about it directly after. Something must account for this design decision.
The difference is that Path of Exile isn't interested in telling a story about a hero overcoming evil, but rather presents a narrative about man overcoming the world as well as himself. Victory is achieved by defeating nature and fellow men, and penetrating deeper into the heart (of the beast and of the self) than anyone before.

The dialogue best reflecting this theory I think can be found, ironically, with the least specific act 4 character, Tasuni. Described as a man of two worlds, he is both in tune with the light (presumably the light of reason) and the darkness (of man's heart). He talks of seeing into the darkness, of necessity being more important than desire.
Yet he mentions love as the true reason of your prevailing. And then he expresses pity to whomever else you might decide to love.
Further dialogue refers to how only the player character can face the darkness because he understands it, while it is also said that only Malachai truly understands the beast. This apparent contradiction displays how similar and different the player and Malachai are, and the nature of their relation with the subconscious. Malachai's understanding is what leads him to becoming servant and master. The player's understanding is more instrumental, we're only playing a videogame after all. What else is there but to fight, survive and overcome? Is that not the highest, noblest, most reasonable thing humans can do?

In conclusion, while nature cannot truly be defied, and the beast cannot truly be killed, submission to that fact is unacceptable. It results in serving the beast, becoming complacent, surrendering to an eternal deathless death. Until the hero comes along and finally kills the servant. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the next NPC to be added into the game starts talking about the will to power.

Edit: changed the phrasing to avoid confusion, found some more dialogue to comment on.

I thought the game was about "Find your own way inland exile" and "a touch of god".

You also have to put your Maligaro's spike in the tree to later dump loads of Thamuetic Sulphite over an undying blockage to gain entry.

I thought its all about the poe.trade and getting as many brown items as possible,
enslaving whole legions of casuals to farm for you and growing FAT and FLuffy like a Maggot !

He who makes a beast of himself relieves himself the pain of being a man.

-Hunter S. Thompson

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Gerarddg wrote:

So why this philosophical shift? Dodging a plagiarism lawsuit perhaps?

Plagiarism is the finest form of Flattery! \m/

#1) A big bad being a source of evil is not an original concept found in Diablo - neither is fighting creatures of hell. Have you, perhaps, heard of the Doom series? And, I'm sure if you were to dig, you'd find it in far many other sources than just video games themselves - it's a staple of fantasy story telling.


#2)

"

Dominus even turns into mini-Diablo during the last stage of his fight, yet the game seems to forget about it directly after. Something must account for this design decision.

No, it's literally Dominus' quote. "This world is an illusion, Exile."

Malachai, at the brain of the beast, controlled the illusion of what Wraeclast had become. He was the source of the corruption, corruption which seized Dominus, and turned him into that bestial form. It is similar to what has happened to Voll, Kaom, Daresso, Piety, Maligaro, Doedre, Shavronne, and even Malachai himself.


The hypothesis that you have presented, however, is a good one. Those are two things that just stuck out to me as "off" - There's no lawsuit to be dodged, and Dominus is no different from the eight.

more Acts to come...

POE is all about cycloning through maps.

Thats deep enough alrdy.

When you defeat Dominus I thought it was trying to push out into your face that anything is possible if you work through the difficulties that life throws at you. That you will be able to prove you are a man and one who succeeds in life.

And then Malachai seems to be something about corruption and wanting over something turns us all into monstrous abominations who have 4 hearts.

Beast is just a mob lol, dont take this game too serious.. Chris said they wanted to make act4 ending > next diffuculty something like we ran from beast and enter town blabla too lazy to find it check yourself or ask chris.

"

XigTek wrote:

#1) A big bad being a source of evil is not an original concept found in Diablo - neither is fighting creatures of hell. Have you, perhaps, heard of the Doom series? And, I'm sure if you were to dig, you'd find it in far many other sources than just video games themselves - it's a staple of fantasy story telling.


#2)

"

Dominus even turns into mini-Diablo during the last stage of his fight, yet the game seems to forget about it directly after. Something must account for this design decision.

No, it's literally Dominus' quote. "This world is an illusion, Exile."

Malachai, at the brain of the beast, controlled the illusion of what Wraeclast had become. He was the source of the corruption, corruption which seized Dominus, and turned him into that bestial form. It is similar to what has happened to Voll, Kaom, Daresso, Piety, Maligaro, Doedre, Shavronne, and even Malachai himself.


The hypothesis that you have presented, however, is a good one. Those are two things that just stuck out to me as "off" - There's no lawsuit to be dodged, and Dominus is no different from the eight.

The first point is irrelevant. Diablo is just an example, used because Path of Exile takes heavy bouts of inspiration from the series and GGG are not shy to admit that. The reason Path of Exile exists was because GGG loved Diablo 2 and thought they could do better than the competition (which there wasn't much of -- D3 not included as PoE was in dev before D3's announcement).

The lawsuit thing was weird, though. It's the only sentence that made no sense to me and could be removed without afterthought. GGG is not going to be sued for copying the idea of a grim dark setting, or even copying demons and angels or good vs. evil. Even if that was what PoE was about, which it isn't, the game is different enough that claiming it is a copy of Diablo is absurd.

"

ImXj9 wrote:

Beast is just a mob lol, dont take this game too serious.. Chris said they wanted to make act4 ending > next diffuculty something like we ran from beast and enter town blabla too lazy to find it check yourself or ask chris.

You miss the point of these posts. Speculation is enjoyable to some, we don't need a developer to tell us what to think. Stories can be interpreted in multiple ways that even the author can't conceive, and whilst the author might have their own meaning they should not stop others from discussing their own.