A few Rhue related theroies.

[Comodo]

EDIT: I was informed this was allready posted a while ago. Mines a little diffrent, though. So take a look anyway.
Ok, I've been thinking these up for a while, and I'm bored now, so I might as well post them. These concern Rhue, Midian and Jeruh mostly, with a few other bits. Lets start off with a few terms from the wanderer's guide book:

"Senser - A person with the ability to sense other wanderer's auras."
"Shifter - People who are able to shift their aura's, usually by attaining a certain state of mind."

You can probably allready guess where this is going. Now, many people have allready guessed headhunters are "Sensers" Witch brings me to my Midian explanation. Now, we know Rhue seems to absorb auras and take them to "The City" (Dream Estrana) right? Well: Its allready presumed Rhue is (Or Was) Jeruh. Anyway, the headhunter in episode one (The one on the bridge) Asks Rhue if he's seen Jeruh (If he dident, download it again, this time not from mirror 1).

Now, the headhunter, sensing Jerus's aura in Rhue, attacks him, and allmost kills him, but is killed is defeated by slade in a disgusting (And cool) way. Now, heres what I think happens next: The headhunters aura is sucked in by Rhue, and is taken to The City. He then forgets he was killed, and continues to search for Jeruh there. The headhunters name? Midian, of course.

As Rhue crosses the bridge in episode 2's marna stretch, another headhunter meets him. "Sensing" Midians aura in him, he says hello. (He probably dident see him unmasked before).

Onto the next bit: Rhue himself. Nice guy, searches for a girl, dislikes mirrors. Dislikes mirrors. The question is, why? He's defiantely as we see him, as Belson (The guy you need to get drunk) says "Yes, we both have brown hair, dont we?" But is he howhe sees himself? I think not. One of his best Looking into the mirror quotes is "I hate mirrors. They lie to me".

Which brings me to my next point: He may be a "Shifter" Without reliseing it. (Quick PS Theory: His sword may take controll when his Aura "Shifts" Out of his body) Now, Rhue is probably Jeruh, we know that allready. But why dosent he remember it? It must be something to do with the sword. Others have suggested that he's in Midians body, but I allready have a theory on that, but its definately not his own. Perhaps he realy hasnt, as other people have suggested, been searching that long afterall.

Anyway: Lots of people have said this, but not come up with a reason why it happened. Possibly, when those dogs attacked him (Or whatever REALY did) He "Shifted" His aura into them.

I've got lots of more stuff with the second part, but this posts getting a bit long, so I'll post it later. Throw around what I put here for now

[Snapman]

Meh, there's no point in searching for answers yet. There's so many bloodt theories...

Has anyhone played through The Way whilst stoned? Maybe then it'll make sense. I might give it a try and report back with my findings.

Fun.

[Amgard]

Well we also know Rhue can absorb auras, not just extrovert his own. He stole Cade's aura, and when his "Aura" should've been seperated, he went loco and killed everyone.

[DSOK]

It had occured to me that Rhue might have absorbed the aura of Midian from the headhunter, and that the other headhunter had mistaken him for someone else on the basis of this aura. However, I pretty much discarded this theory, for a couple reasons.

The first reason is that one does get the impression that Rhue has some real connection with Jeruh, starting from before the headhunter attacks. It would be quite a coincidence that Rhue should absorb the aura of a headhunter hunting the very same person whom Rhe <was looking for/had killed/actually was; insert you favorite>.

The second reason I discarded the theory is more of a meta-reason, based on the way the game has developed. My original idea (germinated during episode 2, before much of anything had been explained about auras) was that Rhue had absorbed the headhunter's essence from the dead man's blood. After Strata nearly kills Rhue, our protagonist is saved through the use of "Bloodlife," a form of "X-life," and the power for his rescue comes from the blood on and around him. Most of that should be his own, but there may be some of the headhunter's splattered on him as well. I figured that maybe he absorbed part of the man's aura and/or persona through the Bloodlife resurrection.

However, as Bloodlife has never been mentioned again during the game, and other aura transfer methods have, this seems like an unlikely scenario. Maybe there was supposed to be some signficance to the fact that the pool of blood in which Rhue lay was the source of the healing power (Why else mention such a oddly peripheral fact?), but if so, Lun may have decided to drop it in favor of something else. There are lots of things in the first episode that went nowhere, such as the differing damage from different risk attacks. The change of the name the headhunter gives (from "Gaius" to "Jeruh") probably also indicates a shift in plans (either that, or its a really big clue).

So this has set me thinking:
If Lun goes back periodically to debug the whole series, perhaps he should also change things around so that the first episode fits more smoothly with the rest of the game. That could mean updating the risk attacks in episode 1. More important, however, I'd like to see him give new names to the various people's forms of X-life. Violet (and her imitator Lexus) could have "Plantlife" or something, and I think Slade the Shadow Foot derserves a cool name for his special attack menu. Gaius' menu name could change when his attack pattern does. There are numerous possibilities, and it would give the game some more flavor; I must say I was personally disappointed when this angle was never pursued.

[Telephalsion]

Meh, there's no point in searching for answers yet. There's so many bloodt theories...

Has anyhone played through The Way whilst stoned? Maybe then it'll make sense. I might give it a try and report back with my findings.

Fun.

this is something for iteroth.

[Impossible]

The guy in E1's name was Belson, not Boson. Yes, I do only know this because of the fucking novelization.

[Comodo]

Oops. My mistake, corrected it.

[Impossible]

I'm actually torn on whether or not E1's headhunter was actually Midian. The headhunter had such an icky default sprite, and didn't seem very important. Midian doesn't wear anything like that, but he would be because he was when he died. And with the hair and everything, it seems like it would be a bit stupid for Midian to be the headhunter wearing something else with a lot of gel, and actually acting completely different.

It's entirely possible there's another explanation for this, but the evidence in E1 and 2 does seem to suggest that it's Midian. But that was so damn long ago, and we've learnt so much since then, it can't be that simple. There's no way. IMO, we're still missing a piece of the puzzle.

One possibility is that there are/were various people all looking for Jeruh... But why? The headhunter alone probably isn't a major figure... Unless it was him and Midian that gave Rhue the sword. Assuming Rhue is Jeruh or Jeruh is Rhue or whatever (those theories have gotten so fucked I don't bother anymore, I'll just wait until we know), I think the reason could be connected to the sword.

[DSOK]

I think people make a awful lot of assumptions about the nature of Dream Estrana. I mean, has anybody considered that it may just have been a dream? I'm not saying it has to be a dream, but it is a real possibility.

A lot of people seem to think that it's where people whom Rhue killed end up. Other than the presence of Lyrra's father, what evidence is there to support this? Sure, that guy reveals some apparently valid information to Rhue, but isn't it perfectly reasonable that this was merely information that Rhue (or one of his absorbed auras) already knew but is just now remembering?

Maybe Midian looks so ridiculous in Dream Estrana because Rhue doesn't know what Midian actually looks like. That would fit with Midian being the headhunter. And even if it's not a dream, why should Midian appear in Dream Estrana wearing the same outfit he had on when he died? (Actually, the whole idea of people wearing the clothes they wore when they died in some kind of afterlife is pretty weak. Why can't they change outfits? And why aren't their cloths torn and stained from when the individual got eviscerated? And if the clothes magically "heal" themselves, does that include rips and rents not related to the character's death?)

[Berserker]

I think Dream Estrana is some kind of "mental image" of the auras that Rhue somehow absorbed. Not a dream, but not a "other world" either.

[Impossible]

The City pretty much has to be where people Rhue killed end up... Firstly, there's no other explanation for Jed (and Lexus) being there. And it's definitely more than a dream.

[DSOK]

Impossible wrote

The City pretty much has to be where people Rhue killed end up... Firstly, there's no other explanation for Jed (and Lexus) being there. And it's definitely more than a dream.

Somehow this reasoning seems a bit lacking. :/

There no other explanation? Within a minute of reading that, I had come up with no less than four:

1. It's just a dream.
2. Everybody who's dead and has ever been to Estrana is preserved there.
3. Everybody who's been to Estrana has their image in the dream city, whether they're currently alive or dead. This explains Rhue being there.
4. Everything (including people) destroyed during the current crisis on The Way is preserved in the dream, so the people aren't so much there in Estrana, as they're there with Estrana.

That was just the first minute. I'll leave it to the readers' imaginations to elaborate on the implications of each of these options. I'm not saying I believe any of these, but I really think people are being awfully close-minded about the possibilities.

The only reason I can see to believe that it's not just a dream is that Jed reveals some facts about the Landorin massacre. Yet, as I already pointed out, if Rhue <is/was/absorbed the aura of> Jeruh, he could just be re-remembering these facts in the dream. Am I missing anything else that would seem to give more substance to dream Estrana?

[Impossible]

1. It's just a dream.

There's way too much to it for it to just be a dream. It makes no sense. Why does it exist at all then?

2. Everybody who's dead and has ever been to Estrana is preserved there.
3. Everybody who's been to Estrana has their image in the dream city, whether they're currently alive or dead. This explains Rhue being there.

Jed (probably) hasn't been to Estrana, and besides that, I just don't think that's a very likely idea. It doesn't make much sense.

4. Everything (including people) destroyed during the current crisis on The Way is preserved in the dream, so the people aren't so much there in Estrana, as they're there with Estrana.

For the last three, also: Then what is it doing in Rhue's head?

[DSOK]

Impossible wrote:

There's way too much to it for it to just be a dream. It makes no sense. Why does it exist at all then?

There's way too much to it for it to just be a dream? What, do you only have simple dreams? I've had some pretty convoluted ones, and ones that picked up right where they left off, after I'd been awake for a whole day.

Just because it's a dream, it doens't have to be meaningless, for the reasons I've already given.

Why it exists? Freud himself wasn't very good at answering this for individual dreams. I could hazard a guess though. Many people that appear in dreams are reflections of the dreamer; it could then easily make sense that Rhue finds himself face-to-face and getting information from Midian. Rhue obviously has some unresolved issues about Lexus, and her natural setting is Estrana, so that's the place the dream recreates. It's not tough to come up with plausible explanations for things in dreams; in fact, it's really easy.

Jed (probably) hasn't been to Estrana, and besides that, I just don't think that's a very likely idea. It doesn't make much sense.

No, Jed probably hasn't been there, but who knows? (Well, Lun and fwacho, I guess.) It's just a theory, and there are lots of things about The Way that don't seem to make sense, at least upon first inspection. Anyway, the dream theory seems a lot more logical than the "people Rhue killed" scenario. What about all the people there he didn't kill; where did they come from?

For the last three, also: Then what is it doing in Rhue's head?

What's he doing there if it's where people he killed go? Who or what did he plunge against before he got there? There are lots of unanswered questions, and I admit that I can't see a theory that makes them all transparently obvious. I just think people are taking an awful lot for granted about the nature of dream Estrana. Maybe we'll learn more about it later.

[fwacho]

I have good new add some bad news for you.
First teh good news. Some of your question will be answered in E6.
Now the bad news. Some of your questions won't be answered in E6.
It's nice to hear people ask the questions though as it lets us know we succeeded in what we were trying to do.