Not really a fan of the whole 'the black vale thing interconnects everything' stuff
I'll keep this short and salty:
Expanding lore is fine and dandy, but this whole 'everything is interconnected' thing bhvr has going since the blight chapter, this whole 'black vale' cult etc...
It takes something away.
Because it feels like there's no actual room to expand the characters. Cause you just KNOW that at this rate bhvr will reveal that Dwight's boss and Bayshore are connected to the cult, or that meg's and kate's mom also have been part of the pharias thing or what they were called.
Sometimes trying to go bigger makes things just smaller.
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I kinda like it, so long as it's done well.
Some people just... should be taken. No cult involvement. No Black Vale. No Pariahs. Simply someone feeling extreme emotion at the wrong place at the wrong time- just like David King. The dichotomy between his heartbreak and jubilation and final self-acceptance draws the Entity to him and he gets taken (I like to imagine he's taken just before the phone rings for some true bury your gays). That's all it needs- he's just unlucky and it gets him taken.
And then others, like Felix, Elodie, Kate, Jonah, Artist, Twins, Blight- they can have the Black Vale involvement. They've been selected by the cult for one reason or another, and their parents were all in on it, and that's where the story can be.
I like overarching, interconnected plot points, but (especially when the Multiverse and infinite timelines are concerned) not everything has to be part of that overarching, interconnected story, especially if it wasn't initially planned. Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated (the TV series, not the new fan project) does it well, imo, because they left subtle hints during Season 1 towards the overarching story, and then when confirmed they'd be getting a Season 2 were able to bring those hints back into the spotlight. That's how it should be done. And from the original lore we've had of DBD, the Black Vale weren't planned, so trying to shoe-horn everything into those plot points would make for very messy writing, imho.
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If it's done well, yes.
And I don't think it IS done well exactly because pretty much ALL the newer characters and so many sidestories etc are ALL about the cult and the pariahs.
It's an onslaught, and that takes the bite out of it. And what I worry is that bhvr thinks this approach is genius, and will just continue.
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The Black Vale does feel somewhat unnecessary to me. An alien being as massive as the Entity doesn't need a bunch of muppets to enable it further.
A more interesting tale would have been what happens within these realms. The trials seem a small part, manufactured by the Entity, but it may not be the only alien using these auric cells, and rumours of realms with people setting up societies and such means other forces could be at work. That would be a better story.
Bringing cults into these types of stories feels a bit cliche and a bit mad, considering this Entity must've been doing a pretty good job so far without them.
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I don't know. Survivors and Killers just being randomly taken for no reason is, well, random. I like the idea of a big overarching plot behind it all. Honestly I just want the rest of the pariahs, you can't convince me Jonah wasn't meant to be one with all the Black Vale stuff in that DLC.
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Was done well for Felix, Elodie and Twins. I like their involvement there
Felt kinda forced for Artist though, her story revolved around the totalitarian chile government but then there's suddenly the black vale operating under a fake alias that might as well have been 'vlack bale'
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The entity is a lovecraftian God, so I don't find it bad that it has its own cult as big as cthulhus.. Yes maybe some survs are not connected to it, some are but the black vale is actually interesting.. Imagine getting a cultist or something like the shambler in dbd
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Yeah it's nice to have some characters linked in with this whole underground society/cult thing. But it's nice to have a few random survivors who are just unlucky enough to get pulled in. Would be really cool if they added in a survivor who is just a rejected killer, like Rin Yamaoka's father.
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Words cannot state how much i would love a Darkest Dungeon chapter
only if Dismas is the survivor though
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I like the interconnection as it is so far. To me, it's not about it having to all be interconnected, so much as why it's chosen to interconnect so many things.
Even if there was some loose connection where "Dwight's old boss is connected" to the Black Veil (though I think that's hyperbolic), I don't think that mist inherently be a problem. If it was written for the grand purpose of the narrative and is cohesive, then it's simply a direction they chose of countless possibilities. I would have a problem if BHVR pulled a Rowling and started spouting new lore in tweets without any extrapolation, even if it added to the characters. But if we got tome entries that connected Dwight's boss to the Black Veil, and that contributes to the meaning of the lore as a whole, then great. So it could expand how we understand some aspects to the circumstances the characters ended up in, and grow our understanding of the Black Veil's presence.
That all said, I'd be interested in hearing more about what you mean when you say "it takes something away" and what you mean by "expanding the characters." Since "something" is a vague term and there are many of ways to "expand" a character. I don't want to assume what you mean beyond my general thoughts on the Black Veil lore so far.
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By 'it takes something away' I mean that it makes things feel smaller than they could (?) be and it really bends suspension of disbelief (ymmv though).
To me, having everything connected to these two organizations takes out some danger and intrigued. The sense that the entity could snatch up any given person because they somehow piqued its interests by pure happenstance. To have the factor that 'oh no, this prson was taken because of this org or another' makes it feels... bland. It's this 'IT IS DESTINYYYYYYY' undertone that is just... dull. Especially when seeing that there are multiple realities... so it feels like we're to believe that despite all these different timelines the characters ALWAYS had a brush with either org and that only that got the entity interested?
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I agree, I think is way more interesting when most of the survivors are just people that went missing with no explanation, like as if It could be happening in our world but we would never know; When everything is connected it takes that away in my opinion
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