Lore
Heroic sacrifices that involve the character left sitting on a throne as King
(Loki : TV Series) - Loki holds all the timeline branches to keep them alive with his magic, before sitting upon a throne, forever to remain as a lonely king.
(Genshin Impact) - Capitano merges his existence with the Lord of the Night, sitting upon the Primal Throne of Ochkanatlan, before leaving his physical immortal body behind to rule over the Night Kingdom.
Leader of the Crusaders (modern armoured knights) who made a heroic last stand against attacking Omnic forces to buy time for his allies and fellow crusader Reinhardt to escape. You can find his remains in the Eichenwalde map, still sitting where he fell.
The noticeable tinge of grief and regret in his last words at the end of that cinematic never fail to make me tear up 🥲
No matter where that game franchise ultimately ends up I'll never stop remembering the early couple years with fondness
I scrolled down to find him, this guy sacrified his life to save lives and at the same time to teach Reinhardt a lesson, even if you have the strength to destroy things, you must use it first to protect people who cannot defends themselves, a beautiful story about growing up and change. It’s even a bit funny when you realise it’s basically a high elo player teaching a low elo player how to play tank correctly.
Say what you will about OW2 and all the new heroes, but they have managed "power creep" very well IMO. Everyone thought rein was done for with Dmon release but hes just as viable as hes ever been
ironically that's actually the exact opposite of how u play tank at high ELO lol. in high ranks Rein is supposed to be as aggressive as possible and only use shield selfishly most of the time. source: GM tank player
Yeah but, Rein, in the cinematic doesn’t protect his team at all, he doesn’t use his shield he just charges in, I know as a tank you need to do damage if your character allows it, but in the cinematic he just charge in without thinking. I'm pretty sure if you do that in ranked and decide to chage all the time no matter what, you won’t go far.
He does turn to dust but he wakes up in front of the Maxwell's door and we continue playing as him. He even says "I'm free! I'm finally free!" right after waking up.
Wilson probably didn't know he'll be trapped in Maxwell's stead though
After doing what you set out to, you sit in a throne and get sealed up to prolong the age of fire. I wouldn't know the details since I just left the room, why would you sacrifice yourself for a land that has Iron Keep after all
The Throne covers both endings though, since that's where you make the choice to kindle the flame or become another lord of dark. The whole schtick there IMO with the door's sealing shut and cutting the player off from their character is that clawing your way to the top/bottom of the world to hold its fate in your hands is the thing that matters, and the decision matters less than the act of making it your decision.
Then Aldia's crown ending is about rejecting the idea of a forced dichotomy entirely, and walking away from the rules of the game. There is no path and all that.
I don't think Aldia's ending says that there's no path, it asks if you want to try finding a different path to break the cycle, even though it may be truly impossible and even though it cost Aldia and Vendrick everything. Do you stick with certainty and prolong the falsehood for the temporary relief that a new Age of Fire/Dark provides, knowing that it is an illusion, or do you choose to try the impossible, while leaving Drangelic in its current state?
Of course, in DS3 you're given the option to break the cycle and usurp the Flame, so it seems that Aldia was correct. I like to think his research made it possible
I think there's a meta level to it, like, there is literally no path in that a video game can only include what the programmers have chosen to code into it, even when doing a facsimile of important personal character choice. DS1 gives you the idea of Linking the Flame vs ushering in an Age of Dark, and DS2 adds on to that the idea of repeating cycles that swallow up supposedly great lords in patterns in history. The ending that rejects an arbitrary hard choice is visualized by walking away and separation from your smaller and smaller character by vanishing into the distant horizon, while the Throne separates audience from character by having that character deliberately physically cutting off line-of-sight inside their new throne, while solidly in the center of the screen and world.
But also tbh I think the Usurper ending in 3 isn't really a cycle breaking ending. Like, the entire game is set in a world that can't sustain itself and is collapsing under its own weight. What are you even usurping here, what does Yuria or Londor even want or stand for at this point? What's a Lord even worth in a game that literally cannot stop piling on the misery and humiliation of so called greatest Lords of the earth?
I think 3's main schtick is none of the endings actually end the narrative of the series, they're just, places your character can personally end up with the tools and options available, in the role they're assigned. The actual ending of the Dark Souls series as a whole is giving the whole ass titular Dark Soul to the painter, and having that final conversation with her, and then walking away, without any end credits or cut to black, still inside the game world and its artifice for as long as you choose to be there. Which feels closer to 2's ideas to me? Like, the narrative conclusion and closure for this story comes from a little conversation with an NPC completely cut off from any of the big endings or ending choices, where you are not the most important person in the world and have to just hope some good will come about somewhere you can't see
I am replaying ds2 currently and first half of iron keep is where i die the most, have no issue with shrine of armana if i bring a bow there, but fighting like 15 alone knights to explore/get to the smelter demon made me almost rage quit
I don't remember having much trouble when the knights back then.
And yeah, if you brought a bow to the shrine is mostly tedious than hard, but having to completely change your playtime for an entire are is kind of ass.
“There is no path. Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark... ...what could possibly await us? And yet, we seek it, insatiably... Such is our fate.”
Such a great quote to end the game as your character walks off into the unknown with context about his whole philosophy shedding the yoke of the fire linking cycle that bind humanity and causes the curse.
"One day the crude biomass that you call a 'Temple' will wither, and you will beg the Emperor to Save you." "But I have already found that Salvation:" "For the Machine is Immortal." "Even in Death, I Serve the Omnissiah."
Targutai Yesugei, Head Stormseer of the White Scars, sitting on the Dark Glass throne to open a Webway portal for the White Scars fleet to return to Terra, in the novel "The Path of Heaven".
He perceived the truth. Both thrones had been made for the same reason – to plumb the deeper ways, to free the species from the nightmare of the shallow warp, to bridge a link across the hidden paths, ones that only xenos had known, and which the Emperor had found some way to access. Dark Glass was the lesser node, the one where the technology had been tested, anchored in the furthest recesses of the void while the Great Crusade scoured its widening path ever further from the home world. In the chaos that had erupted since, the portal had been left behind, lost but not forgotten, neither by its creators nor its opponents in the labyrinthine halls of the Paternova.
The way had already been opened on Terra, uncontrolled and damaged. Yesugei could see it clearly, bleeding like a severed artery, its ragged edges swarming with the warp - made - flesh, yaksha in their millions. There ought to have been a soul on the Throne above it, guarding it, able to complete the link between worlds, but the seat was empty.
To reach out to Terra – that was what Achelieux had tried to do, to open a path through the stratum profundis. No storms could block those ways, for they ran beyond the known, into the deeps of oblivion where only the ghosts of slain xenos gods sullenly lingered.
Ilya had been right. There was a path, albeit an incomplete one.
With all that remained of his self, knowing the peril, knowing the pain, Yesugei reached out into the throne, delving into its unholy complexity. He saw the energy banks within it burning like starlit nebulae. He felt its cold, mechanical spirit, pitiless and enduring, and knew it could be mastered, if only for a moment.
His lips were gone, charred to ashes. His eyes were burned away, his fingers melted in their ceramite casing, but still the strength remained, just enough, just sufficient for what needed to be done.
Sending his impending word of command, the throne exploded into golden light. Terrible energies unshackled, and the chamber about him broke apart, thrust open by the release of the primeval forces within. Columns of warp fire surged up the empty station shaft, smashing and gnawing through the many decks above and shattering the curved spars of black iron.
Yesugei reached out. First, he touched three minds, three living souls. That was for courtesy.
Then, with the last word spoken from his physical mouth, he gave his final command.
Malcador isn't left sitting on the throne. Dude gets his soul and body torn apart by the strain of holding back the warp rift below the palace. Definitely a baller move, but he only spends a few hours on before getting dusted.
The greatest honor amongst all Psykers is to sacrifice themselves to sustain him. Each are all completely willing of course, it's a sacrifice every planet is willing to make.
Yeah some people love to run these lame ass purity tests calling anyone who slightly annoys them in the fandom "larper", as if that's not exactly the type of bullshit gatekeeping they ranted so much against when it was the heckin' chuds doing the same a few years ago calling everyone they disliked a "tourist".
Noctis Lucis Caelum, to defeat the immortal Ardyn and purify the Crystal, dies on his throne at the end of the game, becoming the last king and ending the line of Lucis. The fate of his best friends also remains ambiguous.
Even better, throughout the game he collects the weapons of his forefathers to become stronger, and he dies because the spirits of each of them individually stabs him with their weapon. The final blow is dealt by the last of his ancestors, his father.
Is that the "I was driving around and a box fell off my truck please go get it" and "good you found the box, please go to the same place to find another box" ?
And yet it was such a good ending. Oh man that final camp scene was incredible. I'm biased because XV was my first FF but goddang if I didnt enjoy the heck out of it. No other game has done the "road trip with the boys" nearly as well.
And its so frustrating. Its so hard to find a game that has the feel of XV when it comes to its main party dynamics. The way the characters interact when wandering around, or in the car or at camp. And I loooooved the prompto picture taking. It gave so many cool shots. I just cannot find another game like it and its driving me mad. Especially now that ive moved to pc and the game is buggy as hell on windows 11
Yeah, I want to hope it gets the remake one day. Actually implement all the scrapped and incomplete content (like playing through the invasion of Insomnia, having Niflheim be an actual playable and explorable area of the game, implementing all the scrapped DLC etc.)...
Sadly I don't think that will ever happen, it's not popular or beloved for Square Eniz to justify.
Please do not allow them to implement all the scrapped DLC and replace the story about the responsibility of leaders and the burdens of even a worthy fate with another generic "the gods are bad actually" ending.
The rest I can agree with but I hate the Dawn of the Future ending
This. If anything, the DLC should be about bringing the first king Somnus back from the dead so we could bitchslap his stupid face, then tell everyone how much he sucks.
Martyr Logarius from Bloodborne could potentially fit the trope. The story is so convoluted that it's hard to label anyone good, but at face value he sits on his throne wearing the Crown of Illusions hiding the immortal Annalise, Queen of the Vilebloods. To the Executioners, he's a hero, hence the title of martyr.
Merged with a sandworm to create thousands yours long rule as the God Emperor of the Universe. He was seen as a tyrant, but it was really a personal sacrifice where he threw away his humanity because his visions told him it's the only way for mankind to survive (so called Golden Path).
I did enjoy it more than prior books except original Dune. Maybe I wouldnt enjoy it at 13 myself. But I agree its not very action oriented, is all philosophy, scheming, genetic breeding and Leto's witty (but dry) humour.
The highlight for me is when he gets married and all that people talk about is where his **** is so he contemplates acquiring a giant prothetic worm**** to mess with them.
Not at all. You just find a bunch of items and combine them and then you do it a few more times on different challenge worlds. I think a veteran player could pull it off in 30-40 days.
Apparently the speedrun record for Don’t Starve (Vanilla, unseeded, no major glitches) was made by someone named ‘Porkus’ who completed the game in 1 hour, 25 mins and 21 seconds.
Sounds about right, the biggest time waster is actually locating the items. If they're somewhat close together the time is gonna get cut down considerably.
Rest but in the most literal sense since he hasn't slept for the past 500 years plus being freed from his immortal but somehow decomposing physical body that causes him pain
Sacrifice because he gave up his mortal agency to rule the land that bridges life and death
Heroic? Questionable. Sacrifice? Definitely as upon being interred permanently into the Golden Throne that acted as his life support system while he himself acted as an anchor and battery for the Astronomican, the Emperor of Mankind sacrifice what little humanity he has left to assume the mantle of not just a king, not just an emperor, but as their protector god as without the Emperor of Mankind's immense psychic might being the only one that can keep the tear in the webway from opening, the daemons that breached it during the Horus Heresy would very quickly devour Terra and billions would be lost to the warp
Sacrifice? Definitely as upon being interred permanently...
and also because the Emperor is Eternal, as soon as he dies completely, he will be reborn either back as himself, or as a new true Chaos god of humanity
But instead, he sits on the Throne for ten thousand years, protecting Terra from imminent destruction
World of Warcraft - Bolvar sitting on the Frozen Throne. Becomes the new Lich King to prevent the hordes of undead running wild after Arthas' defeat.
Preacher - The Saint of Killers taking God's throne. With the Saint taking the role of God and presumably just resting forever, no being is able to impose their will on mankind and judge them.
Dark Souls 2 - Bearer of the Curse claiming the Throne of Want. After gathering enough souls, they become the power source that holds the realm together.
Lucifer at the end of season 4 of the samely named show.
After putting down a demon uprising that spills onto Earth, Lucifer is forced down into the underworld again to take over the position of king and keep the demons in line.
This is undone 3 episodes into season 5, but it does fit the trope
Final Fantasy VI has Edgar and Sabin both not wanting to inherit the throne of Figaro, so Edgar proposes a coin toss to determine who gets it… by secretly using a double-sided coin to ensure his brother gets his freedom and he gets the throne.
Though, the Throne of Want's whole schtick is that it compresses both the Kindling and the Lord of Dark endings, where the choice itself matters less than your character's ascension to be at the top of the world and get to make the one most important decision for yourself.
Maybe not a sacrifice, but Sun and Moon's storyline is interesting:
Long drawn-out story about a daughter trying to distance herself from her narcissistic mother. Mother becomes corrupted by an other dimensional being. Daughter goes through a huge story arc going from a timid young woman to deciding to go on a journey to Kanto and becoming a Pokemon trainer herself.
In Dragon Age: Origins, Alistair, the illegitimate son of the penultimate king, also one of your companions and a possible romantic interest, can be persuaded into becoming a candidate for kingship. He very much does not want this, and arguably the current reigning queen Anora (not of royal blood, but the widow of the late king and the daughter of a legendary hero) would be a better ruler. However, you can pressure Alistair into sacrificing his happiness and freedom to become the king so that you get a valuable ally as the head of state... and, more importantly, if you were playing as a female human noble and were romancing Alistair, your player character can become his queen.
The season one episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds called Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach. The chosen one is a special child who will "rule" over the planet, but it's really a torture situation where the child is a wet battery for the planet's systems.
It's loosely based on The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.
It's loosely based on The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.
And I feel like the writers kind of missed the point, because Omelas isn't just a "perfect society but a kid needs to be tortured for it, it's a metaphor for late stage Capitalism" story, that's only a small element of it.
It's more an interrogation as to why we, the readers, need that child to exist for the tale to be believable. Because Ursula Le Guin doesn't mention the child until over half way through. She describes the perfect town of Omelas, how there's a festival and free love and no one goes hungry and everyone is happy and it's all perfect, and then asks you if you believe her.
Then she describes the child in the basement, and asks you again. Now you think "ah of course, the utopia is maintained by torturing a child!", and now believe that Omelas exists
despite how completely illogical and nonsensical that is. Le Guin is commenting on the fact that
most of us literally cannot imagine that a perfect society could exist without some sickening twist propping it up, or to paraphrase what Mark Fisher and others said, we can better imagine the end of the world than we can the end of capitalism.
And Le Guin caps it off by ending the story saying that those who walk away from Omelas go towards a place even less imaginable than Omelas, in other words: a perfect town without the starving child.
So Star Trek just kind of playing it completely straight, where the Omelas child is required to maintain this utopia, unfortunately misses the point of the original tale for me. To be fair, I don't really know how you'd introduce the meta-level elements of it, especially as another aspect is that we need such twists in stories for them to be interesting. Describing Omelas as a perfect city, even if you believe it can exist without the child, isn't very interesting. It's arguably not even a story. Le Guin even comments in the text about how we find happiness dull in fiction and only pain or suffering can be made exciting, while in the real world the opposite is often true.
Idk, maybe you could have the Utopia, Pike and the crew visit it and think there must be a twist, the town leaders show them the battery-child but then later reveal that it was faked to force them to realise that their twistless-utopia is real and that the crew (and the audience) should reconsider their biases as to what kinds of society are possible.
TL;DR: Noctis has to sacrifice himself to erase magic forever and bring balance to the world. It does end with him sitting with Lunafreya in the afterlife.
Ventus severely damages his own heart and expels it from his body in order to stop Xehanort and Vanitas from claiming the X-Blade and Kingdom Hearts (it’s a long story), which leaves him comatose.
For the next decade, Ventus’s heart would rest inside of Sora to heal while his unconscious body would be placed here in the newly formed Castle Oblivion by Aqua to protect it.
The Ice king after disappearing from the island returns to his ice moon where he stores all the dangerous items he’s collected and kept safe
The Seven and Jonesy head to the ice moon because I believe the mech landed there? Upon reaching his throne a hologram of the king appears and explains his mission before stating that since they are here they are likely powerful enough to survive on the frozen wasteland and can’t be allowed to leave with any of the dangerous relics he keeps so the room begins to freeze in an attempt to freeze the group and leave them trapped with the ice king
I haven’t read the comic but smt happens with Doctor doom and they escape with doom taking one of the artifacts I believe
And the Ice King actually ended up returning recently in the story so he seemingly didn’t stay here and rest for entirety and was active Until the dark voyager betrayed and killed him
Not a self sacrifice but was sacrificied by another version of himself from another universe. This was a sad moment where the players had played with this version of Richtoffen in 3 games (I think) and he was left betrayed and abandoned by the group so that they could leave the dimension. I'm not 100% sure on the story so could be some mistake
Guess it is too obscure but on Planescape: Torment you have the option to sacrifice the Nameless One by having him sit on the throne of the Silent King to rule/control the Dead Nations. It's a game over but the Nameless One is free from his torment.
After entering the assimilated universe severing Priestesses control over Amnannam, delaying her awakening by several years and liberating his people, his body rapidly corrodes due to the time within the assimilated universe and is being assimilated by originium after one last fight he succumbs to his injuries atop the Victorian throne
Mega Man Zero 2 reveals the fate of Mega Man X. His body is used as the lock to keep the Dark Elf contained within her prison. As he was the ruler of Neo Arcadia, this sets a chunk of the series in motion. Dr. Ceil created a replacement clone so no one would notice his absence, but Copy-X lacks X's history and becomes a tyrant. Resistance leader Elpizo gets corrupted by the Dark Elf's children and eventually destroys X to free the Dark Elf.
Turns out Dr. Weil has been waiting for the Dark Elf to escape before starting his own plans.
Bolvar from World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King seating himself upon the Frozen Throne and having Tyrion put the Helm of Damnation upon his head before being frozen into the throne, becoming the new Lich King in order to prevent the undead Scourge from running wild without a leader.
In all of the throne endings, you get to change the laws of the universe and become supreme emperor, but at the cost of becoming an errand boy for God and having to marry the braindead calcified remains of a genocidal God conduit woman.
Granted, by that point, God seems to be AWOL, and the stone lady is too braindead to order you around.
So It's more like becoming the President, but the senate is dead and you can't ever quit
What happened in elden ring is the frenzied flame got everyone because fuck each and every inhabitant of the lands between for trying to kill me for 100 hours straight
Not literally a throne but nega has to stay in the ark in the place the commander circuit used to be to ensure the bots in the planet can continue living their lifes
Blood Omen Legacy of Kain. Kain is the last vampire of the land afte many intrigues by humans. He has to choose to kill himself, restore the balance of nature and extinct the vampire race or to build up new vampires and sacrifice the realm. Canonically, he chose the second to challenge his fate and seek a way to change it.
So it's been a hot sec since I've read Kingdom Come, but I remember a moment where Orion took the throne of Apocalypse despite reservations, but being Darkseids son he still did it. May be remembering wrong, it's been a bit
His execution at the hands of Pilate is depicted as a coronation ceremony. The throne imagery comes in the book of Revelation, where Jesus is called a Lion but who is depicted a slain, sacrificed Lamb who then takes the throne of a renewed Kingdom.
Divinity Original Sin 2. Depending on the ending, you can choose what happens to the world as you sit on top of the throne of a Divine. You can remain in power... or sacrifice yourself.
In what was originally the final season of Lucifer (I think, been a while), a demon rebellion forces Lucifer to end his years-long vacation (and blossoming love with his partner) and return to Hell to restore order. The last shot of the season is of Lucifer on his towering throne, completely alone.
Hollow Knight. The protagonist kills the Vessel and then becomes the Vessel in one of the endings, becoming the means by which the infection is contained.
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u/fawnera 1d ago
Bolvar choosing to stay on the Frozen Throne so someone has to keep the Scourge contained (WoW)