Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-27713488-20180327004110/@comment-31808207-20180409042655

Given Alonon's speech about destiny, I'm not sure it's safe to make any assumptions about what he actually -means- by destiny. He kind of spoke in contradictory terms, because on the one hand he said there was no chance involved, but on the other he implied Varia's nature is just an outlier on a statistical distribution without any meaning behind it. However, the very idea of an outlier in a statistical distribution implies that there's chance involved. On the other hand, if that chance is just in the form of how this measurable destiny is distributed, then it doesn't necessarily contradict itself. Though it does make one wonder what the difference between a world where events are the result of chance and a world where events are the result of destiny distributed as random chance.

The exchange also brings to mind Alonon's earlier comments implying that the shard warps the world around the user--or at least, that the shard is a symptom of -something- warping the world around the user, and also the idea of Mestan being able to innately judge people's potential (at least in combat). There's also the fact that one could reasonably explain the Chosen by some kind of warping of an intrinsic destiny toward a certain end. In a certain way, there's a similarity between Kalant's narrative and Varia's, both their lives being driven to some extent by circumstances outside of their control sort of regardless of what they do. No matter what the Chosen fight, be it rats or evil, they gain power from it and are driven toward enemies. Of course, in their cases it seems to also twist their nature much more directly.

All things considered, though, to me the evidence seems to point to this measurable destiny being something that warps the outcome around a person toward given ends. Varia ends up in circumstances that destroy others around her but survives, Incubus Kings end up in situations where power and women fall into their hands, Chosen are propelled headfirst into situations that will probably get them killed. But if those destinies are really given at random, points in a distribution, I still have to ask how that's functionally different from the random chance Alonon said he's prefer. I guess the alternative is that only some destinies, like Varia's, are randomly distributed and meaningless, while others are determined by forces outside the world.

I definitely don't get the sense that they're entirely deterministic, though, because consider Alonon himself for a moment. His destiny couldn't have been to accomplish nothing of note, because not only did he already accomplish a lot during the war, but he's gained great power now. Moreover, if it was just his destiny to end up like this, I would expect a different sort of despair--his apathy seems to be more focused on the idea that anything he could do would be meaningless, not on the idea that he -couldn't- do anything. On the other hand, if he was originally destined to do more, then choosing not to would be proof that destinies aren't absolute and can be changed. Ultimately, I think there must still be some missing piece to the puzzle that explains why he finds everything so meaningless, but I suppose it could be that he also takes a different philosophical approach than I do, as well.

I do have sort of a theory as to what the missing piece might be, but it’s something I was theorizing before all of this, so I haven’t decided if it makes any sense with these revelations or not. Anyone else have any thoughts on what it might be?