#oriandthewillofthewisps — Public Fediverse posts

I've been going through the Ori games once again and I to this day think people should appreciate it more. When the second and last game released I saw a lot of people complaining that it didn't have a good ending and that they were deeply disappointed that Shriek didn't get a redemption arc or got saved.
But I highly disagree with the sentiment to this day. Not only did the first game not have a 'good' ending, giving it to Shriek after all that was build up would just be half baked fan service that I am glad they didn't go for.

In the first game, Ori and the blind forest, while we restored the world and 'Ori' population, we still left a trail of corpses behind.
All the Naru and Gumo are practically extinct.
The main antagonist, Kuro, sacrificed herself to safe the forest only with the hope that it will give her only remaining child a chance of survival. Which it did, but was unable to fly on one wing.

Does that sound like a perfect happily ever after? Does that sound like the writers wanted to give us a cushy story with no edges?

We saw from the start that all the odds were heavily stacked against Shriek. Even before she was born, all of her kin was eradicated and she came to be in a decaying world with no guidance, no light, no support and love or forgiveness. She couldn't even fly as the dark sludge molded her wings into stumps that she could only use as extra legs. The one any only time she found companionship, it was whisked away and Shriek was chased off for her difference.

Since the very start Shriek was set to see the world as nothing more but a fight for survival and she had more than enough reason despise the light. And just before the end of the game, Sein — the light from the second game, the will of the wisps — out right attacked her and would have done further harm if we didn't stop them.
There was no world where right after that she would have accepted the light, even knowing her time was running out.

Because if one thing keeps beating you down all your life you're not going to trust it even if it could safe you. That's just not how.. anyone works. Characters that have been so mistreated by the 'good side' don't bounce back from trauma just because we arrived. Even with the best intentions in mind, even with the tools and knowledge to fix everything taken by the rot and darkness, we arrived way too late in Shriek's story.

And I suppose with how many stories try to be satisfying with a good ending, I love how Will of the Wisps ended, not because it wasn't a good ending, it wasn't a bad ending either, it simply finished the story in a satisfying and faithful to the lore way.
It's bittersweet in a way that lets you cry in joy and loss.

It shows you how the light can hurt, how characters that truly and deeply deserve to heal and be redeem can be too hurt to accept salvation, that death isn't as much of a beginning as it is an ending.
I love it, I love it so much.

If you don't want to pay or pay for the games, there are plenty videos of cutscenes for both games that convey the main plot of the stories. However, I do recommend playing if you enjoy action platformers, they do an amazing job at immersing you in the world.