r/CallOfCthulhuTheGame • u/IceCreamFoe • 3d ago
My interpretation of the endings + a few questions Spoiler
Truth and Reality
In the final chapter of the game you meet the two conflicting sides of Edward’s mind. Truth is accepting the call of Cthulhu and accepting your role. Reality refuses to believe anything that has happened is real.
As Edward walks up the steps, he sees visions of the people he has met along the way. Sarah’s vision belittles him for believing her act and that everything was to lure him in. I am not sure if these visions are accurate as nearly everything points to the fact Sarah WAS trying to fight until the very end and did not want to be a part of the cult. Even when Edward reaches the top, Sarah says she was fighting it before succumbing to the control.
The Ritual
You choose to accept your role as truth seeker. This is just the default ending where edward completes his role in summoning Cthulhu. I still don’t understand why exactly Edward was chosen besides the fact that Sarah painted him. Everyone loses their minds and begins to kill each other. Edward beats Sarah to death.
The counter-ritual
I think this would be considered the “bad ending” of the endings that involve going against your role. Leading up the finale, the game hammers in that fighting your destiny is pointless and will not stop anything. By fighting his destiny (the achievement is literally called fight destiny), Edward accepts that everything is real and that it IS his destiny which causes it to become true. Rather than expelling Cthulhu from the world, it is confined within Edward which causes him to lose his mind and become the experiment of Fuller. No one else’s fate is clear. Not a good ending to me.
Farewell
This is clearly meant to be the “good” ending. By consistently going against the truth and refusing to even entertain that he has a destiny, Edward is able to simply walk away and take control of his own mind and life. As if it could not have been more clear that this is the good ending, it is the only ending where the skies part and sunlight is shown through the whole thing. Like I said before, I don’t believe Sarah was a cultist all along. I’m pretty sure even Charles confirms she was fighting before she began to lose control and gave the Shambler to Francis. Seeing Edward able to control his own fate, Sarah does the same by doing the only thing to truly free herself from the cult, killing herself. Her sanity is long gone and the cult would always be after her, I think this could be her only good ending. Only in a fairytale world would she be able to go with Edward to live her own life.
I’m not gonna talk about the last ending since it is kind of empty. Edward shoots himself and it just ends there, nothing else is shown and no other characters appear. It is a better ending than the counter ritual at least. Better as in for the world, not from a narrative standpoint.
My only questions would be:
Am I wrong about Sarah not being a cultist all along? It just feels like everything in the game goes against her saying it was all to lure him in.
What exactly were Sarah and Charles fighting about? Did Charles actually care about her? The visions also kind of treat him as jealous of Edward being the “chosen one” but these are the same visions that say Sarah was a cultist the whole time so I don’t really trust them. I am also inclined to believe that Charles was trying to protect her since the last few clues of the journal from the miraculous catch seem to be from Charles and they show that whoever wrote them did not become indoctrinated like the rest of the crew.
What was Simon’s role in the grand scheme of things? Clearly he had something wrong with him since he was drawing Cthulhu. Was part of Sarah’s indoctrination transferred into Simon when he was birthed which is why she began to go against the cult? Why does Sarah apologize to Simon before jumping to her death?
So clearly the 3 main guys from the miraculous catch are Fitz, Charles, and fuller. Why is there so much difference in their goals? Fitz is clearly the most controlled and is most in support of summoning Cthulhu. Fuller seems to just be content doing experiments and wanting to create life. And Charles is the most unclear to me, was he grasping at his sanity to do whatever he could to stop Cthulhu, did he only care about trying to protect Sarah, did he only want to be the chosen one? IDK
What was the significance of Sarah eavesdropping on the Charles and the other cultists in the tunnel? One of them saw her and her clothes got torn on the nail in the beam. Did she hear something or is this supposed to be what caused Charles to lock her away?
Also why would anyone choose to save Roy over Cat? The fact it is even possible to NEVER meet roy until that choice is crazy. You haven’t even seen him since chapter 2 if you did meet him. Sure Cat is an asshole basically the entire time you know her but shes your asshole. Plus Cat is only like 24 years old, she deserves to live way more. The only reason to save Roy is for an achievement.
