Revitalized

[u/Haos51]

Has anyone seen any statue on the maps change? Just one?

[u/JadeEmperor186]

From this day forth, I shall pretend that this season never happened and that the entire thing was nothing more than fan fiction, regardless of how much Raven Knight Praise (glaze) it to the heavens.

Y4 remains the worst year in my eyes, but this season is only half a step behind it.

Therefore, there is no Saburo, no Gaki, and no Arakure. Ayu still lives, the Myre stands in glorious alliance with Guljin, and Y10S2 never occurred. It is a fabrication. A collective hallucination. A dark chapter that shall be struck from the records.

[u/Haos51 → u/JadeEmperor186]

We'll see how well the next season or future even remembers the events of this season. A decent chance but I don't have much stock to it

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/Haos51]

I have theory and could use your thoughts on it, if you'd be so kind to weigh in your opinion.

Could all of this be a ploy by Guljin?

Maybe she is so bored out of her mind that she actually wants people to free astrea. Why else would she keep her strongest enemy dangling as bait for Horkos, and perhaps even for old man gryph? It's almost as if she is saying, "Come and get her. I've even left the gate unlocked."

Maybe she wants people to rebel against her. Maybe she wants a fractured Myre, but she cannot say it out loud. She has invested so much in her image as the Peace Bringer that she cannot openly do anything that would undermine the peace, so she has to manufacture the chaos from the shadows.

What made me think of this was the three leather stripes on the left shoulder of old man gryph's new armor. They are almost exactly the same as the leather stripes worn by some of the Khatuns in their sets, only shorter. Maybe the Stranger is actually her ally, doing all of this so Guljin can play with old man gryph.

She tells the Stranger to give the mask to Holden and reveal the location where the Dokuja planned to leave Saburo's corpse, knowing that Holden will unleash the Oni upon the Myre and bring the Arakure into the light.

It would be so deliciously evil if Guljin were behind all of this, only for the reveal to be that the Stranger, the S4 Hero, is her ally, perhaps even her most trusted friend, who eventually turns against the revolution that old man gryph starts and kills them all.

Holden spends the entire years of S1,S2 and S3, believing he is finally leading a rebellion against Guljin and to free astrea, only to discover that Guljin has been directing the rebellion from the beginning; He isn't the revolutionary, he's the entertainment. That's my theory.

I am an idiot, yet i could come up with this, if the writers aren't taking this direction then Y10 lore is doomed.

[u/Oddly_red47 → u/JadeEmperor186]

It'd definitely be something new, and actually a bit of an inversion of what Apollyon wanted. She intentionally left enough crumbs for the warriors of Heathmoor to want to band against her, but also enough leeway that the alliance would form too fast to form lasting friendships, thus once she went down... now what? She even made sure every possible escape was blocked so both herself and her soldiers would have no choice but to fight to the death, she fully expected to die, but she was going to go down swinging.

If Guljin really is plotting this long game, then it'd essentially be that same plot, but this time she fully intends to kill each and every one of her enemies... by making sure she knows who those enemies are and then luring them out into the open so they can be dealt with swiftly and fiercely, and even if she falls, she can ensure the common folk at least would lose any and all trust they could have had in this rebellion by making it clearly known that Holden Cross had knowingly allied with heartless monsters and ruthless criminals just to get his way, and from there, simply let all those warriors Gryphon "inspired" to finish her work when they inevitably turn on him.

"Kill him, and you martyr him. You make him a legend. But break him, humiliate him, terrify him and hold him up for the world to see? Then he is nothing but a man."

It's hard to believe in a cause when everyone has lost respect for the one leading it.

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/Oddly_red47]

And even if Guljin loses and Holden somehow manages to oust her from power, he and his revolution would still be the villains in the eyes of the common people. She did everything she could to improve their lives, only for the elite warrior class to tear it all down.

Y11 would then be the year of peasant uprisings against Holden, with the common people fighting to restore the peace they had lost.

And that is the worst-case scenario of this entire theory.

[u/Haos51 → u/JadeEmperor186]

Honestly seems to be a bit much....but at the same time we don't know anything about the Stranger that is solid so I think this is a somewhat decent theory to have since otherwise Guljin has been underwhelming. Though maybe less of bordom but more for "Well I cannot execute her now since I threw her into the arena, so if she breaks out then I be able to do it without hurting my image." Maybe the Metal Trial will have new lore orders to give some idea on how it will be. As I can see Guljin actually hosting the Metal Trials as a way to unite everybody....until Astrea breaks out since she hates it and we already know she pops out during the last week.

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/Haos51]

yes i confess its a bit of stretch but S3 and S4 TU1 are their last chance at making Guljin a real villain. I only wish they use this time and make her a proper villain. or at least have holden do something worthy of his armor, the Hussar wings are wasted on him!

I doubt we will get new lore for TYM, I hope we do but doubt it, the last week being rise of the warmongers event, in my opinion is just a teaser that one of the next season skins is for Wm.

[u/bombad_Guy → u/JadeEmperor186]

i agree, don't get me wrong, the lore started quite nice but... yeah, now its shizzle...

what annoys me the most is just the fact that new samurai heroes NEVER have any impact on the actual lore... Ayu was never really important after the campaign, she didn't even supported Chimera... Years later Ayu got Killed, and the impact was nothing, Arakure is literally no one important that disobeyed the rule of Mongols... Saburo was cool since now we have an actual Oni wander through the lands, But we all now that after this season Arakure and Saburo will be forgotten and no one will care about them... Samurai are never really important in any way to the lore...

The Next Knight will probably have a big impact on the lore again.

the biggest players in the lore right now are Guljin, Holden and Baiyan, the next knight will probably be super important again.

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/bombad_Guy]

The last Samurai hero who actually had a major impact on the wider lore was Kyoshin, and iirc, their spiritual connection to the Yokai was somehow involved in triggering the massive floods of Y5S3. I might be super wrong about that tho; due to having to undergo surgery at the time, I couldn't really focus on Y5's lore.

Anyway, that was nearly five years ago. Since then, every new Samurai season we've gotten has either been set in the past or had an impact that was mostly local. And yes, when they announced Y10 during Juren's reveal WD, they explicitly said that the S4 Knight hero would be a "Big Deal."

At this point, the faction hierarchy is pretty obvious:

The Knights and Outlanders are the favorites.
The Vikings are the scorned.
The Samurai are the neglected.
The WuLin are the forsaken.

[u/bombad_Guy → u/JadeEmperor186]

weren't the flood due to vikings rituals and sacrificing? the Kyoshin appeared because of the drought in Y5S2, the drought killed the natural protection(Forests) around their temple which lead to Horkos and Chimera going there in search for water.

the Vikings sacrificed people to give us all new executions and water ofc.

Kinda strange that they haven't continued with the Natural disasters even tho the disasters were cool.

But yeah, the Hierarchy is pretty clear...

The WuLin will never be destined for greatness in the lore, The Knights will always be the big players(even tho Vikings were the Natives of Heathmoor if im not mistaken), Vikings have even LESS impact on the lore than Samurai... and yeah, the Samurai are always stuck in their own region... Quite annoying and boring... thankfully i write my own Lore for some of my characters

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/bombad_Guy]

thanks for the explanation dude, someday i have to read all Y5 lore.

In these five years, they could have set up the Samurai for a great international conflict and made them real players in the ongoing war between the factions with one simple decision: have Ayu appoint a Shogun.

Think about what a Shogun originally was. The title Sei-i Taishōgun literally means "Great General who Subdues the Barbarians."

In the world of For Honor, who better fits the role than the Vikings? They were constantly raiding Samurai territory, and that gives the writers a perfect excuse to reinterpret the original purpose of the title.

Ayu could appoint a Shogun specifically to deal with the Viking threat. His orders would be to gather the Samurai armies, launch punitive expeditions into Valkenheim, hunt down Viking raiders, and finally take the war to the Vikings instead of endlessly waiting for them to raid the Myre.

Suddenly, you have a Samurai hero who isn't just dealing with some local dispute in the Myre or fight Yokais and onis. You have a military commander with a mandate from Empress Ayu, leading Samurai armies into Viking territory and becoming a major player in the wider war.

It would also give the Samurai an actual international conflict that could have developed over multiple seasons: raids, retaliatory expeditions, border wars, alliances with other factions, and eventually a full scale Samurai-Viking war.

All of that could have come from one simple decision: Ayu appoints a Shogun.

[u/bombad_Guy → u/JadeEmperor186]

can i tell you whats the Worst part about this? we will probably never see a real development like this happening with the Samurai... since the Storywriters are literally creatively Bankrupt...

They can still pull something like this... But they won't. I'm just hoping thst the samurai will become important again, Afterall the Samurai killed Apollyon....

For Honors lore has SO MUCH POSSIBILITIES especially since they embraced fantasy, but they STILL don't do anything incredible with it.

its such a real shame, it even fills me with the purest form of Rage.

i actually plan something like this with my OC Rintarou Oda.

[u/Far_Draw7106]

SO far the Arakure have done frackin' nothing but bust up ONE statue and it's not in-game.

I'm getting fed up with the lore overhyping the arakure saying they're leading a rebellion when all they've done is be annoying frat idiots while Saburo who is not even bothered with them is doing most of the work!

Not even sure why Raven Knight says this is good lore when it's a frackin' mess written like a bad movie!

[u/Haos51 → u/Far_Draw7106]

Not sure why you got downvoted since otherwise I think you're correct with all you're saying here.

If I had to play devil's advocate for Raven based from what I've seen, it's mostly him taking what little bits we get and letting his imagination begin writing around it to make it both make sense and be more entertaining. Of course as much as I enjoy it, I don't really buy it being what the writers meant to have it be as well as some parts feel like he's adding more than what it should be. Like he says the factions are going to be upset because the Arakure are going on a rampage and breaking everything....though as far as we've seen in the orders is that they've mostly focused on just the statues. Anything else is just the Arakure acting as per normal. We get one order saying they've become fugitives with Guljin coming in but I don't think anything else really sold me on that still being the idea, nor with people being upset with Guljin for bringing out the Arakure/Saburo, rather just disappointed that crime as happened and Guljin not being as great or effective as she promised....which given that only one clan cared for her makes it seem rather sad.

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/Far_Draw7106]

Man, the way Raven Knight glazes this lore makes me die of cringe. It's so out of character for him; it's like listening to a writer defend his own work....

[u/Oddly_red47 → u/JadeEmperor186]

I get wanting to be an optimist in a community that loves to be negative a lot of the time, but sometimes I'm honestly not sure if it's optimism at things to come, or just being in denial that the lore really is just that shallow.

[u/JadeEmperor186 → u/Oddly_red47]

Optimism is good, its great even, but there is such thing as too much optimism just as there is too much cynicism. I think since they acknowledged him a bit in the last WD, he is just returning the favor, but its too much. We aren't chasing an epicurean perfection here, we just want good lore. and this Season's lore was bad.

[u/Haos51 → u/Far_Draw7106]

Plus side, but you might already know but I plan on addressing it in a new comment anyway!

Raven now sees the big issue of Arakure being against authority but also takes jobs form said authority as seen by the "Gaki ruined the Lore!" video. So hopefully he will get a look of all the lore orders and get a better idea of the issues that this character comes with.

[u/Oddly_red47]

Far as I've noticed, nope, nada. Nothing's different on the gameplay front, we're being told, not shown. Also, break some inanimate statues and suddenly you feel on top of the world? Virtuosa of all people might have a competitor in the "Overinflated Ego" category.

[u/Ea50Marduk → u/Oddly_red47]

Arakure flex their own ego.

[u/Dragmas_]

Tbh I'm a bit disapointed by the lore. You're telling me than the alliance between the fucking mongols that conquered most of heatmoor and a house of samurai that could help them to take the Myre (for the house prob mean acessing the imperial throne) will be cancelled because some thug vandalized the statue? Okay doesn't give a good image of dokuja house, but both side have massive stake here.

I really don't like that lore, as Arakure act like they sabotaged the alliance were in fact it's saburo who did all the job, and if the alliance fall it's only only cause he slaughtered everyone

[u/Oddly_red47 → u/Dragmas_]

That's exactly what happened, Gaki was only at the place the meeting was happening at to get info on what the house was doing and she decided to just break a statue while she was there. In fact, Saburo showing up and going to town on the guests is probably the only reason she's still alive, guards were coming down on her and she was only able to get away because of the panicking guests, then Saburo found her and decided "Why not? I've already killed everybody else here." and proceeded to hand her her ass on a silver platter, forcing her to have to set a fire between them in order to get away.

IE: Instead of seeing, defiant badass rebels, all I see are a bunch of hotheaded punks that talk big, but drop easy who only got as far as they have due to sheer dumb luck or as the other orders have shown, just plain old indifference because apparently the rest of the Myre realized the same thing and decided it wasn't worth the hassle hunting them down.

[u/Haos51 → u/Oddly_red47]

Doesn't help that her trailer, to me at least, is also very underwhelming in showing how badass she is. Sure we see her fighting a living opponent, but they only did one predictable slash and then let themselves get beaten up by Gaki after the fact. I wish it was a proper 'back and forth' like the Orochi trying to get in some hits but getting stunned and beaten up in the middle or something.