Last night I got finished the raid to find myself with a new sword, and one that particularly peaked my interest, The It Stared Back reminded me of a famous quote by Friedrich Nietzsche and it went like this “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” and this is somewhat reminiscent of certain guardians for example Dredgen Yor , Toland the Shattered and Eris Morn and so with this I considered the possibility of more of his philosophy being integrated into Destiny lore so I did some digging and found that he had what I would describe as a strange obsession with music and dancing this is shown to us in some of his famous quotes such as “Without music, life would be a mistake.” and “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” and “I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.” and “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” with this I thought I’d dig into the lore to see what I could find about dancing and music and I found that during the Transmission crisis one of Doctor Shirazi’s patients and the only one to be classified as “Unknown” and was called a male reacted to his “Transmission” by singing and dancing see Dr Shirazi at the end of his section he’s said to have been found dead by himself in his room without a defined cause,
He is earlier described as having Green particles accumulating on his lips and nostrils and it just so happens that Friedrich Nietzsche died from Pneumonia and some of the symptoms of Pneumonia involve the build up of fluid on your lips and nostrils and I’d assume the color green represents the snot or mucus build up. Back to the Dr Shirazi Grimoire card it shows us that our supposed Friedrich Nietzsche was injected with Brilliance 3.2 and the grimoire card for Brilliance 3.2 shows us that guardians were dancing in the plaza and it was specifically pointed out that they had no music at all, Here’s the full paragraph and a link to the Grimoire card
Brilliance 3.2
"Owl Sector Internal, OS-I6 3
RAM: Berriole found a trove of laboratory notes in a locked section of the Dust Palace. Some dead scientist named Shirazi. Some forgotten experiment under the auspices of Willa Bray.
QUI: She’s good as a bloodhound for secrets.
SHU: You could use a bit more sheepdog, yourself.
RAM: Our Guardians will honor the ban on City travel. This has been relayed on all channels as far as Saturn.
QUI: They might have honored the quarantine.
SHU: They’re Guardians, Quist. Means the Light has cooked their brains. Haven’t you seen them dancing in the Plaza, for no reason, with no music at all? We’ll take what we can get."
Notice how they specify that there is no music at all and if you recall I earlier quoted Friedrich Nietzsche for saying “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” and this in itself is pretty definitive for me but maybe that’s just hopeful thinking on my part but I found a few other things that I could tie into destiny for example he says “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.” and to me this was reminiscent of the Shadows of Yor who attempted to “replicate Yor’s damnation while avoiding the same heavy toll.” See Shadows of Yor and something else I found reminiscent of the Shodows of Yor was “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” with this quote I was reminded of how alone Yor was condemned as one corrupted by the darkness and stood alone in his betrayal of the light but with the shadows they have each other to be reminded of their goals no matter what atrocities they may commit to reach them.
A few more quotes before I wrap this up that reminded me of Rezzyl Azzir shortly before his corruption “Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?” and “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”
To wrap this up I’d like to add my own little theory, Hypothetically speaking lets say Destiny was inspired slightly by Friedrich’s philosophy I’d like to refer to one of his philosophies about the “Übermensch”. Before I dive into this I’d like to point out that I firmly believe in the teaching of we cannot have light without darkness and that to ultimately defeat the darkness we must sacrifice our light (See Symmetry Flight) so apologies beforehand if this ends up a biased mess.
Nietzsche says in his philosophy about the Übermensch that “I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? […] All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughingstock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to Übermensch: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape…The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth… Man is a rope, tied between beast and Übermensch—a rope over an abyss…what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end…”
At the end he refers to man as a rope over an abyss, Now in most regards you’d write the abyss off as the darkness but what if it wasn’t and it was something born of the constant struggle between light and dark it would grow as the conflict continued maintaining that perfect symmetry while also being capable of breaking it it would be what Calus referred to as a “perfect void” and could also be what he was referring to when he spoke about power greater than our “feeble light” and as for the rope it is not just man alone it is the best and worst of us, The Vex, The Fallen, The Awoken, The Exo, The Humans, The Cabal and even The Hive all of us struggling to break the balance so that we can bring an end to a tale older than time, Light vs Dark, Good vs Bad, Sky vs Deep. How this tale ends has yet to unravel but that will be left to us, Guardians.
Sources
The Mighty and Illustrious: http://www.ishtar-collective.net/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1938.Friedrich_Nietzsche?page=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche#.C3.9Cbermensch
https://www.google.co.uk
