You tell em Dracula. You know, Dracule has a point. Yeah, I didn’t just reference Symphony of the Night because it’s fun, but because there’s a tenuous link to Planescape: Torment which is what I want to talk about today. Like The Nameless One, Dracula is immortal. He’s lived countless lives, and through his time has amassed a lot of knowledge and power. As his nature is evil, he’s also done a lot of harm. How long does one have to live before one starts to forget what they’ve done in the past? Does Dracula remember each atrocity and triumph, and if not, how far back does his memory go? In Planescape: Torment, The Nameless One wakes up on a slab in the mortuary with amnesia. Throughout the game we learn who this character is. How he has lived maybe even longer than Dracula, and all the good and bad he has done in that time. We run into characters who know The Nameless One from a past incarnation, and treat him as though he was that same person, or if they are aware of his nature, they tread cautiously wondering who The Nameless One is this time around. It’s only near the end of the game that we learn from Ravel Puzzlewell the exact nature of The Nameless One, and the question at the heart of the game is asked, “What can change the nature of a man?”
The Nameless One has lived many lives, and done many things within those lifetimes. In some lifetimes he has been lawful good, in others chaotic evil, and every alignment in between. It seems that The Nameless One has lived as many different types of lives as there are planes in the Planescape setting. Everytime he dies, he loses his memory so upon waking and circumstance, he gets the chance to be someone else. Ravel asks “what can change the nature of a man?” because she is the one who originally separated The Nameless One from his mortality. She wonders what can cause the same man to walk so many different paths, and if the change is due to any one power in the multiverse. She desires The Nameless One’s answer to this question, and when people talk about Planescape: Torment, it is this question that is given the most weight. It’s certainly an interesting question, at least philosophically. Do you believe we are capable of change, and if so, are any of the answers available sufficient enough to satisfy you? They’re certainly enough to satisfy Ravel, because she isn’t really interested in the truth, she just wants to know what The Nameless One believes.
Now the title of this video may lead you to believe that I don’t think this is the right question, and I don’t, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think this is a good question. I think it’s a very important question. I think so because of the revelation of who The Nameless One is and how this question magnificently undercuts the player’s actions up to this point. Most players (myself included) will be playing the game in a morally good manner. We’ll be completing quests for random people who need help, and we’ll be polite while talking to everyone, especially our party members. It’s not that the urge to do bad isn’t there. Planescape: Torment allows the player to indulge in evil if they so wish. You can be mean, spiteful, ruthless, callous towards the feelings and lives of others, and you can even choose to kill those who follow you to increase your own power. I believe most players will try and be a good person. While this game is more nuanced in its morality than say Mass Effect, the revelation that a very low percentage of players chose the renegade path in that game does not surprise me. I truly believe that most of us are trying to be the best we know how to be, and that’s reflected in how we play characters in role playing games. It can be fun to let loose and be nasty in a virtual setting every once in a while, but it does make me feel uncomfortable. The point is that for the majority of Planescape: Torment the player has been playing a good person. There have been instances where we learn that the past incarnations were different, but it isn’t until Ravel that we learn just how bad The Nameless One’s past is. That’s why the question has weight. If we’re so bad, why are we playing a good character now? What can change the nature of a man?
At the very end of the game we come across 3 past incarnations of The Nameless One. 4 if we count The Nameless One’s mortality, but we’ll talk about him a little later. There’s the good incarnation, the original. He lived a life of power, and was responsible for so heinous an act that he sought out Ravel so he could escape his fate in the lower planes upon his death. There’s the paranoid incarnation, who upon waking up, finding his body covered with scars, and seeing the ghost of Deionarra lost his mind, and spent his lifetimes causing untold chaos, undoing a lot of the clues previous incarnations had left for his future selves. Finally there’s the practical incarnation, and what a bastard this one is. All of the torment your companions have gone through, the awful acts The Nameless One learns about himself throughout the game, this was the doing of the practical incarnation. Practical indeed. Through the game, the player can choose to run parallel to the personalities of these three, but I think most players by following their own path will be different to all of them. This is where the question that Ravel poses rings hollow for me. The Nameless One has changed a lot in his countless lives, but if he loses his memory upon each death, is he really changing at all?
It’s a question of semantics, but I think it’s an important one. If The Nameless One loses his memory upon each death, is he responsible for the actions of his previous selves? It’s not as simple as being a blank slate. The scars are still on his body, and the consequences of his past actions are still out there in the world. The question then becomes when does The Nameless One start becoming responsible for the actions of his past selves? When he remembers? When he merges with his mortality, or was he always responsible, and being ignorant of his past is no excuse? I just don’t see how The Nameless One could change his nature without choosing to change his nature. I think forgetting who you are and becoming someone else is entirely different.
So why does Ravel ask what can change the nature of a man? I think she asks this question for herself. The Nameless One understands that Ravel only cared about his answer, and that’s because Ravel only cares about him. She is in love with him, or at least the incarnation that first came to her asking to be removed from his mortality. To accomplish this task, the good incarnation used flattery. He spoke the words Ravel longed to hear, as can the player during this encounter with her. Ravel knows the words are honeyed lies but she wants to believe they’re real. She wants to believe The Nameless One can love her. I think that’s why she asks the question. If The Nameless One’s nature can change, then perhaps he can change into someone who loves her for real. Perhaps realising that he cannot is one of the reasons she chooses to die by his hand no matter how the conversation plays out.
But the game doesn’t end there. The Nameless One still has to find out who he is, and in doing so we might find an answer to the questions about responsibility posed before. The final location of the game is the Fortress of Regret, a sanctuary made into a home of The Transcendent One, The Nameless One’s mortality made manifest. The Transcendent One has been going around killing everyone who can point The Nameless One in his direction, either through sending out shadows (the ghosts of the innocents who have to die so The Nameless One can live again), or by doing the deed himself. There are many ways to end this encounter with The Transcendent one. The one I chose was by threatening annihilation. Earlier in the game I had a blacksmith make a weapon that could even kill an immortal. The Nameless One threatens The Transcendent One with suicide. Despite being torn from each other, the two share a link, and if one were to disappear, the other would follow. This forces The Transcendent One to merge with The Nameless One, but there is an option for The Nameless One to use the weapon on himself. This is after merging with the other incarnations, so perhaps at this point, annihilation is a fitting end for the character.
I am glad I decided to merge. While I think annihilation is more fitting for The Nameless One, all of his companions would stay dead if I were to take that option. Upon merging with his mortality, The Nameless One remembers everything. He uses his magic to bring all his companions back to life. They are allowed to move on. Now being whole, The Nameless One has to answer for his lifetimes of torment by fighting in the Blood War. This is a punishment he is at peace with. Now, it seems that even after merging with his previous incarnations and understanding some of the horrors he had wrought throughout lifetimes, the true scope of The Nameless One’s knowledge and power did not manifest until he was reunited with his mortality. It wasn’t until the final merging, that The Nameless One was held accountable for his actions, despite all the torment inflicted by the practical and paranoid incarnations. But was he a different being once he had merged with these previous incarnations?
What I’m getting at is that from my perspective, the only thing that changes the nature of this man is memory. By not knowing his past he is free to pursue a new present and future for good or for ill. It does get a bit thorny when you bring The Transcendent One into it, and if you think of it as The Nameless One’s soul, and/or the source of his true power. Funnily enough, back when Ravel asks the infamous question, “memory” is not a possible answer. Maybe because it seems so binary. You either know your past, or you don’t. That’s why so many memories in the game are akin to levelling up, and the biggest experience boost is when The Nameless One finally discovers his own name. It’s only when this jigsaw of identity is complete, that everyone is able to move onto something new.
But what are your thoughts? What do you think can change the nature of a man? Do you think The Nameless One should be held responsible for his past? How do you view The Transcendent One? I’d love to hear all about it down in the comments. Last time I said I bet there’d be a lot of great writing on Planescape: Torment and boy was I right. Links to all of the great pieces of work that helped inform this video are in the description. So, what’s next? Well it’s time to tackle a behemoth. It’s one of the first games I made an impressions video out of in 2016, and I’ve been looking forward to playing it ever since. That’s right, it’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I’m finally doing it. Now as you might imagine, it’s going to take me a while just to play through it, let alone make a video, but rest assured, I’ll be working to complete it as fast as I can. If you enjoyed this video, I would love anything you can do to get it in front of more eyeballs. Thanks for watching, and I hope you’re all having a wonderful day.
