Who is the Watcher?

[Elerond]

 

What a "Watcher" is was described in Update 65: Animancers studied folk legends about figures called Watchers who reportedly were able to see lost souls and perceive an individual's ancestral lives, but claimants to that title were typically charlatans at best or mentally unstable and violent at worst.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64452-update-65-ciphers/

 

The PC is probably one of these.

Charlatan or mentally unstable ?

 

 

Charlatan and mentally unstable are accurate descriptions of most PCs in CRPGs. As they often seem to act like they are some sort heroes but they still have bad habit to take everything with them that is not bolted shut and they seem to believe that they have right to kill everybody/thing that don't agree with them and in in some cases they even kill those who agree with them.

[Lephys]

The PC is probably one of these.

Quite possibly. Either that, or they become somehow very much affiliated with one.

 

All we really know is that we (the main character) witness some key, supernatural event. Could be that that event has to do with souls/stuff only a Watcher can witness, and it just happens to be something really crazy (like... a soul that's somehow an anomaly, or some action being taken upon a soul that was previously thought to be impossible and that has dire ramifications, etc.). Or, it could be that we're not a Watcher, but witness the death of one, but are imparted with important information before that death occurs, that we must convey to someone else, OR ELSE!

 

*Shrug*. I'm very curious to know exactly what it ends up being.

[Sensuki]

You can also go back to the original quotes before the Kickstarter

 

 

 

It made you a Watcher. No one asks for that. And the weight, that guilt they want to hang around my neck, you don't have to carry it one more step. You think they won't let you rest, but it's not up to them. It never was.

 

 

 

Your kind must learn it comes from straining against the turning of the world. It spins thus. You cannot stop it. One day, you will wake up. You will stop pulling. The pain will be gone. Until then, all your waking hours are suffering.

 

 

 

The reason we don't explain it is the reason we use it. Its power is in its mystery. That is the Leaden Key, in part, in whole. Is it clear?

Digging for truth buries the seeker.

 

 

 

Nothing. The Dirge of Eir Glanfath is sound without form, a lone voice crying out in mourning because it must.

[Messier-31]

I'm Spartakus.

[Lephys]

I never saw those. Thanks, Sensuki! ^_^

[Mor]

They are from the teaser, the first link i placed in the OP for reference

[Pidesco]

The Watcher is bald, wears a silly blue outfit, and always declares his unbreakable vow not to interfere in anything before proceeding to interfere in everything. He's called Uatu.

[Sad Panda]

The Watcher is bald, wears a silly blue outfit, and always declares his unbreakable vow not interfere in anything before proceeding to interfere in everything. He's called Uatu.

In his defence, that one time he transported Human Torch into Galactus' fortress to fetch a weapon capable of destroying the entire Omniverse, his hand clearly just slipped.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I agree with PrimeJunta, Obsidian often returns to this kind of theme (and I obviously I like it). At the end of the trailer, you see a beast and an eye. almost like the Skyrim trailer, btw. I wouldn't be surprised if the Watcher is a mighty single entity that has guarded something for centuries, or even millennia. And if this is the case, then we see something of a return of the Shadow King in PE. All the reasons behind his actions, if you delved deep into the NWN2 OC, were very well written and pretty tragic. It was one of my favourite parts of vanilla NWN2.

 

EDIT: I'm also getting a Dishonored-vibe out of this Watcher thing, like the Outsider in that game. He's very neutral, but powerful and sort of omnipresent. He treats you like a malleable and easily duped creature, and almost everything you do, he consumes and comments upon listlessly.

Edited June 12, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[WotanAnubis]

 

The PC is probably one of these.

Quite possibly. Either that, or they become somehow very much affiliated with one.

 

All we really know is that we (the main character) witness some key, supernatural event. Could be that that event has to do with souls/stuff only a Watcher can witness, and it just happens to be something really crazy (like... a soul that's somehow an anomaly, or some action being taken upon a soul that was previously thought to be impossible and that has dire ramifications, etc.). Or, it could be that we're not a Watcher, but witness the death of one, but are imparted with important information before that death occurs, that we must convey to someone else, OR ELSE!

 

*Shrug*. I'm very curious to know exactly what it ends up being.

 

 

I've wondered if that key, supernatural event that sets the plot in motion is becoming a Watcher (or perhaps that you become a Watcher because of it).

 

I mean, there you are, just some person, maybe a guard or a merchant or something and then, suddenly, because of reasons you can see the lingering souls of the dead everywhere, the history of every place and every person laid out before you in some mystical, incomprehensible way.

 

It'd be quite a shock, really.

Edited June 17, 2014 by WotanAnubis

[Chilloutman]

I see dead people... Yeah I think PC will become Watcher in some point (at beginning probaly) of game. It can be quite interesting

[Lephys]

Maybe you actually play as an incorporeal soul, who witnesses something crazy, and you feel the need to act on it, and through sheer willpower, forcibly "possess" a body that was just recently deceased? Maybe even killed in a supernatural way (like having its soul removed, thus leaving the body intact so that another soul inhabiting it wouldn't immediately die?)?

 

Probably not, though. I recall them saying you're sort of visiting the land you start in, so it seems like you're probably not an incorporeal visitor. 8P

[Ganrich]

Who watches the Watcher?

[WotanAnubis]

Who watches the Watcher?

 

The Watcher's Council.

 

Alternate answers: It's Watchers all the way down.

[Lephys]

Who watches the Watcher?

The Listener, obviously. u_u...

 

The Sniffer keeps the listener in check, and he is governed by the Taster, who's in turn tended by the Feeler, who is the direct charge of the Watcher.

 

It's just one big circle.

[dr membrano]

My initial thought was that God is the Watcher or rather gods are watchers. To tie into PoE I would guess that there aren't really any gods but individuals who have attained a godlike, legendary status. I surmise that Od Nua is a mortal god that resides at the end of the endless path. As you progress along the endless path, you're descending into Od Nua's inferno of hell, becoming godlike yourself at the end.