I had a theory about the Snarl...

[brian 333]

Ever see what happens when a fish fights a net?

The Snarl does not need intent. It can be a contained energy supply that eventually leaks from its container. Those deities who try to fight the net get stuck.

The deities, not knowing what happened any more than would a fish, anthropomorphize as humans often do about hurricanes and wildfires.

[ebarde]

The thing about the Snarl is that despite everything pointing to it just being your run of the mill eldritch abomination hellbent on destruction, the characters are constantly pointing out how unaware of it's true nature they are. Not sure exactly what the twist with it will be, but I feel that there is just too much mystery surrounding it that hasn't yet been payed off for none of it to change what we knew about it from the beginning.

[russdm]

posted in another thread but could work...

As for the Snarl: Don't forget that the Snarl was created and given sentience from the snares/snags that occurred when the Gods were making the First World.

Then, the Snarl destroyed the First World, and that the yarns/fabrics/strings all become loose and un-connected. This allowed the Gods to weave them again, around the Snarl to create a prison.

That prison is where the Snarl now rests, and it is also connected/viewable through the rifts. So, the rifts should be showing us the inside of the rifts.

So, I am going to freely spoil a game here -- Myst 4 Exile -- and put in the following from previous Myst Games, and how I think it all works together, for our friend, dear friend, Mr Snarl.

So in the Myst Franchise, Atrus (The guy that you meet at the end of the Myst game) writes Linking Books that connect to worlds. One of those worlds was Myst. Atrus learned about Writing and D'NI from his father, Gehn.

Gehn only learned partly through the training to become a book writer before D'NI fell. This meant that Gehn was only half trained and lacked a full understanding. Gehn wrote Linking Books with his lack of knowledge which meant those worlds connected to his Linking Books would slowly fall apart. Gehn would copy what existed that he found through studying the D'NI ruins, but Gehn didn't understand any of it really. So, it would be like cutting up a few famous paintings and then sticking them back together while having not seen any of the originals. Gehn didn't understand any of the context for the writing, and didn't understand the how or why of Linking Books.

Gehn wrote a world, Riven, which he ran. Gehn, being the Egomanic God Wannabe he was, made his Linking Books with flaws always as he tried to restore D'NI. Gehn made himself out to be a deity of sorts.

Atrus ended up in Riven, meet his wife, trapped Gehn. Gehn kept writing Linking Books, trying to figure out how to escape Riven. Gehn failed really.

In Myst, the player ends up helping Atrus, and the two sons of Atrus -- Sirius and Achenor both end up in a colored book that turned out to be prison books. Prison Books are Prison Ages, where the person hangs out and serves out their time. The Prison Age contains a whole world/age and everything, based on what was made in the Linking Book for that age.

Now, with that, for the Snarl -- I think the Snarl is like Gehn from Myst with Atrus mixed with, or also like Achenor from Myst 4, where that son of Atrus ends up going from being a psychopath type to more calm/sedate, from his experiences in the prison age. Originally both Sirius and Achenor were nuts, tried to rule the Linking Books-Ages/Worlds and got a real killing spree on. Both sons were imprisoned by Atrus in different Linking Books-Ages/Worlds. Both sons could interact with the prison age and everything in it. They couldn't leave though.

The Snarl's original prison was empty, like a void, which is similar to how it looks with the "trap" books in Myst 1, and the Trap Book in Riven. There is nothing there, besides the Snarl.

When the Snarl got out, it destroyed the world(s). When that happened and before the Snarl got re-sealed into prison, the Snarl might have been able to bring some of that material with it into its prison.

as the time passed, the Snarl collected more material, and started making a world. It does have the imperative to create from the 4 groups of gods, as it was created from the disagreements that made snags in the strings used for creation.

The Snarl has probably been using some of its own strings/yarn while doing so, as well as hiding its creation within itself, because there is no reference to any kind of planet being known in any of the previous worlds' rifts, unless the Gods didn't bother to look.

So, why would the Snarl want to make a world? I think that is mainly due to how much being able to do so would be, for the Snarl, a giant middle finger to the Gods themselves. The Snarl does have all of the planning that had gone into the First World at least, plus the stuff for the Second World and then all of the others following until Stickverse/StickWorld.

What the Snarl may be missing with its self, is the full quiddity since it has the one it got from when it killed one set of Gods, but when the Gods remade the world, I think that the Snarl lost the quiddity of the others. So it has only one quiddity and that if it has the other quiddity material, can make use of only one.

So, it can make a world for itself in the prison, but has problems with putting in beings maybe. We know that the ocean in the rift didn't seem to have any life in it. That might not be fully possible for the Snarl to do something with.

So, this may be good thoughts, or just completely out there.