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Destiny 2 has finally delivered the closing mission of Episode: Revenant’s third and final Act and it’s a perfectly fine piece of content. The bit that’s not fine, according to some players (myself included), is the lore behind it and what happens with Eramis, one of the main Eliksni antagonists.
Obvious spoilers ahead for those who haven’t yet finished Destiny 2‘s grand finale of Episode: Revenant’s third act. I cannot help but feel that Bungie’s storytelling has fallen off a cliff after The Final Shape wrapped up. Episodes have served up narrative flubs one after another, and Revenant is no different in this respect. Specifically, while it’s certainly great news that we’ve finally received the conclusion to the all-but-forgotten Kell of Kells story thread, it’s gone in a truly wild direction. Mithrax is only technically now the Kell of Kells, while the grand savior of the Eliksni goes to Eramis. How’s that for a twist?
Players do not enjoy what Destiny 2 is doing with one of its main living antagonists
For those who haven’t kept up with Destiny‘s story-beats over the years, Eramis (the literal Kell of Darkness) is many things. Chiefly, a xenocidal maniac that’s been leading the House of Salvation since the Beyond Light era onwards. Disregarding whatever character growth Eramis might’ve received in the subsequent DLCs, she has done all of the following:
- Tried (and almost succeded) to blow up the Last City with a nuclear bomb.
- Attempted to eradicate regular Eliksni living on Europa.
- Mounted numerous assaults on both Eliksni and human civilians.
- Went after Mithrax, the Kell of Light several times.
- Caused the destruction of Rasputin and his Warsat network.
This is an inexhaustive list, mind, but it illustrates the point I am trying to make. Then, in the final moments of Revenant’s final cinematic cutscene, the Echo MacGuffin ends up choosing and empowering Eramis over Mithrax. Simultaneously, Mithrax has been suffering from the curse of Nezarec all along, and it’s conceivable that a super-causal artifact such as the Echo could’ve cleansed him of it. Subsequently, Eramis chooses to take her House of Salvation Eliksni with her and travels into deep space.
Mithrax becomes the de facto Kell of Kells (but Variks and Eido are still around). Has Bungie gone against the lore-established prophecy of Traveler itself blessing the Kell of Kells? Perhaps, but we’ll have to see if there’s more to this than currently meets the eye.
The fact is that it doesn’t sit right with the community that one of the worst in-universe war criminals still alive in Destiny has just received their happily-ever-after ending. Not everyone agrees with this assessment, of course, but the discussion has overtaken a part of the game’s subreddit.
Bungie has been on a bit of a bender when it comes to redemption arcs. Between Uldren/Crow, Savathun, Rasputin, and now Eramis, the trope is tiring by now. At the same time, there’s always been a chance that Eramis would turn a new page at some point, and Bungie’s been setting the stage for that over the past couple of releases. Regardless, this development doesn’t feel like a very satisfying conclusion to this whole year of content.
Whether this was a redemption arc for Eramis or just a somewhat clumsy way of taking her off the board for Destiny: Frontiers, it doesn’t fill me with confidence for Bungie’s future narrative development. Content-wise, I’m still excited for what’s to come, and Frontiers looks mighty interesting in the context of what we’ve been getting over the course of 2024, but I feel that Destiny’s writing has lost much of its luster by now. The whole Kell of Kells schtick drives that home for me.
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