The Significance Of Death Peak And Sun Keep

[Lithe]

Thanks for the welcome   .

And I guess I kind of skipped the Sunstone question, and why Lavos doesn't do anything about it...

My take on it is that Lavos really couldn't do much of anything after it erupted out of the earth... it just kind of went dormant and dropped off it's spawn.  The planet would eventually decay and break up or whatever, and the spawn would drift off to some other planet to continue the cycle.  The original Lavos is dead by this point, kind of like some of those insects that simply die after reproducing (at least I think I've heard of some insects like that).

Although I guess this kind of takes an animalistic view of Lavos, where it's mostly concerned with feeding and reproduction.  There's the matter of that evolved humanoid thing inside the shell, which isn't quite accounted for...
Maybe that's part of their reproductive cycle?  Each spawn uses the lifeforms of it's planet to evolve itself as far as possible, so that each Lavos becomes a unique organism unlike any of the others... I dunno, I'm just making stuff up at this point.  I'll have to go play CT again... and probably CC as well, since it went off and made Lavos even harder to figure out   .

[ZeaLitY]

We know that rather than take other, more symbiotic courses of action, Lavos destroys planets. We also know that given the chance to destroy all of reality, Lavos will attempt to do such (integrating with Schala and becoming a Time Devourer). Lavos is sentient, shown in his pulling Chronopolis back to 7600 B.C.; why then, is he inherently evil? I've been pondering this.

[Lithe]

Yeah, that is kind of interesting, how Lavos kind of does seem inherently evil, with it's whole obsession with destruction (there even seems to be a bit of a self-destructive tendency)...

I've been wondering if maybe Lavos was originally created as a weapon and then became sentient, kind of like Deus from Xenogears?  It wouldn't really be "evil" in that case - it's just doing what it was created to do... except that's it's gone out of control and refuses to stop.

[YbrikMetaknight]

Yeah, that is kind of interesting, how Lavos kind of does seem inherently evil, with it's whole obsession with destruction (there even seems to be a bit of a self-destructive tendency)...

I've been wondering if maybe Lavos was originally created as a weapon and then became sentient, kind of like Deus from Xenogears?  It wouldn't really be "evil" in that case - it's just doing what it was created to do... except that's it's gone out of control and refuses to stop.

Hmm...interesting theory...

[Radical_Dreamer]

Is Lavos really evil though? I've always viewed him as simply hungry. Are ticks evil? Lavos is merely a parasite with the power of a god. I think the Time Devorer didn't want to destroy reality, but he wanted to feed on it...Destruction just being a side effect.

[JustinS1985]

I remember reading a fanfiction at one time that portrayed the inner Lavos as a biologically altered human, originally created as a weapon.  The orignal lavoids however got out of control and ended up destroying their creators.  I always thought it was an interesting hypothesis. . .not much to support it besides Lavos humanoid shape.  As for Lavos connection with Death Peak and why it was necessary to climb to the top to resurrect Chrono I believe it has to do with overcoming Lavos power in the world.  This is the only time period where perhaps Lavos is dead (the death after reproducing theory.)  After the party kills his children while climbing the mountain, perhaps his influence is weak enough that the egg can be utilized.  This is just a crackpot guess, but I see no other reason why death peak in the future would have to be used.  Also an interesting parrallel I noticed is that lavos is said to reign from death peak in CT and also in the legend of Zelda, gannon reigns from the top of Death mountain.  Perhaps there's some other symbolism for this that I've missed.

[ZeaLitY]

If anything, we know that Lavos is often associated with temporal distortions of all kinds. Not to degrade Gaspar's technical aptitude in any way, but perhaps the Time Egg did have to be taken to a place in which temporal energies were present to work, much like Chronopolis was founded in ... ah, something to do with magnetism or energy in the sea of El Nido.

I love this approach, though. Question everything.

[Doctor Shaft]

When did I post this thread... a couple weeks ago? Lol, and NOW we're going to have a discussion about it. Well good, i was hoping so, this is a major point of interest for me.

In terms of Lavos being evil.  On one hand, I would have just said it was animal... but then again, how can an animal with no preferences or understandings of anything other than its own survival, corrupt human kind?  

We'd be giving an animilitic creature, a tick, a lot of credit for being able to completley manipulate the minds of intelligent, magic wielding humans. The idea just seems like a very large stretch for me, and also anticlimactic.  the Fall of humans gets brought about by a tick.  

If we look at the situation, Lavos could have been defeated somehow or someway if he had just decided to outright attack the Earth while Zeal existed.  If he didn't control Queen Zeal, etc., Lavos would have been in some kind of trouble. However, we can see that the Queen is corrupted, and it doesn't seem to be blind corruption either. She isn't just a genocidal machine, with a bloodlust for watching magic power destroy nations.  She wants to rule the world... forever.  As Queen Zeal, she already rules... but with Lavos, she is immortal.  How can a tick corrupt a woman into going into such lengths to achieve this... how can it even show her that such an idea of immortality were possible.  It would have to be more than just an animal.

Picture your pet if you will.  Dog, cat, turtle, whatever.  Now imagine it had the power to destroy the Earth, blah blah blah, and grant you immortality... but it still possessed the intellect of your original pet.  Do you think it could even convey the idea of immortality, or even the idea of becoming its partner and ruling the Earth, and convince you to use all of your friends and family?  That's a big question.  

So people have a theory that Lavos is pretty much dead after 1999AD.  That seems like a plausible idea.  Weird, yet plausible That also brings the question of how you still can fight him in some way through the Black Omen. Perhaps, when Lavos had absorbed enough energy, he gained the capability of existing outside of time.  I never understood how fighting the Omen took me straight to Lavos. Another question to think of.

Why not just consider this thread the collection of "Lavos, how, why, and when in 2300 AD.  Still Alive, why, how does he exist... all of it".

To the Sun Keep question that no one has approached.... meh, I can't approach it either.  I guess the Sun Stone and such is nothing more than a grand plot device, that was cool to see at the end of the game.  But it's still strange that place still shines with an everlasting light despite the ravage of the planet that Lavos delivered.  In fact, it's practically the only place where a solid beam of sunlight still exists. The Lavos spawn seem capable of destroying your party, but they don't seem like they want to travel very far.  If Lavos knows that you're messing with time in the first place, why not attempt to counter events by snuffing out the light of the sun stone. Perhaps he can't see or control everything.

[Drumguy074]

It's possible that Lavos is not "evil", but merely logical to the extreme. Lavos is not destroying the world simply for the sake of destruction, but rather to make the universe more perfect.  Lavos absorbs and manipulates the dna of everything so it can become perfect.  It would then stand to reason that the only way the universe could be perfect is if the universe was inhabited only by its spawn. Or it could be that I'm just braindead from being overworked during finals.

[ZeaLitY]

Might be defeating its own purpose though by ultimately having the aim of destroying reality. However, wouldn't this be a form of perfection? Forever Zero; no good, evil, pleasure or strife. Nothingness -- complete and perfect.

[Doctor Shaft]

Go Lynx...

Yeah, I can see that.  Forever Zero being the form of perfection.  However, considering that Lavos did have spawn, etc., I don't know if absolute nothingness is what it seeks.

The Time Devourer did this because that was it's very nature. it was birthed in the Tesseract, the forever zero of time, and it was a temporal anamoly.  Schala and Lavos combined... and the combination doesn't exactly look natural.  Something tells me that perhaps even Lavos wasn't exactly seeking to meld together with another human.... but somethings have to be done.  It's power seems to be of a temporal nature if it is capable of simply devouring time for it's own consumption. Of course, when you fight it, it has no temporal power, just a bunch of powerful magic.  

In terms of "evil", that in itself becomes a big word.  For now, when I say "evil", i'm talking that something or someone is doing something that isn't "right" or shouldn't be happening.  We won't play CC or CT and believe that the murder of one of our characters was 'logical' or 'okay'.  We shoudln't perceive Lavos this way either.  We can discuss his motivations to be sure... and claim whether or not he does what he does... but I would be inclined to say that he's making a conscious decision to do wrong.  Otherwise, the whole game is kind of null on drama.  To say that CT is all about humanities mission to stop a dog from eating it's dog food is kind of... anticlimactic. Sure, CC has the themes of humanity going against the will of the planet as well... but that doesn't mean that only humanity is "evil".  

Back to the topic... I don't feel absolute destruction is Lavos' gain.  IF it were, creating progeny would hamper his goals. Imagine Lavos having to fight other Lavos spawn. That would be wretched.  It would be difficult to get anything done if the Lavos' progeny all decided that they had to eliminate one another.  Lavos, with all of his might, would be better off doing the missions on his own.  In 2300 AD, it even seems that Lavos isn't even on Earth.  Did he burrow underneath the ground again, or did he leave his spawn and jettison off the planet?  I always wondered about this part.  

And here's another sun stone query. Why is it that no matter what disaster plagues the planet, the sun keep never gets taken out?  Flood occurs... sun keep is safe.  Lavos returns yet again, this time with fire!  Sun keep is intact. I wonder how this is possible.

[Radical_Dreamer]

For now, when I say "evil", i'm talking that something or someone is doing something that isn't "right" or shouldn't be happening.

So are you saying what Lavos is doing is wrong? Is it wrong to eat a cow? In India, the answer is yes, to a cow, the answer is clearly yes, but in the western world eating a cow is perfectly acceptable. The tricky part with Lavos is that now WE are the cows. I don't think that makes the games any more meaningless. Lavos makes a conscious decision, a decision to eat. It's one you make. It's one I make, it's one everyone makes. Lavos decided to preserve it's own existence, just as Crono and Co decided to preserve man kind. It's a battle of survival between to groups with mutually exclusive goals...how is that anticlimactic?

As for Lavos' location in 2300A.D., I assume he is still on/in the earth, or at least his corpse is. I doubt the fully mature Lavoids are capable of transplanetery travel. It's mass has increased significantly, and there is no benefit to Lavos kind if fully developed Lavoids can take off and find new worlds to devour.

[GrayLensman]

RD, you beat me to it!  Oh, well:

Lavos is not human, it is an immortal monster from outer space, and we should not project our own morals and thought processes onto it.  To Lavos, humans are cattle, or better yet, lab rats.  All life on earth only served as produce for Lavos.  Lavos was never cruel or sadistic; it didn't harm anyone in any way except what was required to feed itself and reproduce.  Should we label Lavos as evil because it didn't look out for the well being of a few measly humans?

In order to survive, I must kill lower life forms by the billions.  Viruses, bacteria, plants and animals suffer untimely deaths because I live and breathe.  There is no avoiding it.  If I become a vegan, I simply reduce the number of higher mammals which die.  While all this is going on, do I shed a tear for every head of lettuce or dust mite which dies to serve me?  NO!  These forms of life are so far below us that there is no grounds for moral concern at all.  If I eat a hamburger, exempting some circles, it is not considered evil in any way.

In the same way, Lavos is so far above humans that there is no comparison.  Lavos did what it saw fit to insure its survival and the continuation of its species and in doing so made use of lesser organisms.  Lavos couldn't conceive of humans having rights or liberty any more than I could think a bacteria did.  Indeed, Lavos could have been a very morally upright and just being--toward other organisms of its own calibre.

I don't see this as lessening the impact of Lavos as an enemy in any way.  Lavos isn't a villain; it is a force of nature.  Throughout the game, there is no way to determine Lavos' motivations or reasoning.  When one confronts, for example, Magus, we can attempt to understand what's going on inside his head, but that is not the case for Lavos.  To me, that makes Lavos more terrifying than any other threat.

When the party faces Lavos, there is no chance of pity, or even hatred.  Lavos is defending itself against the equivalent of a bacterial infection.  Just as there is no right or wrong in Lavos subjugation of the world, there is no morality in the Travelers' decision to fight Lavos.  They are only fighting for survival as all life forms do.

----

Good doctor, about the Sun Keep:  Lavos seems overconfident at best, blindly arrogant as worse.  It could have identified the Sun Keep as a potential threat, but disregarded it.  We also don't know whether Lavos was aware of the time travelers' goings on.  If Lavos was all knowing and thought in a way familiar to us, it should have rose out of the earth and destroyed the travelers while they were weak.

----

As for Lavos' location in 2300A.D., I assume he is still on/in the earth, or at least his corpse is. I doubt the fully mature Lavoids are capable of transplanetery travel. It's mass has increased significantly, and there is no benefit to Lavos kind if fully developed Lavoids can take off and find new worlds to devour.

I beg to differ.  Lavos was able to improve its own DNA and not only that of its spawn.  By traveling to other worlds, it can become even stronger and thus have more advanced children.  We don't even know whether Lavos was a spawn when it impacted the earth.  Crono's world could have been the last in a long chain of planets which served to increase Lavos' power.

[ZeaLitY]

Indeed, the spawn may simply exist to consolidate more power to the Lavoid genus.

I see we have an interesting point here, however. Schala's mind was corrupted by Lavos, and in a way that made her long for destruction. Is this evidence enough to declare that total nothingness is Lavos' goal? Conversely, I inferred from Doctor Shaft's statements that perhaps this 'goal' was the product of bad synergy between Schala/Lavos or the effects of the Tesseract. I believe we can make a theory page out of this on the encyclopedia.

As for having to fight its own spawns, is it ever revealed how the Time Devourer shall go about reducing reality to null? I always held that it would be...somewhat comparable to tearing the fabric of time and space itself apart.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Gray, here is the reason I think that it is more beneficial for the Lavoids to hit a planet and stick with it:

Say Lavos infects a planet, gaining X set of genetic improvements. All his spawn have that X set. They go out, and acquire other improvements. XA, XB, XC. They now have more improvements.

Say the original Lavos goes to another planet and gains the Y set of genetic improvements. Now it is XY, all it's spawn on this world are XY. None of it's old spawn can gain the Y improvements, the Y planet is now dead.

If the original Lavos stays put, then one of it's original spawn, XA, gets Y, so now it gets XAY, and so do all its spawn.

I guess my point is that if Lavoids stay on one planet, there is that much less competition with its children, and that means more room for each generation to improve. That's the problem with a being like Lavos, one shot at each planet and then its over. Ideally, only one spawn of each Lavoid would find a planet, then you would end up with a Lavoid with as many genetic improvements as possible, it would help achive the most "perfect" Lavoid possible.