Let's Talk About: Garnok's Capture

In the third Starshine Legacy game, Legend of Pandoria, we take Anne's role and travel to Pandoria. In Pandoria we find a room filled with 8 gigantic runes, telling the story of what seems to be Garnok's capture and subsequent crash on Earth.

"Those creatures look like horses. And a little bit like guards, as well. I wonder if that's supposed to be their planet?"

Anne is kind enough to interpret the runes for us. Note that the horse-people's planet has a horse head on it, and the human and Garnok planets just look like targets - just ambiguous planets.

"Yikes! There's this evil monster attacking the horse-people! He looks horrible!"

But I would disagree with her very strong bias against a tentacle-monster she's never even met. Who says he's evil?

This is the first rune that I find truly interesting. Note that while before the center planet had a horse head, here that part is omitted. Who's to say that we're looking at an invasion by Garnok?

What if we put aside our bias for a moment, and entertain the idea that we're seeing the horse-people invading Garnok's planet, instead of the other way around? This story becomes much more concerning.

"The horse-people are fighting the monster! It looks like they're winning!"

Garnok is being beaten into submission, and we're back at the horse-people's planet. What if they captured Garnok and brought him back by force?

"Hey, the horse-people captured the monster! Serves it right, it looks evil!"

Let's be honest, we don't know that Garnok did anything wrong. We've only seen the horse-people brandishing weapons in these runes - we've not seen Garnok doing anything that comes across as truly sinister.

"Hmm... this looks like it's a ship... a starship! The monster is imprisoned on it! The horse-people are sending the evil thing away!"

And now they're taking Garnok away on a ship, away from their planet and, presumably, away from his own, with a horse-person guard in the ship with him.

"Something's gone wrong! The starship is crashing... on a planet... could it be earth?"

Is it crashing, or is this just it landing as expected? Could they be using Earth as a prison for Garnok intentionally, because it's the nearest planet that belongs to neither the horse-people nor Garnok's kind?

"Let's see. The horse-people are making friends with a horse and its rider... and the evil monster is buried under the sea! Maybe it's escaping?"

Our first glimpse of Aideen, I believe. It seems that Aideen did not inherently have her own light - here we see the horse-people giving a light to the horse and rider, which presumably gets used to populate the nearby island, to guard against Garnok's return.

"Oh no, the monster is free! But wait, here are four horses and four riders... they're driving the evil thing away! I wonder what all this means?"

Garnok is out, and he has a few of his own kind with him. Did they follow him, or are they spawned from him? Either way, the soul riders and Garnok are at odds, and I have to say I could understand why Garnok might be feeling violent.

This is the first glimpse we get of Garnok being violent at all. In the initial invasion rune, the lightning above can easily be brought down by the horse-people, as the lightning is directed at Garnok. But here we see the lightning directed at the riders, presumably by Garnok or his minions.

Could it be that Garnok was attacked without reason? The leader of his world taken captive and sent to a strange planet to live in isolation, kept down by his enemies at every turn he takes. I can understand why Mr Sands and the generals are so hateful of the soul riders and Druids. These minions of Garnok just want their leader back, and revenge for an injustice wrought on them centuries ago.

We can't say that the Druids are totally innocent themselves, with what they've done - drugging employees, banishing people's souls?

Garnok's minions may be cruel, but I think I understand their cause and why they're lashing out.

I say to ye, Garnok is innocent!