The end is nigh, and the god of dusk, Nezarec comes to send the world into darkness.
Good gosh, that’s heavy.
Since launch, Destiny’s charged us with killing many enemies. But since The Darkness was shown the backseat to more immediate enemies, we’ve yet to see anything else resembling an overarching villain for the series.
Many anticipated one to rear its head in Destiny 2, a game hyped as a soft-reset for the franchise. Excluding the introduction of ominous pyramid ships, no such villain was acknowledged. Destiny 2’s story is a very self-contained package.
Post-campaign, though, Destiny’s world is soaked with new lore. And at the center of many myths is an apocalypse to come: The Dusk and The End.
And at its center? A single god. Nazarec, the Hateful.
A core pattern in Destiny is that of incorrect action and the reciprocal consequence.
Dredgen Yor seeks The Darkness and is struck down by Shin Malphur the sole Guardian to have been born with The Light.
Eris Morn descends into the Hellmouth and returns reborn in the image of her foes.
Praedyth ventures into Time’s Conflux and is lost within, forever.
Asher Mir feeds his curiosity and ventures to see the Genesis Mind, and is torn apart and reassembled with Vex appendages.
Oryx is enraged by his son’s ineptitude in facing The Vex and exiles him, only to be wracked with grief when his son is subsequently killed by humanity and a chain of violent retribution is unwound that destroys his entire bloodline.
And it seems Nezarec is no different.
We know of him from a Warlock helmet, “Nezarec’s Sin,” detailing both Nezarec and his sin.
“He is that which is end. That which covets sin. The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour. And He shall rise again. When the guiding shine fades and all seems lost He will call to you. Fear not. All He offers is not as dark as it may seem. For Nezarec is no demon, but a fiend, arch and vile in ways unknown. He is a path and a way, one of many. And his sin—so wicked, so divine—is that he will never cower when dusk does fall, but stand vigilant as old stars die and new Light blinks its first upon this fêted eternity.”
I’ve previously written about the state of Destiny’s “dying” world and “The End” to come. To recap: Destiny is about a world that is dying, filled with dying gods and seeks rebalance. Additionally, an event known as “The End” is coming post-haste, and humanity is potentially a key to solving it.
For starters, we know The End is coming. Dozens of lore entries belabor this point. Presumable, this represents the battle between The Light and The Darkness. But ‘Nezarec’s Sin,’ challenges that view by describing him as “The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour” and saying of him, “he will never cower when dusk does fall, but stand vigilant as old stars die and new Light blinks its first.”
Everything he stands for seems immediately to be associated with The Darkness, as the harbinger of The End and the ‘final god of pain.’ But unlike the forces of The Darkness, he has no apparent gripe with The Light. His pedigree lists “The Purest Light” beside “The Darkest Hour.”
In fact, and most puzzling, “stand vigilant as old stars die” is followed by “and new Light blinks its first.” And yes, that’s capital “L” Light.
Crota, a god, was merely the Prince of Oryx, the Taken King, a god by right of his communion with The Darkness. Nezarec isn’t the next level up. Or even in the same ballpark. He is not The Darkness. He is above The Darkness, he has transcended it.
Nezarec, whether by nature or by purpose, has transcended the opposing forces of Darkness and Light. Keep in mind, that even at the largest scale in the Destiny universe, all previous forces have been within the category of “Dark” and “Light,” or else in-between or indifferent (see The Awoken and The Nine).
Nezarec is the biggest, baddest god in the sandbox. So much so, that it’s worth considering that we reorient our understanding of the lore towards him. He has made himself the focal point of my attention.
There will be more on this subject. But be warned: it only gets darker from here.
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