Ok… I have the game, but I can’t play it until I upgrade my PC (next week, I hope). Anyway, I avidly follow the news and reactions to it. Regarding story, one thing makes me think: the role of the Cheery Man. As far as I understand, he is the chief figure in the smuggling business of Sunless Sea. I admit I don’t know the man very well, because I chose to side with the Last Constable in FL and not him, but we all know who is the smuggler-queen of Fallen London… Is he involved in any kind of soul trade? One of the things the Last Constable told me is that he don’t like the devils (and the opposite is obviously true). If he IS involved, then that’s suspicious indeed!
What is the evidence and what is the assumption about him (in Sunless Sea, of course)? What do you say?
The Cheery Man is a crime lord based out of Watchmaker Hill, he runs his operations through a seedy pub he owns where he moonlights as the bartender. His legs (and possibly everything below the waste) are disabled because of an assassination attempt instituted by the devils when he would not help them smuggle souls. They used Cantigaster Venom (a story for another time), which needless to say seems to destroy your nervous systems in the area of the body it is injected to (if it does not kill you outright).
Given the backstory we glean from association with him, it is now odd to see him have us smuggle souls ostensibly in the service of devil clients. So either he relented and agreed to some activities in the soul trade to stave off further assassination attempts, or Failbetter forgot that particular snippet about his character. Having us smuggle souls to the Brimstone Convention, a place crawling with devils, seems to erase most doubts about his connection with some factions from Hell.
Ultimately he is a business man and I suppose he would have thought "Hey, my life or somebody else’s soul". It’s not really that evil when you think about it - if you see a box of souls ready for shipment then where do you think it will eventually end up? Few people know about the Shepard of Souls and their efforts, so naturally it will end up in the possession of a devil or deviless in time.
edited by Owen Wulf on 7/5/2014
Dealing with the exiled devils of the Convention is a different matter to dealing with the Brass Embassy, of course. Perhaps one faction’s bad dealings with him drove him to work with the other.
Yes, that’s what I assumed. He is literally funding the revolution of hell.
Smuggling Souls does seem out of character but maybe he is dong it to keep them out of Devilish hands. It would be nice if we were smuggling honey or wine, or anything different actually.
Thank you very much. It also seemed to me that it was out of (his) character, but as I said, I’ve never got to know him so well. I got an impression that he was too proud and too rightful (if that’s the right word?) in his own strange way to do business with human souls.
And, importantly, when I heard about the smuggling part of the game, I first assumed we would have to deal with the Widow, and that the Cheery Man was only a mask. Hm… Perhaps…?
edited by Ridiculus Undarke on 7/5/2014