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Commonwealth's anti-literacy law
- What ass-backwards society would forbid the helpful art of reading!? And why the Hell would they!?
- Guess, we have to wait until the release to know it. Most likely it's caste-based society, and rulers actually have this right.
- Perhaps reading was forbidden as a way to prevent exiles from knowing about the Rites and leaving the Downside through it, therefore rendering their sentence moot. Hedwin, Jodariel, and Rukey had what seemed several copies of the Book of Rites, so it could be that the book itself is rather common and easy to find, so anyone lucky enough to get their hands on one could, in theory, escape exile through the Rites. Commonwealth probably caught wind of this, and banned reading as a way to prevent this outcome.
- Book of Rites is unknown and unacknowledged in Commonwealth. All exiles have it, because each band was founded directly by Eight Scribes, who stocked them well.
- Well good job then, Commonwealth, you screwed up! By banishing someone who could actually read, you have failed miserably to prevent any jail-breaking!
- One of the pages mentions that having a reader in the rites is optional, so this would also make it harder for a triumvirate to win in a liberation rite. Imagine having to act as one the hard way.
- Societies that forbid reading actually existed. If I well remember, in the middle ages, the lower classes were forbidden to learn how to read in order to limit their access to knowledge and make them easier to control by the nobility and the clergy. The reason why might be the same thing: it's easier to control people when you limit their access to knowledge.
- Beyond control of the population, Sandalwood implies that being a Reader imparts other abilities, such as telepathy.
- It was mentioned it's some sort of religious ban. Since ancient Empire collapsed under it's own transgressions and schemes of one of the well-read ones, it may be the mean to prevent such a story from repeating, along with very strict social rules and draconian regime. Stagnation is a natural side-effect though.
- A loading screen mentions that the Literacy Ban was enacted after the spread of dangerous and subversive materials after the Commonwealth was founded. Volfred was cast down specifically for owning a Stamping Press and producing said literature, and Big Bertrude was exiled for providing fire-proof inks for him.
- After completing the game, the purpose of the literacy ban was to solidify a stratified society. An illiterate society must rely on physical agents or message-imps to convey messages, which significantly hampers organization of protest or rebellion. It also prevented the populace from learning the dogma of the 8 Scribes directly, permitting government "interpretation" of their laws.
Eight Scribes, Greater Titans and nine Triumvirates
- The Nightwings that are the universal adversaries having huge bonuse by participating in every Liberation Rite. Not only such tournament design is astonishingly unfair, not only such system is VERY prone to malfunction as it happened when Volfred simply left, excluding Nightwings from the great game and robbing every single exile of Downside of that slim chance for freedom they had, but there is also no plausible in-Universe explanation for such state of things which contrasts greatly with highly praised wisdom of the Scribes. Crude Gameplay and Story Segregation? Can't even be sure about that.
- The whole point of the Nightwings is to act as a type of Final boss for the other Triumvirates, they are always the last opponent a Triumvirate must face to win freedom and they're given multiple advantages the scribes often give them blessings, they have the beyonder Crystal which lets them do tons of training as well as access to unique talismans that can only be gotten from it, this is all because the Nightwings are ment to represent the many challenges the Scibes had to overcome in order to earn their freedom, so the Nightwings are the final obstacle the opponent must defeat in order to prove their worth and earn their freedom
- It is quite obvious that every of eight Triumvirates that are Nightwings adversaries is connected to one of the Scribes; i.e. Accusers to Gol Golathanian, Chastity to Lu Sclorian, Tempers to Soliam Murr and so on. These triumvirates were founded by corresponding individual Scribes and their values are meant to reflect these Scribes. So, if eight triumvirates are avatars of the Scribes, the Nightwings are supposed to be avatars of Greater Titans? Then why activating Titan Stars for the Rite makes their lives harder, not their adversaries'? Why Greater Titans even care about the Rites and why do they hate Nightwings so much?
- The Nightwings were specifically created by the Scribes in order to represent all the challenges they faced on their journey for redemption and were made to act as a sort of final boss for the opposing Triumvirates, as for the Greater Titan they don't particularly hate the Nightwings they won't do anything unless the reader explicitly invokes them
