[VARIOUS SPOILERS] - The Man in The Wall. What is the deal with him?

[Biokrate]

I felt the need to discuss about The Man in The Wall (shortened TMW, I guess) so here goes:

With the recent addition of the Chimera Prologue in the game, we can all agree that TMW is possibly one of the most interesting characters in the Warframe lore who will, in my opinion, play a highly important role in the future. If the thread title was not clear enough, I am going to be spoiling the Chimera Prologue slightly. (Sorry I cannot put the spoiler drop-down thing, but I always fail Bb code and I will just look like an idiot).

The Chimera Prologue itself starts with TMW taunting the Tenno with Lotus' helmet, obviously having fun while toying with the Operator's feelings of loss. He then shows the Tenno through Orokin halls, mocking them all along the way and finally leading us to what I presume to be Ballas' hiding spot or living quarters in the Sentient stronghold. I wish to focus on TMW's role is this, so I will be skipping Ballas' interactions with the Tenno.

My first observation was that the Tenno seemed to have actually been teleported to a location in Lua. This implies that TMW has physical influence on the Tenno, additionally demonstrated by the fact that he can attack through ghost-like creatures. Later on, the Tenno (still in their Warframe) falls in a deep whole. A transition to our Operator occurs, who then approaches TMW (who is posing as The Lotus in the Apostasy Prologue) and is put in what I believe to be a "dream" (the special kind of dreams Tenno have).

An obvious question to ask would be: "Why would TMW use a vision, if he can teleport us around?". Well, I would suspect that since he is a creature closely related to The Void, his powers would be much more prominent in Lua, which I expect to have strong Void energy, since it came OUT of it. The "dream" theory is further supported from two other things: First, throughout the rest of the mission, our Operator is constantly in Void mode. Second: Ballas does not seem to see the Tenno, but rather feel their presence.

So, now that we went through HOW TMW helped the Tenno, let us think WHY he helped the Tenno.

An obvious requirement to understanding one's motives and goals is understanding their nature and origins. We know next to nothing about TMW, other than the following: a) He is a side-effect, or rather a personification of the Void b) He most vividly exists in the Operator's dreams, visions, consciousness etc. c) He refers to the Operator the same way their father did d) He expressed interest, and succeeded, in consuming the Kuva flask. From these we can deduce that he is the manifestation of the Void, appearing as the Tenno imagine him. With the consumption of the Kuva, his powers grew further, giving him more power over the Operator.

As to the reason behind his actions, I find to be the most vague of all. We know that the Void seeks to consume creatures and planets and expand itself. TMW being what he is, it would make sense to assume he acts purely out of self-interest, seeking to free himself from the Tenno, find an opportunity in the middle of the upcoming Sentient war and consume as much of the galaxy as he can.

However, I personally do think (and hope) that his goals are not this shallow. It would be fun if he was led by curiosity or desire for revenge, but that is a theme constantly repeated in video games and movies. I expect that he is "helping" us march towards something much, much greater, acting as some sort of prophet, paving the way towards a new war that will reshape the galaxy. Lastly, I think the Void will certainly play a huge part it what is to come, acting as a weapon, an enemy, an ally or something inbetween. All in all, we can only wait and trust in the creative genius that is DE.

Sorry for the extremely long thread. Thank you very much for watching, please leave your opinions and views and hopefully we can shed some more light in The Man in The Wall.

[Urlan]

Wally seems to be a Void entity that claims to be responsible for our surviving the Zariman Ten-0 and gaining our powers while the adults went mad or were possessed. As shown with Rell, Wally is not a positive influence and at least Rell tried to trap the entity within himself to restrict its influence. Unfortunately, Rell's elite within Red Veil were coming under Wally's influence anyway as Rell's personality was slowly fragmenting and weakening over the years leading to our mercy kill on the Harrow he had merged with long ago. For what its worth, I think Wally has his own reasons for messing with us either way. Perhaps it feeds off of strife or strong emotions.

It would be useful to learn more about the creature, but I worry that short-term, Fortuna's fight for independence and New War might take center stage.

[Drftingcloud]

When All becomes One, One becomes Void.

And when One becomes Void, Void becomes All.

 

It's the endless cycle of existence and non-existence. After all, what we perceive as existence is actually just difference.

Quick example. If everything was red, the idea of color would not exist. However it's unlikely that everything will forever be red, after all, the only constant in the universe is change. So when something changes to not red, the idea of color comes back.

 

Sentients: exists, ability to adapt and change. The more you damage it, the more it becomes resistant to that type of damage. Eventually they will become immune to all kinds of damage and will have assimilated all elements as part of their being. Turning them into Void. This is why void damage is the only damage effective against them. It literally tethers them to their final state of being and speeds them towards their destiny, of being nothing.

MitW: Semi-exists, only in dreams. Likely given form by the disturbance caused in the Void (nothingness) by the Zariman 10-0. It is likely the culmination of the emotions of everyone on board that ship, mixed with whatever was in the Void already as a recepticle. It is the Void transforming back into existence.

You see, the Void and regular space exist simultaneously in the warframe universe. They are just two sides of the same sheet of paper, the fabric of reality. On one side you have all existence, on the other side, nothing, Void. Tenno exist as holes in that fabric, that allows Reality and Void to transition back and forth. They exist both in reality and the void at the same time, radiating void energies into reality and radiating particles of reality into the void. Ever wonder why all the corpses of all the enemies you kill disappears?

So the more enemies you kill, the more things you send to the void, all of their thoughts, emotions, personalities get added to the MitW. Even though MitW started as a combination of the emotions for people who actually knew the Tenno, because of all the new stuff we've been sending to the void, and all the new thoughts and emotions, we're actually changing/corrupting MitW with our actions. He might have started as a benevolent guardian of the Tenno, but by now because of all the stuff we've killed, we've already filled it with another emotion. Everything we've killed, everything we've sent to the Void, their last and strongest emotion is one thing, hatred of the Tenno.

Rell figured this out, since he was so sensitive to emotions, he felt the MitW changing. He couldn't completely plug the holes of reality (destroy the Tenno) but at least he could created a Veil to try to block out influences of the MitW. A Red Veil to be precise. What Rell didn't count on however, was that MitW could also influence other beings. Rell managed to block out just the communications between MitW and Tenno, but MitW found a new pawn. Natah.

See the Sentients weren't coming back to try to destroy the Orokin empire. Well they were, but why? It's because the Sentients sensed that the Orokin were letting the Void into this reality with their experiments, with the Tenno. Their ultimate goal has always been to destroy the Tenno, not the Origin system. They wanted to plug the holes to the Void, permanently, especially since it's basically one of the only ways they can die/cease to exist. So Hunhow and Natah hatched a plan to destroy the Tenno, but Natah's thoughts were hijacked and inflenced by MitW along the way via his "visions". She abandoned her original goal and started to take care of the Tenno instead, keeping them safe.

Now that Rell is dead, MitW didn't need Natah anymore. In fact he wanted to get rid of her so that he could become the sole figure of support to the Tenno to be able to better exploit us. So he got Ballas to come take Natah back to the sentients. He is now also preparing the Tenno for war against the Sentients, the only ones who can possibly threaten him now. Even though he's helping arm us against the Sentients, his hatred for us still shows through every now and then when he toys with us and purposely brings up painful memories.

 

Long story short, what the MitW is trying to do is use us to get rid of the only thing standing in his way, Sentients. Then he can just burst out of the Tenno, killing us in the process, and consume all reality unimpeded.

[DeathDweller]

I don't think it was physical teleportation cause:

First of all we were transported in the past(the moment Ballas leaves with Natah).Then we jumped to the present(the Sentients lair).

TMW has no physical body atm so i doubt he can teleport us in time physically(if he did in the first place cause it could be the helmet all along and MTW just taunted us to it).

So either there are things we don't know yet about all these teleportations or DE makes one plot hole after another.

[Loza03]

1 hour ago, Biokrate said:

As to the reason behind his actions, I find to be the most vague of all. We know that the Void seeks to consume creatures and planets and expand itself. TMW being what he is, it would make sense to assume he acts purely out of self-interest, seeking to free himself from the Tenno, find an opportunity in the middle of the upcoming Sentient war and consume as much of the galaxy as he can.

If I may, how do we know this? To my knowledge, there's no indication of this in-game, just that it is. Yeah, there's void fissures, but since those deposit things in the void out of it, it seems they're just random events. 

That's not to say I don't think he's in it to 'feed', though I have a different theory about what he consumes. I think he's some kind of symbiote/parasite, depending on the host, and that he consumes aspects of one's personality and emotion. Unsuitable hosts - seemingly adults - will succumb to a raging state. I assume that, due to his relative disinterest, that such a state doesn't give him that much, most likely because the creatures are pretty much mindless. It's not a long-term investment. However, in the case of the Zariman children, he somehow managed to achieve a long-term connection with them, due to the ease at which they survived the void.  That'd be more akin to symbiosis, since we gain great power and ability to survive - our survival and his are enhanced by the union, although I doubt the exchange is out of selflessness, and more for a long-term food supply. I also hypothesise this process implants elements of our personality into him. This could also be the reason he does it, to literally 'fill the void' in his heart.'

Part of my reasoning for this is the Man in the Wall's behaviour in Chains of Harrow. Spooky supernatural writing appears on the wall, which given that it speaks about Rell as 'he' not 'I', we can assume is Wally doing his thing. Yet he's talking about how we 'Cast him out' and how 'he suffers while [we] dream." Wally also comments on how the "In-kids don't care about the invisible outs" and how "If you were alone in that drift, you'd need a friend... even like me." which seems to indicate that Wally at least seems to view Rell as a friend (I doubt the feeling's mutual). These feelings of loneliness and anger at injustice mirror Rell - as if Rell. There's that, and also how Transference - a property linked to the void - 'takes away' the pain of the participants, both the Warframes AND the Tenno. Remember, it's what was used to treat them in the first place, as revealed in the Silver Grove. 'Transference therapy'. I assume it's also a factor in why our Kiddo's don't have bucketloads of PTSD as well, and other mental issues you'd expect from literal child soliders. It get's siphoned off by the void, most likely to the Man in the Wall.

So, my order of events has Wally, after the Zariman incident, be able to engage a long-term, 'symbiotic' relationship with us. In order to keep their emotions running high, he gave them uncontrollable powers, subjecting them to trauma. Rell notices, and manages to harness his power to entrap him. Given that we gain control of our powers through 'focus' I guess Rell's autism caused him to sense the man, but also to be able to 'focus' enough to use his powers, since two common occurrences in autism is heightened sensitivity and a state of hyperfocus. Match made in... uh... space hell. Rell holds Wally back, we wind up gaining control of our powers, gain a great deal of self-focus and some degree of maturity, and become our stoic selves for the rest of the Old War and up to the Second Dream - and even mostly past that too. Far less for Wally to use, only really having Rell's trauma to feed on.

Fast forward a few thousand years, we break out and gain control of our powers, through the reawakening the 'misery' of the void. We remember tragedy aboard the Zariman, open old war tragedy, boom, more juice for Wally. Chains of Harrow happen, and Wally has a bit of a temper tantrum since he's absorbed so much of Rell's personality, including Rell's desire to help the Tenno. Leading Wally to adopt a rather twisted personality of 'half ally'. He'll do whatever he can to ensure our abilities are up to snuff (explaining why he's so merry about our close transference to Umbra) and that we know what we're doing. Mostly because that further ensures our survival and further combat - and in doing so, new trauma's to tear our minds apart over. Yay for Wally! Somewhat yay for us because we have an ally that we can trust to help us as long as said help leads to further emotional trauma for us!

So, yeah, that's my theory.

[Miser_able]

Or maybe he's just bored and he finds this to be fun. 

[Kaotyke]

53 minutes ago, DeathDweller said:

I don't think it was physical teleportation cause:

First of all we were transported in the past(the moment Ballas leaves with Natah).Then we jumped to the present(the Sentients lair).

TMW has no physical body atm so i doubt he can teleport us in time physically(if he did in the first place cause it could be the helmet all along and MTW just taunted us to it).

So either there are things we don't know yet about all these teleportations or DE makes one plot hole after another.

Or m,aybe those are visions instead of actual teleportation.

Makes much more sense.

[DeathDweller]

1 minute ago, Kaotyke said:

Or m,aybe those are visions instead of actual teleportation.

Makes much more sense.

Well in the first one none could see us but in the second Ballas knew we were there so idk

[Kaotyke]

48 minutes ago, DeathDweller said:

Well in the first one none could see us but in the second Ballas knew we were there so idk

Its a trope actually.

The villain doesnt know the hero is there... but he expects them to be. And calls them out. If he is there? Great. If he isnt... well, no one heard your anyways.

Another theory is that, while Wally send our mind/soul to the place Ballas is in the form of a ghost. As such, Ballas might have known we were there, but chose to act ignorant untill the last moment.

[DeathDweller]

9 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

Its a trope actually.

The villain doesnt know the hero is there... but he expects them to be. And calls them out. If he is there? Great. If he isnt... well, no one heard your anyways.

Another theory is that, while Wally send our mind/soul to the place Ballas is in the form of a ghost. As such, Ballas might have known we were there, but chose to act ignorant untill the last moment.

Although the mind/soul makes sense and seems more realistic, there are 2 problems:

1 In the apostasy prologue Ballas didn't sense us

2 We got the helmet back with us so we weren't in ghost state

It seems that every time we traveled was through the void with MTW's help(Apostasy prologue, The Sacrifice and Chimera)maybe it wasn't Lotus or her helmet at all.

 

[ReaperOfTheSouls]

The man in the wall kinda like the outsider in dishonored in many ways, and i like it.

[Falconer777]

7 часов назад, Biokrate сказал:

We know that the Void seeks to consume creatures and planets and expand itself.

Hm.. And how do we know this? I first hear about a similar theory.

[Biokrate]

Loza, the parasite theory is very well structured and can stand on its own but I have my objections;

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

If I may, how do we know this? To my knowledge, there's no indication of this in-game, just that it is. Yeah, there's void fissures, but since those deposit things in the void out of it, it seems they're just random events.

Well, a clear indication is the corruption process. Anything that enters the Void becomes corrupted, reshaped and a servant to the Void. Having that, wouldn't it be same to assume that it aims to expand and swallow more, much like black holes do? What is more, I do not think it would "dominate" the galaxy by using fissures to invade other planets, but rather drive whole planets inside it. We already saw it happen to Lua, for different reasons. If I were to take a wild guess, I would say the Tenno have the collective power to shove a planet into the Void, and The Man in The Wall could have enough influence to make them do it.

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Wally also comments on how the "In-kids don't care about the invisible outs" and how "If you were alone in that drift, you'd need a friend... even like me." which seems to indicate that Wally at least seems to view Rell as a friend (I doubt the feeling's mutual).

I enjoy the idea of TMW mirroring the host's personalit, but I disagree to the "friend" part. We know he talks in a mocking, jokester manner, so by friend he meant nothing more than "accomplice" or "related". Disregarding the parasite theory, Palladino clearly mentions how the Tenno imprisoned, rather than hosted him. Thus, he should see them as his "prison wardens", highly dangerous and aware of his existence. On another note, the "In-kinds don't care about the invisible outs" part possibly refers to some third-reality concepts or he is talking about the true depth of the Void. If he really is a parasite, why would he want the Tenno to see said invisible outs? They would only make them more powerful. He can cause psychological trauma and feed off their emotions in a whole variety of ways, but revealing the Void's secrets is definitely not beneficial for him.

Also, sorry for the belated reply, it was around midnight when I started the thread and I kind of passed out. 😛

P.S.

4 hours ago, ReaperOfTheSouls said:

The man in the wall kinda like the outsider in dishonored in many ways, and i like it.

Dishonored being one of my favourite games ever, in both lore and world-building, I am very excited that someone mentions it! I thought of this too, but the Outsider does not interact with humans. He feels emotions, like The Man in The Wall, but he does not teleport us around etc lol

[Pinegulf]

The is no man in the wall. 

We observer ourselves giving obscure taunts and directions to things we want to see. It's all about me me meee. Remember what Ballast said in the Vitruvian (sp?) entry about duality. It does not end with 'me', but there are sides to 'me'. Take it as consciousness and subconsciousness if you like. 

[Zi-Sui]

8 minutes ago, Pinegulf said:

The is no man in the wall. 

We observer ourselves giving obscure taunts and directions to things we want to see. It's all about me me meee. Remember what Ballast said in the Vitruvian (sp?) entry about duality. It does not end with 'me', but there are sides to 'me'. Take it as consciousness and subconsciousness if you like. 

Possible. It could be us hearing voices and the orokin going into mass schizophrenia due to influence of the void. Psychosis in real life is triggered by genetic inheritance, prolonged heavy stress and possibly hemp. But everybody who experiences heavy stress and consume hemp won't hear voices, just those 10-20% of the population. Genetic inheritance plays a big role.

Knowing that, everyone except the kids going bonkers over the void means void ignores that genetic inheritance. And that is just an indication of how strong effect it has. Like a strong hallucinogenic even the tenno are not immune to. And on top of it it seems somewhat sentient, and with some purpose. It's just hard for me to believe it brought us to Ballas out of pure whim.

It's motives are a big question mark, highly speculative, due to its erratic nature. But you could say it's not a friend of the sentients.

[Veridian]

The Tenno is the man in the wall, as the Tenno matures so do the visions. Ultimately becoming mad, like the adults from the Zariman incident.

The void drives everyone mad eventually, we believe, just like Vor believes.

[ReaperOfTheSouls]

1 hour ago, Biokrate said:

I thought of this too, but the Outsider does not interact with humans.

Throughout dishonored, and mostly the socond, the outsider talk to us, guide us, show interest in our acts and playing with us. Thats how the man in the wall play mind games with his apearences, especially in chimera lore. 

[ReaperOfTheSouls]

1 hour ago, Biokrate said:

He feels emotions, like The Man in The Wall, but he does not teleport us around etc lol

The outsider teleport us to his deminsion, the void. (Thats actually how it was called in dishonred, Coincidence? ) and you think too that this teleport was actually a dream, and thats how the outsider first showed to Carvo/Emily 

Edited October 26, 2018 by ReaperOfTheSouls

[FlusteredFerret]

We won't know what the deal is with him until DE decide to further that part of the game story.

For now, all we know is, when we "freed" Rell, we also unleashed TMITW. Though somehow he has been able to contact us previously - for example at the end of The War Within. Something to do with kuva?

He is now our "burden" to bear. I just hope our Operators don't start with that "Rap Tap Tap" business and leaving blood-smeared messages on the walls... 

 

[Gerdaro]

4 hours ago, Ver1dian said:

The Tenno is the man in the wall, as the Tenno matures so do the visions. Ultimately becoming mad, like the adults from the Zariman incident.

The void drives everyone mad eventually, we believe, just like Vor believes.

Oh boy this makes alot of sense and is very scary.