Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
*gigasnip*
The problem is, that while Koji goes into a lot of detail about what Light and Darkness are not, he doesn't dwell much on what they ARE. They're a different kind of energy - but what does that even mean?

In the meantime, the game seems to be going out of its way to associate Light with Umbral and Darkness with Astral, lately. The Flood of Darkness wasn't devastating to the Thirteenth because it was suffusing the world with darkness energy. It was bad because it was suffusing the world with Astral polarity. And yet, it is not called the Flood of Astral, but the Flood of Darkness. Too much Darkness is bad, because everything goes Umbral. Ditto in reverse for the Flood of Light.

By a similar token, Ascians are all about the chaos, the Astral, and yet everything they do is darkness, darkness, darkness...

If Light and Darkness are meant to be independent from Umbral and Astral, the game hasn't done a great job of demonstrating this! Even when you consider "polarizing" existing elements - from what we've seen the further toward either pole the elements go, the closer they get to Light or Dark in coloration - hence the swirling darkness of the Void and the barren whiteness of the Empty.