If you’ve been following the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, you may have heard the episode “Triptych”, in which Cecil converses with three different versions of Kevin from Desert Bluffs…
In one of the pivotal moments in the episode, Past!Kevin asks Cecil how his fight against Strexcorp Synernists, Inc. ends up, did he win, did he lose?
[QUOTE=Welcome to night vale]
Kevin: Cecil? Cecil?
Cecil: Yes, Kevin? I’m– I’m here.
Kevin: Oh, good, I got you back. Lost you there for a moment.
Anyway, as I was saying, Strex wants to buy the radio station, but I’ll never let them. I’ll fight them off, Cecil! I’ll defeat them!
Cecil: Ah, it’s this version of you.
Kevin: There is only me, Cecil. I’m the only me there is! And we’re gearing up to push Strex out. Grandma Josephine, my oldest friend in town (both meanings of the word), Mayor Pablo Mitchell, Lawrence Levine out on the Edgertown Development, we have all had our differences in the past, sure, and we will have our differences again. We can’t always be happy. But we love each other. We are a community.
And sure, that community has a beautiful name. I mean, can you think of a single more beautiful name than Desert Bluffs?
Cecil: Obviously, any name. Like, literally, any name.
Kevin: But it’s not about the beautiful, beautiful name. It’s about the people. A town is its people, and the good and the bad of them. And that is what we are going to fight for. That is what we are going to win for.
Hey, you’re from the future! That means you know how this turns out!
Cecil: Well, uh, y– y– yes, I do.
Kevin: So? Do I win? Does everything go just as right as right could be?
Cecil: … Yes.
You win, Kevin. Everything goes right. You and community radio prevail. And you are happier than ever. Desert Bluffs is a wonderful town, and you live happily in it.
Kevin: Oh! That’s such good news! Thanks for telling me. I can’t wait for the future to come! Though, I have no choice but to wait, I suppose. That’s how the future works, scientists keep insisting. Scientists are the worst, right?
Well, I’m sure I’ll talk to you again at some point in my life.
Until next time, Cecil. Until next ti– [static cuts Kevin off]
Cecil: Goodbye, Kevin. I wish…
Does it matter?
Listeners, I…what do I say here? I– I wish things could have gone differently, obviously. That is, obviously, what I wish. But they didn’t.
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So, did Cecil perform a disservice to Past!Kevin by lying to him about his fate?
If P!K knew of his fate in Cecil’s timeline, as a fully absorbed/assimilated Strex drone and utterly brainwashed into worshipping the Smiling God, would he have fought against Strex even more fiercely?
Did assuring P!K that he would win/prevail against Strex make P!K perhaps not fight as effectively, because someone from the future told him that he would win?
Or would it make no difference at all, as Strex would have probably won anyway?
If you were in Cecil’s place, would you have told P!K the truth? Or lied as Cecil did?