What can change the nature of a man?

Planescape: Torment¹ asks one question from its first screen to its last. It is never answered outright — only lived through.

What can change the nature of a man? If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear — whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can.

I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag’s heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief…²

The closing verse

The last line of the game is Li Shangyin’s 無題 — a Tang-dynasty poem on parting, time, and the end of feeling.³

It is difficult to meet as it is difficult to part, The north wind has weakened; hundreds of flowers fade way, When the Spring worms die, the silk shall never come again, When the candle wax becomes ash, tears shall stop.

Note

Footnotes in this theme become Tufte-style margin notes on wide screens — this line was placed there so you can see one at work.