@weavewithshadow pushed yet another durgetash brainrot specimen into my brain, which is...
what if withers didn't just instantly revive you the way he does in the game (which is total horse shit btw, but i'll talk about that later)?
what if you were, for all intents and purposes, dead, and your entire camp actually has a fucking reaction other than "knew you could do it buddy?"
what if that part of the story was treated with the actual emotional weight that it deserves?
what if gortash is waiting at your camp to yell at your companions for letting you die?
like, "you made them a hero...and then you let them become a martyr. if they'd stayed by my side, i would've protected them."
he'd be fucking pissed. absolutely livid, that they let you sacrifice yourself, and they call themselves your friends. It's an utterly irrational reaction, because you made that choice, but he is furious nonetheless.
but then withers would bring you back, and you'd be naked and shaking and stunned to be alive again, and gortash takes off his no fear coat and covers you with it.
and then, gone is that smooth, unwavering confidence and unshakeable, haughty demeanor. he is suddenly shaking too, and he's realizing, he wasn't ready to lose you again.
and now that you're back, again, despite all odds, his emotions are too powerful.
especially after months of wearing that coat to keep his grief from consuming him.
and you know what, while i'm being soppy and stupid.
he falls to his knees, and takes their face in his hands, and he says, without his silly little preening nobleman voice, in an honest to GOD, rough, weak little gasp:
"you shouldn't have left me."
and you know he isn't talking about leaving them at wyrm's rock.
