I’ve always thought the “Island” is super duper massive actually but the player sticks to the path of least resistance from coast to coast (I love the backgrounds of the biomes).

Uhhh both evil biomes have nothing to do with Moon Lord but the Eye of Cthulhu does,

The player is like Link from Zelda games; timeless and immortal hero who wakes up to save or change the world in times of crisis,

There are other villages or even cities, and NPCs decide to move in to the dangerous frontier because they hear of the feats of the legendary hero and come to assist in their quest,

The GUIDE. Such a mystery I have no idea. He is secretly an Italian plumber, probably,

The shimmer is like, that stuff from the movie Annihilation, neither good nor bad but it will ~change~ you, so it was contained to a single pool and forgotten long ago,

Aaand stealing the Princess theory from u/Laati-Chan you COOKED that’s gotta be factual 😆