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kyrie-ray · 5 years

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Analyzing the BOTW Sequel teaser.

--- THIS IS A VERY LONG POST. ---

I think I speak for all of us when I say that a sequel to Breath Of The Wild was a huge surprise out of all of Nintendo’s announcements at E3, and the only information we have right now about the game is the teaser itself.

The teaser opens with a slow heartbeat in the background while green glowing runes seem to write themselves in the air, flowing upwards. It looks like writing, but it doesn’t look like Shiekah writing, or Hylian runes.

However! These runes ARE still recognizable as Gerudo script, which we can see here:

With how quickly the green runes flow in the video, a translation would be difficult, but there’s an undeniable connection here.

The teaser cuts to show this, with the heartbeat still present in the background. The green script is flowing towards a corpse in the center of the room, drawing together to form a spectral hand, while purple/black energy flows from the body it’s touching.

There are also structures around the room that look vaguely familiar, although we haven’t seen them before. If one were to draw some kind of parallel, I would say they look like this:

The runic pillars that surround Hyrule castle after Calamity Ganon’s re-awakening. HOWEVER, they’re not quite the same. Similar to the Shiekah script and architecture that was prevalent at the time, the pillars that rise around Hyrule Castle are blocky and square. In contrast, the structures in the cavern with the corpse are pointed and circular. Both have patterns on them, but they don’t appear to be the same kind of pattern at all.

The teaser cuts to Link and Zelda traversing underground ruins, where again, the architecture and murals don’t appear the same as traditional Shiekah architecture and artwork we’ve seen before.

At this point it’s pretty obvious that whatever we are dealing with, it isn’t originating from our Shiekah roots in Breath of the Wild.

The bottom image doesn’t seem to show anything in the wall carvings, but in the upper image we see a man on a horse wielding a trident. The torch is in the way in this still frame, but there are depictions of other warriors behind him. This man is a Gerudo-- we can tell because of the crest on his back.

That’s the original Gerudo crest from Ocarina of Time, and we see this crest again later in the trailer, although both are more stylized than the original.

One could also argue that the crest in the teaser is shaped like Majora’s Mask, as the pattern seen on the man’s back is more pronounced at the sides rather than spherical, but this could be due to artistic developments over the years.

As we know from other Zelda games, the Gerudo tribe is mostly made of women- there is only a male Gerudo born every 100 years, and traditionally in Zelda lore this male Gerudo has been Ganondorf. We have not yet seen a Zelda game with a male Gerudo who isn’t Ganondorf, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that this won’t be different.

In the image he seems to be depicted as a hero (or at least an ordinary man), rather than the evil force Calamity Ganon was, so it could either be another man entirely or Ganondorf before he somehow became Calamity Ganon.

We get more shots here of the swirling Gerudo script, and our first detailed look at the hand touching the corpse’s chest. From this point on the teaser doesn’t seem to go in chronological order.

After revealing a more detailed look at whatever ritual is going on, we cut to a scene of darkness spreading quickly throughout the ruins. However, this darkness looks different from the darkness we’re familiar with:

You’ll notice that Calamity Ganon’s taint was traditionally sludgy, had a more purple tint, and often looked like a slime or sinewy flesh growing over buildings and creatures. The darkness that spreads through the ruins in the teaser, on the other hand, is a vibrant red and looks more like fingers or possibly feathers, reaching out to grab everything it can.

The trailer continues to cut through scenes non-chronologically, as we get another look at the ruins that Zelda and Link had to traverse to reach the room with the ritual and corpse.

We cut to close-ups of the hand and corpse, where we see the Gerudo crest again on the back of the man’s cloak. Sounds familiar.

This is our first detailed look at that lovely corpse, and wow, it definitely looks like Ganon! However, from the lore of Breath of the Wild, Calamity Ganon didn’t seem to have a body. At least, not like this one. The way Calamity Ganon was consistently depicted implied he was more of a force or energy with malicious intent rather than the distinct, intelligent individual that Ganondorf usually is.

(Sure, Calamity Ganon had the foresight to take over the Shiekah technology and use it against the rest of Hyrule, but that isn’t necessarily as clever as some of Ganon’s ploys in other games and I wouldn’t use it as evidence that Calamity Ganon was a person in the usual sense.)

This leaves a very large question: How did Ganondorf get here? IS this the same Ganondorf that we’ve fought before, or is he somehow different and seperate from Calamity Ganon?

The teaser then cuts VERY quickly through a series of images that it definitely didn’t take me half an hour at 1/4 speed to screenshot. The music here is much more intense as well.

The first thing we see is Link grabbing his own arm as it begins to glow, rising to send a large burst of the green magic upwards towards the ceiling. This does not look voluntary- look at his expression! Link is desperate, trying to stop his body from acting involuntarily to complete the ritual here in this room.

After he does so, we see a large burst of darkness spread across the room originating from the corpse in response to Link’s release of magic.

We then cut to an important series of hands. First, Link reaching to catch Zelda as she falls:

And then, before we see if he succeeds or not, the green hand grabbing Link and pulling him away. Link’s arm is limp in this shot, implying he’s unconscious.

(As stated before, these shots are no longer in chronological order, so the juxtaposition doesn’t necessarily mean the magic hand was pulling him away from Zelda to prevent him catching her.)

It quickly cuts to this image:

A flash of light that illuminates an important detail of Ganondorf’s corpse-- he’s frozen in agony, an event we’ve seen in other games that usually happens after Link strikes the finishing blow to seal him away. It supports the implication that this Ganondorf, Calamity or not, was sealed here on purpose a very long time ago.

The glowing hand seems to cast a shadow here as well, resulting in an interesting shadow-image where it almost looks like the hand is sealing away a healthy Ganondorf rather than resurrecting him. This brings an interesting question-- is the glowing hand Ganon’s spirit, reaching beyond the grave? Is it somehow tied to Link, who released the last magic that finished this ritual? Or is it someone else entirely, manipulating Link to free Ganon again?

After the flash of light the room quickly fills with a faint red glow and begins to collapse, the floor breaking apart:

(This could be where Link tries to catch Zelda, as she ends up falling.)

The room still shaking and falling apart, we get a look at Ganon’s corpse...

... Now alive and filled with malicious and powerful energy.

We move to a long distance shot of Hyrule castle, a massive dust cloud spreading as it seems to rise into the air, becoming quite clearly something more than just a castle. (Perhaps another guardian? A fortress of some sort?)

We know now where the ruins are that Link and Zelda find themselves trapped in, but this only leads to more questions...

The screen fades to black.

We see a mirroring of the introduction, the glowing script again crossing the screen, but this time fading away as the energy seems to run out.

And this is where the teaser trailer ends.

(Nintendo leaves no other commentary, so this is what we’re left with.)

In-game history from BOTW states that Calamity Ganon was sealed beneath Hyrule castle 10,000 years ago, but that’s not quite where he rose and fell again in the ending of the game. The arena Link fights Calamity Ganon in certainly appears to be a prison meant to seal him away and keep him contained, but you certainly have to climb a long way up to reach it... and the fall down into the arena wasn’t as large as the climb up.

(You can see the arena is basically a massive dome, and runes circle the floor as a perimeter.)

However, the ruins in the teaser don’t fully seem to be meant to seal Ganon away either. With the murals on the walls and all the ties to the Gerudo, this almost seems like a shrine or place of reverence to remember Ganon and store his remains. (These remains were also undeniably sealed, if his posture is to be used as evidence in conjunction with the ritual taking place, but that doesn’t mean the place is what sealed him as was implied with Calamity Ganon.)

So why are there two Ganondorfs sealed underground in different ways? Are they the same person or not? It could be that we are now seeing Ganon’s body while CG was more his spirit or power, but it’s all up in the air at this point-- nothing is certain, and no theories so far have more evidence than any other.

You can see a discussion thread here from 2017 exploring many questions about why Ganon was sealed beneath the castle and how it was depicted in Breath of the Wild. The thread brings up several interesting ideas and points:

From the architecture of Hyrule Castle, Calamity Ganon seems to have been sealed first and Hyrule Castle was built AROUND CG’s prison after the fact

The Shiekah eye on the floor and the runes mean the prison was Shiekah-made, which feels a bit odd during the final fight

Why would the Royal Family and the Shiekah build Hyrule Castle around Calamity Ganon’s prison when they knew it was a ticking time bomb? (The thread brings up several points about how CG’s return could have been less devastating if his prison hadn’t been right beneath the biggest city in Hyrule.)

This last question is addressed in an interesting analysis--

In the end, it’s hard to tell if this new return of Ganon is because of Calamity Ganon and the Shiekah, or something else entirely.

There is a LOT to analyze here despite the short length of the teaser, and I expect in the next few months many more theories will pop up before the game is actually released.

Needless to say, Zelda fans have a lot to be excited about-- and a lot to look forward to. Hopefully Nintendo releases more information soon!

#zelda #the legend of zelda #breath of the wild #breath of the wild 2 #botw #botw 2 #botw2 #zelda theory #Nintendo e3 #e3 2019 #sorry for all the tags I got way excited and I really want people to see this!!#video game #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa my hands hurt from all that typing XD

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gyromitra-esculenta · 5 years

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Synchronicity 16

Notes: After hitting brick wall, restructure! So, that one’s a bit of Frankenstein’s Monster. Introducing: Remnant, references to past happenings that were supposed to be referenced much, much later, and morally (VERY) questionable actions (if you get the reference). Jack’s still high on morphine.

Previous parts under this one link: gyromitra-esculenta(.)tumblr(.)com/post/173374189022/synchronicity-15

Jack grimaces when from behind the APC a figure shambles out, a man in a stained dress shirt with a suitcase held in his right hand. Something unsettling in how strangely his neck twists to the left.

"I wonder, Sunshine," the Beast teases, "fight or flight?"

***

(…) And all I see is war path ahead of me Each and every step I welcome readily And if my lack of fear bring the death of me Let the spirits of my ancestors envelop me (…)

His fingers still grip the rifle, the knuckles white on the dark surface of the gun, and he still stares into dark crimson eyes. The last words reverberate between them – him and the Beast – the talk of ashes and charred bones left in their collective wake somehow does not sound like merely a pretty metaphor anymore. Jack swallows back another question and slowly lifts himself off the floor.

The walker is gone in the minutes that had trickled by and he tries somehow to justify its lack of awareness of his own position – was he shielded by the structure or was a single signature not worth the hassle, or, maybe, the interference had messed with the mech’s systems?

There is also a different possibility, one that now is not as far-fetched as one would imagine otherwise, and he knows it’s the morphine talking as he glances back to the Beast.

"I’m dead, aren’t I?"

"Now, what makes you say such a thing, Sunshine?" The Beast tilts its maw to the side, playfully contrarian – yet under the light timbre something darker lurks with the intensity of razor-sharp fangs biting into the nape of his neck.

"This is limbo. Tartarus. The ceaseless punishment," Jack shakes his head, picks up the pace.

"Do tell me, Sunshine, how does one escape from such a predicament?" The Beast now keeps his stride slinking forward at his side, the words simultaneously mocking and paternalistic.

"One doesn’t."

"One doesn’t unless one has their own guide," the Beast chortles.

"I don’t remember ever being so goddamn fucking vague."

"You’re learning yet, Sunshine. You're learning yet."

"Goddamn fucking morphine," Jack murmurs. His vision is focused and swimming at the same time. His breath coils around his tongue with a taste of rusted iron. "If you're my guide, I'm fucking lost."

"Oh, Sunshine, did I ever aspire to such a title?" The barbwire lull of the laughter pierces his ears together with the roar of the fire, and the smell of burning plastic and artificial fabrics suddenly becomes dominant. The plane.

One wing is broken off and missing, the other is buried deep in a collapsed building. The fuselage is smashed into three neat pieces - the tail rests sideways on the street.

The inside of the craft is still on fire and the asphalt is soaked by fuel. No bodies. No blood. The luggage is strewn around. No body parts. Nothing. There's a ripped in half pink suitcase in front of him with a small plastic hand sticking out of the bundled clothes.

"Who's there? Please!" A woman. Jack turns towards the voice and a greenish silhouette swivels there with its hands outstretched as if fumbling in the darkness. A child cries. "Please, say something!"

"They're all dead," Jack whispers taking a step back.

"Yes, they are, and it was us who killed them, Sunshine, or did you so conveniently forget?" The Beast seethes with smug satisfaction. "Only ash and charred bones, no evidence and no witnesses," it hisses as it focuses the glare of its crimson eyes on him, like he is a mere insect under its scrutiny, "this is what remains in our wake. This is," it bares its fangs in a feral growl as it punctuates every word, "what we are, what we were, and what we are to become yet again."

"No," Jack backs further, a stumbling step after a stumbling step, away from the encroaching darkness that swallows him only to spit him out in a green-lit hell. "No."

His fingers move over the panel covered with a delicate synthetic mesh designed to evaporate on blast. A child cries. The explosive arms without a sound. The goggles give him fleeting vertigo with a split-second delay of the processed image.

"Please, say something!" The woman moves in his direction, slightly off to the side, and Jack evades her. The carpet muffles his steps. "I know someone's here!"

The child is still crying. A man screams in anger somewhere down the corridor.

"One. Two. Three. Boom," the Beast intones with a static of bad reception raising in the background - its voice morphs into that of a newscaster, "...that Mehdi Benjelloun has just claimed the responsibility for the bombing for..."

White noise. Everything drowns in white noise. The clock is ticking. The hands do not move, do not even strain, and the room is white.

"Mr. Morrison," the psychiatrist whose name he cannot recall smiles, the kind of impersonal smile one could expect from a professional detached from the situation. "Did the change in the prescription have any adversarial effects? Any notable differences you have experienced regarding your frame of mind?"

The Beast stings behind his teeth, scrapes the sides of his throat, looks through his eyes.

"No. Can’t think of any. Can’t…" Jack turns his gaze to the tree in the painting hanging above the vibrant ficus to his left, to the maelstrom of the painted sky behind it. The rapid strokes of the brush give it an illusion of a slow deliberate motion. "Felt worse for the first week but I don’t think I really thought about killing myself since then."

"That’s good to hear," the man types something on the keyboard.

"You redecorated."

"Excuse me?"

"This picture, it’s new. It’s different from the one before."

The doctor looks at him quizzically, maybe even slightly alarmed. The Beast whispers of danger, a hissing kind of murmur seeping into his thoughts.

"And what do you see in the picture, Mr. Morrison?"

"Morbid landscape with a tree," Jack swallows, eyes darting to the other side, searching for a route of escape from some undefined peril that now sits heavy on his shoulders. Its claws dig deep enough below his collarbone to draw blood that seeps through and stains the fabric.

"Visual hallucinations. This merits additional evaluation." The man extends his hand under the desk and the Beast roars in fury, it roars as everything is white noise again.

The white room. The chair is covered in dark rust, no - not rust - old dried blood, cracking and flaking off. The infernal ticking thunders louder and louder until he wants to scream just to drown it away.

"Getting lost in your own head again, Sunshine? We can't have that, not yet," the Beast whispers. "Inhale." Inhale. "Count." Count to five. Count against the ticking. Don't lose focus. "Exhale." He exhales, slowly pushes the air out of his lungs. "Remember..."

"Remember my training," Jack repeats opening his eyes - when had he closed them? The plane is yet again in front of him but in the meantime, he must have passed it. The cockpit looks almost intact - if not for the missing panes of glass and something still sparking inside.

He's hunched behind a concrete barrier - it seems the street had been closed off to the traffic before. Jack leans to the side to observe the plaza. There are several cars and a bus, one unmarked APC lying on its side. Recreational area primarily. He can see a bright red restaurant umbrella halfway thrown through a display window. A lot of bodies on the ground he can safely identify as Blackwatch personnel.

Jack grimaces when from behind the APC a figure shambles out, a man in a stained dress shirt with a suitcase held in his right hand. Something unsettling in how strangely his neck twists to the left.

"I wonder, Sunshine," the Beast teases, "fight or flight?"

The man turns away and Jack mentally reconstructs the area mapping the best route. He licks his lips, runs his tongue over the chapped skin. Changes the grip on the Patten and moves hunched - eyes darting between the man and the ground - trying to find safe footing. Seconds he measures in breaths trickle by as he makes his way towards an overturned cart painted with happy pastels now greyed with settled ash.

Jack stops to take another look at his surroundings. Crumbled building blocks the nearest street - he could climb over the rubble but the prospect is risky especially if he wants to avoid meeting the civilian or whatever else the man with the suitcase actually is.

Slowly, as the figure disappears behind the APC, Jack raises. Maybe he can circle him. A blink, and the man stands before him in a cloud of swirling black ash. No. Not a man anymore. Something that used to be human. The lower jaw is missing, the eyes are white, the broiled skin sloughs off the meat.

The creature shrieks with an unearthly tone; the wave of sound hits with a multitude of stabs and knocks the breath out of him. Jack falters and almost drops the rifle, scrambles to regain his composure.

Twisting tendrils of purplish light lash out but not towards him, no, to the side, and with growing dread he sees a body dragged upwards with the entrails flopping from under the vest, and limbs swinging in disjointed tugs like a ragdoll shaken erratically by attached strings. It raises the gun and turns towards him. Jack ducks behind the collapsed decorative gazebo. Bullets thunder against the cement.

A shriek again, his vision darkness for a second, and another body joins in the puppet dance. Shots spray wildly in a wide swipe rising clusters of dust where they hit.

Jack emerges quickly from the side and aims at the closest enemy. Two shots send the helmet flying, the third one shatters the brow, and the glowing tethers snap as the body hits the ground.

It’s not enough, the strings spring out from the creature anew and latch onto the fallen cadaver, sink and dig into the flesh, and bring it upright again.

"A resourceful abomination, isn’t she?" The Beast rumbles with glee, its presence growing, enveloping him, and mucous darkness shifting against his skin. The taste of mildew and rot steals into his mouth. "She tests our patience. We will kill her."

"We will kill her," Jack echoes as yet another puppet joins the fray.

"We will grind down her bones between our teeth," the Beast purrs. Claws rest over his hands, and then he runs between the bullets sailing with deadly grace through the air.

The Beast keeps his pace; the loud empty thumps explode in the sudden eerie silence as its paws hit against the pavement rising up clouds of ash. It bares its fangs, its maw low to the ground, and then it jumps through the motionless air swamped in the iridescent afterglow.

The Beast’s jaws close around the creature’s neck with a nauseating crunch. It turns and twists thrashing its head from side to side until meat, tendons, and bones separate. Mutilated head rips off and freezes midflight in the air.

With a snap, the movement resumes. Hunks of meat hit the ground with wet squelches, the violet tendrils dissipate, and the risen corpses fall over once again.

The Beast roars triumphantly, and Jack, with his hands buried to the elbows in the creature’s clawed apart chest smiles mirroring its expression: all teeth and savagery.

#sometimes I write #fear!AU #r76 #reaper76 #violence #body horror #proper part #the beast is an asshole #it has reasons

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