#Oracle Orko | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

emperorsfoot · 2 years

Note

Seeing this talk of Orko on my dash again just reminds me why I don't like the whole "He's actually a Trollan super secret agent and the best wizard ever and his powers not working outside of Trolla is just an act he puts on while he watches over Adam" thing. That basically means every time his magic "messes up" is him actually intentionally putting his friends in danger. Also from this angle are they actually his friends or does he just see them as the job the Elders of Trolla gave him? That said him being "Orko the Great" back on Trolla but his powers just don't work on Eterina as he claims is actually fine with me, just leave it at that, it's just the rest of it that irks the Subternia outta me.

I had a whole long reply typed up before I re-read this Ask and realized I was the one who misunderstood.

Now that I do understand what you're saying, my only response is:

I agree! Leave it at that!

But, since I already had this long-ass reply already typed up, I'm gonna post it anyway. If you are interested to read it, its under the cut. If you're uninterested in seeing me embarrass myself, stop reading now.

I generally try to give positive responses about people's personal headcanons and interpretations of characters. But in this case, I feel like you might have misunderstood the source material and what canon was trying to say when using Orko's backstory of being a great wizard on Trolla but a clumsy wizard on Eternia.

Trolla isn't just another planet from Eternia; Trolla is in a whole other dimension from Eternia.

Trolla literally has different laws of physics.

Trolla literally has different laws of magic.

When Orko is on Eternia and he "messes up" a spell, its not because he actually messed it up. Its because he was trying to do something with his magic which would have worked just fine with no problems on Trolla, but because Eternia had different physics and different magical rules than what Orko was raised with and trained in, his spells do not give the results he expected.

There is no malice in it at all.

Orko is not intensionally harming his friends, or anyone.

He's just failing to account for the difference in magical rules between the two dimensions. And he fails to account for that because he doesn't know how.

To put it in different terms that might be easier to understand, have some non-magical, non-fantasy comparisons:

You have a friend who used to be very dexterous, but now has partial paralysis in their hands. They made you a cup of tea, but because of the paralysis they drop the tea cup and spill hot liquid on you. Do you think that was on purpose? Do you think that was malicious? Or, is it more likely that they were just used to using their hands and did not account for the recent change in their life where their hands no longer work the way they're used to.

You have a friend who was Seeing, but became Blind very recently. They were given a cane but are still getting new to it and they smack you in the ankle more than once and it hurts. Do you think that was on purpose? Do you think that was malicious? Or, is it just more likely that after being Seeing for so long, they're having trouble adjusting to their new Blind lifestyle and are getting used to the tools that help them adapt?

You have a friend who used to be a teacher a decade ago but they retired from teaching and haven't renewed their credentials. They give you some materials to study for a test, but the materials are out of date and much of the information has been disproven. You fail your test as a result. Do you think that was on purpose? Do you think that was malicious? Or, were they just removed from the academic wold so long they didn't even realize their information was wrong?

#orko #motu #masters of the universe #Orko the great #oracle #ork-0 #ork-o

31 notes · View notes

look-how-they-massacred-them · 9 months

Text

Preliminary Poll

Orko

Submission reason:

Orko is a wizard from another dimension that operates on logic backwards to our own - in his home dimension of Trolla, Orko is a powerful wizard, but outside of that dimension he is unable to perform magic without the use of an aid like a wand or amulet. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he is left stranded outside of his dimension on the planet of Eternia, but is taken in by the Royal Family as gratitude for saving the prince and made the Royal Jester/Magician (this title tends to vary depending on what series you're looking at). In the series he was created for (the 1983 Filmation Masters of The Universe cartoon), Orko's inability to do magic on Eternia tends to leave him depressed and feeling as if he needs to 'prove' himself or be 'useful', but his friends constantly reassure him that they love him magic or no, and a major theme of Orko-centric episodes, even when they aren't dealing with his feelings of insecurity, is that he's surrounded by people who love and support him.

Whether it's Adam, the prince he rescued/essentially grew up with and who trusts him with his secret of being He-Man, Man-At-Arms, his father figure of sorts who starts off the series not liking him that much but grows to genuinely care for him by the end, or any of his family and friends on Trolla once he finds a way back to his home dimension, the people in Orko's life love him no matter what. Personality-wise, he's a very sweet (if occasionally smug or overconfident) person, who's quick to judge and can hold a grudge but also deeply cares for his friends and loved ones. He can be a bit naive at times, but he's not innocent, and he's equal parts theatrical and anxious depending on how well his magic is working that day. This characterization stayed mostly consistent throughout the first generation of Masters of The Universe, which was comprised of the Filmation cartoon and numerous comics, books, and magazines (the Egmont comics changed his backstory so that he just shows up one day and is secretly mentoring Adam which is a whole can of worms that numerous other fans have discussed much better than I could and the German audiodramas made him much more self-centered and smug, but those two are really the only major changes), but after the first generation of MOTU ended in 1988 and the series moved on to New Adventures in the 90s and numerous reboots from the 2000s until now, things changed.

Orko disappeared from the 90s series entirely, although there were plans early in development to include him, and in the 2002 series the message of "Orko is loved regardless of whether he can do magic or not and doesn't need to prove himself to anyone" becomes "Orko is useless and only kept around because he makes people happy, but that's okay because he can become useful!" When Orko plans on leaving Eternia in the 2002 series, instead of assuring him that he's loved and wanted his friends HELP him with his runaway plans, and instead of him realizing that he doesn't need to be 'useful' to stay in Eternia he ends up finding his wand and staying because he's 'useful' now. Beyond that, he's treated as being in the wrong for wanting things for himself, isn't allowed to fix his own mistakes, and is implied to not only be trapped in Eternia forever, but also doomed to get stuck in the past and take on a new identity as the Oracle.

The 2012 DC comic massacred him even further by making him an outright villain, then eventually retconning it so that he was being controlled/possessed/corrupted by the skull of Horde Prime, but this is treated as a plot twist and something the main characters had no idea about despite the skull turning him into Dark Orko, A MASSIVE FLAMING DEMON WITH HORNS AND A NIGHTMARE FACE (which is more of a massacre than it seems on the surface because Orko's species, the Trollans, only show their faces to the people they love but with this edgy redesign his face is now on display to everyone in the comic who fights him).

When not possessed, DC!Orko seemingly only has two character traits ("sweet" and "funny,") is called a "would-be wizard" and referred to as Grayskull's "mascot" despite being an entire living sentient being, and never shows up in-person again after the Dark Orko arc despite it ending with Adam swearing to save him. He appears in a "bad future" story, and his silhouette appears in the final issue, but other than that he's gone.

Loo-Kee, a character who Adam never even meets face to face and is essentially only included as a cameo character, is shown more respect than Orko in the DC comics, showing up in Adam's mind during a scene that supposedly contains every person he's ever known while Orko doesn't even get mentioned. The Classics series of comics and toys utilizes Orko's Egmont backstory of "super special guy who was sent to watch over Adam and was always planned to come to Eternia", reduces him to nothing but "the funny one," and then HAS HIM COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST THE SNAKE MEN. Even the most recent two installments in the franchise, Revelation and the Core/CGI series, are not immune to Orko massacring.

Revelation changes his backstory so that he was ALWAYS bad at magic instead of only having issues when he came to Eternia, which would be fine and an interesting interpretation of his character (the 1987 Power Tour managed to pull off a similar concept quite well), except it gets 'fixed' in the same episode it gets brought up and he instantly becomes a mega super hyper god of magic after getting a single pep talk.

Core/CGI Orko gets it even worse - in this series, he's a robot named Ork-0 who has the memories of the original Orko implanted into him by accident and has to learn how to become his own person while still honoring the legacy of Orko the Great, except his arc is never treated seriously, cut short, and eventually just reversed altogether with Ork-0 suddenly becoming a-okay with being referred to as Orko in Season 3 and learning how to become a mega super hyper god of magic after getting a single pep talk AGAIN despite him FINALLY accepting that he couldn't do magic as a robot and learning to find joy in science! And from the looks of the Core/CGI art book, his storyline next season will end up possibly being even worse, with him stuck on Eternia while most of the main cast go to Earth and having to make a new Masters team despite there already BEING a second Masters team!

80s Orko wasn't perfect - the Filmation series was prone to flanderization as it went on, and the Marvel Star comics are atrocious with the way they treat his character - but for the most part he was a good, oftentimes even great, character that could be interpreted numerous ways, most commonly as a metaphor for disability. As the years have gone on, however, he's been massacred over and over again, most likely due to an influx of fans in the early years of the internet who considered him 'dumb' or 'annoying', and we're only just beginning to move beyond this viewpoint now. This man has been massacred SO BAD, which especially hurts because he's been my favorite character since I was a high schooler.

(my apologies for this being so long, I just love this character a lot and he means a great deal to me)

Orko started out as the goofy little comic relief, sure, but he had character to him. He was insecure about his inconsistent magic abilities. Since he grew up extremely skilled with magic, he came to associate this skill with his self worth, and so when he ended up on Eternia, which operated with a different magic system and scrambled his ability to do magic, it left him struggling to believe that anyone would want him as a friend if he couldn't be of use to them.

There is one episode, the Rarest Gift of All, in which he decides to return to Trolla under the belief that no one in the palace wants him around after he accidentally causes a fire. He goes to the Sorceress to get her to send him home and she ends up showing him that the others are searching for him worried sick and that they actually do care about him and love him regardless of whether he can do magic. Then came the 2002 show. It made its own take on the same premise, with Orko messing up his magic and causing billions in property damage and deciding to run off to the sorceress to get him home because, as an incompetent jester, he's of no use to the rest of the palace while they are in the middle of a major war. The Sorceress (or rather her disguised as some random old guy idk they never explain why she did that lmao), in this version, instead shows him that he DOES have use to them; his failure is funny and makes them laugh!! Which is bad enough, since it makes no attempt to claim that they actually do love him unconditionally.

But also... Orko's role in 2002 is SO diminished that he is hardly EVER shown actually entertaining others outside of this flashback. Once the war starts in episode 1, all his attempts to do what is shown in the flashback, cheering up others, is ignored at best or harshly reprimanded at worst. This gets even worse by the time we get to the garden episode. Orko wants a new job because he's sick and tired of not having anything important to do while everyone else is sent on missions, so he finally gets a job refurbishing the garden. Ultimately, he can't do it and the episode treats him admitting it as a good thing...

AND THEN NOBODY EVER ACTUALLY TRIES TO FIND A REPLACEMENT JOB FOR HIM. HE JUST GOES BACK TO BEING THE JESTER NO ONE WATCHES BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL OUT ON MISSIONS ALL THE TIME!! Late season 2 episode ""Second Skin"" does actually try to involve Orko more in the plot, sure. But despite ending on a note that would imply that Orko is going to involve himself more in the story, that episode ends up being the LAST EPISODE HE EVER APPEARS IN.

The tie in comics tried again with the ""Orko runs away"" plot and introduced A New Problem that would plague this and future iterations: the insistence on Orko's end goal to be ""get good at magic again""

This does not work because that is not a good lesson. He'd only be getting better at magic solely so he could be liked. But the writers i guess just kinda missed this important part of his character arc because the comic ends with him being rewarded with the wand that he lost that was supposed to keep his magic working (they don't explain how it survived being digested by a swamp hopper) and thats the last we see of him. He doesn't even appear in the 200X portion of the multiverse comic. Revelation came along and things got somewhat better, I mean, at least the characters treated him better than they did in 200x. But it still fell into the trap of having Orko's competence in magic being the end goal!!! It even changed his backstory so that he was ALWAYS bad at magic, even on trolla, which is just. erasing half of the dynamic of his intended character arc. Barely anyone gets to even react to his grand return where he's good at magic now because this show had ridiculously quick pacing to the point where characters did not get to properly react to ANYTHING towards the end of the show. CGI technically split orko into two characters, Ork-0 and Orko the great, Ork-0 being a robot with the latter's memories. ork-0 is decent as a character but there's a whole episode where he's insecure about his lack of magic since he's a robot now and the others reassure him that they love him either way... and then due to plot shenanigans they later just abandon him to babysit his clones and only come back to see him when they need him to do some magic for them, forcing him to learn on the spot. Nice. Great. Fantastic. Orko the great on the other hand is fine except. They gave him horrific Legs for exactly one shot and. Why did they do that. Aside from that, we have the comics. Won't go into them too much since they're not as well known as the cartoons but from the top of my head we got: - Marvel Star, in which everyone was really mean to Orko for no reason, and they put him in danger WHILE HE WAS INCAPACITATED without even an ounce of concern - Classics, which changed his backstory to that of Oh, Actually, he was deliberately downplaying his magic ability so the villains wouldn't see him as a threat! and he actually Can do magic now :) Yayyyy he can participate in the many many battles now!!! - 2012, the most infamous of the orko mistreatment, where they decided to make him a twist villain who was actually super evil and this was so poorly recieved they had to retcon it and say he was brainwashed instead. He man promises to save orko and he never does because the canon reset shortly after that.

Propaganda:

Tumblr user whymustablogbenamed has a post called ""How 200x Mishandled the Runaway Plot"" discussing the differences between the ""Orko feels he's not useful and runs away"" plots of the 80s/generation one and those of the 2002 series that goes into much better detail than I could here, I highly recommend checking that post out. Likewise, Tumblr user relatable-pictures-of-orko has several excellent posts about Orko's treatment throughout the franchise's history, such as their ""WHY LESSONS EXEMPLIFIES EVERYTHING WRONG WITH 200X"" analysis. I have a post on my own blog (madamegemknight) where I go into detail about CGI's Ork-0 and how not even the showrunners knew what to do with him as evidenced by the numerous contradictory claims made during interviews and in the artbook, but it doesn't have a title - if you search 'ork-0' on my blog it should be in the first few results though. I would also like to point out that the treatment of the Trollans parallels Orko's own treatment, and that him getting massacred typically means that his entire species will in turn. Sometimes it's even a LITERAL massacre, like the 2012 DC comic turning them into mindless beasts who exist solely for He-Man and Superman to kill in a fight scene or Revelation implying they might all (minus Orko) be dead due to a lack of magic. This isn't always the case - the aforementioned Power Tour does a great job at handling Orko's character, but doesn't mention the Trollans at all because of the limited time available in a live show to tell a story - but it's usually a prevalent connection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq3_YC8SyK8 picture of the aforementioned horrific legs (leg warning) https://64.media.tumblr.com/227eeba7d93d71833c4fd95037873418/2c0fcbe4cb43c1d6-fd/s640x960/2758c9ba6b56e9ce81eb0841c28d065c5849d620.pnj https://64.media.tumblr.com/3509190914fb08dcaf9c020d149f6569/f6ded1e537416cce-3e/s1280x1920/72e283d934df183ea32cff10ad51b2fded3160fc.jpg

#look how they massacred them poll #look how they massacred my boy #he man motu #he man 1983 #he man #masters of the universe #motu #motu orko #orko

56 notes · View notes

justabunchofhyperfixations · 1 year

Text

Drew the main Trollan as if they were in masters of the universe revelations (well other then Orko)lol

Also have some headcanons

Trollan head canons

-all have similar eye markings that are slightly different

-hat face coverings work like hijabs

-hats are VERY sentimental and personal

-only lovers and close family can add trinkets to hat

-cat like(purring,fangs,fluffy,ears)

-elf/cat like communication with ears

-magical beings do their “heart” is a ball of magic(soul) and they reproduce by putting some of their soul and their partner(s) into a new body(? Not sure on specifics)(yes this dose let the gays have bio kids)

-eyes are literal windows to the soul

-eyes glow brighter the more powerful they are

character specific

Orko(Oracle)

-only lets closet friends and family use the name Oracle

-never really cared for his parents

-autistic/ADHD Burnt out gifted kid vibes

-really hurt about people laughing at his magic skills or insulting them(Duncan)

-ostracized from makeing friends for his magical abilities, having a family member in the crimson console,and traits he picked up in Eterna

-acts a lot like a Eternan instead of a Trollan now

-scars from fighting along side he-man

-feels like he’s not good enough because of all his magic mess-ups

-will try to re form villains

-except Scareglow he’s holding a grudge

Uncle Montork

-funky little wizard uncle

-the type of uncle to take you to a dinner and get you fries

-loves making jokes

-father figure to Orko

-every student’s who has him favorite teacher

-people forget that he’s really powerful and part of the Crimson council

Dree Elle

-has two gay dads

-had to take care of her little brother for her parents alot

-has suffered from Yukkers ”jokes” in the past

-really shy

-extremely over protective of Orko and yukkers

Yukkers

-has two gay dads

-poor eye sigh desperately needs glasses but refuses to get them

-hasn’t learned what’s to far for a joke yet

#he man revelations #orko he man #orko #dree elle #yukkers #uncle montork #he man netflix #he man headcanons #idk what else to tag

11 notes · View notes

cricktoon · 1 year

Note

My headcanon about Orko and Montork's reunion being not that emotional, maybe because trollan magic and their unknown physical built makes them suspectible to slip trough dimensional cracks, moreso if active or passive magic "magnetize" them, to the point people getting lost is a natural occurence. Maybe they feel the lost ones magic, but can't pinpoint from where, so they just wait till they get home. Perhaps more trollans are missing and we only know about the Oracle and Orko's case because the lore focuses on them.

This is a good headcanon I like it!! I guess I’m just a very sentimental person, and I would much rather see something more emotional.

#cricket chat #motu #orko #ask #anon

11 notes · View notes

neechees · 1 year

Note

Kratos in the first game series was an absolutely detestable piece of human garbage who blamed everyone else for the numerous mistakes he had made in his life and destroyed the world because he was mad about having to face consequences. All of this to say it makes his development in the new series really interesting and I really like him now.

I dont think he was ALL terrible tbh and before Ares he was actually a pretty normal dude & like a really good dad & husband, but the whole Ares situation really did like fuck him up. Granted he did a lot of messed up things but I can kinda understand his motivations for why he does different things, & there's actually times where it's like. The Gods' fault for being dumb & trying to fuck with him constantly vfdvd6tfy.

I feel like his character is deeper than a lot of people give him credit for, but it's also true the older games were so concerned with giving us the most macho dude ever that they didn't want to explore his character in ways that AREN'T that, so he essentially ends up a lot like how you say he is, unfortunately 😕

One thing I liked about Ascension is that it fleshed out Kratos a bit more & showed he wasn't just this mean, constantly angry dude. Like how he saved that random civilian from being impaled, or when the Oracle was dying, he held her hand to comfort her, & the relationship he has with Orkos. Even in gow1 he saves the Oracle of Athens, but he didn't have to, & in gow3 he straight up says he didn't want to kill Hercules & tried to reason with him first. He DOES have a more pragmatic, reasonable, empathic (more often towards women as opposed to men) & softer side to him, but gow4 & 5 got to show us a LOT more of that, both because they've let go of the toxic masculinity of some of the older games, and in narrative showing us its because he decided to improve and heal as a person. Which I love!! They really did his character justice in the newer games

#also why did Athena promise to stop his nightmares when she knew she wouldnt & couldnt like #you DUMB BITCH you're going to piss off the dude who kills gods who piss him off & expect that to go well??#im a kratos apologist if you couldnt tell #orchidzach #gow

8 notes · View notes

4fterthought · 2 years

Note

🧨 💬 🔔?

(This one's for orko)

🧨least favorite thing about them in canon

outside of flukes like bad canons or ooc, I'd have to say the main thing I don't like about Orko is the fact that seeing him screw up gives me terrible second hand embarrassment and the more they linger on a scene the more unbearable it is to watch.

💬favorite line they've said

Gosh. Orko has so many iconic lines. for one not often mentioned, I've always been fond of this scene:

youtube

🔔unpopular opinion

Honestly I don't mind the 200x comic were he gets his wand back that much, mostly because I can at least kinda tell what they are trying to get at.

I do appreciate that they tried to do a different approach by giving Orko more agency in his decision as to whether to return to Trolla or not. Since the 200x episode Lessons altered the traditional rucksack plot to make it more that Orko's reasons for needing to stay had more to do with his use as a jester, rather than his inherent worth as a friend and family member, it did kinda make it seem like the Sorceress was just low key guilt tripping him until he changed his mind lmao

They screwed up by STILL tying it too close to the outside inflluences and factors like the wand and the whole fact that this whole plot seemed to be set up by several other people just to get orko to change his mind about running away again. Because they would totally rather manipulate him into going through this whole song and dance for the sake of learning a lesson about not giving up instead of just. sitting him down and having a conversation with him about why he feels that he has to be useful in order to stay at the palace.

But yeah I feel the concept of genuinely giving Orko the option of staying or going was a really good idea, as him making the decision to stay on his own terms could have been a fantastic way to show his growth as a character. It just shouldn't have been tied to the Sorceress's fetch quest or the Oracle or the wand.

#motu #orko #ask game #THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK!!!!

8 notes · View notes

leafytaffy · 1 year

Note

orko for the ask game :]

ORKO MY BELOVED 💝

Realistic: okay this one isn’t really Orko specific? Butttt anyways. In the original MOTU canon (80’s Filmation series) and I think the CGI one as well, where Orko was a great wizard on Trolla and not. Hated and shunned. The reason that Dree and him IMMEDIATELY fell in love (other than the fact it was standard hetero writing for the time) is that Dree had a sorta celebrity crush on Orko the Great.

Unrealistic, but hilarious: Trollans are felines pretty much, so Orko gets crazy high/drunk off catnip. Catch him and Dree in his room acting like a couple doing bong rips together except it’s whiffs from a bag of catnip.

Heart-Crushing, but fun: In any other canon that isn’t the Filmation or CGI ones, where Orko was hated and ostracized on Trolla, trans Orko is actually. A BIG part of it. Yeah, the funny wizard faced incredible transphobia </3 it’s part of why he still kept Orko over Oracle, part of why his parents hated him after placing so many expectations on him (fucking SAME, little pal), part of why everyone else on Trolla (save for maybe Dree if she exists) laughed at him… He still has a ton of internalized transphobia towards himself. Thankfully, in a maybe-existent Revelation/etc canon where he and Dree meet, Dree is also trans so. She helps him get though it <3 Also the reason Dree has to raise her little brother on her own is because she got thrown out by her own abusive transphobic parents </3

I will disregard canon: not all of Trolla died off in Revelation, at the VERY least Dree survived <3 I just. I can’t bear to think about Orko COMPLETELY alone and loveless and without consolation </3

#Headcanons #orko #motu #masters of the universe #dree elle #orkelle #Trans headcanon #cw abuse #cw transphobia #cw drugs

2 notes · View notes

yugiohcardsdaily · 2 years

Text

Finishing Ray's playthrough of GoW Ascension.

Read on TV Tropes that it's the least liked game of the series, with the biggest complaint being how quiet Kratos is.

I actually really like this entry. Sure, it might've been unnecessary, but everything that happens with Kratos's character in this makes sense to me. It's only months after he was made to kill his wife and daughter. For him to be quieter during this period of time while he's still bound to Ares is understandable.

It's also nice to see him being more human than monster sometimes, such as when he casually saved that one man's life, held the Oracle's hand while she died, how he interacted with the illusions of his daughter and wife, and his relationship with Orkos. After all, he's not full-blown monstrous Ghost of Sparta yet. He has problems with one god, not the whole lot of them. He's not yet in servitude to the others. His rage and bloodlust cost him everything, so perhaps he's trying to hold it back, to remain human, because of Ares.

Ares wanted to destroy his humanity after all, and while he doesn't always do the most human things (like saving that poor slave from being killed by Castor just for speaking up for his fellows), the small ones he does do matter. They say, "No, Ares. I'm not what you want me to be." Rebellious without bloodshed.

Then grief turns to complete rage due to what happens the end of this game and we get the rest of the series.

idk man I just like seeing this side of Kratos, you know?

(Maybe the lack of sex minigame also has something to do with it being less popular? He's grieving his wife, so I don't see him as immediately jumping into bed with other women because he loved Lysandra so much, you know? Then again, he almost fell for that illusion of a brothel full of women who wanted him, so what do I know lmao)

#not duel monsters

0 notes

downsoffire · 2 years

Text

A Random Review of God of War: Ascension

I’m throwing this into the infinite void of the internet because I just wanna talk about it.

I’ve been a huge fan of God of War since around 2008 when I got a functioning PS2 replacement and God of War II. It’s a series I’ve adored for both the cathartic use of gore and brutality as well as the more serious underlying messages the devs may (or may not have) intended. From the concept of dying religion/faith to the message that Kratos doesn’t want revenge, he wants to be at peace. I’ve thought a lot about this franchise and I enjoy replaying it every once in a while.

I’d consider God of War: Ascension to be the least good of the franchise not including the Norse games (which I haven’t finished). Unnecessary is the word I’d use.

Story: The story takes place a short while after Kratos killed his family, but before his proper servitude to the gods in Chains of Olympus. At this point Kratos isn’t plagued by the visions that haunt him because they’re kept in the oath stone embedded into Orkos the rejected son of Alecto and Ares, and oathkeeper of the Furies. For trying to break his oath to Ares, Kratos is imprisoned by the three Furies (Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera) in the Hecatonchires. The bulk of the story, however, recounts the events that lead to Kratos being imprisoned and his quest to break the oath. Chasing down the Oracle at Delphi before heading to a statue of Apollo built by Archimedes before he finally gets captured. Throughout he’s helped by Orkos, who reveals he was born to overthrow Olympus but because he was too weak, Ares then set his sights on Kratos and used his plea for help as the way to mold him into the perfect warrior. After killing the Furies, Orkos reveals to Kratos that since he holds the oath to Ares, Kratos has to kill him. Kratos does so reluctantly, releasing his bond to Ares but plaguing him with the miasma of nightmares that he experiences in all the subsequent games.

The story is fine. At its worst it’s more mythical figures Kratos gets to slaughter and at its best we get to see some of the threads of Kratos’s character development. I think one of the best scenes in the game is Kratos coming across one of Tisiphone’s illusions showing him his daughter sleeping. Despite being aware that it’s not real he still sits down by her bed and kisses her goodnight. It’s nice because it reflects those moments in God of War I when Kratos reflects quietly on his actions. Overall, however, it suffers that prequel issue of existing solely to explain an overall minor part of the story. We didn’t really need to see this part of Kratos’s journey because it’s just so specific. It’s that particular point between being Ares’s personal walking war crime and serving the gods to repent that really limits what they could have done. Honestly if they’d gone full Fall of Reach, starting from the very beginning and going through everything leading up to Kratos killing the Furies, then I think it would have been a lot better with more flexibility. However I wonder if budgetary reasons or time limits probably limited the scope of the story. What we get feels fine, but limited.

Gameplay: This is the long section.

The biggest changes to the gameplay in Ascension are the blade elements and the rage meter.

The blade elements are one thing I like. It serves as a way to have magic and subweapons in one package. Each element (Fire, Ice, Lighting, and Souls) slightly changes how the Blades of Chaos hit. If allows a player to pick which element fits their playstyle more and focus on that. However the issue with the elements comes from upgrading them. You only gain your special attacks (your L1 + Face Button) and magic attack as you upgrade them, gaining the magic attack only when the element is fully maxed. This can lead to the elements feeling really weak unless you save enough red orbs to max them asap. If you go more general with your orbs, they all feel underwhelming at the same time. But if you focus one at a time then you just wind up leaning on 1 or 2 for the entire game. Like me. (Souls and Lightning btw). I think the thing that makes them feel bad is the fact that moves are unlocked per element rather than on your blades baseline. If I were to change it, I’d have the blades unlock the special moves and upgrading the elements to a certain point applies the element to the special move, changing how it works. But I’m no game designer.

The other function is the rage meter, which isn’t like the usual Rage of the Gods/Titans, and I hate it. It’s tied to your combo meter which doesn’t just give you free red orbs anymore. Instead what happens is your blades move set is permanently gimped to have less attacks unless your rage meter is full. That would be fine on its own, but fulling the rage meter also allows you to his the sticks to use a special move that is usually more immediately beneficial since it’s both powerful and usually gives you i-frames. So you have to choose between Kratos’s complete combo move set available baseline in every other game, or getting what is essentially a free magic attack off. However the choice is made even easier when you realize that getting hit without blocking removes chunks of your rage meter.

What I believe the devs wanted to do was almost similar to Bloodborne’s rally mechanic, where you trade hits but ultimately build up and keep going. Except that Ascension’s enemies have a plethora of entirely uninterruptible attacks, can block yours, and can grab you. A full rage meter is a win-more condition that feels impossible to maintain. Did I mention that since it’s a combo-based meter, it depletes outside of combat, which includes when some enemies like the gorgons hit you with their nearly undodgeable grab attack? You’ll watch it drain as an unskippable animation plays out and be back at square one. It feels awful. Despite doing decent damage you never really feel in control of the flow of battle. It’s like struggling to tread water sometimes, fighting as hard as you can to stay afloat as the 12 satyrs the game threw at you all hit you with alternating uninterruptible attacks.

With that said, if you can get some form of rhythm going it does feel nice. Usually when you can chain stun an enemy with the Souls element and whip out the rage magic attack to use the Army of Hades from GoW1 to help stunlock other enemies, or using the Lightning magic attack to knock down enemies to finish building up rage to shoot a very nice line of perma stunning lightning. They become nice bursts of utility in the midst of a fight if you can get it up.

The two tools you get, the Ororboros Amulet and the Okros Oathstone, both have their function as crowd-control. However their activation, despite being locked onto an enemy, can sometimes just not work, opening you up to being hit and losing your rage meter.

Also instead of getting a proper magic bar, you get 4 pips of magic. That means you can only cast spells 4 times. Why? Fuck you. (Really I believe it’s because the lightning blades can generate magic orbs so the running theory is that you use them to refill, but killing enemies via those elemental conditions feels really random).

However, all of that is entirely tolerable. Really while I’ve been banging on about it, they’re mostly just frustrations. I know that several arenas felt fun and fair to fight in, and only a small few felt obscenely unfair. But one stands at the top of the shit pile.

The Trial of Archimedes, the other long section.

The Trial of Archimedes is in 3 stages and is the absolute peak of all the game’s bullshit. Whatever else you can tolerate, understand, and enjoy about the game is thrown aside in this absurd challenge. Funny enough it technically gets easier as you go, stage 1 is the hardest part. But if you lose at any point, you get shunted back to stage 1. No health chests, no magic chests, and you better go in with full resources. Buckle up buckaroo.

Stage 1 pits you against 2 gorgons to start. On their own, they aren’t atrocious to fight. Slowing them with the Oroboros amulet lets you get some solid damage in and perhaps build a combo meter, unless they use their grab attack. It’s well telegraphed so you can spot it, but God of War isn’t Dark Souls. The attack has damn near perfect tracking and will follow and hit you through a dodge roll. You’re then locked into mashing L1 and R1 to escape, before being locked into an animation of Kratos hurting them. This would be fine normally. However if you remember what I said above, grab attacks take you out of combat and leave your rage meter to drain. As Kratos drags his blades down the gorgon tail you’ll watch it drop like a rock. Killing the first 2 gorgons is all fine and well until you get thrown into 2 more gorgons plus 2 sirens, with 2 more on the way when they die. This stage pushes your tool usage to the limits, so I hope you can slow them with the amulet and keep them knocked around with the oathstone, all while trying to maintain a rage meter. There’s a lot of hard to dodge aoe damage that the enemies will alternate using because the game hates you here. Thankfully every enemy here drops magic orbs so be liberal with your magic if you can. But, against all odds, if you beat this you go onto stage 2.

Stage 2 pits you against 10 harpies that respawn over time, with 2 amazons that can latch on to them. The arena isn’t wide, it’s a narrow hall. If you have any magic left over, here’s where you can just burst down the amazons asap with magic. From there the remaining harpies will spawn 1 at a time so you can deal with them as they come. The walls start shooting fire in a line going up the hall, then resetting to the end and starting again. A lightning golem appears but slowing him with the amulet, in the fire stream preferably, and getting your licks in means you have a decent chance of getting out of this with some resources left. From there you go to stage 3.

Stage 3 opens the arena again and pits you against a centaur. Slow him with the amulet and whack him, it’s not too hard. Next you go against 4 wraiths and ironically Ascension’s wraiths are the easiest in the franchise. Just stunlock them by whacking them and they’ll go down, dropping magic orbs as they die so you can be a bit more liberal here. It’s honest to god reasonably easy.

Really when you get down to it, the thing that comes into my mind whenever I think about this game is that it’s unnecessary. It’s not abhorrent, it just didn’t need to exist really. It wasn’t necessary to look into this specific point in the story, it wasn’t necessary to change established mechanics, and it wasn’t necessary to make parts of it this annoying. There’s a lot I’d do to fix this game but as it stands, it’s just kind of mediocre when you sum up the whole package. If the good parts were better I’d think more highly of it, but they painfully drag the parts that irritate me up to a middling score.

If I had to give one, probably a light 5/10.

#god of war ascension #God of war #review #maybe #I spent too fucking long on this #I had no reason to sit at work after watching anime to write this #but I did #fucking hell

0 notes

lemaistrechat · 2 years

Photo

Wait wait, an ‘internationally’ known spiritual authority in King Grayskull’s time was the Oracle of ZALESIA.

So I guess Nikolas, the wizard king who fathered Evil-Lyn, was a purely temporal authority despite being a wizard.

Also, Oracle of Z is obviously a Trollan, and MotU: Revelation Orko told Evil-Lyn that his real name is Oracle. Weird.

#motu 200x #motu revelation #orko #evil-lyn #zalesia #nikolas powers the faceless one

35 notes · View notes

cyndalyssa · 1 year

Text

The Museum

Gee, coming up with things for this was not unlike coming up with adventures for the Sorcerer’s Quest--brain farts galore! But I managed to come up with some stuff. I’ve got references to official MOTU canons, but I’m mainly doing my own thing because Trolla is free real estate for the most part.

Okay, here we go.

IRL you’d want a parent to be a chaperone, but Orko’s a Certified Good Boy, Montork trusts him to help keep an eye on children.

Starting off by defining the Mage Emblems, because I’ve been looking for an excuse to do so in-story. Heck, this whole thing is an excuse for more Trolla worldbuilding, haha.

Trollans Discover Magic

Birth of the Star Tree

Star Tree Blesses the Oracle

Coronation of a New Overlord

Doing a bit of exploring and seeing some prominent figures in Trolla’s history that I had fun coming up with (or rebranding into something else, i.e. Blim from the She-Ra episode ‘The Greatest Magic’ now being practically Santa Claus).

And I’m skipping Dr. Seagg’s presentation because most of the artifacts he talks about aren’t really relevant to this tale, I will say he mentions belongings of the Ringbearers, and at some point, the Horn of Evil comes up.

“Oh, he drives his sister up a wall, but he hasn’t done any property damage.”

Anyway, let’s go back to exploring this museum:

Considering that Ringbearers are extremely rare and Destroying Angels pop up at least once a generation, somebody had to keep them busy so that less innocents are killed in a rampage. DAs are extremely difficult to kill, you either need a Ringbearer or a Storm Spell cast by the Overlords (which was mentioned in an earlier post where one of Orko’s neighbors recounts the last Destroying Angel rampage), and the latter takes a bit of time to charge.

All right, I’ve saved this next stretch for last:

Whew! This was a long one!

Anyway, I admit to being a little nervous touching on Eternia. With it being the main setting of MOTU, I’m trying to strike a balance between being faithful to certain key factors and tones and stuff, but also putting my own little spin on it.

It is kind of funny to have this story set on Trolla and portray Eternia as the mysterious world the Trollans wonder about from time to time. In this AU, Trolla’s been cut off since the Ultimate Battleground, so they have no idea what current Eternia is like.

Orko can ask the questions when he ends up on Eternia.

Also, say ‘Hi’ to Adam!

I know that’s not what He-Ro’s staff looks like... I couldn’t figure out how to draw it. TT_TT

Previous / Table of Contents / Next

16 notes · View notes

emperorsfoot · 2 years

Text

I'm still thinking about the conversation we (the MotU fandom) had a couple days ago when @variouslengthsofwirere found out that Orko was really Kevin Smith's favorite character all along and he treated Orko the way he did because Orko was "so unpopular"

And I really, really, really wanna know what areas of fandom Smith was interacting with to come to that conclusion, because that has been the exact opposite of my own experience.

#motu #masters of the universe #motur #masters of the universe revelation #orko #Orko the great #oracle #sweater baby

18 notes · View notes

look-how-they-massacred-them · 11 months

Note

What has been the longest reasoning for a character being submitted so far?

"Orko is a wizard from another dimension that operates on logic backwards to our own - in his home dimension of Trolla, Orko is a powerful wizard, but outside of that dimension he is unable to perform magic without the use of an aid like a wand or amulet. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he is left stranded outside of his dimension on the planet of Eternia, but is taken in by the Royal Family as gratitude for saving the prince and made the Royal Jester/Magician (this title tends to vary depending on what series you're looking at).

In the series he was created for (the 1983 Filmation Masters of The Universe cartoon), Orko's inability to do magic on Eternia tends to leave him depressed and feeling as if he needs to 'prove' himself or be 'useful', but his friends constantly reassure him that they love him magic or no, and a major theme of Orko-centric episodes, even when they aren't dealing with his feelings of insecurity, is that he's surrounded by people who love and support him. Whether it's Adam, the prince he rescued/essentially grew up with and who trusts him with his secret of being He-Man, Man-At-Arms, his father figure of sorts who starts off the series not liking him that much but grows to genuinely care for him by the end, or any of his family and friends on Trolla once he finds a way back to his home dimension, the people in Orko's life love him no matter what. Personality-wise, he's a very sweet (if occasionally smug or overconfident) person, who's quick to judge and can hold a grudge but also deeply cares for his friends and loved ones. He can be a bit naive at times, but he's not innocent, and he's equal parts theatrical and anxious depending on how well his magic is working that day.

This characterization stayed mostly consistent throughout the first generation of Masters of The Universe, which was comprised of the Filmation cartoon and numerous comics, books, and magazines (the Egmont comics changed his backstory so that he just shows up one day and is secretly mentoring Adam which is a whole can of worms that numerous other fans have discussed much better than I could and the German audiodramas made him much more self-centered and smug, but those two are really the only major changes), but after the first generation of MOTU ended in 1988 and the series moved on to New Adventures in the 90s and numerous reboots from the 2000s until now, things changed. Orko disappeared from the 90s series entirely, although there were plans early in development to include him, and in the 2002 series the message of "Orko is loved regardless of whether he can do magic or not and doesn't need to prove himself to anyone" becomes "Orko is useless and only kept around because he makes people happy, but that's okay because he can become useful!" When Orko plans on leaving Eternia in the 2002 series, instead of assuring him that he's loved and wanted his friends HELP him with his runaway plans, and instead of him realizing that he doesn't need to be 'useful' to stay in Eternia he ends up finding his wand and staying because he's 'useful' now. Beyond that, he's treated as being in the wrong for wanting things for himself, isn't allowed to fix his own mistakes, and is implied to not only be trapped in Eternia forever, but also doomed to get stuck in the past and take on a new identity as the Oracle. The 2012 DC comic massacred him even further by making him an outright villain, then eventually retconning it so that he was being controlled/possessed/corrupted by the skull of Horde Prime, but this is treated as a plot twist and something the main characters had no idea about despite the skull turning him into Dark Orko, A MASSIVE FLAMING DEMON WITH HORNS AND A NIGHTMARE FACE (which is more of a massacre than it seems on the surface because Orko's species, the Trollans, only show their faces to the people they love but with this edgy redesign his face is now on display to everyone in the comic who fights him). When not possessed, DC!Orko seemingly only has two character traits ("sweet" and "funny,") is called a "would-be wizard" and referred to as Grayskull's "mascot" despite being an entire living sentient being, and never shows up in-person again after the Dark Orko arc despite it ending with Adam swearing to save him. He appears in a "bad future" story, and his silhouette appears in the final issue, but other than that he's gone. Loo-Kee, a character who Adam never even meets face to face and is essentially only included as a cameo character, is shown more respect than Orko in the DC comics, showing up in Adam's mind during a scene that supposedly contains every person he's ever known while Orko doesn't even get mentioned.

The Classics series of comics and toys utilizes Orko's Egmont backstory of "super special guy who was sent to watch over Adam and was always planned to come to Eternia", reduces him to nothing but "the funny one," and then HAS HIM COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST THE SNAKE MEN. Even the most recent two installments in the franchise, Revelation and the Core/CGI series, are not immune to Orko massacring. Revelation changes his backstory so that he was ALWAYS bad at magic instead of only having issues when he came to Eternia, which would be fine and an interesting interpretation of his character (the 1987 Power Tour managed to pull off a similar concept quite well), except it gets 'fixed' in the same episode it gets brought up and he instantly becomes a mega super hyper god of magic after getting a single pep talk. Core/CGI Orko gets it even worse - in this series, he's a robot named Ork-0 who has the memories of the original Orko implanted into him by accident and has to learn how to become his own person while still honoring the legacy of Orko the Great, except his arc is never treated seriously, cut short, and eventually just reversed altogether with Ork-0 suddenly becoming a-okay with being referred to as Orko in Season 3 and learning how to become a mega super hyper god of magic after getting a single pep talk AGAIN despite him FINALLY accepting that he couldn't do magic as a robot and learning to find joy in science! And from the looks of the Core/CGI art book, his storyline next season will end up possibly being even worse, with him stuck on Eternia while most of the main cast go to Earth and having to make a new Masters team despite there already BEING a second Masters team!

(my apologies for this being so long, I just love this character a lot and he means a great deal to me)"

#orko #he man

35 notes · View notes