#arklore

[cerastes]

Nian is huge in my heart for many a similar reason as Platinum is: She’s explicitly there because she likes to hang out with you.

The primordial difference here is that Platinum is actually signed with Rhodes Island as an Operator: She’s a human resource with responsibilities and contractual duties. Even if she’s infamously capricious and shirks her domestic duties on the regular, she doesn’t really have any malicious intent and carries through her combat duties with flying colors, so she’s given a pass. However, it is very much a reality that Kal’tsit or any such high authority has pull over here because, again, she’s a human resource bound by contract.

The same is not true for Nian.

Nian is explicitly not a human resource. She’s not been hired by Rhodes Island; Attempts were made, but she refused. She’s a vagrant, so to speak, an incredibly skilled and ever nomadic blacksmith that doesn’t seem to settle, and she comes and goes from Rhodes Island as she pleases. What’s her condition? What’s her species? No clue, she won’t let herself be examined, she doesn’t answer questions, and swooces right out of serious topics with a light hearted jest.

The incredible thing is that Nian, simultaneously, lives up to her name as a beast of destruction (that’s a link to the Wikipedia article of the Nian) while subverting her very nature.

The Nian is characterized by a few things: Large monster that eats people and livestock, destroys villages, and shows up during Chinese New Year (in winter, when food is scarce, hence why it only shows up during CNY, the rest of the year, it supposedly survives by eating wild animals), and deathly afraid of loud noises, fire, and the color red.

Every decision behind Nian in Arknights is extremely deliberate when you keep this in mind:

Wears some red clothes, highlights and accessories, and is a blacksmith, y’know, a profession known for having to work very intimately with fire and loud noises, the former more so than the latter. And keep in mind, a blacksmith is someone who fundamentally creates, not what you’d expect a monster known for destruction to have as a profession. One might argue that, indeed, with a blacksmith’s creations one can also destroy, but it’s also made clear that Nian is incredibly selective about who she creates for, meaning they are not used for wanton, irresponsible destruction.

As suggested during her event’s half-truths and implications, it seems Nian is more or less retired by now. She enjoys a fun life of frivolities now, instead of being a monster of destruction. Symbolic of this is her embracing pretty much everything that was once used to drive her away: Red, Fire, and (to some degree) Loud Noises.

Ah, but old habits do indeed die hard! How hard? Well, despite all of this, she still plays a role as a creature of destruction, just, on a much smaller, playful scale:

Nian gets quite a kick out of destroying Doctor’s work schedule by constantly pestering them with toys and sudden outings. Nian will stride right into Doctor’s office, hand them a cursed doll that disappears if you don’t look at it, and then fireman carry them shopping at the mall. Or one could say she enjoys annihilating Kal’tsit’s nerves, because Kal’tsit, in the ocean of her immense wisdom, likely knows what Nian really is (or was?), and knows there’s quite literally nothing she can do to make Nian stop from grabbing Captain Warcrimes like a particularly light sack of potatoes and carrying them away to watch Wohn Jick 3 for the seventh time this month after an intense impromptu shopping spree. And that’s not to mention how much she loves playing around with Lava. You KNOW they have the best worst tabletop sessions.

But, of course, this is all hyperbole, to call that “destruction” is only on a nominal basis at best. But for someone as capricious and free as Nian, perhaps that’s precisely enough for her to feel content.

Nian certainly seems to have a keen eye for interesting people: In Lava’s Files, she’s stated to have a lot of potential, and sure enough, Lava will eventually become Purgatory. Likewise, Nian states she’d gladly forge a sword for Doctor, meaning she finds them worthy and interesting enough, and the only reason she doesn’t go through with it is her rationale that it’d be wasted on Doctor simply because they wouldn’t use it, as they don’t fight. That’s consistent with another facet of Nian: She sees tools as tools, in a very respectful way.

When she says “people are like tools”, it’s in the most affectionate, respectful way possible, not in the usual cruel, utilitarian manner: You can classify them, they all have their intended purpose and things they are good at, and some, some are more interesting that others. Just like she respects Doctor, she also respects the theoretical swords she could make for them, in that they’d be ceremonial at best, and thus it’s better not to exist if you can’t really do what you you’re meant to do. This is also an interesting contrast with Pre-Amnesia Doctor, in that they considered people like tools as well, just, very much in that usual cruel and utilitarian manner, like chess pieces.

Nian is a free-wheeling, capricious cloud of a person, but don’t make the mistake of thinking she’s airheaded or that she doesn’t like to think for it, her way of speaking is casual and informal, but the words she says are nonetheless wise, coming from one who is seasoned. It’s because she has led a colorful, full life that she can enjoy the little, carefree parts.

It’s things like this that make her such a fascinating character.

#arknights #nian #arklore

[cerastes]

I just think it’s very interesting but also hilarious that with almost every event so far, we have a “secret” cutscene (as in, usually found in EX stages and in one case, found only on the rerun of the event) or two regarding the Aegirians, the Ocean, and how fucked up the latter is.

It’s honestly a very effective and interesting way of keeping that arc fresh in our minds and relevant throughout the long game, since it’s clear that Hypergryph doesn’t intend on tackling that plotline for a long time now, that way, it doesn’t just come out of nowhere when the time comes and we have crumbs to go on and assemble a bigger picture in the meantime... But it’s also really funny because everything else might be happening at the time, but then we take a little minute so we are reminded that, yes, the Ocean, capital O, is real, it hates you, it can hurt you, and it can’t wait to hurt you.

#arknights #arklore