a-goumang-ripoff

[a-goumang-ripoff]

For some reason i can't look at this without hearing wet flopping every time his feet hit the ground

i did it without agony

[a-goumang-ripoff]

The Use of Death in Nine Sols

I know it's been a while but I'M MAKING ANOTHER POST FINALLY!!!! Alright so, I was rambling to a friend and something clicked in my head. If you can't tell by the title, it's about the unique way death seems to be used in Nine Sols.

To summarize it, death is used in unique ways with each sol in a way that gives each one exactly what they deserve, even if what they nearly all get is the same exact thing: death. While I'll do my best to not explain every single case individually and make a super massive post, I will go over as many as I think is needed to make my point. My autistic ass has categorized almost every character into 2 categories I want to cover: the sols who are good, and the sols who are bad. I will also be talking about Kuafu, Goumang, and Jiequan separately as they are very unique cases for mostly obvious reasons.

Getting into the 'bad' sols first, the sols I've categorized in here are Yanlao, Fuxi, Nuwa, and Eigong. The thing that ties this category together is that these sols suffer death as a punishment for their actions. Yanlao I think encapsulates this the best. He would go on to die terrified of death, attempting to cling onto life as hard as he could, but still being punished with death despite it. And I think it's well deserved the way he dies, as in his sol seal memories he is shown to be a hypocrite willing to do anything just for the sake of respect, only liking the old relics he has because they make him respected and they make him money. He was brought onto a project to eliminate the deadliest disease that penglai ever faced, that solarians ever faced, that threatened the survival of the species, not for what he can provide to the efforts in skills, but for the sake of his relics which are actively remarked by multiple characters to be unnecessary or worthless. He spends his time as a sol doing nothing but criticizing others, demanding respect, and being extremely petty. He did nothing, and thus, deserves nothing, not even a death at Yi or his own hands, simply death itself. The fates of the rest can be argued similarly, Fuxi deserves his existence as a monster for him actively taking advantage of literal disasters to make money, and dying only as a monster. Nuwa deserves hers for her similar stuck up personality and asshole behavior. Arguably, Eigong could be said to be rewarded for her death by practically creating her ultimate work that would immortalize her, but the fact that it is immediately obliterated in its entirety with no one left to truly remember her makes me argue that her death was only a punishment in the end.

For the 'good' sols, I've categorized Yi, Lady Ethereal, and Ji together, as they ultimately receive death as a reward, as opposed to a punishment. I think Lady Ethereal encapsulates this the best. One could say that she deserved death for what she did, causing the gruesome deaths of several people, including someone incredibly close to her, and remaining silent about it. However, aside from her having no clue that the soulscapes would have that effect, I believe she atones for her mistake in her own soulscape, suffering her own personal hell in it over the tragedy and her response. She suffers for I don't even know how long torturing herself over it all, even attempting suicide at one point, only to be forced to stay alive in this soulscape. It's only then, after being truly forced to torture herself, that Yi is able to interfere and allow her to finally process and come to terms with it, after making her own punishment she felt she deserved, and thus embrace a death that she earned and be able to truly rest. Yi ends up going through something extremely similar, obviously being the one to suggest harvesting humans for their brains and attempting to originally take the seals to take the cure into his own hands, but the game itself serves as his redemption and in the end, he is rewarded with death and the ability to see his sister again in the afterlife. Ji also is similar, though they don't really make this big awful disaster occur, only lacking courage to truly act despite their immortality, and actively express happiness in their death.

Alright, now to talk about the other three. I have made my point already about how each sol does deserve the fate they are given, being rewarded or punished with death in very unique ways. However, one that sticks out is Kuafu, the one sol who doesn't die within the events of the game. And, as you can probably guess, I think it's because he is the only one who doesn't deserve to die. He doesn't actively express a want to die, yet he definitely lies more in the 'good' side of the sols. Nothing he has done has warranted death as a punishment, the most punishment he needs and gets is being the last survivor, which can be seen as a steep punishment, but I think he's one of the few characters who could really take it in a much softer way, especially with his bonds with Shuanshuan and his changed view on humans.

Now something I've been itching to talk about: Goumang. I've singled her out because holy FUCK her ultimate fate is super fucked up. Way worse than any of the other sols. And as I've seen the community discuss, a lot of people think this was way too excessive, but, as fucked up as it is, I do think she deserves it to a degree as well. And, before I get into this, I do NOT think that this is something that should actually be done to anyone, even fictional characters, but the irony of her fate I think makes it something she does really deserve in a poetic way. While she does have a lot of good intentions and plans set in place to revive Penglai and save solarians, but I find her true awfulness in her ideologies and behavior. Starting with behavior, despite being in a grave situation in which solarian life is threatened, she does not decide to forget her differences with other sols and put her effort into helping the cause, she instead decides to remain petty and a full on asshole to Yi, in a way that surpasses other shitty sols because she is in a position to actually do something and work with other to help save solarians. Her ideology also heavily contrasts her genuinely good desires. To put it bluntly, she is a fascist, I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it again, she believes that every person needs to be micromanaged in the same way she micromanages her farms, that it would create a perfect society if this did happen. It doesn't help that "if everyone gave up a little freedom and submitted to higher authority..." is just straight up fascist rhetoric. She also is the ONLY sol to own human slaves to serve her, ones with collars that actively control their actions. I think all of this combines to really set in that she is the worst of the sols, that while you're meant to question Yi's true motives and intentions, his biases, because of this moment, Goumang still gets what she has coming to her.

As a final little sidenote, Jiequan is interesting not because of his alignment, he's quite clearly on the bad side of the sols, evil as fuck, the way his death is treated is interesting. It feels like a mix of death as a punishment and death as a reward, he does not want his death but in the end he still dies happy and proud, he believes he died a hero, and that is far from a punishment to the character, even though he well deserves to die. Maybe it's a mix of him being a horrible person and yet also surpassing his bullying he suffered as a child, the expectations put on him, etc. I love it as a point to show how unique the game is able to utilize death.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

"autism/neurodivergence isn't an excuse!" "I'm autistic and I act normal!!!" and phrases like that are usually said by other neurodivergent folks who are probably more functional and sociable, but the reality is that it's still a disability that is ON a spectrum. sometimes it is an "excuse"

people forget not all autistic folks act the same and some are very high support needs and will say and do things that may be "off-putting" or heavily misguided. please kind about autistic folk who need help with basic tasks or can't socialize well. the ones who are "weird" and don't understand boundaries correctly.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

Nine sols true ending spoilers

In the story of Hou Yi, the archer had to shoot down nine suns. There were originally ten, and together, they scorched the earth. Hou Yi took it upon himself to kill all of the suns, except for one.

In nine sols, Yi has to shoot down nine sols. However… the last sol, Eigong… she kills herself. She doesn’t die by Yi’s hands.

The last sun Yi has to shoot down is himself.

And the last sun standing is ours, allowing the earth to recover from the interference of the sols.

Yi was the ninth sol.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

Bro what the fuck, a rubber duck just fell out of the sky. We are just vibing, and a rubber duck dressed as police falls out of the sky between us, a group of trans people. Is this a fucking sign?????? Is god threatening us??????????????

[a-goumang-ripoff]

You know I think my favorite part of Nine Sols' true/good ending is the fact that it doesn't end up being this massive clash of ideologies in the end. The ending itself doesn't try at all to make Yi's ideology significant, it does not try to set him out as the victor in his clash with Eigong, and it does not try to set him out as the "winning sol" in their eternal clash of ideologies. Instead, it sets him out to be on the same level as all the other sols: insignificant. To himself, to his ideologies, and to all solarians. The only thing that set him apart in the end from the other sols is that he accepted his insignificance and, rather than spending his final moments trying to further his own ideology like every other sol, he spends it protecting the ones he loves in an act that would be significant to all of humanity instead of solarians or himself.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

I think these two invaded my brain for a while

[a-goumang-ripoff]

A (Hopefully) Small Rant on the Fengs Fight

So I got a small amount of inspiration to rant a bit more on Nine Sols even though I am like. Dead fucking tired.

So, the Fengs, Nuwa and Fuxi, to be entirely honest I really just feel bad for their fight. I've been seeing quite a bit of people disliking their fight for a variety of reasonings and I kinda think it's because of the placement of the fight. Entirely shoving story stuff out of the way, I feel like the fight would fare quite a bit better in the first half of the game, or at least more towards the middle, if it was tuned down a bit. I think the fight is pretty cool and decently impressive, but it has to put up with, what I consider, to be the 3 best bosses in the game placed around it.

Lady Ethereal starts off the second half of the game with a fight which is, to me, the most visually impressive fight in the game just in the moveset alone. She is my personal favorite, but I know she tends to be in the second/third place range for most people. Ji is. Well, Ji. It's a cool fight to watch and so satisfying to get down, it really gets you into a sort of flow state with how much you can memorize is moveset and perfectly counter everything he has. And Eigong is so mechanically impressive and her moveset is so cool and so fitting of a final boss in a parry game. They easily blow every other boss out of the water together

From what I know, Lady Ethereal MUST be done before fighting Ji or the Fengs. Ji can be done either before or after, though I think with grotto of scriptures having a full room that you see in Goumang's area, the game kinda nudges you towards them over the Fengs. Then after them, you are hit with Eigong, which is an especially insane fight compared to any of the ones beforehand. And the Fengs kind of just awkwardly sit in-between. They have a LOT to live up to, having to keep up with the surrounding bosses, and they definitely fall behind. Fuxi is slow and predictable; not a bad thing, but without outside gimmicks, it makes him bland and boring on his own. With Nuwa in the fray, the fight definitely picks up and I do have a lot more fun with it, but it kind of lacks a lot of that visual impressiveness of Lady Ethereal, it lacks the same smoothness Ji has, and it's not like Fuxi gets any less predictable or simple even with Nuwa's tricks.

I think it is a good fight and I had quite a bit of fun with it, but with how slow and predictable of a moveset Fuxi has, I feel like they should show up before the bosses pick their pace up, maybe like right after Jiequan or right before, if you tuned back Nuwa's abilities of course. I think it would give them a better light shined on them that isn't overshadowed by everyone else. Alternatively, speeding up Fuxi or complexifying his moveset (and reworking Nuwa to work with Fuxi better, she more interrupts him to let off her own thing and it throws an odd pause into the fight. I guess you could say it makes sense for Nuwa's personality, but I feel like part of the point of her and Fuxi's presence is the fact that they pair so well) could greatly improve the fight at where it's at now.

I honestly think that their fight strongly outdoes a lot of those early fights, Goumang's fight definitely isn't for me, but I will still criticize it for its strong lack of synergy between the two servants, they do their own thing and it's hoped that the AI makes it synergize, but it's quite evident they're separate fighters and it made the fight often create uncomfortable scenarios that don't feel like they have a proper solution. Yanlao's fight has like a grand total of two attacks you see constantly, one you see rarely, and an environmental hazard. And Kuafu's.. uh, I forgot the dude's name, but that fight is obviously just a tutorial boss, so it kinda gets a pass (but I think it could have been done a bit better rather than just making it a nothing fight). You throw a slightly tuned down Fengs fight in there and I feel like people would be losing their minds (exaggerating a bit).

Also, on a more negative note, maybe this is just me, but it was the first time I started to question a boss' attacks in this game. Most of the time the context just leads into the concept, y'know? Ji teleports around and throws a barrage of various almost supernatural moves at you? Yeah they're mysterious and an oracle and stuff, that makes sense. Lady Ethereal has the most insane stuff she throws at you? Yeah it's a dream, of course she does all that. Yanlao's crane has a fucking laser? A bit of a stretch but I just fought an ancient living weapon earlier so I'll allow it. But Nuwa's instrument.. summoning snakes? and throwing stuff at you? and summoning AoE fields? I'm really not sure where this is coming from-

All we've really gotten from them is they're rich and they're actors, so why does Nuwa have an instrument that just summons that stuff? It might just be a lost in translation sort of thing, I know they're named after characters in a myth and that myth had them making special instruments or something of the sort? I didn't really look deep into it, I did a quick google search and skimmed, but that would be my guess. Still though, it's the only time I've questioned that stuff in the entire game.

Anyway, I do think that the Fengs is honestly a good fight, coming from someone who has no hit them (it was hell). It just has some moderate flaws and is surrounded by fights that blow them out of the water. I would like to state, while I was talking about putting them earlier in the game, I obviously don't think that's a great idea, they have a lot of significance tied to them specifically in the story and it would certainly ruin the flow of the writing, it was more to state a point on the level of skill demanded of them and the comparative impressiveness of the fight.

Also while writing this I got a cool idea that I think would make the fight really cool. I mentioned the way Fuxi and Nuwa don't really work with each other earlier, I think a great idea could be making the fight mostly scripted. It would be a dangerous idea, easy to fuck up or make irritating to fight over and over, but I feel like it fits them as actors to have their fight and moves be scripted, it could also allow Nuwa and Fuxi to have a synergy that I don't think a boss can really have otherwise without becoming one boss with two hitboxes. I also think it could allow Nuwa to actually play music, she just kinda blasts single notes from what I can tell whenever she does an ability, I think scripting the fight could allow her to actually play full music while having it key into certain abilities (I think it can be done without scripting it too, but I love the idea of the two bosses known to be actors and put on shows having a scripted, almost rehearsed fight).

[a-goumang-ripoff]

The midnight Nine Sols headcanon just came in

The ears of solarians are pretty mobile, but they've lost a lot of the mobility a cat's ears have to time, instead the resting position of their ears tends to shift based on their experiences

For example, Goumang has very flat airplane ears (quick screenshot to show that)

I would imagine this would indicate that she's lived a life full of a lot of sadness/turmoil where her ears tended to be positioned lower most of the time, making them shift into this constant airplane position.

We also know she has very much lived a life of a lot of sadness and turmoil due to her growing up seemingly poor

We can see her ears drooping here due to her crying obviously, and somehow I doubt this would be uncommon (crazy idea, I know).

Eigong is another example I'd like to bring up

Her ears are also in this airplane position. I'd imagine that, as her status as a researcher who we see be commonly stressed by her work as well as her students. It would make sense that her life would be filled with a lot of stress, making her ears fall into this resting airplane. It also may be that the ears will droop with age as well, since she's depicted as old lady.

Here would probably be a good place to mention, I think that very young solarians have ears that are close to the mobility of cat ears, but that mobility drops with age, likely becoming stiff by the time you're as old as Eigong or Yanlao, though that may not mean they can't shift still.

Looking into this more, I also noticed something interesting about Goumang.

In this image, Goumang seems to be wearing a headband that is forcing her ears into that down position. It's possible that her ears are still naturally like this and the headband is kinda just resting, but I like the idea that it's something to keep her ears in a down position when she's in a higher point in her life, I wouldn't be surprised if solarians may intentionally use this stuff to adjust the position of their ears to stand as a representation of their life or their past. Goumang may be doing this as a way to show she came from poverty and such, which may be hard to recognize otherwise when she's grown into success.

Fuxi and Nuwa also seem to do something similar.

It's hard to discern the specific angle, but between the two headpieces we see them wear, they tend to be straight from the head as opposed to going to airplaning. Of course, these are worn to be fancy and such, but I think they also serve a double purpose, they're members of a massively rich family, more than likely, while these are worn for fanciness and also for plays (likely to give the character more of a unique look that shows their story without telling. Makes me think of those Greek drama masks), I guarantee those are stiff enough to keep the ears in a general position that makes them look like they've had a happy/enjoyable life, it may be seen as a more attractive trait generally (but not objectively), and many solarians may force their ears into a particular position because they think it looks good.

I know they're drawn very stiff in game in all the solarians, but I think this is something which gives more reason for the diversity of ears we see as well as gives more uniqueness to solarians compared to humans.

And just because I can, a list of reasonings for characters whose ears may not be in a position that seems to reflect their situation:

Lady Ethereal: I think she's generally led a happy life and a lot of the immense stress and trauma and ptsd of the soulscape situation was way too recent for her ears to have changed significantly, especially if she's spent more time in the eternal sanctum than the other sols. Also, even if her ears had shifted after Yi died the first time, she likely would correct that in the soulscape instinctually.

Yi: I know Yi has overall had a very stressful and not fun life, so it's weird his ears are still up so high. The easy reason is he used something to correct them. The reason I prefer is that he spent so much of his life with Heng and enjoying her presence so much that, despite the shitty situation he had found himself in, the happiness he got from Heng kept his ears up.

Ji: It's hard to notice but I do think he has airplane ears. I don't think it's that out of the blue for him to have airplane ears, he smiles and acts so playful so much in game, but he seems to constantly question his existence and really not like himself, so no wonder their ears end up being positioned like that. The hat they wear in game also might be pushing his ears into that position too.

Jiequan: We are shown that Jiequan's early life was shit and he was bullied a lot, so his ears should be low, but I think the latter majority of his life has been way happier to wear his ears stick straight up. It may also be a part of him using that mutation tech he has.

I think the few i didn't mention are self-explanatory, so yeah that's end of this whole thing

[a-goumang-ripoff]

he they ji like if you agree

[a-goumang-ripoff]

reblog if you think not liking physical touch is "valid" and if someone tell you they don't like being touched you will stop immediately and not tell them a hug isn't gonna kill them and then disrespect their boundaries

[a-goumang-ripoff]

GOD FUCK THIS FIGHT SO MUCH!!! I've been doing a low-upgrade run for my third playthrough of this game (only a little obsessed with this game) and I wanted to do true ending Eigong cause that third phase elevates the fight so fucking much, and that means i have to fuck this guy up which is just lovely. It took me an hour of straight attempts to kill this fucker on my first playthrough, which I've heard is actually on the lower amount of how long people take to kill him, and GOD dealing like no damage to him just makes him horrid. Doesn't help that there's several situations in which he'll just hit you no matter what. Fucking hate miniboss design in this game, half of them feel designed to just have one (or less) built in damage windows, as opposed to the bosses which have specific circumstances in which you can force a damage window. I had to resort to exploiting the points in which he stops attacking and tries to get closer (turns out he wont attack until he gets close enough, and you have just enough range on charge attacks to hit him without triggering it if you have perfect timing) in order to actually beat this shitty fight. It really says something when your miniboss near the end of the game is harder than the hardest actual boss in the game, and it's not something good.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

Confusion, Uncertainty, and Bafflement: A Rant About Goumang

So I've decided to move on to my next rant and thought that I might as well get my namesake out of the way. Funny enough, Goumang is only my favorite sol because she is such a weird character to think about, none of the sols can get my voice nearly as loud in a rant as Goumang does. She confuses me to no end, and I think that confusion is the most interesting part of the entire game for me to think about. Also, her design is so fucking cool, I love Nine Sols' character designs so much but to literally make this cat person into a harpy via genetic modification and prosthetics is such a badass idea, I wish I thought of it myself tbh.

So, to start off this rant: Goumang's position within Nine Sols. She is intended to be the second boss you face in the game, though can be the third (which I heavily recommend, I hate that fight without air dash) and I believe can be the first boss, but I am unsure about that. She is an early-game threat which we learn quite a lot about in her area, and the game holds back nothing by this point giving her what I would argue to be the most disturbing and gruesome end in the entire game, which almost none of the other sols can compare to. I do believe her status as Eigong's other student was stated in her area, but it was something that was lost on me as I wasn't sure what the game meant, I assumed she was one of several and they just happened to be at odds. However there are little features around the game which really paints her to be Yi's rival.

Beyond being Eigong's other student, she also has a passionate hatred for Yi which is far more intense than any hatred the other sols have with one another, and Yi clearly shares this hatred with how he decides to end her, though he keeps himself level-headed in her presence otherwise it seems. She talks to us about the plan she had if she was chosen over Yi, the way she acts in the holograms at the end of the game is painfully antagonistic, and even that picture Eigong has by her eternal sanctum of the two of them together. It weirdly feels like the game is trying to build her up as Yi's rival, but we know Eigong is the true rival fight in the game, not to mention Goumang is dispatched within the first half of the game. I have to ask why the game pushes this so hard. I understand she is realistically physically weak and lacks combat prowess; as Jiequan says, she's just a farmer. But I think I would have preferred her place in the game to get moved up and to treat her more like Yi's rival. It doesn't feel unrealistic for her to learn the same martial arts Yi did at Eigong's recommendation; if anything, it makes more sense for Goumang to take up the idea granted her past.

Another thing which confuses me about Goumang is the mismatch between her backstory and her behavior in-game. Her backstory consists of her growing up seemingly poor in a place that is already in constant famine, then being implied to pull herself up by her bootstraps and become one of the most skilled biologists in Penglai. Her motivations are shown clear to us: she wants to end world hunger on Penglai and had the means to do it with New Kunlun's aid. The servants she has she shows to have actual compassion for (though the way she views them is very much as lesser beings which is not great) and, in the Nine Sols prequel comic, she is shown to be quite a kind person, giving a little girl food and a ride for a mistake that is hardly even hers. And yet everything we see beyond her memories shows her to not only be a jealous bitch who thinks herself better than everyone and seems to pamper herself at any opportunity, but also hold fascist/fascism-adjacent ideologies.

"Optoberries, apemen, even our fellow solarians... they all need greenhouses and incubators. Sacrificing a little freedom and yielding to your superiors is the path to a perfect society[...] The truth is, the weak fear the truth and cannot make choices for themselves."

I know that having a shitty past doesn't automatically make you not become a shitty person, but to hammer in the idea that she had an awful childhood filled with suffering and holds a variety of selfless aspects of her character only to make her act childish and needlessly bitchy just doesn't feel right, it feels like there's really something that we aren't being told. I would be happy to shrug it off as potentially seeing Yi as someone who doesn't deserve the position he got because he had much kinder beginnings than her, but between her childish behavior before the game's confrontation and the fact that she doesn't bring that up in her monologue (instead simply mentioning that she wanted to be chosen over Yi, making it jealousy rather than simple hatred) makes it just feel weird.

On a lighter point, it feels quite a bit odd that she is The Sex Character in the game, especially with how heavy they lean into that. Everything about her just feels sexual. I mean, firstly, she is the only solarian I've seen to wear literally no pants, and her legs tend to be blocking her crotch in a weirdly intentional way. Like, it'd be one thing to do that but have her not have anything between her legs, but it makes it way weirder that her crotch is being constantly blocked, it feels like it's trying to imply her pussy is just out there at all times (and no one cares, which makes it funnier). The two times you can actually see her crotch, there is shading which makes it way too harder to discern anything (yes, I looked, this was a traumatizing realization and I needed to confirm it fully). She also is clearly dominant in both an almost hierarchical sense and a sexual sense, you can literally make Yi call her out saying "you just dominate people for pleasure," and she won't even deny the pleasure part, just corrects Yi on the fact that she's "protecting" instead of dominating. How much more on the nose can you get?

Also, I'm not sure if this is just me or not but doesn't her 'death' scene have a really odd vibe about it? The fact that it's a mind control collar is bad enough, but the way Yi tilts her head up and the gasp from her that plays all makes it even weirder.

The echoes of "mama" from her servants make it only worse. Normally I'd think it's a funny coincidence that ignores sexual contexts around the word, but that quote about dominating people for pleasure makes it feel intentional. The whole thing just feels like a Guro scene and it really twisted my stomach when that got combined with my own issues over leg injuries (I can't believe there's TWO leg injury scenes in the game, not a fun time for me).

Though the weirdest part for me is that I feel like there's a much more prominent candidate for being The Sex Character, that being Nuwa. The drug club she runs genuinely feels a step away from being a sex palace, especially with all the pink imagery (and those dancers). The instrument she plays looks genuinely phallic and the way it's played, with her mouth against the tip, doesn't help. Yet I feel like they leaned away from it quite a bit compared to Goumang. Though, I suppose the incest stuff that surrounds Nuwa and Fuxi may have pushed them away from doing that. Lady Ethereal even seems to have a bit of that stuff going for her... okay I'm starting to realize most of the prominent women in this game have sexual stuff related to them.

Moving on from that startling realization, the last thing I want to talk about is some of the reasoning I've gathered on why a lot of these choices may have been made and how I think Goumang could be improved as a character. One of the major reasons why I think there's such a mismatch in backstory and personality is that I believe they started to write her character and backstory, but then determined how they wanted to use her afterwards. Her fascist ideas and the literal slaves she owns makes her especially gruesome death feel like a jab towards fascist governments and more than likely directed towards the Chinese government (see my previous rant for more context on this). Another reason that mismatch might be present, potentially in combination with the previous one, is that RedCandleGames may have realized that she was being made too good of a person to be one of the sols that are killed, so a sudden shift occurred to make her seem just as crazy and evil as the rest of the sols are.

As for her odd implications of being Yi's rival? My main theory is that it was unintentional, obviously Yi's mentor should be his actual rival, Goumang may have just been placed as her other student to give more reason for her gruesome death or as another way to put her in a more evil position, and then an unintentional rival dynamic was built from that. It also possible she may have just be intended to be a rival fight or have more presence than she does (though, the sols seem to all have a pretty equivalent presence overall). But this is just speculation pretty much.

I think there's quite a few ways to improve her character. For one, I think she could be leaned over towards a less evil standing. I feel as though Yi could have started the game off a lot more evil than he did, it feels like a major portion of his character growth occurs with his time in peach blossom village before the game starts, we don't really get to see him go from hating humans to wanting to protect them, it's an implied shift. I'll likely touch more in depth on this when I rant about Yi, but if he were to be placed in a more evil position, he would have better reason for deciding Goumang is worth killing if she is put in a better standing. Alternatively, go a little more in depth on her backstory, it feels like it's only one step away from being fully believable, if they showed us something which actively made her change ideologies or gain new ones that orient her where she is in the game, I wouldn't feel that mismatch would be as strong as it is.

Overall, I find Goumang's writing to be quite shallow, her personality in-game doesn't feel like anything unique, it feels like a character I've seen several times in the media I've consumed (ignoring the whole fascist thing). If her backstory and personality weren't so mismatched, I believe her writing would have a lot more depth to it and I would feel much less confused about her. I also feel as though she could have been utilized very well as a rival to Yi, though that is a much farther-reaching concept than the changes I've suggested for her writing.

I'll be honest I didn't think I'd talk for 3 paragraphs purely about sex, I was intending to leave it at one but it's just so weird to me that she's used that way. Not that I'm complaining, check my blog's title. More than likely I'll post a follow-up rant on this one which is more about a lot of my less serious thoughts on her, ideas I have of remaking her character and such, just fanon/headcanon bullshit.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

The agony of wanting to talk about the character but being very aware that you talk about the character A LOT.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

I found you

I've been laughing at you for the past hour as you tried to, i think i won here

[a-goumang-ripoff]

My Thoughts on the Character Writing of Nine Sols

Alright, it's finally time to autistically rant on this account to my heart's content because HOLY FUCK I LOVE NINE SOLS!!! It has such amazing gameplay, and I don't think I could ever forget the Lady Ethereal fight in my life, easily one of my favorite bosses ever (and I love how she's written but that's a rant for another day).

I think my favorite thing about Nine Sols is the fact that it's such a densely packed game where literally everywhere you look you can find some kind of underlying message, even in small areas. And every Sol has its own underlying message and you bet your ass you'll be seeing rants from me on probably every one of them eventually.

For now though I'm sticking with rambling about the general writing of the game because I love it but also hate it sometimes and I love this game so much that I need to rant about how much the parts I despise piss me off. Before I start ranting off though, I should preface with this: if you aren't aware, RedCandleGames is a Taiwanese game company whose previous game, Detention, contained an easter egg which mocked a member of the CCP, I think it is safe to say that Nine Sols can easily be interpreted as a massive hate letter to China wrapped up in a beautifully gruesome story with amazing gameplay.

This isn't something that screamed out to me when I first played, but I had a suspicion something like this might pop up because of the storyline with the humans, they're shown to be livestock to these Solarians with only Lady Ethereal objecting to them being harvested for their brains (and eventually Yi but it was also his idea). They're treated as lesser beings, subhuman if you will, that are feared, hated, and stereotyped, but shown by the game to not warrant any of that treatment and be entirely capable people. Something was going on but I was quite unsure what it was.

It wasn't until the Fengs, who I fought after Ji, that it really set in what a lot of these messages I've been noticing could be about. I am very well viewing all of this through a specific lens and I don't think I'm right about everything but I am certain to say that the Fengs are absolutely a hate letter to Chinese nobility, between the Fengs' lack of care about anything besides profit/entertainment and the fact that Nuwa has clearly endured the horrors of foot binding (mishappen feet + entirely unable to walk) while still being a spoiled brat, not to mention the incest.

Everything after that kind of fell into place, it's not all about Chinese culture and government, but things definitely started falling into place when I started thinking back on everything. It started to make sense why they made Goumang a fascist who quite literally owns slaves before giving her easily the most disturbing fate in the entire game.

I do really love Nine Sols for all these little messages, but I also feel like sometimes they entirely give up on writing a unique character in order to send a message with them. Yanlao, Goumang, Jiequan, Nuwa, and Eigong are all very basic tropes that either lack deeper character, or their deeper character motivations don't seem to line up with their character.

And what do I think these characters all have in common? They're all being used to send a message about culture and/or government. Yanlao's demand for respect and power just because he's old, Goumang's fascist ideologies, Jiequan's dynastic bloodline, Nuwa's wealthy apathy, and Eigong's drive for immortality and tendency to lie or bend the truth. It feels like their characters were made secondary to the message they were attempting to send. I can say this about Yi as well, he's a very typical edgy protagonist trope I see a lot in East Asian media, though his character development is really well written so I can overlook that.

Another thing I've noticed is that the characters I think aren't sending as strong of messages, or at least not messages geared towards criticisms of government and aspects of East Asian culture, seem to be a lot more well written, and a lot of the stuff I've seen in the Nine Sols community confirms that. People tend to love Ji and Lady Ethereal and enjoy Kuafu. Ji and Lady Ethereal are so amazingly written in my opinion, maybe it is just that I relate to them a bit too much, I just feel like their stories are really enjoyable and make you feel something other than "what the fuck just happened." Kuafu I feel is just inoffensively written, he's not super tropey, but he's not amazingly written either, so he's kind of just this inbetween spot that makes him enjoyable.

Also note that I haven't talked about any of the non-sol characters, most of them I have not thought about nearly as hard (except Heng but I will break down and sob if I ever try to talk about her in length lmao) and thus don't feel like I can safely comment on them with the same confidence as I've had for the sols.

I am not saying that RedCandleGames should've forgone writing the messages into their characters that they did write, I just feel like there could be more effort put into the actual characters themselves and going about these messages in different ways to majorly improve the experience of this game, not that it isn't already amazing. Well now that that's out of my system, I'm probably gonna be making more rants about different parts of Nine Sols because I love this game and I also enjoy ranting about the parts I dislike lmao, easily one of my favorite games ever.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

nine sols wiki needs to site their sources, BUT VINCENT YOU ARE SO REAL I SEE YOUR VISION