melliae

[melliae]

Understanding Miquella through Jung and MBTI (Kind of…)

I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time, like, since October or so from the past year. This desire stemmed from the community’s reaction to Miquella and how the somber worlds created by Miyazaki are dyed with his own Introversion, which means that most players interested in psychological typology tend to type almost every character as “introverted.”

Needless to say, they are all wrong.

I don’t mean to come off as an expert of typology at all (far from it, actually). But I have to admit that it’s quite disheartening that most “typologists” somehow think that all the “shades” of extroversion below the partygoers, 24-hours-awake ESFx, are “introverted,” especially in a game where understanding the psychology and motivations of the characters is so important for the story—which is something I hope this post can help with at some level.

Now, before going into the typings, there’s something I must point out the lie I put in the title: I’m not using MBTI as such. While the codes and letters have some meaning and I plan to use them, especially the facets, a great deal of this post is also based on the masterwork of psychological typology: Carl Jung’s Psychological Types. Other important sources include (in decreasing order of importance) Marie-Louise Von Franz’s Lectures on Jung’s Typology, Daryl Sharp’s Personality Types, and David Keirsey’s Please Understand Me II. There’s also another one, the Tumblr blog of Akhromant, which I prefer to explain in my Post-Commentary section.

All of this explanation may seem meaningless, but it isn’t. Long story short, Jung originally described a model of the mind with pure attitudes, that is, how consciousness is one-sided and acquires one of the two main attitudes, Introversion or Extraversion. The other attitude is adopted by the personal unconscious as a mechanism of balance due to the psyche’s inherent wholeness. This means that there won’t be an “EIEI/IEIE” stack, but an “EEII/IIEE” one, and by consequence the common belief of the Judging dichotomy (J vs P) reflecting the first extraverted function will be missing as well.

With all of this said, I can go and explain the typing now :D

Miquella the Kind ENFJ

“Miquella the Kind...is a monster. Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying.” - Sir Ansbach, after Miquella discarded his Great Rune.

First and foremost, Miquella is a Feeling type. Yes, Thinking types can and do wish to create a utopia as well, but there’s a difference between the task-centered methods of Thinking and the people-oriented nature of Feeling, and Miquella showed it well: from trying to stop Malenia’s rot to offering refuge to all the “castes” forsaken by the Golden Order—everything falls under the Empathetic, Compassionate, and Tender facets of Feeling. Damn, even some of those facets are used directly to describe Miquella!

However, the biggest proof of Miquella’s nature as a Feeling type is, obviously, his charming power mentioned as often as his compassionateness and tenderness. For example, a Thinking type would not try to charm and compel the heart of their rival for the world’s fate because, again, they are more focused on the task at hand than on the people. The fact that Miquella even decided to charm people who very well could kill him (Ansbach and the Tarnished) speaks volumes about his empathetic nature that, yes, it’s 100% genuine, independent of how sketchy it is on occasions.

“The Empyrean Miquella is loved by many people. Indeed, he has learned very well how to compel such affection.” - Bewitching Branch

“The extroverted feeling type is characterized by the fact that his main adaptation is carried by an adequate evaluation of outer objects and an appropriate relation to them. [...] These are well adjusted, very reasonable people who roll along amiably through society, can get what they want quite easily, and can somehow arrange it that everybody is willing to give them what they want.” - Lectures on Jung's Typology.

“Although this tendency to overpower or coerce the other person with her secret feelings rarely plays a disturbing role in the normal [Introverted Feeler], and never leads to a serious attempt of this kind, some trace of it nevertheless seeps through into the personal effect they have on him, in the form of a domineering influence often difficult to define. It is sensed as a sort of stifling or oppressive feeling which holds everybody around her under a spell.” - Psychological Types.

And all of that inevitably leads to the conclusion that Miquella isn’t only a Feeling type but a Feeling Judger—an xxFJ, in other words. The Judging aspect is seen through his prodigious work under the Golden Order Fundamentalism too, which is “scholarship in all but name,” thus necessarily being a J-aspect. The fact that he created three Incantations for Radagon, among which is found the Golden Order Incantation with the second-highest requirements of Intelligence and Faith (31/31), speaks a lot of how serious and driven Miquella is; he didn’t do all of that just for fun or because he wanted to experience it, but due to a genuine desire to help her sister.

“And yet, the young Miquella abandoned fundamentalism, for it could do nothing to treat Malenia's accursed rot. This was the beginning of unalloyed gold.” - Radagon’s Rings of Light.

The creation of unalloyed gold, Elphael, the Haligtree, and the Needles imply that behind Miquella’s kind facade lies an absolute prodigy who is very determined about things, short of moving earth and heavens to achieve what he wants. The entire point of his character is that he always has some motivation, some greater goal for all he does. Besides, his character is more of a charmer (FJ) than that of a friend (FP), right? Miquella put himself at the head of Elphael, and he planned to become the God of the next Age. He’s much more about authority (J) than freedom (P), especially how liberal he is with his charms.

So all in all, Miquella is a Judging character, and considering how some of his miraculous creations remain unfinished, he’s also more choleric than melancholic, more about getting things done than getting stuck at trying to achieve some perfection. Abandoning Golden Order Fundamentalism despite his talent? Seemingly creating 1 perfect Needle while leaving the rest unfinished? Leaving Elphael and the Haligtree in order to become God? All of them are part of the “ruthlessness” proper of the choleric temperament and types, and since the sanguine and choleric temperaments are extraverted, Miquella is therefore an Extraverted Feeler.

I repeat: Miquella is extraverted.

He’s not an isolated, misunderstood genius. He’s not someone who hides his own feelings and appears cold—almost unfeeling—to the outside. He’s not someone who is lost in “fruitless fantasies” that he doesn’t wish to realize, nor someone who lives in his own world and feels disconnected from what happens in front of him. Far from it. He actually created his own city, his own armies, his own arts, and his fate. He dominated a subject that required deep understanding of metaphysical laws, just to abandon it when it offered no practical, tangible results. He inspired love and devotion in the masses and promised them salvation. You just need to compare him to Ranni, an actual introvert, to see how they are worlds apart in terms of attitude.

Miquella is all about social manipulation, about compelling others to follow him. He oversees things; he’s a master of the people. Those things are all ExFJ or Dominant Extraverted Feeling (Fe), the social master that attunes its feeling judgments (or moral/ethical evaluations) to the outside world, localized in time and space. The biggest example of this is Miquella's reaction at Godwyn’s half death, where he was the only one of his siblings to, well, actually do something, sending some of his men to do a sort of eclipse ritual. Furthermore, he also created an epitaph that expressed his condolences about Godwyn’s state and seemingly put it in what may or may not be Godwyn’s public/first tomb (?). This fits with the Initiative and Active facets of Extraversion, because Extraversion is all about how the individual involves oneself with the outside world.

“Now, when orientation by the object predominates in such a way that decisions and actions are determined not by subjective views but by objective conditions, we speak of an extraverted attitude. [...] Like Epimetheus, his inner life is subordinated to external necessity, though not without a struggle; but it is always the objective determinant that wins in the end.” - Psychological Types.

Does it sound familiar? “And so Kindly Miquella would abandon everything,” maybe? It’s also quite obvious that Miquella does not put that much thought into his inner life, sacrificing both his love and doubts in order to ascend to godhood—another proof of his choleric temperament to boot. And just by that matter, his divestment of his flesh and body may be more ritualistic than typological, so I’m not sure what dichotomy may represent. But if I had to choose something, it’d be without conscious Intuition over Sensation.

“Primarily, therefore, sensation is sense perception—perception mediated by the sense organs and ‘body-senses’ (kinaesthetic, vasomotor sensation, etc.).” - Psychological Types.

Sensation is the function attuned to bodily- and sense-perception, to all the physiological stimuli. It’s a perfect fit for Miquella to have it as an unconscious function, disregarding his bodily reality for the sake of a spiritual, “intangible” one—for the realm of Intuition and its future possibilities. This makes Miquella an ENFJ, and Kirsey has the following to say about the NFs:

“With their instinct for seeking common ground, with their ability to interpret each side's communications in a positive way, with their gift for putting themselves in another's place, and with their metaphorical language easily and fluidly turning one thing into another, Idealists are well-equipped for the difficult task of influencing people's attitudes and actions, not only inspiring them to grow, but also settling differences among them, smoothing difficulties--everlooking to enlighten the people around them and to forge unity among them.”

Needless to say, the description is quite flowery and a bit too wide, including some general aspects of FJs. But while xSFJs remain in the physical and concrete side of things, in the actions and measures taken, xNFJs move beyond that in the meaning of those, in what they imply for the world. They see how things can change and evolve, for that’s what Intuition does, and since it’s conditioned by Feeling, then it’s how the inner/outer world can change in accordance to those evaluations—how he can change the world in accordance to the sharing and externalization of his values.

Obviously, since Intuition can be defined as “spooky action at a distance,” then it’s not surprising that Miquella acts as the guiding hand and symbol of things, but not the actual person who does it. This is seen with him sending Malenia to kill Radhan instead of going himself, and the same can be said for Leda and Co., acting always at a distance and motivating others. All of this also implies a lack of Extraverted Sensation or Se (ES), which is the function most attuned to the physical world and bodily existence, and also to preexistent traditions when mixed with Extraverted Feeling, which is something Miquella completely lacks: he was the child of the founders of the Golden Order, studied and mastered Golden Order Fundamentalism, and even followed similar steps to his mother’s, but instead of remaining at what was merely present, he moved beyond and into what was possible: unalloyed gold, a technique and ideology that not a single Fundamentalism could ever come up with.

Beyond his rejection of the Golden Order and the creation of new magical arts and crafts (Original > Traditional; Imaginative > Realistic), I think the biggest clue for Miquella being an Extraverted Intuitive is St. Trina and her relationship with dreams. This is mainly due to the psychoanalytic nature of dreams as symbols of the unconscious: sensory experiences in which the forsaken and primitive contents of the psyche are imprinted, and that exactly is the realm of Sensation oriented to Introversion (Si), to the “subjective factor” of the unconscious (the meaning of the dreams is part of Introverted Intuition/Ni). Furthermore, the entire schtick about Trina easing and calming people may be related to the description about Introverted Sensation’s behavior of “raising the too little, and lowering the too high” given by Jung. Hence, Trina is the likely representation of (some) Si-aspects of Miquella, and the only ExFJs that actually have Si are the ENFJs, or Fe - Ne - Si - Ti.

Now, Trina as a symbol of Si is a curious thing. As I previously said, the psyche, that is, the entire mind, both unconscious and conscious, is inherently whole. It embraces all possible aspects of the human experience, and the functions are no exception; every human can think, feel, sense, and intuit, just in different ways according to their own nature. In Miquella’s case, his conscious side and confidence fall in the perception of what is externally possible in accordance to what is shared (Fe > Ne), while his unconscious aspects acquire the opposite aspects: it follows what is internally felt (which is, by definition, timeless thanks to the properties of the unconscious) in accordance to what it’s internally thought or defined. But since this last axis is unconscious, the results of its activity tend to be… less than ideal.

“The [extroverted] intuitive very often does not wait long enough. He starts the business, but that is enough for him; he sells out and loses on it, but the next owner makes a lot of money out of the same business. The intuitive is always the one who invents but in the end gets nothing out of it.” - Lectures on Jung’s Typology.

That is in relation to the inferior Si of ENxPs (conscious dominant Ne) and thus doesn’t apply 100% to Miquella. Still worth considering, since some of those “irresponsible” aspects are present in him, just in a more controlled manner (J > P), such as leaving Needles incomplete as soon as they got results (Miquella’s Needle vs. Unalloyed Gold Needle). In fact, I want to stop here, at the Needles, because they present one of the most important pieces of symbolism of Miquella: fate and identity.

Marie-Louise implied that Sensation is the function most attuned to the process of physical creation, of tools and/or experiences. They are the useful and practical problem-solvers (more so STs than SFs), which perfectly fits with the Needles Miquella created, acting not as a symbol of his social/political power and visions, but of his own removed and unconscious practicality. They are the bridge of union he created once the external world (i.e., the Golden Order, his familiar/known circle) offered no help to Malenia’s predicament, and since his Si is conditioned by his inferior Introverted Thinking (Ti), the Needles and unalloyed gold are symbols of Miquella’s own journey of individuation (development of the Self).

“There is something I must return to Malenia. The dignity, the sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the scarlet rot.” - Millicent, Unalloyed Gold Needle.

“One of the unalloyed gold needles that Miquella crafted to ward away the meddling of outer gods.” - Miquella’s Needle.

If we understand Outer Gods as interferences that come from the unconscious, as some sort of psychic self-balancing mechanism, then it makes sense how they can only be warded off by the integration of unconscious contents, as represented by the Needles. This goes double for the Frenzied Flame, since it acts as a really nice symbol for the complete dissolution and destruction of the psyche—a return to unconsciousness. Thus, the Needles are the things that allow an individual to “wave” their being and identity, to define who they are and where they psychologically stand, which is exactly the domain of Introverted Thinking. The original imagery of Miquella’s Needle as a lobotomy-like process, by that matter, is a likely manifestation of the unconscious functions’ primitiveness; they are unrefined, unrealized, and for that they need the help of the conscious mind.

The idea of the Needles themselves acting as a symbol of something higher seems to have been understood by Miquella very well, considering how he even named an entire branch of his followers after them, and all the Needles were designed with the typical spiral of duality, union, and divinity, which are proper elements of individuation. Even the Haligtree and its spiral sigil were no exception, as the sacred tree was nurtured by Miquella embedding himself in the roots and giving it his blood, representing a deep, introverted state of the psyche.

“It is evident at a glance that God has caught the sickness of Prometheus. [...] All his libido has gone into the unconscious, where an equivalent must be prepared; for libido is energy, and energy cannot disappear without a trace, but must always produce an equivalent. This equivalent is Pandora and the gift she brings to her father: a precious jewel which she wants to give to mankind to ease their sufferings.” - Psychological Types.

Blood, as the vital flow of the body, acts as a symbol of psychic energy (libido) and, in Miquella’s case, of Introverted Sensation. That’s to say, the Haligtree was an attempt of Miquella to realize his own Self originally, of trying to reach the unconscious numinous of his whole being that encompasses both poles of the world (Feeling + Thinking) through using his tertiary function, since the inferior or unconscious dominant function can’t be reached through the normal means of consciousness. This is also reflected on Psychological Types as well, since just in the following paragraphs after the quote, Jung mentioned how the birth of the Buddha under a tree is a synonym with his analysis of Spitteler’s Prometheus and Epimetheus, and those two are equivalents to the alchemic image of the homunculus created in the alembic. And by that matter, yes, the world tree, the Buddha, and the homunculus are all symbols of the Self, or psychological wholeness.

So then… What happened? Why did Miquella give up on that endeavor? After all, we can’t fault Mogh knowing Miquella charmed him, hence the fault must be on him. It doesn’t matter if it was because Malenia corrupted Radhan instead of killing him, or because he suddenly decided against the idea. Either way, it was because he likely wasn’t able to let go of an important thing, of the single aspect that had defined his existence up to that moment: his wish to help “every living being and soul,” which is solely defined by his dominant Feeling. He was able to abandon his Intuition that had moved him, so he could remain quiet and with his blood flowing into the promised jewel that could alleviate all the misery of the world, but what he found was unacceptable for his consciousness.

“When the fourth function comes up, however, the whole upper structure collapses. The more you pull up the fourth, the further the upper floor descends. [...] At this moment comes the great conflict, which means for the thinking type, for instance, the famous sacrificium intellectus or, for the feeling type, the sacrificium of his feeling. It is having the humility to go down with one’s other functions to that lower level.” - Lectures on Jung’s Typology.

For Miquella to become whole and achieve his dream, he paradoxically had to sacrifice it, for the dominant and inferior functions are incompatible in nature; Feeling abhors Thinking, and so does Thinking with Feeling, especially when the two are rooted so deep in the opposite poles of the psyche. Therefore, independent of the event that triggered the decision, Miquella abandoned the path towards his own realization because he could not bear forsaking his feelings. Maybe that’s the reason why he charmed Mogh instead of anyone else, since the dominant Ne he has (yes, Mogh likely is an ExNP, in contrast to Morgott being an ISxJ) was the best complement for Miquella’s dominant Feeling.

And with all of this, we find ourselves back with St. Trina, the Introverted Sensation discarded by Miquella, in the Stone Coffin Fissure.

“To an intuitive type who has not brought up his sensation, the world of the sensation type looks very like a lunar landscape—that is, empty and dead. He thinks the sensation type spends his life with corpses, [...]” - Carl Jung, Notes of the Seminar Given in 1925.

Eerily reminiscent, don’t you think? Trina ever has a Putrescent Knight by her side, a walking dead body. Furthermore, the chimeric appearance of Trina can also be explained similarly by Jung’s work: a still plant is symbolism of a deep state of unconsciousness, while the human effigy is one for conscious development and integration, hinting at how Miquella stopped his inner development halfway. He was close to achieving a full acceptance for his being, but doing so would have put the inherent individualism of individuation over the collectivism of Miquella’s Extraverted Feeling.

St. Trina embodying Miquella’s tertiary function coincides with her being described as “his love” in-game and as “his fate” in the SotE trailer too, since that particular function acts as the bridge for the inferior one and the whole bulk of the unconscious mind. In essence, it’s the key to Miquella’s true identity, his drive to accept himself and, in that, the whole world as it is, without any pretense, expectation, or projection. But since he rejected it in favor of becoming a god of the masses, of the people…

“But these salutary effects are lost as soon as the object gains ascendency. The force of extraverted feeling then pulls the personality into the object, the object assimilates him, whereupon the personal quality of the feeling, which constitutes its chief charm, disappears. It becomes cold, “unfeeling,” untrustworthy. It has ulterior motives, or at least makes an impartial observer suspect them.” - Psychological Types.

The entire debate about what Trina being Miquella’s “love” means for his age is proof enough, I think. Furthermore, both Jung and Marie-Louise commented that the Eros “function” of an individual has little to nothing to do with the actual function of Feeling, so more support to the idea that Trina is, in fact, Miquella’s love in every sense.

At the end of his journey, Miquella sacrificed everything he had inside. He forsook and sealed his own soul in the land of the dead in order to follow his own conscious moral judgments that can “change” the world. He became a living, “spooky” spirit that embodies his own ideals without care for his bodily and unconscious aspects—he has no need for them when his King Consort can take care of them, right? Now, he needs not to care for thinking, not to vacillate, nor attach himself to anything. Miquella just needs to act in accordance with his own feelings, for the sake of the world he became identified with.

Miquella won’t doubt ever again, it seems. But it isn’t as if it was different from before, though, since his choice of Radhan as Lord seems to be derived from the very same “popular” judgment: he didn’t choose Radhan because he loved him necessarily, but because he fit with all “reasonable expectations.” His older half-brother was the living image of both Godfrey and Radagon after all.

I guess the madness of Marika’s family is truly unbreakable.

Post-Commentary

I originally wanted to type both Miquella and Ranni in this post, but I realized halfway that trying to write the two here would, huh, require a little more space. Just a little, though.

Regarding the tumblr I linked, it may look unprofessional and even haughty, but it’s one of the best sources I’ve found in psychological types outside of Jung, Marie-Louise, and Personality Types (which is an easy-to-digest summary of both Jung’s and Marie-Louise’s works; good place to start!). Outside the Ghost functions the author proposes and some other philosophical ideas, it’s worth checking out in case you are curious and want to see the Types more in depth.

I also want to explain some things here I couldn’t go over in the post:

St. Trina is without doubt an ISxP; Daryl’s Personality Types describes the type as “sluggish, slow-moving, and easily getting stuck in a rut,” which fits Trina to a T. The only difficulty I have is the T/F dichotomy and auxiliary function, since she doesn’t have too much screen time. If we go by Miquella’s psychology, she would be an ISTP, but I’m not too sure.

Similarly, Malenia is some sort of ISTx. Due to her character being tied with Rot and movement, she most likely is an ISTP like Trina. The Scarlet Rot, then, also doubles as a primitive and destructive manifestation of Ne, or of external change.

Radhan, for his part, seems to be an ESTP. Funny, considering that he’s completely unlike the “shadow” and “soul” of Miquella.

I mentioned that blood acts as a symbol for Si, which means that the Formless Mother is, in fact, an Si-entity. The “formless” aspect is likely referencing the universality and timelessness of Introversion, instead of being a genuine abstraction like Intuition.

Due to the psychology of the ENxPs, Mogh likely uses the Formless Mother as a symbol and personification of his inferior Si. That means that in his unconscious side, the figure of the Mother still weighs over him, not unlike Morgott.

So, with this all said and done, I’ve to put a disclaimer here: characters don’t have psychological types! While I may seem pretty secure about the typing here, especially with the Extroversion part, most of it is due to, what, the post’s didacticism? Anyway, the point is that my typing here is open to debate. Except the Extroversion part.

Feel free to share your thoughts! :D 

[melliae]

Refraction Railway Line #1 Abnormalities Part 2 (Analysis)

To Forsake One's Self

“A silhouette is observed inside the inflated sack around the chest. -It bears resemblance to a flower, or the central nervous system of a human.” - Meursault, Abnormality’s Observation Log #2.

A headless fish. That’s what the Abnormality is. Like, there’s no way of getting it wrong… Yet, how is it possible to swim so lively without a head? It doesn’t make any sense. Without a head, there’s no way someone can live, let alone be so vigorous...

But if we were to truly believe so, we would be sinning of “anachronism”, just like Faust said in Selva Oscura. After all, we are seeing not a physical entity, but a symbolic one.

The head and the brain are some of the most obvious and well-known symbols for the mind, or better said, for the conscious side of the mind. They are the source of your rationality, of all you are aware of, and what most people would say they really are. However, the conscious “self” or Ego is but a part of the whole psyche, its “rational light” extending only so far into the dark realm of nature or the unconscious, and I’ll be damned if Headless Ichthys’ entire design doesn’t hinge on that:

Its arena is an underwater reef. Needless to say, water itself is one of the de facto symbols of the unconscious, with the underwater environment just being the icing on the cake.

It’s also filled with vegetal life, such as seaweed. Due to their upright position, they could be understood as symbols of psychic development, of the differentiating and creative power within the unconscious.

And finally, the fact that Headless Ichthys is, well, a fish goes back to the idea of unconscious contents being symbolized by animal figures due to their primitiveness. Not always, obviously, but considering how the Ichthys has its head cut… Yeah, primitive it is.

And as I explained before with Watchdog, the unconscious mind is anything but quiet. That explains why the Ichthys splashes and swims with so much energy—that’s the complexes, or the “many intelligences” of the unconscious, in action, of which the Ego is simply the most differentiated or developed. However, a problem emerges with this definition, because it’s too similar to Watchdog, the two being some sort of battered consciousness that has receded into the unconscious. Thankfully, Carl Jung is there to help us once more.

“The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol—it is also a "philosophical" one. As the former it is the Orphic egg, the world's beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval natural philosophers, the vessel from which, at the end of the opus alchymicum, the homunculus emerges, that is, the Anthropos, the spiritual, inner and complete man, who in Chinese alchemy is called the chen-yen (literally, "perfect man").” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

I already quoted this in my theory-prediction about Faust, but the gist is that the Ego emerges from the unconscious in order to know and realize it(self), to reach a state of inner and outer harmony known simply as the Self, the archetype of psychic wholeness that encompasses all that exists—darkness and light, good and evil, the whole of life. It’s not a surprise, then, that such a psychic potency has left its mark in the many cultures across history, with the alchemical motif mentioned above just being one of many examples; others include the Buddha, Christ and his ichthys, God Himself, plants and flowers like the rose and lotus, square or circular mandalas, the firmament, or even time itself.

How all of this psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo relates to the Abnormality is more than obvious. From the sac that holds the flower-nervous system hybrid to its very name, all points to the Ichthys not being guided by the chaotic storm of Watchdog but by transcendence itself, the unconscious Self of the world safely guarded within its own “womb”, like a fish enveloped by the dark waters of the sea or the homunculus created within the alchemical alembic. This “flower” or even “intelligence” is Ichthys’ own treasure that it wants to keep apart from people, untouchable and protected.

“Perhaps it can splash around more comfortably without that big sac of blood weighing it down? I ask the Sinners to pop its blood sac, but the fish turns aggressive and advances toward us upon hearing my order.” - Abnormality Encounter (“Pop its sac” option).

… However, there’s something that doesn’t fit with the interpretation above. If the sac and its treasure are so important for the Ichthys, to the point it has abandoned its consciousness, why does it use it to attack? Surely it can’t be healthy for the “self” inside, especially when all the affinities related to those attacks are so negative, like Envy (Pressing Sac) and Wrath (Blood Cannon). Even the more (often than not) positive Lust isn’t exempt from that, since “Clotting” is only used once you fail the mid-combat Event, which explicitly states that its sac is just so bloated with blood that its neck is about to shoot blood. But once more, Jung is here to save us!

“The forest, dark and impenetrable to the eye, like deep water and the sea, is the container of the unknown and the mysterious. It is an appropriate synonym for the unconscious. [...] The mighty old oak is proverbially the king of the forest. Hence it represents a central figure among the contents of the unconscious, possessing personality in the most marked degree. It is the prototype of the self, a symbol of the source and goal of the individuation process. The oak stands for the still unconscious core of the personality, the plant symbolism indicating a state of deep unconsciousness.” - Alchemical Studies.

Look at all the seaweeds and fallen trunks in the arena, all the vegetal life that shies away from growing and emerging into the shining surface, from developing themselves… Headless Ichthys’ “terrarium” is a prison, an unconscious “womb” that doesn’t let its “children” see the light of consciousness, and its sac acts the double so, being an actual womb or “alchemical vessel” within the already maternal waters, a warm place that refuses to set free the Self, the most important “flower” of all. This means the Abnormality is, similar to Sign of Roses and Carmen, a twisted and “demonic” manifestation of the Mother archetype: the devouring Mother that ruins and spoils all possible development to avoid suffering.

“There is no birth of consciousness without pain.” - Development of Personality.

Thus, it’s not surprising why “Clotting” is Lust, for the Ichthys surely must feel more than just relief and pleasure when expelling all the blood that was about to burst its sac. Likewise, the Wrath affinity of “Blood Cannon” and the Body’s increasing resistance to said affinity are rooted in the Abnormality’s reaction upon you trying to damage its precious sac, returning all those “offenses” with the anger and fury proper of a possessive mother. But the more it increases its Wrath, the more it fears pain and despair—its weakness to Gloom, despite how it would normally remain controlled and subdued most of the time (see “Blood Sac” passive).

In contrast, the only natural weakness of the Body corresponds to Lust, and just like in KQE’s case, it likely corresponds to the idea of love—of proper love that correctly nurtures and allows the development of the psyche, in contrast to the desperate need of the Ichthys to keep its self sheltered from harm as seen with Don’s Fluid Sac; maybe that explains why the Legs are resistant to Gluttony (despite the complete lack of said skills). And since I mentioned Don here, I think it’s time to clear a possible misconception that may have arisen.

Headless Ichthys doesn’t have anything to do with actual motherhood.

The meaning of the Abnormality is solely related to the smothering of self-development, the deliberate destruction and suppression of the personal identity in order to, apparently, attain a certain treasure. That’s why both Don and Faust have Fluid Sac, because the two of them suppress(ed) their original identities and psychologies in order to follow the “star” they think (or thought, in the near future) they are. Damn! In Sancho’s case, she literally drank from the Lethe so she could be reborn as someone that was explicitly said to be asleep—she dissolved herself in the waters of the unconscious to forget herself. It’s only after she killed Don Quixote, her father, that she truly awakened as such, as marked with the dawn behind her in one of the last CGs.

Coincidentally, the one who wrote the Logs was Meursault, who explicitly said he killed his own mother… I do wonder what kind of parricide awaits us in Faust’s Canto, as if Hong Lu’s wasn’t enough.

Anyway, as I previously stated, Headless Ichthys’ meaning is essentially the sacrifice of the Self (or your sense of identity, if you will) under the erroneous assumption that you can develop and live as yourself under the motherly heat and blood of the unconscious, safely “swimming in a pond” instead of confronting the world (yes, that’s the meaning behind its Encounter). Needless to say, such a perspective is glaringly wrong, and I think this is expressed through the Envy affinity of “Pressing Sac”, for why would the Fish that doesn’t want to be born be envious of those who did, unless, of course, those feelings don’t come from it but from the entity that carries within itself? It doesn’t help that “Pressing Sac” is the only skill that actually uses the sac to attack, despite how dubious the interpretation sounds.

Now, that pretty much is the end of the Abnormality’s “meat”. That doesn’t mean the rest of the parts and skills don’t have any interesting thing; it’s just that they aren't as rich as the Body and the sac, with simple interpretations such as the weakness to Sloth of the Legs and Tail—it’s a fish; it can’t get stuck or lazy while swimming! Meanwhile, the particular weakness to Wrath of the Legs may be related to the idea of rejecting the hand of one’s “mother”, to use the wrath against the compulsion to remain in the “waters”.

“This image is undoubtedly a primordial one, and there was profound justification for its becoming a symbolical expression of human fate: in the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights. [...] His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night.” - Symbols of Transformation.

Life is a struggle itself, a constant coming and going between day and night, good and evil, happiness and suffering—those polarities are what make everything alive and the Self whole. Thus, it’s not surprising the beginning of one’s (true) life is violent too, especially with a “mother” (i.e., longing) such as the Ichthys, with its such a strong and gluttonous grip. Maybe there lies the reason for the Pride affinity of “Powerful Clap”, used solely by the Left Leg, with said side belonging to the Tree of Life’s pillar related to the feminine and thus motherhood. In contrast, the much weaker and gloomier “Clap” is used by the Right Leg, and guess what things are related to that Pillar in the Tree? By that matter, LC used this division for the Sephirot’s gender.

Moving into the Tail… Nope, this part beats me. I can somewhat understand the resistance to Lus, since it could be some sort of contrast between the Tail and the Body (and sac), but I don’t have any idea regarding its only skill. The same applies to what the Fluid Sac status exactly entails, unlike the very obvious Blood Sac… Oh, and beyond the obvious reasoning of the endometrium being very rich in blood during pregnancy, I think it’s quite obvious that blood also doubles as a symbol for instinct and thus primitive psychic energy.

“But water is earthy and tangible, it is also the fluid of the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the odour of the beast, carnality heavy with passion.” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

Water, both as blood and the element as such, is the matrix of all life as a whole, that which impulses every being to their “destined height”. However, in this particular case, the vital essence is held up by the devouring parental imago, the “monster of the depths” that paralyzes all individual development and plants the seeds for future disasters.

“Fatigue is one of the most regular symptoms of loss of energy or libido. The entire process represents something very typical, namely the failure to recognize a moment of crucial importance, a motif which we encounter in a great variety of mythical forms.” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

That was said in relation to the Muslim story of how Moses met Al-Khidr, more specifically about the part where a fish the prophet and his servant planned to eat escaped. Parallels are more than obvious, with the case of Don, or better said, Sancho—the quiet, cynical, snarky, and extremely loyal child of Don Quixote—being much more interesting than Faust’s, because it tells us a lot about Bloodfiends and even the City and the Head.

It’s quite obvious that from the moment Quixote turned her into a Bloodfiend, all of Sancho’s attention was directed into her new “father”, for her hurt and depressed psyche unconsciously got attached to that infantile conception of security and family—a psychological complex that is best known as the Bloodstream. This means that, in essence, all Bloodfiends have an unconscious but powerful—almost numinous—attachment to their forefathers, filled with reverence, adoration, and fear not unlike those of a kid, hence making it impossible for them to move beyond their infantile psyche that fittingly yearns for things in their grossest, more primitive forms. And just like all the City-dwellers, Quixote, Sancho, and all Bloodfiends desire to feel the vitalizing air and sunlight, the warmth of each other, and to taste and gulp down the forgotten “waters” that nurtured the world itself and from which they have distanced themselves  too much… But water and its blue color are too high and lofty for the stunted psyche of the Bloodfiends; it’s a direct betrayal to the Bloodstream that demands complete subservience to the ancestors, to the (likely equally, if not more stunted) Progenitor, and thus their own souls demand the “waters of life” in the same way it does with their desire for connection.

“That the lapis, or in our case the floating sphere, has a double meaning is clear from the circumstance that it is characterized by two symbolical colours: red means blood and affectivity, the physiological reaction that joins spirit to body, and blue means the spiritual process (mind or nous).” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

This also explains why Dante said Bloodfiends were similar to Distortions, because they both are essentially individual beings consumed and twisted by their own complexes and traumas, just in different ways, which means the City is no different from the Bloodfiends. Be it Fixers, Syndicate members, or Feathers of a Wing, countless organizations and teams have been formed in search of life itself in a land that has forsaken and exiled all the human fantasies, an action done by none other than the ever-watchful and oppressive protector of the nest that the City is.

“Nest: the alchemical vessel. This is the place where the *philosopher’s stone is incubated and generated. A popular symbol for the birth of the Stone is that of the *philosophical bird or chick hatching from the *egg in the nest of the philosophers.” - Dictionary

But where the compulsion of the Bloodstream and Headless Ichthys doesn’t allow people to go beyond their “parents”, the Head has likely styled itself as both the protector and biggest enemy of humanity, the last step that people have to overcome to truly become free—just like Don and Sancho did through Bari’s tales (who happens to be blue, in contrast to the Bloodfiends’ red) and their own adventuring, gaining a new attachment to life beyond what the Bloodstream told them. In fact, Sancho surpassed the Bloodstream’s control to the point she forced herself to drink from the Lethe. But in that, she fell into the same compulsion as before, sinking into the depths of the unconscious with a new “self” that was no different from her previous life: an unconscious child unaware of everything, born of fear.

Thankfully, that wasn’t where Don’s story ended, and she further demonstrated the potential to overcome the Bloodstream and its childish mania through battling her own father without the need of the Helmet of Mambrino. She acquired so many experiences and was filled by them in such a manner that during that last clash she was able to shake off all hesitation and fear to pierce the heart of the source of her life so she could take the reins herself… However, that was only possible due to her naive beginning in the River of Oblivion, washing away all that had happened.

“The sun breaks from the mists of the horizon and climbs to undimmed brightness at the meridian. Once this goal is reached, it sinks down again towards night. This process can be allegorized as a gradual seeping away of the water of life: one has to bend ever deeper to reach the source.” - Symbols of Transformation.

Fundamentally speaking, while the figure of the Mother—and overall family, hence part of the incest taboo according to Jung—is somewhat disagreeable during more or less the first half of one’s life (ignoring childhood, obviously), it’s an indispensable part for the later half, when one’s body becomes rigid and fixated on past achievements instead of coming to terms with the return to the Mother and family, the place of eternal rest. And yes, this is the explanation of why the “splash around together” option in its Encounter heals both HP and SP, and maybe why the Fluid Sac status also heals the Ichthys (though I still don’t have any idea of why the color changes between statuses).

The mother-imago that the Abnormality represents is quite all-encompassing, isn’t it? No matter how hard one tries to fight it, the yearn to give up and be embraced by the watery abyss is always present, and it becomes ultimately a necessity when the consciousness becomes battered and exhausted. That’s the psychological foundation of the many myths, stories, and rituals about rebirth, chief of them the christian baptism and alchemical dissolution (which I already explained). But as always, one can’t loiter there, in that moment of unconscious union with the Mother, unless they get stuck and a psychological disaster befalls them.

Ultimately, the relationship with our family and, above all, our parents is a complex one. This is not even about physical or psychological abuse as such, but about the consequences and impacts they have in our minds. The deficiency of their love, whether it be a lack or excess of it, is one of the heaviest marks possible, and sometimes the fault may not be upon them, but on us—our fears and anxiety that don’t allow us to separate from the psychic impressions of our families and parents.

My Form Empties

“A bell occasionally tolls in the red room. It’s a heavy, subduing sound. The statue is chanting something. You’re unable to recognize its words. But, you feel that whatever it is, is not a joyous thing. There’s a brass ring on the statue’s finger.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Whoever says Buddhism is a simple religion is lying through its teeth. It’s as complicated, if not more so than Christianity, with a rich history and divisions derived from its 2500 years of existence. There’s simply no way for me to explain it shortly and dispel some of the biggest misconceptions around it in such a short post. Nonetheless, I’ll try to make an attempt, because My Form Empties (or MFE and the Bodhisattva for short) really needs it.

Desire is a complex thing. It does drive you to do and accomplish things, yes, but at the same time it fills you with all sorts of expectations and fantasies that do not have any footing in reality. I’m not speaking about such things as equality, kindness, or goodness, but about the fact that desire and obsession can lead you to twist truth itself in order to satisfy itself, to think that some things can or can’t change in order to feel content—not you acting upon your desire, but Lust acting through and possessing you. Thus, it’s not surprising that a lot of old philosophies and even modern ones feel conflicted about it, imposing moral obligations on it or directly forsaking it all together, and chief among them are the dharmic religions that originated in India: Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

As the name of the category implies, those 3 religions focus on teaching dharma, which can be broadly understood as the underlying truth of the world and the righteous duties and ways of life derived from it, all in order to extinguish the desires and sufferings that disturb the world, achieving the state known as moksha, or liberation from the fantasies and illusions (maya) born of desire. What this state of freedom entails varies from religion to religion and even from sect to sect, but the main difference resides in that Hinduism and Jainism hold that there’s an eternal and pure self (atman) that experiences the trappings of desire and its illusions, and Buddhism says that the self is those desires and illusions, ergo, that there’s no eternal true self (anatman) but just a constantly shifting awareness born of attachment, and the realization of this and the cessation of attachment and thus of self is called nirvana.

The reason why the dharmic religions are so obsessed with the detachment of desire has to do with diverse theories, but due to the topic at hand, Buddhism holds that desire as a mental factor is the root of all attachment and hence suffering due to the impermanent and non-self nature of the world, and desire is in turn created by ignorance of how the individual self is just a short-lived fragment of the chain of causality or karma. The desire and fear—for they are inexorably connected—over life and death give rise to samsara, or the endless cycle of rebirth, where both the “individual sense of self” (which, again, doesn’t actually exist) and karma perdure, determining the individual and collective future based on the effects of actions and their intention, for the self, desire, and suffering are all equally mental. In other words, as long as you desire, you will suffer and fear; they are one and the same.

Now, it’s obvious why the Karma status has that circular, red shape:

“→ Wait, wait. You forgot that weird ring. (Gregor) → It…gives a strange feeling. I don't know why it comes to us, but when it sticks to the back, it feels...strange. Like a pressure is weighing down on the mind… (Sinclair)” - Abnormality’s Observation Log #2.

Circular because circles don’t have a beginning or an end, just like the chain of causality and the endless knots used to represent it. Red because, like the Bloodstream, karma is a mental compulsion that weighs down and traps the mind. And the felt pressure is the suffering and anguish caused by attachment to the perceived self therein.

The passive related to the Karma status, “Cyclical Karma”, is just an extension of everything I’ve described up to this moment: attachment to karma or causality is the main drive behind most, if not all, actions of all sentient beings, which in reality are nothing but reactions to past happenings. All desires, be it for pleasure or vengeance, are rooted in the ignorant and wrongful idea of a constant self that must be satisfied or protected, and thus karma extends to and encroaches all of creation. A fault, after all, must be punished, right? 

By that matter, the passive-caused death when a Sinner reaches 108 Karma is based on the “108 defilements” or sense-states originating from the 6 senses acknowledged by Buddhism (5 senses plus consciousness). Therefore, acquiring 108 Karma means the “mind” of an individual has been overcome with desire and attachment, unable to be rescued by the hands of the Buddha… But wait a minute! That’s not how karma works at all! Besides, why does everyone acquire Karma when MFE does not? Well, to answer that, I need to continue explaining Buddhism's biggest currents: Theravada and Mahayana.

Theravada is the oldest Buddhist school and can be understood as the traditional one since it preserves and follows the “original” teachings of the historic Buddha, Siddharta Gautama; it’s mostly practiced in Southeast Asia, and it has basically died out in its home country of India. For its part, the Mahayana tradition originated as a sect of the Theravada that grew slowly before exploding in China during the 7th or 8th century, where it syncretized with the folk religion and native philosophies of the region before expanding to Korea, Japan, and other nearby countries, where it still remains popular to this day.

These two schools preach more or less the same teachings about attachment and liberation, but they obviously have differences, especially within the Mahayana tradition. In fact, calling Mahayana a “tradition” may be a misnomer, because it’s a collective of hundreds of different schools created by the addition of new philosophies and concepts according to the needs of each country and age. Theravada is not that different, but the division is lesser than in Mahayana’s chaos and madness. Still, if a main difference has to be mentioned, the most important for the analysis is the motivation for becoming an enlightened being (arhat): Theravada posits that one ultimately should strive for reaching nirvana first and foremost, with helping other people being entirely optional, while (most) Mahayana schools preach the “path of the bodhisattva”, that is, vowing oneself to help all sentient beings to attain enlightenment, including oneself. The title of bodhisattva should ring some bells.

“The fake bodhisattva was only biding its time to restore its strength, paying little attention to the confession.” - Mid-Combat Event (Check failure).

That’s to say, MFE is an entity that is committed to help all beings (i.e., the lured enemies) so they can be freed from the eternal cycle of suffering… Or so it appears. Beyond the text (or Dante?) directly calling it a fake bodhisattva, Faust and the game as a whole clearly identify it as a statue or idol of sorts—a murti, or s physical representation of a deity or “saint” created with the sole purpose of being worshipped and prayed upon. This difference is important since it basically defines MFE as a thing or place of worship where anyone can call upon the symbolized bodhisattva for help, and even offer things as a proof of gratitude!

“You place a coin before the grand Buddha Mūrti. With the ceaseless chanting gone, only the hollow echo of the bell bounces off the walls of the chamber. Perhaps the touch of secularity in the face of an emptying form has triggered something.” - Abnormality Encounter (“Place a coin” option).

This hatred for “banal” offerings is also seen in one of its many Wrath skills, “Compulsory Offering”, which is fittingly used only by the Buddha Mūrti part. Needless to say, this behavior is completely unlike that of an actual bodhisattva or compassionate arhat, who would move heaven and earth to help and save sentient beings. Furthermore, while they may not seem to be that useful, offerings are indeed quite helpful; they can help during meditation and the burning of mental “poisons” (such as fear, anger, pride, wrong beliefs, etc.), or simply allow one to express gratitude and gather “good” karma for one’s next life. There’s no reason or need for an actual bodhisattva to be angry, no matter if the offering is a mere coin, unless said person has bias (i.e., wrong beliefs) and thus desires…

By all means, My Form Empties can’t be further away from being an actual bodhisattva, with all of its skills and resistances showing that one way or another. In fact, it’s telling that it doesn’t resist any Sin affinity when another “religious” Abnormality did exactly that (Spiral of Contempt), with the sole exception being Lust, and considering its propensity for anger and retribution, it obviously doesn’t speak about the natural compassion of enlightened beings. What I mean is that, despite how much it chants sutras and mantras to empty itself, the Abnormality remains attached to its own self-love, comparable to Skin Prophet’s, as it attempts to save only itself, as the results of failing the Event’s check say: by brainwashing people, MFE can resolve and impart its own karma into others.

“Empty oneself by verbalizing one’s thoughts. Expel everything within so that nothing remains. That is the statue’s way of forgetting the self. You sense yourself disappearing as well.” - Abnormality Encounter (“Listen Closer” check failure).

The Sinners and Dante weren’t forgetting themselves because the Bodhisattva’s teachings were good; they did so because they were filled by its own actions and intentions. It’s no coincidence that the only way to pass the previous check is through the team having an average SP equal to or greater than 0—mental stability to confront the cultish behavior of MFE and transform them into something useful. The lured enemies, however, weren’t that lucky, and maybe that’s why they were chosen and are constantly healed (their passive’s name, “Bhaishajya”, literally means “medicine”), because they could offer something more than an empty coin thanks to their broken, hurt minds.

Now, I can certainly give a conclusion regarding the Abnormality’s meaning, but I still think there’s some elements of interest that merit some more analyzing, such as the passives or attack patterns :) And besides, I want to yap some more about Buddhism

Beginning with the passives, the most important one to understand is “Nirmana”, whose name comes from one of the Three “Bodies” or Trikaya of Buddha, an important concept of the Mahayana tradition. Basically, it expresses the all-encompassing nature of Buddhahood, which “exists” (to the extent the word can apply) everywhere and everywhen, from the ineffable dharmakaya (“true body”) of the Buddha, which embodies the emptiness inherent to all phenomena, to its nirmanakaya (“manifested body”), which exists as a material projection that grows and dies as it teaches about dharma to sentient beings. This means the Buddha Murti is a creation that can be manifested as many times as the Abnormality wishes, while its true core or essence resides as an actual brain or self within the Stone Seat, because MFE only becomes anatman once the Murti is destroyed—the only thing that remains is the angry and fearful “ground of being”, pure action unbounded by the apparent self.

Really, the most bodhisattva-like thing MFE does is its mental training and focus, or dhyāna, which is a mental disposition during meditation that tries to burn out all mental distractions and poisons in order to detach the mind of the world—to extinguish oneself. It’s no surprise that it can halve all negative statuses when used as a skill, independent of how paradoxical it is that its affinity is Lust, nor that it can grant 10 Protection to each part as a passive… until all of its lured allies are killed and it has to come out from its meditation to protect itself, which makes doubt my original statement.

Moving into the skills and their distribution, I think it’s important to begin with a small description of the Buddha Murti, just for the irony, because beyond the actual Buddhist crown it’s wearing (which is seemingly Tibetan, not Mahayana), it’s doing two particular mudras with its hands: the shuni mudra in the right, and (possibly) the chinmaya mudra in the left.

The shuni mudra, as its name indicates, is related to the idea of sunyata, or the emptiness of all phenomena; it’s believed that doing this hand gesture helps to reach a better, deeper state of patience and equanimity during meditation. The chinmaya mudra is the hand gesture that’s “full of knowledge/awareness”, and from what I understand,  it’s supposed to help with bringing awareness over one’s body and mind.

Now, while I do have some knowledge about Buddhism, I can’t say the same about mudras or yogic traditions, so I’m not sure about my previous descriptions. But if they are true, the two mudras fit with the overall theme of the Abnormality, which is trying to empty its being and body, and also adds to the irony, since the Buddha Murti’s skills are all Wrath-based with 1 exception, “Expound Sutras”, which is Lust and thus may be understood as the only actual good (but not selfless) thing it has done: supporting and motivating its followers through chanting the teachings of dharma. However, this good deed is overshadowed altogether by the other 3 skills:

I already explained “Compulsory Offering”, but I’m repeating it since it complements another Wrath skill, “Sluggard Waker”. The two focus on inflicting Karma based on the Bodhisattva’s judgment, showing once more that it has certain preferences and biases regarding its followers: it wants proactive people that offer their own lives in service to it.

The last one is “Prajñāpāramitā”, named after the Mahayana concept of “perfect wisdom”, the awareness and understanding of reality as it is and without attachment, proper of all realized arhats. The fact that it’s a Wrath skill and it punishes those who have the most Karma clearly shows the title is sarcastic.

It’s also important to note that all of these skills are related to teaching “dharma” to people and “protecting” it in the form of punishing those who have gone astray, akin to how the wrathful or fierce deities act in Mahayana, though that may be how it wants to be perceived and/or disguise its out-of-character moments. At any rate, the nature of the skills fits with the idea of the Murti itself being the nirmanakaya of the Abnormality, a manifestación created with the sole purpose of spreading its teachers to solve the karma of its “dharmakaya”, its true self that resides as a self-aware brain inside the Stone Seat glued to the ground—the least Buddhist and spiritual thing possible.

Anyway, in contrast to the Murti, the Stone Seat uses only Lust skills that are solely focused on it and are mental in nature: “Mahāsrī”, “Svāhā”, and the previously explained “Dhyāna”. If this last skill is the mental state in which the brain inside the Seat is, then the other two are in what it focuses on: “Mahāsrī” is likely based on the Mahāsrī Sutra, which states that one will be granted divine protection and fortune by reciting the 12 names of the goddess Mahāsrī (an epithet of Lakshmi); and “Svāhā” is named after the word used to signal the end of each recited mantra that, in this case, should correspond to the 12 of Mahāsrī, indicating the readiness of the Abnormality to finally take action (i.e., 3 Damage Up). Again, all of this is further proof of the inherent cowardice and self-centeredness of the Abnormality, especially because the Seat only starts to use “Mahāsrī” and “Svāhā” once its “gross body” is destroyed and becomes anatman.

When you get to it, My Form Empties’ entire being seems tempting, no? A bodhisattva-like figure that promises to release you from your pain, that won’t forsake and abandon you midway. Even the mid-combat Event references this, the illusion of a peaceful emptiness that embraces all without exception. Wouldn���t that be sweet? To reach that final blow that puts an end to the flame? But it should be obvious at this point that, just like Glupo and STNOWC, it’s impossible for just one being to carry all those sins. Even arhats like the Buddha didn’t do that, and waited for sentient beings to open up to their teachings instead, for doing otherwise would be a desire, an attachment.

“However, no man can wholly shoulder another’s suffering in their stead. Before we all are allured by its false compassion, someone has to break the statue.” - Mid-Combat Event.

Even when the Buddha found and converted the mass murderer Angulimala, he didn’t force the latter to follow him and waited until Angulimala himself regretted his actions and decided on his own to become a monk. This example is so wholly unlike My Form Empties’ behavior that it could very well be its own terrace on Mount Purgatorio, and hence it perfectly represents the failure itself of the fake Bodhisattva: no matter how much it recites sutras and asks for the help of higher beings, not even the Buddha can save it as long as it holds onto its desires, to the twisted pleasure and release of pushing its red and bloody karma into others. Neither its form nor self will ever become empty, because it’s psychologically bound to it, unlike Angulimala, who quietly and firmly accepted his own lynching, for he became an arhat too, unbounded by and detached from karma.

Furthermore, the EGO coming from MFE just spits into the Abnormality’s self even more, because it’s named after the most famous quote of the entire Mahayana school: “Emptiness is Form”, where “Form” is the ever-shifting self of the phenomena that’s nothing but one moment among the endless transformations within the cycle of causality, happenings, retributions, ignorance, identification, and attachment—the very own poison against which the Bodhisattva fell, and so did Heathcliff and Outis.

“Do I even deserve to speak as humans do? I, who killed Catherine… You, who deprived me of Catherine… Must be a thing lesser than a savage beast. Then… why should I even keep pretending to be human when I am not? If they were right... that if I really were to become nothing more than a howling, savage beast…” - Heathcliff, Chapter 34: The Beast, Canto VI.

“No matter what lurks in the pasts of us Sinners...? Even... if they have killed hundreds, thousands—no, tens of thousands of innocent people? Will you still... embrace them?” - Outis, The Carousel (The Tale of a Great Fixer Who Once Reached for The Dream) , Canto VII.

Those 2 Sinners and the Abnormality all present the same problem that I’ve commented on so much that I’ve become sick of it: attachment to karma and desire that leads to the false belief that there’s a constant self within one’s past and (wrong)doings, which in turn creates one’s future. Some may blindly accept it, thinking of themselves as unable to break the cycle of violence and suffering that has built them, and others may desire to escape it, without understanding that such a thing still is attachment and thus unconscious identification, leading to an ignorant and paradoxical longing for the status of an arhat. But that’s not what Buddhism is at all, for the single realization that actually matters is the same one that Angulimala—killer of children, elderly, women, and men—achieved: karma doesn’t define you, for it constantly changes, and so does the self.

Ultimately, there’s no one and nothing to forgive, for there is no self. You don’t have any obligation to be the same person you were even 1 second ago, for better or worse.

Post-Commentary

...

I'm not doing this kind of extravaganza ever again. I'm not referring to the analyses, of course, but doing these monstrosities back to back with no rest xD And yeah, I knew I said these 2 Abnos were going to be dense, but I didn't think it would be this level of dense... But alas, everything to give a nice Christmas gift!

Anyway, beginning with Headless Ichthys, I know now why it was paired with Watchdog: the two are deeply tied to analytical psychology in some way. But with the focus on the complexes and parental issues, I think it's worth clarifying something with regard to a certain Sinner: Sinclair.

While the underlying meaning behind the Ichthys can apply to our little twink, it's not in the same manner as Don and Faust, for it's not a question if he will hatch or not, but when. The entirety of Canto III expresses his deep drive to act and rise from his “nest”, and all posterior stories show how imperious that necessity is to the point of violence, with the most recent case (Canto VII) being a more than welcome evolution of such an anger. This is the entire reason why Demian is interested in him, why Kromer acquired the form of a vagina dentata (she was a manifestation of the devouring Mother, which yes, it means N Corp. Sinclair is very much like Sancho and Faust, even having the 2 main affinities of Fluid Sac in his kit: Gloom and Lust), and why Sansón chose him to play Bari, the guide and alchemist of Don after the incident of La Manchaland.

Speaking now about the relationship between Bari and Sancho, it’s quite interesting that the two are women when the “night sea journey” and “reaching for the stars” are more often than not masculine narratives (see Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, for example): the masculine Ego separating from the primitive and feminine unconscious symbolized by a wicked woman, dragon, or similar aquatic animals in order to establish himself and the world, to earn a treasure, or even save a damsel. By that matter, this latter duality of womanhood speaks of the differentiation between the Mother archetype and the Anima (in men; it’s the Father archetype and the Animus in women), so to avoid the pitfall of confronting every woman (or man) they met as their mother (or father), which is the likely cause of the subtextual incest in these kinds of stories… which is surprisingly lacking in Sancho’s case too! Kudos to Project Moon here for adapting the overall skeleton of the story and skipping the parts that most would find off-putting, because anyone else would have added them, especially with vampires (they have an undeniable erotic element, whether you like it or not).

Regarding the divagation about the Bloodfiends’ nature, I skipped certain someone that, unlike Don and her still warm-color palette, is completely dressed in blue and very obviously old, wishing to rest once and for all. So while Don is still tied somewhat to the Bloodstream, Sansón has completely broken free from it in true fashion as a bearer of the Mark of Cain, the first parricide. Nonetheless, it is still worth celebrating the two Bloodfiends have freed themselves from the cursed blood “that is thicker than water”.

And finally, I focused mostly on Sancho and the Bloodfiends because we know more about them than about Faust at the moment. But that doesn’t mean the little “witch” doesn’t have her own moments:

“Faust: It is fortunate that someone like yourself is aboard the train. Your presence ensured that child's survival. Sasha: Whatcha talkin' about all of a sudden? C'mon, no need to keep up appearances between people in the same line of work.” - Chapter 20(5): MultiCrack Office, Murder on the Warp Express.

However, there’s a difference between Don/Sancho and Faust: the former’s main colors are yellow and red, of the rising sun and blood, while Faust’s are pink and white, which are softer shadows (well, not really, but bear with me) of Don’s colors. What that implies is beyond me, but they are still a far cry from the blue’s spirituality.

Now, regarding My Form Empties... No, surprisingly I don't have anything else to comment beyond one single thing: what the actual fuck is supposed to be Bloody Gadget? Like, it's not a ring, and instead of being in MFE's right hand, it's actually on the background (or something similar to it, at least. I don't know). I tried to search for similar icons, symbols, and objects, but there was no luck. So if you know, please, feel free to comment what it is.

Oh, and I also didn't comment about the Sin affinities in the MD Encounter just because it's easy to understand: Lust and Gluttony are utilized as symbols for desire in general, and thus a gluttonous and/or lustful individual is blind and deaf enough to ignore whatever MFE tries to do. The world seriously doesn't respect it xD

So with all of this said and done, happy holidays!

[melliae]

Refraction Railway Line #1 Abnormalities Part 1 (Analysis)

Madness.

Simply put, there’s no better way to describe the first Refraction Railway ever released, and not without good reason. We can’t really expect a forced “patchwork” made of several possibilities coming from 3 Sinners to make sense, can we? Project Moon surely just threw whatever they thought interesting to the wall to see what stuck.

However…

“Embracing the madness is a necessary step for humans to move forward.” - Lunacy’s Flavour Text.

I stated in my second analysis of RR2, in Sign of Roses’ section, that accepting madness is to admit the limitations of the conscious mind, that things are just so vast and complex that there’s no way for us to fully understand them, let alone predict them. Life’s essence is rooted in uncertainty, and so is humanity. To separate them is to mutilate and destroy both, and to deny the life that madness wishes for is to increase its power over you.

So… who knows? Maybe there’s something there, a thread we can’t fathom, just like how life is. To try to say something with utter confidence and “rationality” is just as irrational as the opposite. The only true difference is your own disposition to admit and be conscious about it.

And thus, honoring its name, let’s try to find meaning in that which is unknowable and uncertain by definition.

“A symbol always presupposes that the chosen expression is the best possible description or formulation of a relatively unknown fact, which is none the less known to exist or is postulated as existing.” - Psychological Types.

Misery Loves Company

“In any case, we now know why dragging on doesn't do us any favor. I felt like I was being dragged deeper into the swamp of gloom as the fight went on.” - Ishmael, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Glupo is one of the strangest Abnormalities ever, but not because of its meaning, no. Its weirdness solely comes from the effects of its EGOs and EGO gifts, which literally have nothing to do with the actual mechanics of its fight, notwithstanding the actual logic of the former two. A weird little guy, all in all.

Anyway, moving into its meaning… Really, there’s no way to get it wrong: a Trauma Abnormality with skills that are exclusively Gloom-based, and a blue resin defined as Gloom itself that fills the arena and escapes from its body once its eyes are broken. To say that Blubbering Toad represents anything but depression (or any other deep-seated sorrow) is wishing to “not fit in” on purpose.

However, if you pay attention to some details present in its Mirror Dungeon Encounter (not battle) and Observation Logs, it becomes obvious that Glupo isn’t a representation of depression per se, but of a certain perspective over it: the Abnormality doesn’t just want to wallow in its misery, but also to be heard and seen.

“An eyeball belonging to the toad was on its tongue. When we picked it up, it blinked its other eye at us before going on its way. Was that its thanks for lending an ear?” - Abnormality Encounter (“Sit and Wait” option).

This necessity for someone to at least hear it is seen many times, both during its actual fight and its Encounter, with the Sinners and Dante wondering whether they should interrupt Glupo’s crying or let it finish. And considering that it heals back some or many of the deployed IDs to full SP in case you fail the check of the “mimic the cry” option shown below, which is determined only by the average SP of the team, it’s obvious what it truly wants.

“‘Cruh-huh, croohoo.’ The toad makes a different noise as if to answer. It sounds like an affirmative reply. It extracts its long blue tongue, snatching a person from our group. Sometime later, they walked back out of its mouth. They seemed drenched… in moisture, or gloom.”

No matter what Glupo does or to what place it moves, its despair will chase it forever, for the true crux of its problem lies inside—the “gloom resin” that fills its body and that melts its own eyes. It’s completely fruitless to get angry at it and fight off its sadness, and so it’s to comfort it lovingly, because Glupo simply knows such things won’t work. Its essence is that of Gloom manifested after all, an endlessly dark dampness that crushes and taints everything it touches, and one that the Toad doesn’t have any way to free itself from.

Without escape and without rest, Glupo’s only solace as an Abnormality resides in others’ acknowledgment of its pain, that someone will hear its cries one day and maybe—just maybe—will remain by its side in an attempt not to make it better, but as an attentive, non-judgemental ear.

“I wonder what would've happened we just waiting until it's finished crying? No, I'm not saying we should try it. I don't see it being efficient, either. It's just... I remember someone doing the same for me a long time ago, and it helped me back then.” - Ishmael, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

The sadness and emptiness inside one’s heart may never disappear, and all the attempts at soothing it may be fruitless. But the short-lived relief that’s born at the moment your visceral cries are heard—that you and your suffering are finally seen—is so much more precious than any other thing, because it means that someone is willing to share the pain you thought was unbearable, and we all know that the only way no one will have to cry ever again is to share our curses. The Abnormality is no exception, willing to help you to its own detriment once you lend it the companionship it yearns for.

Yet, it’s because of that very same dependence on people that Glupo becomes vulnerable to the thorns that poison relationships too, the bitterness that leads people to resentfully think that someone else is receiving the attention they think they themselves need, and the resulting self-pity and doubt over one’s predicament. It’s very different from the seeming indifference the Toad holds for the Wrath, Lust, and even Pride of the Sinners, which in turn reinforces the empathy it has shown during all its apparitions and that it earnestly hopes will be returned to it.

Depression surely is a terrifying thing, isn’t it? Melancholy, sorrow, agony, despair, emptiness… Being so deep in the abyss of such emotions, wishing more than anything for someone—anyone—to be by your side, isn’t something I want other people to experience. But if there’s no other way, if you have already ventured too far into the dark cave, then it’s important to remember something: humans are not meant to be alone; even in desolate silence, companionship is nothing short of salvation.

A "Leashed" Dog

“This creature was like a living battery. Collecting lightning in its body, it used the power to fuel itself. Alas, its usage of the lightning's energy was not for a self-motivated purpose such as pursuit of strength; the accumulated electric forces appeared to dictate its motion, giving me the impression that it was the will of the sky that it followed.” - Yi Sang, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Have any of you seen the movie Frankenstein? The one that showed how electricity was the element that animated the Creature? Yes? Perfect, then, because everyone should know such a thing never happened in the original book. The “electricity” was just a cinematic adaptation of the “vital principle” that Dr. Frankenstein discovered, akin to God’s “secret”. However, for Project Moon, there seems to be no difference between the two things as implied by Yi Sang.

But then one must ask what “divine” will or power is represented through said electricity. For that, we have to look at two elements that I’ve already gone over in my previous analyses.

The first one is related to another Abnormality with purple lightning, Dreaming Electric Sheep. There’s not much to comment on here thanks to how obvious the symbolism is, but I want to emphasize something about its environment: the lightning comes from the dark and chaotic sky, from the “liminal world” that the Sheep lives in. This world is our second element, being an adequate symbol for the source of all dreams and vitality: the realm of the dreaming, unconscious God, the source of the “spirit" or psychological spark that enlivens the mind (and body).

Regarding the nature of the unconscious mind… I’ll have to explain it once more since it’ll be important later on. But basically, the unconscious, as theorized by Carl Jung, is divided into two levels: a personal layer, proper to the individual, and a deeper, more collective one that underlies the former. While they do have their own peculiarities and differences, their point in common is that they are the matrix of life, the source of all “psychic” energy and change, as well as their limitations and possibilities. To say that the domain of the divine is the unconscious, while blasphemous, isn’t inaccurate, yet one must take care not to assume they are “asleep” or—even worse—“dead” just because of said unconsciousness.

“As an autonomous psychic factor, Wotan produces effects in the collective life of a people and thereby reveals his own nature. For Wotan has a peculiar biology of his own, quite apart from the nature of man. It is only from time to time that individuals fall under the irresistible influence of this unconscious factor. [...] It seizes everything in its path and overthrows everything that is not firmly rooted. When the wind blows it shakes everything that is insecure, whether without or within.” - Carl Jung, Essay on Wotan.

The wilderness and madness of the “divine” is best seen with the Erlking, who is identified as the Devil by Nelly, and what is the Devil but another name for the stormy unconscious personified by Wotan-Odin? What I meant is that the Erlking—Heathcliff himself—was the tempest that tore apart Wuthering Heights personified, the culmination of the accumulated pain engraved in the very mansion and without which its residents couldn’t survive—the master, the scapegoat, the “source” of all evil. He was the manifestation of the spark and winds that pushed everyone and allowed them to live, despite being no different from corpses only held together by the resentment that flourished deep within them.

At the end, no one should be prideful enough to think of themselves as friends or equals of the “heavens”. At most, we are just toys and slaves of our superiors’ unpredictable wants. Such is the logic behind Alleyway Watchdog, who has given up entirely on its autonomy and dignity as an individual being, breathing and living to the whims of its unconscious master—succumbing to its own smallness. Naturally, I don’t think I have to point out how a watchdog connects to this idea, right?

With that part clear, it’s obvious why the Abnormality has both Envy and Sloth skills, with a body at the complete mercy of that psychological and capricious lightning received by the Telepole. Thus, more curious are its Pride and Lust skills, “Howl” and “Claw” respectively, that point to how succumbing to its own drives and instincts was something the Watchdog did on its own. There is no grandiose sense of duty behind all the mutilations, pain, and discharges, only resignation and loss of all self-control, becoming no more than a devil that lacks any sort of shame even during its most beastly expressions.

Overindulgence and loss of control are also present in Fairy Gentleman and Sign of Roses by that matter. But whereas the Fairy still has a humanoid identity and form, enough to reign over itself momentarily, the human effigy in the other two Abnormalities is beyond disfigured, near the brink of extinction, as it is representative of the collapse of rationality. And while Sign of Roses is a manifestation of a twisted divine love, Watchdog is the epitome of submission towards said “love”, lacking any semblance of self-determination and responsibility for just as God created and commands you, the “torment” acts through and seizes you without asking.

Towards the heavens and God, there’s no answer or question, only blind obedience. You just have to look at Faust and her relation with the Gesellschaft, the temptation offered by Mephistopheles the Devil, who originally presented himself as a black dog in Goethe’s novel. Or Sancho and her nature as a Bloodfiend that demands her to follow the Bloodstream, to the point she wasn’t able to stop herself when commanded to leave La Manchaland (though Rocinante did help with that). And I don’t think I have to go over Heathcliff’s case after my explanation about the Erlking, though I find it noteworthy to mention just how typical his portrayal of emotions as a storm truly is—nothing more classical than a Byronic hero!

And to end the analysis, I want to highlight how the Abnormality’s weakness to Pride and resistance to both Gloom and Envy show that, again, the Abnormality accepted this on its own, without complaint or sadness for its nature as mere marionette for something “higher” and more “primal”; it refuses to stand up and claim its own being, like most would have done. In contrast, the Body’s and Telepole’s particular weaknesses to Sloth reflect once more his inability to refuse the heavens’ whims, while the vulnerability to Wrath of the Person and Head does so with the classical trope of raging against the above, awakening the squashed soul with its own kind of “vital spark”.

At this point, I don’t think a final remark is needed. I’ve already gone over this topic a couple of times before, and the question remains the same: is it truly worth it to completely relinquish oneself to the soul and its inner storm, to be no more than a rabid beast that doesn’t know any better?

Please, Don’t Call It “Dumbass”

“A smile is displayed on the terminal, but in the robot’s gestures, you feel a plea for help.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Okay, I give up with this one. I don’t have the slightest idea of what the Robot means. The only thing I know is that it wants to be anywhere but in its “town”, so please, don’t call him “dumbass” :(

…

Okay, in all seriousness, I have an idea of what KQE stands for, but the lack of EGOs and the vague nature of the “town” makes the Abnormality difficult to analyze. Still, if I had to put my life on the line, then…

“<There must have been an issue with the tour program.> After printing those words, the robot stood still for a while. Just when you started to wonder if it was broken, the terminal flashed. <No response after multiple requests to the Administrator.> <System Error. System Error.> <Rebooting…> After that, it kept throwing up complicated words on a blue screen.” - Abnormality Encounter (“Tell it you took a tour” option).

The City is still using Windows

Abandonment. Complete and utter isolation after being transformed into an unrecognizable monster and used as such.

However, even though the “administrator” and “townsfolk” have completely abandoned it alongside the “town”, KQE continues to fulfill its role and protect the latter all alone. The Heart of the Townsfolk that appears once the Robot’s claw is avoided? Don’t be fooled by the name; the Heart is its own, as they do not only share the same traits and Sin affinities but also have their HP bars connected thanks to the Heart’s passive, which causes KQE to take damage and become staggered once it’s destroyed. All of this means that the Abnormality is the last of the “townsfolk”, the only one who makes sure to keep the forsaken ghost town functioning in spite of its agony and despair.

“The claw was a pretty big bother to get around, but when we cut into that thing somehow, that tin can stopped moving! Haha, that sure gave us a breather. …Well, it might be because the heart belonged to the robot.” - Gregor, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Another interesting detail to note is how the (only) trait KQE and the Heart have, Mechanical Amalgam, is only shared with the MultiCrack Office IDs and enemies. And if we go by Heathcliff’s Uptie story of said Office below, then…

“Grabbing piping-hot items without hesitation. Walking for hours upon hours without ever getting tired. It was those little things, those minor details, that have been making the child feel a sense of alienation ever since he replaced most of his body with prosthetic parts. [...] Days rolling, clicking by like cogs in a machine. The child was merely growing used to that kind of life. The life in the City.”

Mind you, I’m not sure how applicable this loss of emotions is to other MultiCrack Fixers due Sasha’s attitude during MotWE, but it’s still worth considering how reminiscent of KQE’s situation it is. Besides, this kind of abstract meaning is somewhat in line with the rest of Abnormalities that share the “06” classification code: Steam Transport Machine, whose existence is basically the past given physical form; 1.76 MHz, a Trauma Abnormality that stems from PTSD (likely from the Smoker War veterans); and and Nothing There, an Original Abnormality that represents the emptiness that has assaulted the city, one of the many consequences of the “sickness of the mind”. All of this, unironically, tells us a lot about the Abnormality:

Speaking about Nothing There, it’s extremely important to highlight how its code is almost identical to KQE’s. This was likely intentional on Project Moon’s part; they want us to connect the emptiness or alienation that the two of them represent.

Thus, the true nature of KQE, as per the rest of "06" Abnormalities, is abstract, not physical. More specifically, in a very similar way to NT, it likely originated as a “void” or some sort of abstract thing that people filled with flesh and machinery.

Finally, considering it’s a mechanical amalgam in the same way as the MultiCrack Office Fixers (and the “heretics” pursued by N Corp.’s Inquisition), the effects of technology has on the human body and psyche is a fundamental part of its meaning as well.

While Project Moon has been mostly impartial regarding the overall idea of prosthetics and technological implants, it’s obvious they aren’t blind to the debates over them and their possible consequences. The MultiCrack Office is just the most recent case “against”, but prior to them was Canto III (sort of), and even before it was the Brotherhood of Iron in LoR. All of them point both at the real and perceived risks of technological transhumanism, which are the basis of KQE… Or better said, technological transhumanism is the consequence of KQE’s meaning—an amalgam of flesh and technology created to satisfy the emptiness inside to no avail, the result being a clunky, misshapen, and simply useless monstrosity.

Basically, what the Abnormality tells you is that the root of your (psychological) suffering doesn’t lie in the outside, but within your own soul. It’s not about trying to imitate someone else like Nothing There or to modify your body like KQE, because in both cases you are simply running away from your fundamental essence, from the thing that rightfully can be called your own self. You just need to see how miserable KQE is, with all of its skills being either Gloom- or Envy-based, to know that altering your body to soothe your fears isn’t really the path to happiness (especially if those modifications are old as fuck).

Now, to finish things here, let’s go over KQE’s last relevant element: its Sin resistances. The first ones correspond to its two weaknesses, Gloom and Lust, which imply that KQE is weak to… despair and love, as if its entire Encounter in the MDs didn’t show already how deep in pain and agony the Abnormality is. Anyway, moving to the resistances as such, we have both Wrath and Envy, which are quite self-explanatory, aren’t they? KQE has already gone beyond the “despair event horizon”, and none of your resentment, rejection, and anger will ever compare to the hell it dug for itself.

… Okay, maybe KQE does deserve to be called a “dumbass” somewhat.

Post-Commentary

Ahh, finally I can post this. I really wasn't lying with KQE being hard to analyze. I was stuck on it for like 1 or 2 weeks because I had problems trying to just understand what it was about. Really, I'm still not convinced of what I wrote, so if you have any idea, share it! Anything is welcome here xD

Now, regarding the organization of the posts, I was originally planning to publish the analysis of the 5 Abnos together... But Headless Ichthys happened, and I don't doubt MFE is going to be as dense as the Fish. So to avoid making an even worse wall of text, I decided to divide them in 3 and 2. I'll likely use this for any post with 5 Abnos from now on (otherwise, it'll be half and half).

Anyway, moving into some curiosities, something I didn't comment was about the alternating resistances to Gloom and Wrath of Glupo's eyes. It's a reference to Ishmael’s commentary at the beginning of the third Log: the left eye is dedicated to physical damage, therefore making it resistant to “physical attacks” (Wrath) and weak to “mental anguish” (Gloom); the right eye, focused on sanity loss, is the opposite.

Other interesting thing is how there seems to be a parallel between Glupo, the Tearful Thing, and STNOWC, if we go by the quote of Sinclair’s Cavernous Wailing. I’m not sure of the implications, or if it even was on purpose, but it’s worth highlighting.

Other thing I find curious was how Telepole's theme fits with Ishmael. More parallels between her and Heathcliff, I suppose.

Also, it’s funny Telepole always uses Wrath and Envy - resentment against others and oneself - with a third Sin affinity, which changes according to the Sinner: Gloom for Don, to represent how her deep sorrow over what happened with La Manchaland and original Don Quixote (unconsciously) guided her; and so is Lust for Heathcliff, embodying his (multi-)universal love for Catherine. Faust uses Lust too, and much more than Heathcliff by that matter…

And as last thing since it was released long afterward I finished Watchdog's section, but the check affinities of its new Encounter are pretty obvious: Pride and Envy because, seriously, those telepoles look goddamn fine! Oh, and they are kind of wasted in the dog anyway.

So, now with all finished, and ignoring the obvious disclaimer of spelling, grammar, and different interpretations, let's go for the 2nd part!

(Please kill me)

[melliae]

Persona 3 timeline before the events of the game.

The distant past

A star eater(later named Nyx) crashes into Earth. Her body becomes the moon and fragments of it fall as Plumes of Dusk. Her psyche gets sealed inside of rapidly evoving creatues, creating the Collective Unconciousness and putting a limit on their lifespans.

???

The leader of the Kirijo Group, Kouetsu Kirijo, finds a Plume of Dusk, sparking his interest in finding out about Shadows. He plans to use their power to create a time machine.

The Kirijo Groups excavates documents of the times in history the Fall almost happened.

1989-1990(1982?)

The Kirijo Group establishes Gekkoukan High School.

1991

5/8: Mitsuru Kirijo is born.

8/11: Shinjiro Aragaki is born.

9/22: Akihiko Sanada is born.

1992

10/9: Yukari Takeba is born.

1992-3

?/5: Hero is born.

1993

1/16: Junpei Iori is born

12/23: Fuuka Yamagishi is born.

1991-1994

Akihiko Sanada's parents both die. He and his sister Miki are taken in to an orphanage.

Akihiko Sanada and Shinjiro Aragaki become good friends.

1992-1995(1 year after previous)

Both Akihiko Sanada and Miki are about to be adopted by a wealthy family.

The orphanage catches fire. Miki doesn't survive.

Akihiko Sanada gets adopted.

1995

The power supply in Iwatodai gets expanded.

The Kirijo Group establishes the Ergonomics research lab to study Shadows.

Eiichiro Takeba is appointed head researcher of the project.

The Maiyodo antiques shop owner joins the project, analysing the documents.

???

The Cathedral of Time is developed to dispose of uncontrollable Shadows.

Anti-Shadow weapons start development.

1997-1998

Kouetsu Kirijo's goal becomes to create Death to enact the Fall.

The antiques shop owner leaves the project.

1998

6/24: Ken Amada is born.

1999

4/20: 5th generation anti-Shadow weapon Labrys is first activated.

2000

2/?: Work is started on the 7th generation anti-Shadow weapon Aigis.

9/10: 7th generation anti-Shadow weapon Aigis is first activated.

The project to create Death is interrupted by Eiichiro Takeba, splintering it into 13 pieces.

Tartarus and the Dark Hour are created.

Aigis and Death fight on the Moonlight Bridge, and Death is sealed inside of Hero.

???

Takeharu Kirijo becomes the head of the Kirijo Group.

Shuji Ikutsuki uses the chaos of the incident to rise up the ranks of the Kirijo Group.

Shuji Ikutsuki becomes the chairman of Gekkoukan.

2001-2002

Mitsuru Kirijo summons a Persona, becoming the first example of a human Persona user the Kirijo Group has.

???

Shuji Ikutsuki secretly conducts research on children(including Mitsuru) to try and get more Persona users. Some of the results of these experiments are the evoker, Persona surpressants, and Theurgy.

Three of the children manage to escape.

The experiments are deemed a failure, and the children that are still alive are sent to explore Tartarus.

???

Kurosawa attempts to investigate the incident, delving in too deep.

Kurosawa is assigned to Iwatodai, and investigates the orphanage fire.

???

A hotel is rennovated into a dorm for combating Shadows.

2007

4/?: Akihiko Sanada, Mitsuru Kirijo, and Shinjiro Aragaki enroll in Gekkoukan High School.

The Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad is formed.

10/4: Shinjiro Aragaki's Persona kills Ken Amada's mother. It's covered up as a traffic accident.

Shinjiro Aragaki leaves SEES.

Sources:

Persona 3 Reload

Persona Club P3

Persona 3 FES Official Fanbook

Persona 3 Portable 100 Mysteries

[melliae]

The Moon and Buddhism (Persona 3)

Nothing long or expansive here; just a small thought that occurred to me while reading some things in twitter X.

Did you know the full Moon is an important piece of buddhist symbolism? As far as I know, it stands for the clarity derived from enlightenment, the "emptiness" that allows arhats (one who has achieved nirvana) to act as mirrors of the world at large, fully understand and reflecting everything as it's without attachment.

On the other hand, the Moon as a whole can also act as a symbol of the transitoriness of reality.

Great Master Ma was unwell. The temple superintendent asked him, “Teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days?” The great master said, “Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha.”

Above is a small koan based on the death of the zen master, Ma. It's based in a small excerpt of the Sutra of Buddha's Names (which I couldn't find, pitifully), which explains that the Sun-Face Buddha is everlasting and timeless, while the Moon-Face Buddha is ephemeral and bound to samsara.

Furthermore, the full Moon is also related with the birth and death of the Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha. Thus, the change and transformation are, ironically, constants within the illusory world, bounding even the mortal incarnations of all Buddhas (which yes, it's the meaning of the koan).

And with that, water enters, which is understood as a metaphorical mirror just like the Moon, as well as the purity and calmness inherent to "empty" world. The Bodhisattva Guanyin or Avalokiteshvara also reflects this on her common list of symbols and iconography, but that's more of a trivia.

There's no need to explain why Nyx is the Moon, nor why the (male) protagonist is the water (thanks, Reload). So, then... where does Ryoji fall? If he's neither the Moon nor the water/sea, then the only option is that he's the reflection of the Moon within the water, the illusion itself that arises from emptiness.

Ryoji was never intended to last. He couldn't. The entirety of him was an illusion that couldn't keep going, because it'd betray his existence as "conditioned" being, that he was a reflection of the ever-changing Moon.

And boy, he sure was aware that his being was just an illusion, another "grain of sand" in the desert that's tossed around by the winds.

But that doesn't mean Ryoji was meaningless. Far from it, since it was him who personified the protagonist's attachment to life, the "golden seed" incubated within that acted as a gift to the world - the possibility to delay the Fall.

Normally, the Moon's reflection in the water doesn't affect either, just as the world doesn't affect its own emptiness. But it seems this one was an exception.

[melliae]

I love all the Social Links having a unique Arcana and all the romancable characters being The Lovers sounds like a recipe for disaster but. We were ROBBED of the shop owners having Social Links. Emperess antique shop lady. Justice weapon shop owner. HIGH PRIESTESS ELIZABETH.... Koromaru's still strength though.

[melliae]

Who is the "prince"? (P3 spoilers)

Ikutsuki mentions the prince being the one that makes the Fall happen, being crowned the king of the world after.

This is what Ikutsuki believes himself to be.

Ikutsuki also mentions Death, knowing that it's the combined Shadow, thus making the prince and Death seperate entities.

This Fragmentory Memoir seems to contradict that, though, mentioning the prince will be born on the same day as Death. Ikutsuki, being a reasercher on the experiments, is too old.

However, this one mentions the prince being the one to gather Shadows(thus creating Death), meaning they're different entities again. It makes sense how Ikutsuki thought he was the prince then, since he's the one who made SEES fight the Shadows.

The Memoirs also mention that Ikutsuki's interpretation of the prophecy is wrong. This is consistant with Persona Club P3.

But, what is Ikutsuki wrong about? The sacrifice of SEES is an obvious one, being mentioned by the Club Book as well. It doesn't seem to be needed at all. It's not too clear, but Ikutsuki seems to think that the Fall would happen right after he sacrificed SEES, while in reality it wouldn't happen until a few months later. The Memoirs call it the documents(of times the Fall almost happened in history), while Ikutsuki calls it the prophecy. Since the Memoirs mention the prince being born after Ikutsuki was, this is another thing. Another strange thing is the king. Ikutsuki thinks that's what the prince becomes after the Fall, but no concious being exists then, so that can't be right. The Memoirs instead just mention the king saving them, not ruling at all.

Death's identity is obvious, but all this has been showing is who the prince isn't.

Well, we need someone who gathers Shadows, was born 10 years ago, is similar/close to Death, and saves the world.

Hero fits. He's the leader of SEES, taking an active role in defeating the Arcana Shadows. He also carried Death for 10 years, being the one to awaken the Shadows in the first place. Saving the world is obvious, and even fits with his ascent from the prince to the king(being when he creates the Great Seal, also fitting Ikutsuki mentioning him ruling after the Fall). The only thing is he was born too early, but I think that can be explained as a more symbolic birth than his actual one. The moment he becomes the prince isn't when he was born, but when he gets Death sealed inside of him, that also being when he gets the Wild Card and becomes connected to the Fall.

[melliae]

The people whose world you swore to improve will backstab you. The love of your life will wage war against you. Your remaining friends will grow distant from you. But. You will always have that vaguely sinister rabbitshark administrator who may or may not be scheming your downfall.

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Some Alchemical Symbolism (Canto VII Part 3 Spoilers)

While the title of the "Knight of the White Moon" didn't elicitate anything on me, intuition or otherwise, since she (?) was a figure already present in Don Quixote novel (despite her main blue motif, which is supposed to be the color of the quintessence, or philosophical stone), a couple of scenes catched my attention.

"Albedo: the pure, white stage in the opus, also known as the albificatio. The albedo occurs after the blackened matter, the putrefied body of the metal or matter for the Stone, lying dead at the bottom of the alembic, has been washed to whiteness by the mercurial waters or fire. [...] The albedo is symbolized by all things pure, white or silver, some of which are: *Luna (the white *queen), the *moon (because the matter has attained the perfect state of receptivity, ready to be imprinted by form), [...]" - A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery

The color white had already been present before, particularly with the Golden Bough recovered from Wuthering Heights, with its text being white even (despite the charred black color it had in the credits), but this is the first time PM hit us so gratuitosly with it. For beginners, despite the common association of vampires and night, there isn't any mention of the moon in regards to bloodfiends. It could also be some sort of representation for Bari's influence, but another fragment of the previous book leads me to another conclusion...

"The clear moonlight of the albedo leads the adept out of the black night of the soul (the *nigredo) into the dawning of consciousness, heralding the advent of full consciousness symbolized by the midday ‘ sun at the final red stage of the opus, the *rubedo."

And really, in simple terms, the entire Canto can be described as Don Quixote/Sancho "waking up" and thus developing her consciousness.

In fact, even the coagulation techniques from Don Quixote can be tied to alchemical symbolism as well, since it's one of the two main process during the alchemical Art: solve et coagula, or dissolve and, well, coagulate.

Firstly, the process of dissolution is commonly associated to water for obvious reasons, and is commonly understood as the step by which the working material is reduded to the prima materia, the primal stuff which is manipulated and refined by the alchemist. This can be traced into Sancho drinking from the Lethe, "dissolving" her identity into an infatile, primitive mindset, upon Bari's direction... which makes a lot of sense!

"The flower is also a symbol for the ‘ philosopher’s stone. The matter of the Stone is often compared to a tree or plant, because it is a growing, organic thing (see *philosophical tree). The beautiful colours which appear in the vessel at the fullest perfection of the work are represented as flowers blossoming from the plant of the Stone."

Bari is blue, the color of quintessence or the final union of the other four elemental essences, and searching for a particular flower. Xichun is very interesting in finding her, in search of the river that can potentially give immortality to the elders of her family.

Anyway, following with the second process, that of coagulation, it's commonly associated with fire, red and weapons, as they are the only method through which the volatile spirits can be fixated in place.

In the first image, at the left, we have the king being pierced by a personification of Mercurius, which can be understood both as the guide of the Great Work itself and its end result. Now, do I have to remind you who brought the Golden Bough to La Manchaland? Sansón is deeply related, one way or another, to Bari, after all.

And by that matter, Sancho's spear acquired a golden and bright light during the last quick-time event, similar to the colors of IDs' extraction. This, in turn, means that Sancho used "fire" to kill Quixote at the end, burning and cleansing the corrupted, rotten matter so "it" - she - could reborn.

"Blood: [...] The alchemical blood appears in various forms throughout the opus. It first occurs as the blood of death and sacrifice at the opening of the opus, when the old body of the metal (or outmoded state of being) is dissolved or killed in order to be renewed. The alchemical principle of death and putrefaction is based on the idea that nature could only be renewed after first dying away"

Naturally, the correlations aren't 1:1, so I can't be fully sure if all this was on purpose or just purely accident. But if this holds any truth, then it means than Limbus Company has officially moved from the Nigredo stage into the Albedo stage of the Magnum Opus, maybe in accordance to Dante's clock hands (but again, I'm not sure).

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Uploaded the npc dialogue to gamefaqs. I'll probably finish getting the object dialogue before fully replaying the game so I can make sure both of them are accurate at once.

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And look at everything that can come from putting taiyaki in the fridge.

…!? The taiyaki I put in the fridge a long time ago looks completely different now… Looks like I left it in the fridge for too long. I should be more careful next time…

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is gone… A note has been left in the spot where I left the taiyaki… Note: "To whoever had that taiyaki in here. Sorry, I couldn't help myself…" "My bad! So here, I'll trade you some cup ramen. -Junpei"

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is gone… …A note is in its place. Looks like it's from the chairman… Letter from Ikutsuki: "Dear [FE F1 81], I apologize for eating your taiyaki." "I had bought the same kind, but I forgot that I had put mine somewhere else…" "I'll make sure to buy another one for you. In the meantime, please accept this as an apology." "P.S. I hope you don't find my love for taiyaki… FISHY."

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is chilled… There's something with a sticky note on it next to the taiyaki… Sticky Note: "To [FE F1 81]-kun. For all your hard work on your club activities! -Yukari" It's from Yukari. I'll gladly accept it…

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is gone… A note has been left in the spot where I left the taiyaki… Note: "To [FE F1 81]. Sorry, I accidentally ate your taiyaki thinking it was for me." "Take this in exchange. -Sanada"

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is chilled… …Next to it are some snacks with a note attached. Note: "I got these as a gift. Anyone can have them. -Aragaki" Looks like no one has claimed them yet. I guess I'll take one for now…

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is gone… A note has been left behind instead… Note: "I ate the taiyaki. It's probably yours, right [FE F1 82]?" "Taiyaki as a late night snack is the best! Thanks for chilling it for me!" "Just kidding. Sorry for eating it. Take this instead and let's call it even, alright? -Junpei"

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is chilled… …There is a card tucked under it. Card: "Dear [FE F1 81]-san. Merry Christmas from Amada." "If you'd like, please take some of this chocolate too." "Someone from the shrine gave these to Koromaru. But since dogs can't eat chocolate…" "It seemed like Koromaru wanted you to have them, so here you go." "(I took one for myself too.)" I'll gladly accept it…

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is chilled… There's a note on a basket next to the taiyaki… Note: "To everyone in the dorm, If you'd like, each of you can take one." "I was given these by an acquaintance when I was taking my college entrance exams." "Please remember to rehydrate while doing your own studying. -Mitsuru" There are bottled drinks in the basket. I'll gladly accept one…

The taiyaki I put inside here earlier is chilled… There's a large number of [FE F5 84 02 01 26 01 02 01 02 01] next to it. Card: "Dear all, Here's a little something for you." "Let's get through January 31st no matter what! -Fuuka" I'll gladly accept one…

[melliae]

Man, look at how much personality is in these little bits of dialogue.

It's the list of residents… No new names have been added recently…

It's the list of residents… My name is also listed…

It's the list of residents… Junpei's name was added to the list in bold letters.

It's the list of residents… Fuuka's name is written beautifully on the list.

It's the list of residents… Aigis's name is added in perfectly printed writing.

It's the list of residents… "Ken Amada" is written in full Kanji…

It's the list of residents… A paw print has been added. I wonder if it's Koromaru's…

It's the list of residents… Aragaki's name was already written before mine…

It's the list of residents… It has ten names written on it. The dorm is getting more lively…

It's the list of residents… It has ten names written on it… ……

It's the list of residents… The names of my friends who have sworn to protect everyone's future are listed… The final battle we are about to face… I'll give it my all together with them…

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All of the Nyxists' P3R dialogue

妄信的な男子生徒: 救���の時は刻一刻と近付いている。君はそれを知っているかね？世界に舞い降りる普遍の『意志』が、我らを救ってくださるのだよ。君もその汚れた心身を信心にて浄化し、慎ましくその時を待ちたまえ。

妄信的な男子生徒: あの人は素晴らしい御方だ。何せ我らの苦悶の全てを言い当て、我らの苦悩の全てを代言されて…そして我らを大いなるニュクスの御許へと導いてくださったのだから。この大らかな気持ち、君らに伝え切れないのが残念で仕方ないよ。

妄信的な男性: この世界には色々と『不浄』が多い。これは救いを妨げる重大な要因だ。このままでは、たとえ救いの時が訪れても、世界は善い救いを得ないだろう。だから我々は天命を授かった。この救いに向けて、世界の準備を進めよと。そう、我々の行いは重要かつ偉大なのだ。間違っても邪魔などするなよ。

妄信的な男性: 虚空に耳を澄まし、また己の心身をも虚空に同化させれば、そこに音が聴こえる。それこそ、大いなるニュクス様の音。鼓動と、息吹と、囁き声なのだ。そして救済の時が近い事を感じれば、自然と心は辛苦から解放され、安らかになる。しかし憐れにも世の中にはまだまだ現世に固執し、ニュクス様を疑う救い難い者たちが多い…そういう奴らは、心の中で辛苦を真紅に燃やし、死んで灰になるまで悶え続けるのだ。

妄信的な女性: 私達による張り紙やペイントは決して無意味ではないわ。こうする事で、因果律の流れにおける世界の存在様式を変異させ…『世界』と『救済』が、より善き調和を得て、また世界が救済に満たされる事を狙う…すなわち、ここにおいて、世界は救済を待つ大いなる空虚な器と化すのよ。

妄信的な女性: やがて母なるニュクスは世界に降臨し、大いなる救いをもたらすわ。そ���は現世の全ての価値観を超越した、すなわち形而上における至上の救済。私達、世界に囚われている全ての子供らは、母の腕によって優しく抱擁され…静かに眠りながら、永劫の夢を見るの。万物を、溶かして混ぜた、姿無き夢をね。そしてニュクスの揺りかごで全てが消え散り、この救済は成就されるのよ。

妄信的なおばちゃん: 今の世の中、何かと暗い話ばっかだけど、心配する事なんかないよ。何たって、もうすぐこの世界は救われるんだって言うんだからね。いやいやいやいや、眉唾なんてのは言いっこ無しだよ？ワタシだって最初は信じてなかったんだから。

妄信的なおばちゃん: ニュクス様ってのが世界を救ってくれるんだってねぇ。ワタシも最近は不幸続きでさぁ、人生いよいよ嫌になってたのよ。でもそんな矢先にニュクス様を知ってねぇ、そしたら嘘みたいに心が穏やか。どうだい？アンタも信じてみないかい？いやいやいやいや、眉唾なんてのは言いっこ無しだよ？ワタシだって最初は信じてなかったんだから。

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In another timeline, Tower of God is actually about the Ten Family climb and we’re all getting into shipping wars about Jahad x Arlene and V x Arlene

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All of the Fortune-Teller's P3R dialogue(minus the bit about the Tartarus changes).

Fortune-Teller: Hmm… I feel a strange aura around you… In my mind, I see visions… People's pasts, presents, and futures… For most people, I see clearly and far ahead… But you are different… Your future is filled with both blinding light and stagnant shadow… I can see but a small portion… What lies beyond that is shrouded in mystery… What a peculiar fate you carry… Now, young man… Bearer of light and shadow… If you wish to know more about the near future… come and talk to me… I will share my limited visions with you…

Fortune-Teller: Now, tell me… What shall it be?

Fortune-Teller: Would you like to know your fortune?

{Yes, please.}

Fortune-Teller: Then let us begin… Fortune-Teller: Let us hope that you find fortune in your destiny...

{No, thanks.}

Fortune-Teller: Come back any time…

Fortune-Teller: You have pulled fate's trigger… The bullet passes through many, heading directly to its target… What target that may be, however, is unknown to me… You must find that out for yourself…

Fortune-Teller: A long rail under the empty sky… On it stands youth in disarray… You seem to live a tumultuous life… What do you see at the end of the rail…?

Fortune-Teller: I feel another change… A strong wind blows across the world, sending a blue flower's petals into the air… How will you interpret this wind…? As a weak and frail breeze, or a brave and mighty gust…?

Fortune-Teller: It seems you have made another friend… A late-night affair, unseen by all… A bond made in the darkness, where the shadows lurk… The result of this bond is too distant to be seen… The only way to know how it will end is to see for yourself…

Fortune-Teller: Shadows within shadows… Many shadows crawl amidst the immense shadow… Twelve shadows feasting upon the heart of man… Monstrous, yet dignified… They gather around you… Beware…

Fortune-Teller: Guns scattered in the billowing shadow… Arms reach in to grasp them… Their muzzles pointed at different shadows; their triggers pulled on different occasions… Where do you point your gun? What will occur as a result of its firing…? Can you collect all the guns that have been scattered…?

Fortune-Teller: I see a girl… She stands between light and dark, life and simulacrum… She falters… as if not knowing on which side she belongs… Hm…? She is trying to tell you something… Can you hear her words…?

Fortune-Teller: Three blades close in on you, tearing the shadow apart… A brave howl confronts them… Things seem to be stirring around you once again… There is more… In the depths of the abyss, another blade watches you closely…

Fortune-Teller: A dark past sinking into the deep shadow… It enfolds the people who are involved and captures them… Who are the ones that are trapped…? Hard though I try to see them, my vision blurs, and everything becomes obscure… Can you see…?

Fortune-Teller: The golden sky spreads outside the window… A girl holding a world of white in her slender arms… A boy struggles, searching to find meaning in himself and the girl… But the conclusion has not yet been written… It is entrusted to the girl and her white world… You must stand firmly, and watch things unfold…

Fortune-Teller: After the storm comes not calm, but another trial… Do not despair, however… I sense strong forces at your side, even more so than before… Be brave, and confront this hardship with unshakeable resolve…

Fortune-Teller: A light has disappeared… The shadow grows darker… But the lost light's will lives on in a strong, new light… You have reached a turning point… The light has begun to challenge the shadow… Your time is coming… soon…

Fortune-Teller: A strong wind blows across the world, sending a blue flower's petals into the air… The flower discovered the world, made friends to protect, and has become another light… The lights are gathering around you… Be prepared…

Fortune-Teller: A bridge lit by the full moon… Songs of victory echo in the air as the shadow is overcome… Go… Now is the time for celebration…

Fortune-Teller: Under the fat crescent moon… a feeble light at the hollow tower… A gunshot rings out, shattering my vision into a thousand pieces… I am sorry… I can see no further… But I can say this… The shadow yet remains…

Fortune-Teller: Oh…? Is this a new friend…? How mystifying… No one can see into his essence… No one, save for one girl…

Fortune-Teller: The answer and the secret to life are passed on, one life to the next… Two lights now pierce through the shadow… The hour draws near… How do you fare…?

Fortune-Teller: A girl falls under the full moon… A boy walks amidst shadow, and he himself is shadow… A child who bears shadows within… The immense shadow approaches… Its depth unfathomable; its extent without limit… It comes to end all things… The darkness hidden by the shining heavens… How will you stand against such a fate…?

Fortune-Teller: You have pulled the trigger of fate… I see it now… The target was the shadow of impending doom… Your goal is now clear… Keep your flame of life ablaze until the end…

Fortune-Teller: I see nothing… No… What I see is nothingness… It is the void… But do not lose heart… Emptiness is not necessarily the end… The void is infinite… as is the universe… Whether this marks an end to all things or a beginning… It is in your hands…

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[melliae]

Refraction Railway Line #2 Abnormalities Part 2 (Analysis)

In Order to Survive

“We must sometimes become selfish things, full of animosity if it means our survival. Sometimes, we make others suffer so that we may not.” - Dante, Station #6: Exploitation, Refraction Railway Line 2.

In the same vein as King in Binds, Shock Centipede is an Abnormality that bares its meaning openly. It’s not a secret about how the Centipede represents the brutality of living, about how you sometimes have to make other people suffer to get what you want. The sections of Canto IV’s final dungeon previous to its fight make it clearer, showing how Dongrang sold the League of Nine, and how K Corp. (and Alfonso in particular) decided the new protocol for tears’ production.

However, while presenting such a reality as a tragedy, the MD encounter implies it’s necessary at some level, because causing the Abnormality pain is the only way to produce vital items such as a battery that powers mundane activities and electronics (that’s, a standard-duty battery), or an automated electronic defibrillator without apparent limits. Yet, it also tells us that just because the results are useful, the process doesn’t stop from being fundamentally evil in the end, and that we shouldn’t abuse it unless you want the Centipede—the victim—to do more than merely bite your ass. They, too, want to live.

Now, I obviously can’t answer that ethical problem. You are free to make whatever choice you want, but keep in mind to not deny the evil you are committing in case you decide to “push the button”, because the Centipede is keenly aware of it. 

But moving from Shock Centipede’s meaning into its overall nature and attitude (because I really don’t want to end things too soon), it’s impossible for me to not compare it with two Abnormalities of the Railway that I previously analyzed: Drifting Fox, and STNOWC.

Beginning with the Fox, the first thing that should catch your attention is that they share two out of three Sin affinities, those being Gloom (in the normal encounters; not so much in RR2) and Gluttony. That’s to say, they both have the same focus of a desperate survival, doing whatever they can to avoid/survive the pain that continuously assaults them. But whereas the Fox is ultimately unchanging, hopelessly waiting for that show of true affection, Shock Centipede is characterized by a deep Envy that—beyond its association with electricity—points at how its mind has become thwarted by its captivity, to the extreme that the Abnormality can only think of how much it resents and envies everyone else during its last moments, forsaking its primitive drive to survive.

Regarding the weaknesses and resistances, I think it’s relevant to note that both Abnormalities are extremely resistant to Wrath and Envy, likely due to the two just being used to being abused and mistreated, wondering who could even envy their situation. In contrast, their shared weakness to Gloom means how neither of them have any defense against the despair and suffering they feel beyond thrashing wildly, desperate beyond belief; the same cannot be said of the Centipede’s unique weakness to Sloth, likely referring to how being indolent to its situation is anathema to its essence and instinct of survival, as seen with every single one of its passives

“Did you know...? Apparently, centipedes' nerves stay active and go wild for a good while even after their heart stops beating. This one's the same.” - Gregor, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Literally, all the Centipede’s passives are an in-the-name thing, just as much as Faelantern’s. I suppose all the “Persistence” passives are more related to the Abnormality’s extremely durable exoskeleton than its electricity, but they are still obvious.

Now, moving into STNOWC, the main difference falls into the position of the trapped being: the Doll allowed itself to be trapped out of a misguided love for others, while the Centipede… Well, any ounce of love it could have potentially had is now but history and dust. The only thing remaining behind those adamantine plates is pure resentment and envy born of the ruthlessness needed to survive over all others. Nevertheless, don’t get confused: Shock Centipede isn’t wrathful per se, despite all the anger towards its captors, it… just envies you, for being able to be free and live however you want.

“The centipede writhes as if to coil up. The Shock Centipede's body is starting to coil up into one spot. "It seems electricity is gathering." As the Sinner pointed out, sparks are flying from the center of its coiled body. It might be a good idea to stop it.” - Mid-Combat Event.

And maybe that hints at why the affinity for the Event above is Envy, because surviving in general breeds all forms of jealousy within everyone involved, at how easy “they” have it thanks to the things and opportunities “they” have and others—you—don’t. Thus, from those seeds, a cycle emerges, of people endlessly abusing and utilizing each other, bringing each other down so they can rise triumphant—all the while ignoring the poison they have accumulated under their feet.

Interesting, really, how the exploited Centipede can easily become part of this cycle when driven entirely by its instincts and feelings. But then again, it’s not as if you were any different, weren’t you? It may be impossible to erase the curse of life, and we will one day have to confront it and take our choice. Whatever path you take, however, keep in mind a single thing: don’t deny the consequences of your action—don’t deny your “evil”.

Sensual Decadence

“The Fairy Gentleman spoke with a jolly laugh. ‘Huhu... Didn't think this much would be gulped down.’ A short hiccup could also be heard. ‘I admit, it caught me off guard a tiny bit... Just a tiny bit.’ The fairy then puts the cup in his hand to his mouth.” - Mid-Combat Event.

Absinthe is one of the most famous and influential liquors or spirits in the entire history of the west, and with good reason! It was cheaper to produce and buy, and thus was sold like hot cakes when the great french wine blight hit Europe around the second half of the 19th century. Hundreds and hundreds of gallons were consumed daily by the common folk, and it was extremely well received in artistic circles, to the point of being the signature drink of painters and writers alike, like Vincent van Gogh or Ernest Hemingway.

However, such popularity ultimately spelled its doom because, for reasons I won’t go into, absinthe was reported to cause all kinds of hallucinations and delusions, as some sort of magical source of inspiration. The reputation grew and grew, and more myths and stories were added, like it causing mental illnesses or driving people to commit all kinds of crimes and atrocities. By the mid 20th century, absinthe, the so-called “green fairy” thanks to its emerald color and infamous reputation, was finally banned, and only in recent years it has had a resurgence due to its legalization in many countries.

Now, I suppose all of you are wondering why I explained the history of absinthe, and the answer should be obvious if you had any encounter in the MDs with Fairy Gentleman. After all, its first EGO gift, the only one obtainable without fighting, is a glass of green spirit, with the characteristic spoon and all. Taking into account this, along with the Fairy’s gracious attitude, its meaning reveals itself once more.

“I hope you have been well since we conversed last. I see flowers bloom outside, and the birds chirp every now and then. Though the scents of flowers spread as they like, they create a rather sweet smell once mingled in one place. I wonder if you have taken in such a smell.” - Yi Sang, Blossoming League of Nine Littérateurs, Canto IV.

“All that I ask… is to keep this as a moment of laughter, solely between us.” - Yi Sang, Blossoming League of Nine Littérateurs, Canto IV.

It’s abundance and happiness, the joy that one derives from sensual pleasures and sharing them with others, not so dissimilar to how the League of Nine was during its first “days” in District 20, akin to children discovering and feeling the world in all its glory through their senses. They became enamored of what they discovered and showed between them, just like the artist (supposedly) did with the visions and inspiration given by the green fairy. Yet, for external eyes, such joy is no different from debauchery, a slavish and animal-like attraction to the appetites of the gut (or of the mind, in the League’s case).

However, while the League of Nine was an innocent group, devoid of any malicious intent, Fairy Gentleman is… Well, Rodya explained it best.

“I mean, as soon as our eyes met, he flew up, like swoosh~ all of a sudden and then squashed me with the mouth on its belly! Like, splorch, y'know?” - Abnormality’s Observation Log #1.

No matter how nice and polite the Fairy actually is, when its desire and hunger reach their maximum, it won’t have any second thought about satisfying them. That’s why its most powerful skill is Lust-based, because it’s already as drunk and satisfied as it can get, yet it keeps on asking for more and more, to the point it will devour its “privileged guests” due to them simply being there, emanating that sweet smell that it’s craving.

Again, it’s not that the Abnormality is a bastard or something; it’s just that it doesn’t have any temperance, lacking any and all control over its appetite. That’s the reason many of its skills are Gluttony-based, trying to fill its empty stomach, as well as it being resistant to Lust and Gluttony. Though, if you are lucky, you may be able to convince it to control itself for once during the mid-combat Event, by simply imposing your necessities over its. The Fairy, more than anyone else, should know how being hungry sucks.

Outside of this, I think it is important to note the strange relationship the Fairy has with Envy. Its only Envy skill, “Not This Time!”, is an obvious reference to how it doesn’t want to lose the Wine to you once more. But its affinity to Envy is more complex, since it’s resistant to it in normal encounters, while being weak to it in RR2. That’s to say, it doesn’t care about how other people feel about it as it keeps moving around like a “bully”, yet it also finds itself flabbergasted once other’s resentment—their wrath and bitterness—hits it in the face. If anything, it seems the Fairy in RR2 is more “infantile” in a way, and prideful as well, not aware of all the damage it is doing; the one found in the MDs and history mode is more mature, knowing what to ignore and when, unless they simply refuse to move and be moved, and force themselves into it.

“The glass in its thick hands clatters to the floor, spilling fairy limbs and green fluid everywhere. 'Some visitors you are! How rude!' The mouth on the blob's abdomen splits open and spews sour fluid in our direction.” - Abnormality Encounter

Like when you make it drop its precious cup and wine! Fairies really love their drinks, did you know? That’s more or less the idea behind the “fairy cup” motif, stories about how a person is offered a drink by “the little people” or fairies, but ends up scooting away with the cup. It’s not exactly a precise comparison, yes, but I still wanted to mention it, since it’s a Fairytale Abnormality, and the contents of said stolen cup tend to have magical properties, or are simply acid—classic fairy move.

Finally, in regard to the passives, most of them are pretty self-explanatory, with the only remarkable one being “Stimulating Smell, Isn’t It?” due to the implications of Fairy Gentleman using its body to produce its putrid-smelling liquor… 

Imagine having so little control over your cravings and desires, letting them direct your every action to the point you mutilate and cannibalize your own body solely to feel satisfied. Fairy Gentleman is no different from an animal solely guided by its “erotic” and primitive instincts, not unlike Faelantern. And in the same vein as the latter, that may be the point of the Abnormality: a “fable” about the risks of going overboard with your appetites, whatever those may be, for if you obey them without question or thought you’ll end up destroying yourself spiritually and physically, longing for the filthiest of things.

You are a human with a soul—so much more than a fairy. Please, learn to use it.

Civilized Pretence

“If that's the case, the reason it makes the clover tree to grow... is to keep us from being hit by the harmful rain so that gains more benefits when eating our flesh? To... make its meals tastier. Ugh, I really think that thing doesn't deserve to be called a fairy.” - Ishmael, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

And here we have another tricky and predatory fairy!

At first glance, Fairy-Long-Legs is really similar to Faelantern and Fairy Festival, feigning kindness in order to trick and get close to their prey. Yet, one would be hard-pressed to say the latter two are exactly the same as Long-Legs, when this last Abnormality is much more civilized than the rest of its kin, especially when compared to its easily tempted companion. Its behavior is unmatched in terms of patience and elegance between the fairies, always taking time to “care” for its food’s flavor and bringing itself with dignity when taking chunks of flesh from it. Damn! Even its Pride-based guard animation has a certain grace to it!

But no matter how much a fairy pretends to be civilized or cultured, it is and will keep on being a gluttonous fairy. The summoning of giant clover is just an extension of that: a needed step so it can fulfill its desire for “quality food”, as seen with the rest of skills being Lust- and Gluttony-based. Even its pride at the end should be no more than mere vanity, regardless of how that disposition shows certain evolution in the fairies’ behavior and “culture”, because it’s solely reactionary.

In regard to the rest of the Abnormalities’ elements, the most noteworthy ones are the affinities, as usual. Particularly, its weaknesses to Envy, Wrath, and Gluttony during normal encounters tells us that Long-Legs is not used to being on the receiving end of being hunted, being filled with all sorts of curses and resentment. That may be too problematic for its taste, likely preferring more lazy prey that won’t fight back, that won’t challenge it and make it exposed to the rain, despite its lack of any Gloom-related affinity… And yes, that last part is the reason behind the Gloom advantage of the “weather the rain” option during its MD encounter, following a similar logic to Drifting Fox; the Gluttony advantage focuses more on the necessity of overcoming the rain, in the goal that lies after it.

Now, moving on to its RR2 version, Long-Legs’ affinities change when you confront it, in the same way as Fairy Gentleman before. Neither Wrath nor Gluttony seem to take it by surprise anymore, almost as if it expects to be hunted and preyed upon too, if the new Gluttony and Lust resistances are something to go by. Nevertheless, it still doesn’t like to be mocked, as seen with its new weakness to Pride and the conservation of the old one to Envy.

And thus, returning to one of the previous points I made, I can only conclude that Fairy-Long-Legs is a “tale” made to represent the risks of when the advancements of culture are solely guided by instinctual, gross needs, not unlike the animalistic joy of Fairy Gentleman. This naturally paints an interesting picture of what Fairies mean within Project Moon’s universe, from the fully instinctual, simple-minded Fairy Festival to its two, more elegant “cousins”: parodies of humanity’s susceptibility to their own desires and cravings. But again, that much is obvious, no? Library of Ruina already went about it through the Floor of History Realization, about how “nothing in the City is made out of pure goodwill”.

From kidnapping people and sometimes replacing them with “copies” that are “off”, to the common but unfounded myth about having no soul, Fairies, as a concept, will forever act as dark mirrors of humanity’s most cruel and animalistic tendencies. Maybe that’s the reason behind the “Long-Legs” name, for a Daddy-Long-Legs isn’t necessarily a spider to begin with; it can also be an arachnid that, despite being inoffensive to humans, is eerily similar to spiders.

Instead of being fully “alien” creatures, Fairies may be a lot closer to us than we like to think.

Note: Following the pattern I pointed out in my previous post about RR2, the buff related to Fairy-Long-Legs seems to be “Accelerating”. But beyond the shared color and the focus on legs, those two don’t share any mechanics. I’d like to point out that there’s no boss in the entire Railway that’s tied to speed or Haste, beyond Fairy Gentleman and its Wine, so there aren’t many options to choose from…

OSHA's Worst Nightmare

“This stranded employee was approaching us, preparing to go through the motions.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Everyone hates their job… Well, not everyone, really. Not remotely close to everyone. But still, it’s a famous sort of joke or snarky appreciation about all the awkward situations in which one ends up thanks to the attitudes of coworkers, bosses, and those despicable, all-withering beasts we commonly call “clients”. Needless to say, the City isn’t an exception, with all those daily massacres and use of literal human resources.

However, from among all Districts and Wings in Project Moon’s universe, from among all ways of life and works, the one who holds the crown of hateable jobs—the holy grail—is none other than W Corp. and its cleanup crew. There’s literally no character that actually likes working on cleaning the mess inside warp trains, with the sole exception of Ryoshu (and maybe Mersault, but he doesn’t like it either). The work is vomit-inducing, the knowledge is abhorrent, and the only solace is the absolute resolve to never take a warp train.

… Still, work is work, especially if they come from a Wing—no one really wants to die of hunger or worse, after all. So in order to survive, getting our hands dirty is just a small price. Though, the nagging envy and dissatisfaction will never quite disappear, no matter how much time passes. But that’s a part of the job—of any job.

Such is the meaning behind Wayward Passenger, the trauma W Corp. has caused on every person who has used its trains and those who work in them, but especially the latter as seen with the new options added to its MD encounter. That’s why it only has Gluttony and Envy skills, for the W Corp. cleanup agents want to be anywhere else but there, in the trains, yet duty bounds them. They simply do not have any choice in the matter. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they even envy the passengers, who are made to forget about all that happened, continuing their lives without worry.

(And yes, the Envy skills in this case also have the usual relation with electricity/energy. Its blades are literally energy, and it has to spend it to regenerate them in the same way it does with its Dimensional Rifts).

Outside of that, it’s quite interesting to see that Wayward Passenger is weak to Lust and Gluttony—to love and survival. It seems the Abnormality doesn’t take it well to be reminded that the “things” it’s dealing with are living beings too, able to love and, more importantly, fight for their survival. While the Passenger may be able to distance itself psychologically from its “workload”, it isn’t perfect, never reaching the indifference proper of Sloth.

On the other hand, its resistances are nothing too special. The Envy one in particular is obvious, since Wayward Passenger already shares the same feeling—nobody wants to be in what is basically the bloody bowels of hell. As for the Pride resistance, it goes hand in hand with its weaknesses: the expression of love and the instinct of survival are terrifying things to witness in this line of work, but pride… to defend oneself through an empty sense of self-grandiosity is simply irritating, not arousing a single bit of compassion or doubt.

And finally, there’s the Sin affinities during its Encounter, which are surprisingly easy to understand as well. You either pity and/or love Wayward Passenger enough to entertain it and make its work easier, or you just simply don’t care enough and want it gone as soon as possible, pointing to whatever direction you find convenient.

Hellish work indeed. Horrible workload, and horrible customers. I wouldn’t even touch it with a 10 feet pole… But if there’s genuinely no other option, we should at least make it a little more pleasant for others, don’t you think? It may not be much, but trying to acknowledge the humanity of what we have in front of ourselves is a step up from ignoring it, from turning into resentful monsters that wander through the endless possibilities of life solely with their eyes, squandering our (one) true path.

It’s not about defending or taking pride in your work, necessarily. But about seeing what’s in front of you, what you can actually seize and not lose.

Note: And here comes the second-to-last enemy buff from the Railway, “Opportunistic”. Just like Steam Machine’s “Hardening”, the symbol of “Opportunistic” is one of the blades from Wayward Passenger.

Sign of Roses

“What does this signboard say? It hangs itself on a tree, trying to make its content known. Its desperation is almost pitiable.” - Abnormality Encounter.

I already commented this many times in my theory posts, but I suppose doing it a third time isn’t that unwarranted. After all, the relationship between the nervous central system, the psyche, God, and the archetype of the Self is an important symbol and topic in the game.

And yes, all the previous images are connected one way or another. And the main connective tissue is, naturally, Jung’s theory of the mind: analytical psychology.

Jung was a student of Freud originally, postulating that the unconscious contents of the psyche—all the psychological contents which your conscious mind or Ego, the thing that you normally call “yourself”, is ignorant of—are personal in nature. But after acquiring his own experience (and some mental breakdowns), he reached a conclusion vastly different from his teacher, that the psyche, the totality of one’s mind, isn’t only an individual thing, but also a collective one—you aren’t an isolated island, but the sea that connects every island as well. Naturally, this doesn’t refer to the individualized, conscious mind, but to the other half that makes the psyche, the unconscious mind, which exists both as the personal unconscious that Freud described… and a collective unconscious, equal and shared by all humankind.

“A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term "collective" because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals.” - Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

I’m not going in-depth about all of Jung’s theory; that would merit post after post just to cover the basics. But that main gist is that Jung proposed that most, if not all, psychological problems rest in the relationship one has with the unconscious, be it the personal or the collective one. This is because the unconscious is the matrix of life, the source of all change and energy, as well as the “eternal wisdom” that applies everywhere and everywhen, since it’s the product of the countless experiences of all forms of life since time immemorial.

“The collective unconscious, however, as the ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation, is not individual but common to all men, and perhaps even to all animals, and is the true basis of the individual psyche. [...] Theoretically it should be possible to “peel” the collective unconscious, layer by layer, until we came to the psychology of the worm, and even of the amoeba.” - Jung, Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche.

So it’d be correct to say that, instead of you having an unconscious that’s common to all life, the unconscious of life has you. You aren’t the subject, but an object, a product born out of the countless interactions of the unconscious, and thus inherently tied to said collective. You cannot overcome the unconscious, because it’s the mother that birthed you, the parent that raised you, the teacher that showed you the world, the first love that made you feel complete, the friends that blessed you, the enemies that diminished you, the obstacles that brought you to the bottom—joy and misery alike.

Truth is, the collective unconscious is everything that surrounds you. There’s nothing outside of it, and nothing lower or higher than it. It’s all existence that can be possibly known by life… Yet, consciousness, as its name indicates, isn't that unconscious; it’s “alienated” from it. It perceives itself separated from the whole, despite being nurtured by said whole. And the more differentiated the conscious mind becomes, the more separated and afraid it becomes of the world, and from there all problems come forth: the inability of the Ego to properly grow inwards, which in turn means it can’t properly grow outwards.

Depression, anxiety, psychosis, neurosis, schizophrenia… All of those problems, one way or another, are rooted in an improper relationship with the unconscious and thus the external world. Jung wasn’t able to found a one-size-fits-all solution naturally, but he got pretty close by suggesting an archetypal process he called individuation, the process by which the conscious mind integrates contents of the unconscious, allowing the reach a middle point between them, a harmonic relationship that allows everything work as a whole—the collective working for you, and you working for the collective. Jung called such an archetypal situation of wholeness the Self.

“I have called this wholeness that transcends consciousness the ‘self.’ The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self.” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

The Self is not only consciousness, but also the personal and collective unconsciousness. It’s darkness and evil, and light and good as well. It’s the whole of life that existed long before you, and that will endure long after your death, because you yourself are part of the whole, which in turn can be said to be the only thing that truly exists. You are an image through which the Self becomes conscious of itself.

If all of that sounds like a headache-inducing mumbo jumbo, then you are on the correct path! The Self and the collective unconscious are, by definition, beyond the scope of what consciousness can fully grasp, just as it’s impossible to understand the universe—of which you, as the subject that experiences it, are part of—as a whole. Yet, just because it’s impossible to comprehend in its totality, doesn’t mean humanity didn’t have intuitions of the Self, represented in the form of mythological and folkloric symbols, because that’s the kind of language the unconscious speaks.

“Because of its unconscious component the self is so far removed from the conscious mind that it can only be partially expressed by human figures; the other part of it has to be expressed by objective, abstract symbols. [...] Plant symbols are generally flowers (lotus and rose). These lead on to geometrical figures like the circle, the sphere, the square, the quaternity, the clock, the firmament, and so on.” - Carl Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

I… I’m not going into all of this; it’s simply too much. However, the main point I wanted to rescue is how the rose can act as a symbol for both motherhood and of the Self, because the archetypal figure of the mother is nothing but another property that belongs to Wholeness, being the psyche that birthed everything. Even Christ himself, the figure in which humanity/consciousness and the divine/unconsciousness are joined, is a manifestation of the Self, just like Buddha. Naturally, it’s not a question about wether they existed or not, but about what they unconsciously represent for people.

“In truth, Phanes is the happy day. In truth, Phanes is work and accomplishment and its remuneration. He is the troublesome task and the evening calm. He is a step on the middle way, its beginning, its middle, and its end. He is foresight. He is the end of fear.” - Jung, Hymn to Phanes, Black Books.

Because it represents the same thing for Jung, as seen in the excerpt above of the Black Books, the diaries in which he registered his experiences of “active imagination” or explorations of his unconscious. So even if he put the somewhat partial and subjective name of Phanes, the primordial deity of orphism, the same thing occurs for all Self-images in humanity’s myths, legends, tales, and so forth: salvation. That’s the root of the famous parable of the vine imparted by Jesus, how humanity is completely lost without “him”, the Self.

However, every archetype—the psychological principles that make out the collective unconscious—has both darkness and light alike, for they are the accumulated of all experiences without exception. Thus, it’s natural that the individuation process has its dangers too. It’d be all too easy for people to give in to the “madness” inherent to the unconscious without opposition, too tired of fighting back against life. But the Ego is an essential part of individuation, the fulcrum around which everything must be balanced because it’s the only thing that can make something conscious and realized.

“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life. [...] Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim.” - Jung’s Soul, Red Book.

“Embracing the madness is a necessary step for humans to move forward. A crystal rose that seems to be facing a certain direction at all times. This humanlike object is said to absorb the moisture from a certain river to bloom.” - Lunacy’s Flavour Text.

The unconscious is uncertainty, the collapse of the superiority of the conscious mind. It’s the acceptance that life itself won’t go as you want, that it dances and moves as it wishes. And that you’ll accompany it in that celebration, not as its slave, but as its equal, for you are its long-lost brother/sister that it wishes to join to once more. You, too, are a creation of God, the “rose” He gardened for so long by the side of His “river”, inside His “womb”.

Unsurprisingly, like all Abnormalities, that’s where Sign of Roses falls, because the City has been possessed by its own madness. It has become so alienated from the unconscious that its inhabitants are unable to understand they are guided solely by that kind of trauma, hidden under the slogans of retribution, vengeance, righteousness, and rationality. The City has repressed everything irrational, yet it's smothered by it.

But if such is the case, if the disease of the mind has expanded so much, then the unconscious must fight back, to release itself from the yoke humanity puts it under so its one wish can be heard: to be realized. That’s the underlying meaning of the Sign, the caricature of Christ, the dark side of the Self that embraces all that exists without judgment, filled by a naive, all-encompassing love that allows any and all atrocities. That’s to say, it’s the Devil or Beast, the dissolver of consciousness, the agitator of the unconscious, the exhausted inner tension of all living beings that wishes to be resolved.

“This is an adequate place to get off this train without getting lost. The refraction rate is already off the charts. For the first time since we embarked on this journey… I see a signpost. Maybe, this is where this railway line ends. Or maybe...this is where we meet our ends.” - Dante, Terminus: The Garden, Refraction Railway Line 2.

The Sign of Roses is at the center of the Railway because the Self is the whole and center of the psyche, the “smaller than small, and bigger than big”. Thus, it’s also the terminus and its beginning, the Abnormality or psychological tendency that causes people to give in to their desires and instincts without care, after a long life of “self-control”. It’s the respite that Christ promised to his followers, the celestial Jerusalem that will become the last place of rest for the believers and faithful.

“Oh, and... the color of those roses changed as well. Everyone told me that it was as though the bottled—up feelings inside them were melting away. And so did I.” Hong Lu, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

“Psychologically, it is again a question of the self, enthroned in the place of the middle, and referred to in Revelation as the beloved city (Jerusalem, the centre of the earth).” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

It’s no coincidence that Sign of Rose's arena is filled with ruins overcome with brambles and roses—the dregs of the unconscious that bring down the works of the conscious mind. However, I previously said roses are symbols of the Self and thus of the Ego, since the latter is an “image” of the former, so… why are there roses in a landscape that has abandoned any sort of consciousness? Well, that’s because the Ego is a “complex”, a psychological “entity” that acts as a personal instance of the archetypes so to speak, and the unconscious happens to have many of those.

“Eyes are round and in common speech are likened to ‘cart-wheels.’ They also seem to be a typical symbol for what I have called the ‘multiple luminosities of the unconscious.’ By this I mean the seeming possibility that complexes possess a kind of consciousness, a luminosity of their own, which, I conjecture, expresses itself in the symbol of the soul-spark, multiple eyes (polyophthalmia), and the starry heaven.” - Mysterium Coniunctionis.

That’s both the reason why the Flesh part has so many eyes, representing the Self as a union of those “multiple consciousnesses”, and why the unconscious can be compared to the firmament, which has its own layer of symbolism in Limbus. But more importantly, it tells us something extremely important about the Abnormality’s appearance: just like STNOWC, Sign of Roses bears the effigy of humanity—its flesh—in a twisted way, as the singular vine (yes, that’s the reason behind the passive’s name) from which every other "rose" blooms.

Thus, Sign of Roses is nothing else but the weakening of the human spirit against the unconscious compulsions and drives, an “individuation” gone wrong that ends up with the collapse of consciousness, slaved eternally under the complexes' yoke for whatever remains of its life. And what else it could want if not to share such a prospect with the world, as seen with the unique death animations for the Sinners, now becoming their own “whole individual”—their own garden—from which every desire can bloom, like a mother and its children.

“Yes, as you have learned, extracting Abnormalities is my job. But creating them is Carmen’s, whom you buried a long time ago. She is the mother of all Abnormalities that have existed in this facility and all that will emerge in the future.” - Binah, Lobotomy Corporation.

Really, it shouldn’t be a surprise that all of this connects with Carmen, the maternal aspect of the unconscious mind that accepts any and all things, wanting people to give into their unconscious urges as she herself hinted in “Leviathan”. She is the Christ-like figure who baptizes/drowns people in the waters of the River, making them reborn in a shape that’s able to “love” everything. It’s not a coincidence she’s the (666) Beast, the shadow of humanity and the Self, twisting God’s greatest virtue that saved both Dante and Faust in their respective books.

And keeping on with the parodies of Christ, Sign of Roses’s “Crown of Thorns” status stands for a symbol of the pain that comes from containing all fears and desires within, to keep an image of “self-control” or purity, as if to say you aren’t Christ and you shouldn’t resist the temptations. That’s why its Pride and Lust skills are the ones that apply the status, saying to you that you should take pride in who you are and love yourself, to let bloom every kind of atrocity.

From the rest of the skills, the only ones that are worth highlighting are two. First, it’s “Wishing for Eternity”, solely due to the connection it has with King of Greed’s flavour text about greed and happiness wishing for eternity, expressing clearly the suffering that is brought about through the differentiation of consciousness after eating “the apple from Eden”. The second one is its Envy skill, “Wall of Separation”, because…

“See? Wish, wish for it. Knowing that it is a sin. Only then can you bloom such colorful roses.” “You have to bloom the roses. You want to escape this garden don't you?” “Let us... let me help you.” “Our only wish is that our garden will bloom full of flowers.” “Now, what will you do?” - Mid-Combat Event.

The Sign can’t nurture its own roses. It lacks the ability, the drive to do so. It speaks so highly about the Sinner’s capacity to bloom and accept themselves, yet itself is unable to do so because it’s ultimately empty. It collapses into countless petals the moment the brambles come undone, because it lacks any and all substance beyond the chains of desire, not so different from King in Binds in a way.

It envies living beings because they can take care of their seeds and bloom. It envies them because they are alive, while itself is dead and unable to change. They have a soul, while it doesn’t.

I wonder what this tells us about Carmen…

Note: The last enemy buff, “Thirsting”, obviously belongs to Sign of Roses, and the bible says everything that there's need to know.

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” - John, 4:11-15.

Post-Commentary

Hello, once more! It’s with great pleasure that I bring the last part of the Railway 2’s Abnormalities. This one took a long while, mainly because I lost some of my motivation due to university during Fairy Gentleman’s part… which, coincidentally, returned the day in which Nikocado Avocado announced his lost weight xD What a curious coincidence, really.

But anyway, seeing how that man took like, what? 2 years or so to get in “shape”? It motivated me enough to finish both Fairies’ sections quickly, like one to two weeks in total. After all, I couldn’t mope around when I had (and still) many things to do in my life.

Regarding some curiosities about my analisis, I think the biggest one is the Sin advantage of the “press the droplet-shaped button” option. I didn’t analyze it because it’s weird now. Like, the first version of the Encounter didn’t award the player with any EGO gift, strengthening the idea of how the Abnormality represents the idea of being needlessly cruel and sadistic, hence justifying the Envy and Wrath advantages. But since the option now gives you a new EGO gift, it somewhat diminishes the previous idea, though it doesn’t blatantly contradict it: you are still being an asshole.

Another includes Wayward Passenger, where I’ve to stress out something: said Abnormality is connected to W Corp. first, and then to the general concept of escapism and envy. The need of having to expand that latter part was due to the Dimensional Shredder EGOs, especially those of Yi Sang and Hong Lu—instead of envying people for their choices they have, they decide to take pride on the “journey” their external circumstances put them on (Sloth and Gluttony, apathy and duty/necessity).

And finally, if you didn’t understand 'Sign of Roses’ section…

TL;DR: Roses are symbols of the Self/psychic wholeness, but also of consciousness, for the flowers “are” brains. Thus, the Sign wants your “rose”/mind/soul/being to become a vine from which all other “roses”—the smaller “consciousnesses” or complexes that make out the unconscious mind—can bloom and live through, sacrificing your own existence. That’s due to the Abnormality being unable to bloom its own flowers (anymore?), having to “drain the sin” from others.

Now, with all of this said, my next post about Abnormalities should be about none other than Railway 1, thanks to Canto VII coming soon and thus giving us a big dose of needed context for Headless Icthys and Alleway Watchdog. After that one (and RR5’s, naturally), I plan to finish with an analysis about the Abnormalities that were left out from the RRs: those from Canto I and Canto II, and Brazen Bull.

As always, feel free to comment your own thoughts and point out any spelling mistakes!