(more elden ring radahn thoughts)
on whats really left of him .. and his soul? general too many thoughts about him- long post and probably incoherent, but you know me, im never coherent anyway, many thoguhts, head full, quite literally
in base game, he has lost his mind we are told, and clearly he isnt like he used to be, but we really dont know the extend of it
hes clearly capable of fighting rather .. controlled; its not like hes biting and clawing after you, he still uses his swords (and bow, sth he doesnt even have in dlc) and magic, we know even in this condition he held back the stars AND still fought you hard at the same time (i know undead people can still fight in elden ring, pls hear me out)
and i wonder .. how much of his mind did he really lose, obviously some since he eats people now which isnt sth he used to do, but ... we dont know how talkactive he used to be, we get one (two? i can only think of one) quotes from him in the descriptions of an item, he might have been a man of few words already, so him not talking at all isnt that good of a measure (not saying its the only measure, just wanted to mention), resorting to eating people that atack you might just be an act of desperation too
we get told he kills friend and foe alike (and im not questioning that really) but in his cutscene we see him drag along the bodies of cleanrot knights, who are under direct dommand of malenia, and by extend miquella, im guessing they kept sending them after him to finish him off; now knowing that him dying means being sent to the realm of shadow, to miquella, and NOT knowing if he wanted that, i feel that that detail has grown in importance-
when you start the fight, hes rather defensive, shooting at you almost immediately upon you entering the arena with no extra cutscene either, what he shoots at you a long ranged gravitation bolts that stop you dead in tracks with a very high stagger rate and if you are on torrent it stagger you off of it; i know it could be just tactical and bc all he knows now is to fight as best as he can BUT, you could also look at it as a defensive strategy, to keep you away, and away from him .. even though you are not told he is afraid to die and he eats people now, sure he could come over there and snack on you once he shot you enough times, but the important thing is that you as a threat to his life is eliminated AND he doesnt seem to have some sort of insatiable hunger for people that makes him charge and snap at you immediately, there could be self control there still
(if i wanted to reach a little further i could also say he could be trying to keep you away from him not jsut to save himself but to save you from him too, but thats a reach and i know that)
once you get close enough he usually changes to fire a salve of arrows that fall from the sky and follows you around, also high in stagger- its only when you get too close that he pulls out his swords and charges at you
his arena is interestign as well, its a piece of land in caelid that is inaccessible (unless you can fly?) from all sides, a barren battlefield only reached through a teleporter, im not sure if it is the same place as when he fought malenia or not (wasnt that in the middle of caelid where you find the rot needle?) but i doubt anyone could have put him there against his will, so did he .. go there himself? or stay there for that matter- how quickly do you lose yourself when infected with rot? and how quickly for him, since hes a demigod? did he intentionally isolate himself there? make it harder to reach him for both friend and foe alike?
another point is that most enemies (as far as i can think of) that are infected with rot/are in caelid also deal rot damage, radahn does not, hes even really vunerable to it in fact, its an intersting detail to me bc he only uses either standard attacks or gravitational magic, given that hes been in this condition for a long time and its caelid id expect the rot to be somewhat important there, but its not
how much has he really lost his mind, is he really as mindless as jerren makes him out to be? is he trying to stay alive no matter what, isolating himself on an (almost) island and only living off what comes there, which is usually people that want to kill him, be it friend or foe, all are out for his life one way or another, could it be defensive ... desperate even? no one but him and miquella/malenia seem to know that him dying means hes put into the land of shadow, where miquella is waiting for him; (why wouldnt he tell anyone? was he not able to? was he afraid to upset the golden order by spilling it out?) could he know that would be the end of him having his own will, knowing what miquella can do to people? ... perhaps even .... having been manipulated by him before when he was less experienced and more in direct vicinity to him, to promise something he doesnt actually want?
this is a reach too but ... could he be trying to make himself unusable for miquella, theres no real cure for the rot, could he have decided to stay alive as long as he can to both destroy his own body (and soul even?) intentionally so it cant be used against his will, like a desperate act to destroy himself rather than become someones unwilling puppet? did he succeed in both somewhat but not enough to become fully worthless and unsalvageable? just how much would he have had to destroy himself for him to become useless to miquella, is there even a limit? would he have been "revived" no matter what, no matter what little was left of him?
how is he mindless, yet his soul it taken when you kill him, his body beyond repair, but his soul intact? that seems like the opposite of what he is, and you are told he is, in the base game to me
(maybe hes just fallen into madness i guess, but given the soul is like .. the self, he should be mad in the dlc too then, unless miquella can just pick out the parts he likes and throw away the rest .... which isnt impossible either)
now, there could be the argument that he might have actually agreed to it, hes been a big fan of godfrey, who is a consort to marika, a god, and little more than her pawn as well, his 'young' look you see at the end of the dlc could also be connected to it, the braids i thought where a sign of miquellas influence could also be just how he looked back then, an imitation of godfreys hairstyle- and we dont know for sure he didnt used to have them even after gettign older since they could just have loosened after spending so much time in a zombie lite condition (or is it?)-- but his portrait in volcano manor doesnt seem to have them either, hes also sporting the armor you see in base game (i think) there
the fact that, according to godfrey, strength is the only thing that matters and to become a consort you need to be the strongest of all to be worthy, could also be interpreted that way-
though i dont if he would have wanted to replace the golden order, he was a fan and follower of it, did he even think of it the implications? did he even know? was he just young and stupid? (very possible tbh)
then theres the idea of there being less left of his soul, so in the dlc he is barely if anything at all, himself, both in body AND soul, how much was there even left after all that time in caelid, he is silent except for like two grunts he does also in base game (he has more sounds there too), completely unexpressive, with very few gravitation magic, in the second phase miquella literally snakes his arms around his neck, almost every single attack is filled with light magic, clearly coming from miquella and not him
(i know bringing up leonard might seem overemphasizing his role, but in these games what information you get is very scarce so every bit you do learn is important and was written intentionally- but he stayed together with him in caelid, all his attacks involve him in one way or another, he only started to learn that magic for leonard, so radahn didnt have too abandon him as he got too large to ride him, he uses gravitation in dlc too, so it means that at the point of his life that he is recreated as he already had leonard or that that is a sign of whatever is left of his soul that comes from a much older him, and if it is, its very little)
(also this is a reach too but most enemies with horses have separate health bars, he doesnt, he and leonard basically share the same health bar, literally inseperable uwu)
"theres no evidence hes mindcontrolled" people say to me. have you seen him? how he acts? or more, how he DOESNT act? that miquellas entire deal is THAT HE BEWITCHES PEOPLE, ffs he STEALS YOUR HEART if you get grabbed by him twice in the dlc fight- theres no evidence he wasnt either, you are told they had a vow, but you never know what exactly that was, when it was (in the memory of miquella wishing for radahn to be his consort you only see miquella- was it a silly wish between kids tha miquella never grew out of?), in what circumstances, you never get to hear radahn say anything about it, its completely left out, thats a little unrelieable to me! idk!
but fine, maybe he did agree to it, maybe he thought being a consort to a god would make him just as cool as godfrey, maybe he fought malenia, who was said to be undefeated, only to prove he had the strength worthy of being a consort and it backfired when malenia infected him with the rot (why then? also he doesnt look exactly thrilled about what she say to him in the trailer but that could be just me too i guess lolololol), maybe he wanted to die all along but his pride meant he couldnt just let the rot win, maybe the festival was really what he wished for and told no one what the real goal was, maybe he wasnt rotten in the first place and just acted that part so he had an excuse to die without having to fight with all his strength as even the undefeated warrior wasnt able to beat him, maybe becoming a consort to miquella was worth leaving leonard behind to him, maybe he wanted to be nothing but a pawn to a god, to be used and discarded, maybe he really believed in miquellas wish for a "gentle" world (aka all love miquella)
it makes sense, im not going to lie about that, but the other does too- and in the end, we will never know what the truth is! we will never know if that was what he wanted, or if he was manipulated even back then, i wish we could to see his part, his voice, his will, but we never will, and it doesnt matter, in the end it doesnt matter if he wanted it or not, the fact remains hes a silent frankensteins monster of miquella, expression- and personalityless, a voiceless pawn to a god that steals everyones hearts
i dont need to be "right", i like to think about things, i am in the camp of he didnt want to or decided against it, but it doesnt really matter, even if miyazaki himself went onto stage and loudly declared that yes it was all planned from the start and radahn was in on it the whole time- i still would think the other way around it, i jsut think about him alot, i want to question things instead of taking everythign i hear at face value, especially when its very strangely told from one side, i will question every little thing if i only hear one side, no matter how much sense it makes or not, it makes me suspicious
(i some of this can be attributed about purely gameplay stuff, like the change in armor so he doesnt look the same etc, but i dont care, i like to think about the implications it brings with it, intentionally or not)
and there he is in a barren battlefield, eating the remains of whoever enters his isolated cage with the intent to kill him, never succeeding, howling like a lonely old wolf at the sky, is it desperation about a fate he cannot escape, grief about what hes done or failed to do, is it a call of yearning? for freedom?
we dont know. and it doesnt matter.
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WOW I FINALLY FINISHED THIS SET. There were a lot of things I wanted to get right for them so I took some extra time but hopefully it was worth it! The guild for this set is Cobalt Heart- a guild with focus on maritime missions, lead by (of course) guildmaster Neptune. There was no other planet I could've picked for his namesake lol. They're the guild I jokingly call the most jockish, but some moreso than others. I really do hope I did all the characters justice, but if you wanna know more about the individual members, it's under the cut as usual!
Name: Neptune
Name Origin: The planet named for the god of the ocean
Pronouns: He/him
Age: 52
Guild rank: Guildmaster
Weapon: Trident
Ethos (Power): Ocean wave (Control over water- stronger with sea water)
Flaw power is based on: Originally based on his overly relaxed go-with-the-flow nature, but since becoming a father and guildmaster he's matured, and his power grew from simple wave control to more powerful control over the ocean's water. Waves aren't always peaceful, but he's become someone who understands their power and the responsibility needed for it.
Notes: If it's unclear, the marks on his chest are meant to be top surgery tattoos, but in cool wave shapes!
Name: Triton
Name Origin: Neptune's moon, aptly named for his son
Pronouns: He/they
Age: 24
Guild rank: 4 star
Weapon: Twin sai
Ethos (Power): Ocean breath (Underwater breathing as well as other aquatic adaptions)
Flaw power is based on: His ardent wanderlust, especially in regards to the ocean. They literally cannot leave it alone despite any possible better reasoning, which is when it becomes a problem.
Notes: Was his other parent a mermaid or did they just do the fish thing on their own? The world may never know.
Name: Otrera
Name Origin: A trojan asteroid named after the queen of the Amazons
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 32
Guild rank: 5 star
Weapon: Brass knickles
Ethos (Power): Preflexes (Hightened reflexes)
Flaw power is based on: Her overly-guarded and cagey nature.
Notes: But her brass knuckles are pink so its quirky when she knocks your teeth out.
Name: Naos
Name Origin: A star whose name means "ship"
Pronouns: He/him
Age: 21
Guild rank: 3 star
Weapon: Modified crutches
Ethos (Power): Helm (He can change the direction of inanimate objects. It's not limited to projectiles, he can change the direction of objects while they're in someone's hand too.)
Flaw power is based on: His avoidant tenancies, especially where more serious responsibility is concerned.
Notes: Honestly? Joined the guild to boost his playboy status.
Name: Aitne
Name Origin: One of Jupiter's moons, named after the personification of Mount Etna, a stratovolcano
Pronouns: They/them
Age: 27
Guild rank: 4 star
Weapon: Spiked gauntlets and armor
Ethos (Power): Molten Core (Lava manipulation)
Flaw power is based on: Their brash and destructive nature.
Notes: Likes all their food to be charred.
Name: Ariel
Name Origin: A moon or Uranus, named after an air spirit!
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 16
Guild rank: 2 star
Weapon: Baton
Ethos (Power): Harmony (Perfect balance on anything)
Flaw power is based on: Her own difficulty maintaining emotional balance under stress
Notes: She's a gymnast! And even though I didn't make the character named "Ariel" a mermaid, you can still see a scale pattern in her leotard!
Name: Maru
Name Origin: A white dwarf whose name means "Sky." It's orbited by the planet Ahra.
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 18
Guild rank: 3 star
Weapon: Claymore sword
Ethos (Power): Sky walking (She is capable of interacting with air as if it were a tangible object, creating leverage for herself to walk and balance on as if it were solid)
Flaw power is based on: Her somewhat vain tendency to place herself above others
Notes: Complete and utterly confident she's the cooler twin
Name: Ahra
Name Origin: A exoplanet whose name means "Ocean." It orbits the star Maru.
Pronouns: She/her
Age: 18
Guild rank: 3 star
Weapon: Claymore sword
Ethos (Power): Wave riding (Creation and control of tidal waves to ride on, as if she was surfing them with no board. But she does have to be on them.)
Flaw power is based on: Her arrogance and recklessness
Notes: Completely and utterly convinced she's the cooler twin.
Name: Pipoltr/Pip
Name Origin: A star named for "a bright and beautiful butterfly."
Pronouns: Whatever really?
Age: 8
Guild rank: 1 star
Weapon: Giant lollipop
Ethos (Power): None yet!
Flaw power is based on: N/A. This doesn't mean they're flawless, but until their power develops they're really just here to go on fun little adventures.
Notes: This child hangs around with sailors all day long. The words they know....
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Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life.
What do you think of a phantom hourglass remake? Tbh I don’t know how they could remake it without basically remaking it from the ground-up. It would probably play more like windwaker, which I see as a both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, if it was more like windwaker a lot more people would probably play and it would be more popular since I know the touch controls were a turn off for most people for both Spirit Tracks and Phantom hourglass. But on the other hand, remaking it to be more like windwaker would make the game lose some of it’s previous identity. Like, Phantom hourglass was so unique because of the touch controls and the puzzles you can make and solve by having two screens and touch controls. And it was so nifty and handy to be able to write notes on your map. Idk, I still would like it to be remade in general even if it ends up a basically different game, but I wouldn’t change the story or the characters, especially Linebeck. The only other change I would make is the music. Phantom hourglass had rather weak themes, mainly because they re-used the same theme for the islands and the dungeons. The only songs that were really good were the few orginal tracks made for the game, so Linebeck’s theme, Oshus’s theme, both Bellum boss battle themes and the and that music that plays when you first follow the Ghost Ship. But what would you want out of a phantom hourglass remake?
Hey, I’m doing good, and I hope you are too!
I’ve thought a bit about a possible Phantom Hourglass remake, but not too much recently. I don’t really know if I’d want one, since you’d lose a lot of what really makes it special, and you can still play it through other means. I’m personally fond of the graphics and the music- yes, even the dungeon theme has grown on me- so I don’t really want a remake too badly, especially since I fear any additions/changes they might make with story or characters in a remake. The touch controls make it, and playing it on pc recreates that feeling decently well, but I don't think it'll be just the same if you had to control it with joysticks or anything.
Not to mention, there's so much emphasis on having the two screens, too, not just for map stuff, but almost every single boss had a mechanic related to the top screen! I have no fucking clue how you'd replicate that very well on something like the switch without just fucking with the mechanics altogether.
I would kill to hear some of Phantom Hourglasses tracks be orchestrated or otherwise rearranged in a higher quality. I wouldn't want any of the more notable themes altered in any way, no adding or removing of melodies and only very very small changes to the instrumentation, but I think it'd be neat to see what could be done with dungeon themes. I think a while back I had a fleeting desire to write some short tracks for each dungeon, with some ideas like mostly using instruments heard in Bellum's themes for the dungeons while each individual one gets a leading instrument unique to and reflective of the dungeon, while the Ghost Ship maybe gets a song that's a bit of a expanded version of the fog theme, while the Temple of the Ocean King could have slightly different themes the further in you got, starting with instruments more common to Oshus's theme or the great sea theme, while the further in you got the more instruments from Bellum's theme would be heard, plus some harpsichord thrown in for the hell of it.
Leave the original dungeon theme for stuff like the minor pyramids and some larger cave areas, idk. It's grown on me.
I think the only story rearranging I'd want is mayyyyybe unfridging Tetra? You could very easily shuffle some things around with her and just not damsel her for the whole game and honestly it'd still go off perfectly without a hitch. But you'd still have to deal with the World of the Ocean King being a whole other world, so either bring her and her crew in and have them as wandering ship npcs (the better idea) or just leave them out (not a good idea) but either way it's better than what they actually did. I just don't think I'd want it to switch to Tetra being a major reoccurring character tbh, the main character dynamics in PH are good as they are.
I think I like Phantom Hourglass too much as it is to really want a remake at all. I'd rather we get something like an anime adaptation. That's what I think about more. Give me animated Phantom Hourglass with some fun takes on the dungeons and fights and some fun slice of life stuff with the group between the islands what I want is a Phantom Hourglass anime
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