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imadhatt3r · 10 months ago

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Soul, body and what remains- A DS2 theory

I've decided to write down my theory about what I believe might happen in DS2. Tumblr seems like the best website for it, given that I can write everything in one easy to read post and it has a high likelihood of reaching people who are also insane about this game

TLDR: After the events of DS1, Amelie has given her soul to Lou, which is why Higgs is after her- he wants to rid the world of any traces of Amelie left so that he could "ascend" and take her place. Amelie's body became the Chrystalis (Elle Fanning), who fell into the Seam and was "spat out" into the world of the living through the tar. The octopus we see at the end of trailer 1 is what remained of Amelie on her Beach, which transformed into a creature that is better suited for such environment.

Okay, let's begin:

SOUL

So we all remember the last scene of DS1: Sam decides to free Lou out of her pod and tries to revive her when she seems unresponsive; We can see what looks like her spirit leaving her body. Sam holds her close and then Lou wakes up, holding Amelie's quipu in her hands. Five baby BTs look on during the whole scene.

I believe that Amelie has somehow attached her soul to Lou's or just straight up gave her her own- maybe "aged down" in some way, without her memories and experiences, not just straight up her soul as it was, I feel like that wouldn't fit with Kojima's "tone" of writing. The five baby BTs are the five previous extinction entities looking on at what Amelie's doing- we know that they can change shape, since they are humanoids on the Beach, despite not being ones in life.

As for Amelie's motivation, well, I believe that she wanted to live the life of a normal human girl. She makes it very clear that she is permanent and unchanging, stuck in time, while people around her like Sam get to grow old and age. If you've read the books, you'd know that Amelie/Bridget started to have her DOOMs dreams as a little girl, which means that her childhood was taken away from her very fast. And she loved humanity, so much that she wanted to mercy-kill it, which, in the way she sees the world, was an act of kindness. When she saw that Lou was on the brink of dying, she saw an opening- she gave her soul to save Lou. It creates an ethical dillema; Was Amelie selfless in what she did? She wanted to save Lou and give something to Sam, who she loved and wanted to be happy. On the other hand, she did it for her own benefit, in a way, to live out her fantasy and dream of being a human and getting to grow up among other humans. She has also altered Lou's very being without anyone's knowledge or consent, and without Sam knowing. She also knew that Sam was a kind, caring and loving guy, so her "child-self" will grow up being well taken care of.

This is why Higgs' "cult" is after Lou, but seemingly not after Sam and Fragile (if that scene is real, but let's assume that it is)- Lou holds Amelie's soul, so getting rid of her is a priority, while Sam and Fragile are there for the "boss" to take care of to reenact his desires of revenge.

But Lou's spirit, thanks to Amelie's being "entangled" with it, remains, seemingly bound to her BB pod. When Higgs takes off Lou's pod from Sam and he seemingly senses some kind of "life" in it, he seems suprised and almost impressed, like he was outsmarted.

When Sam asks "Was it you that killed Lou?" Higgs says "You still don't know, do you?", like Higgs thinks that Sam is deluding himself. Sam and Higgs are characters who probably know Amelie and what she's capable of the most of the entire cast, only Higgs is fully aware of how decieving and conniving she can be, while Sam seems to not be fully open about it to himself. Higgs knows that Amelie's soul is in Lou, while Sam might realize it deep in his mind, but doesn't want to admit to it to himself.

When Higgs says that "All that pain (Sam) nurses will only going to get worse" when Sam learns the truth about Lou, he means that he will find out that Amelie has lied to him again, she changed who Lou is and he's been raising essentially a different person for some time.

I can see Sam going through an arc of not knowing how he feels about Lou, maybe even feeling some resentment towards her through Amelie, but he'll ultimately accept Lou for who she is- I feel like Sam would never reject Lou, no matter what. I can see him going through a character arc similar to Harry Mason from Silent Hill (which would maybe be a roundabout Silent Hills reference?).

Both Amelie and Lou are also symbolised by angel imagery or themes- Higgs calls Amelie "a sweet little angel on death" in DS1, and Lou has been consistently potrayed with angel wings in DS2 trailers. Amelie is the red angel of death, while Lou is the blue-ish angel of protection, proving that they are related characters, but are, in a way, mirrored.

2. BODY

Elle Fanning's character, who I will call Chrystalis, is Amelie's body that fell into the Seam and was "spat out" by the tar into the world of the living.

We see Chrystalis in a well, chrystalis. A chrystalis is specifically a cocoon used by developing moths and butterflies. As we know, caterpillars are known to liquify in their cocoon in order to go through a transformation; I think that Amelie's body (or a part of it) was encased in a cocoon and liquified- in order to develop into something different. She looks different than Amelie because some "genes" got reshuffled in the process, or the tar wasn't able to recreate Amelie perfectly from a single body part.

The Chrystalis doesn't know who she is because she doesn't have a soul, which is within Lou.

We also see her body being pulled up on that one shot with the table because the EEs want to pull her up where she belongs- since they are the only established characters that we see "in the sky" or "up". They can sense that the Chrystalis is Amelie, but they can't sense that she is just a "piece" of her, and not a complete EE.

I don't have that much to say (yet) about the Chrystalis, since we don't have much info on her.

3. WHAT REMAINS

Okay, so we've got the soul and the body- what else is there?

Do you remember the octopus arms inside the BB pod at the end of trailer 1?

Well, it's also Amelie. In a way.

The octopus/tentacles represent what remained of Amelie after giving away her soul and tossing away her body. The octopus is something like her EE essence, her primal force made real. She dwells in the Seam now, adapted to the conditions of a being who has no need of venturing onto land again.

It's hard to say how much the octopus remembers or knows about who it was; I can see it attacking the Magellan a'la kraken, not realizing that it's Sam and two pieces of her in there, but I can also see it retaining some of Amelie's memories and feelings.

As for other proof, I don't have much- both Amelie and the octopus are associated with red.

An octopus is also the the logo of the Magellan, and as we know, their goal is spreading the chiral network onto another continent- octopuses have been used in propaganda to symbolize far-reaching power, which I think might relate to BRIDGES' desire to get more people onto the network. The chiral network was also Amelie's dream, so the fact that it's spreading further on might relate to her new octopus form.

I think that the myth of Akkorokamui from the Ainu (an ethnic group indigenous to Japan) mythology is worth mentioning: According to one version (quoting wikipedia) Akkorokamui was once a gigantic spider named Yaushikep who lived in the mountains nearby a village named Rebunge. One day, Yaushikep descended down to Rebunge and caused havoc. Fearing for their lives, the villagers prayed to the gods to save them. Their prayers were answered by the sea god Repun Kamuy, who pulled Yaushikep into Uchiura Bay. It is said that Yaushikep turned into a giant octopus who took over the bay as its god and since then, he has been known by the villagers as At-kor-kamuy or Akkorokamui.

BRIDGES in the first game is represented by spiders and spiderwebs. DS pulls from many different mythologies of course, so an inclusion of an Ainu myth wouldn't suprise me. Perhaps it might parellel how Amelie saw how much pain she and her organisation caused, so she chose to give her soul to Lou and leave her body behind to transform into an octopus that now rules over the Seam and can't hurt anyone anymore, since the Seam only has its own native wildlife in there, no humans.

CONCLUSION

I know that this theory is a lot, but I really think that at least some pieces of it might make it into the game. I have no doubts that Amelie is still heavily involved in some way, even if she isn't "alive", so to speak. Kojima does love a good story of "larger than life figure dies and now we have to struggle with the fallout".

I think that Higgs might ultimately want to find a way to put Lou's soul, Chrystalis' body and the octopus together to "revive" Amelie and cause the final extinction- we see by his attire that he clearly wants to immitate Amelie, so him wanting to finally kill her to get his revenge and take over in her steed seems plausible. Higgs was also stuck on the Beach back then, so he might've witnessed Amelie giving her soul to Lou and hatching his plan then. It's kinda funny, really- he tries so hard to be Amelie, while the three parts of her have no idea who they are.

A lot of people seem to think that DS2 will be a sort of deconstruction of DS1 like MGS2 was to MGS, and yeah, I can see that.

A big theme of MGS2, one of a few, was identity, especially one that we construct for ourselves. DS2 seems to hint towards it too- Fragile being "Fragile in name only", which can mean a few things, BRIDGES establishing DRAWBRIDGE to continue the spread of the chiral network, Higgs cosplaying Amelie, Sam having to take on his identity as a porter once more etc. All of the new characters seem to deliberately not have names revealed, letting the players theorize about them and sort of give them the identity they want them to have.

I think that this theory continues this theme- Sam will learn to love Lou no matter who she is, Chrystalis will develop her own personality on her own terms and figure out who she is and wants to be, while the octopus will either remember who she was or live in blissful ignorance as a giant octopus.

The game's subtitle, "on the beach", seems to be hinting towards Amelie's involvment too- after all, she dwells on the Beach now, and said to Sam that this is where she will be waiting for him this time too. This subtitle will likely have multiple meanings once the game comes out, but I can only connect it with Amelie as of now.

"Should we have connected?" once again, will have multiple meanings once the game comes out, but I can see it relating to Sam's and Amelie's connection- if not for that, she wouldn't give her soul to Lou to "be" with Sam, not threatning Lou's life because of it, and probably avoiding whatever calamity is about to happen in the DS2's story.

Thank you all for reading!

#death stranding #on the beach #hatter blathers #hatter writes meta #higgs monagham #sam porter bridges #amelie #lou

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