#murim lgts

[tart-miano]

Edit: whelp there it goes. Worth a try at least. Here's the playlist by itself. It's set up so that you can follow along on here and see the art that goes with each song (both music and art are arranged in the same order for convenience)

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HOOOOOOO BOY this was a lot of work lmao, so i got into LGTS this past christmas and after making a playlist inspired by it for myself, i figured i'd make a video of it paired with original fanart!

I'm aware there's a high risk of the video getting taken down for copyright (what i'm doing mostly is just seeing what i can get away with under yt's Ceaselessly Watching Eye and maybe if it goes well i can make more playlist/art videos?? no biggie if it doesn't work out, just testing the waters ig) SO! i'm putting the art on its own on tumblr jic i can't keep the video up. the art is the most important part to share anyways right?

[klai-16xoxo]

I have been spelling Murim name wrong this whole time ngl

I thought it was “Ovrio” by how the game wrote it with fancy ass front- I AM SO SORRY MY CHILD, I DID NOT MEAN TO SPELL YOUR NAME WRONGGGGGGG

[insanityisfine]

So, I know I'm late to this party, but in my defense I just got the invitation.

I recently went through Little Goody Two Shoes, and then learnt about the existence of Pocket Mirror, so I went to look that one up too.

Loved how LGTS built upon PM, how it recontextualized COMPLETELY one of, if not THE generally agreed upon, happier endings.

And yet.

Maybe it's because I arrived here late, I haven't seen a lot of mentions of Henri's role in the most gruesome ending of PM (Witching Hour), and how deep Ozzy's manipulation and disregard for his own rules goes.

In the Witching Hour ending, we see Henri casually talk with Ozzy, clearly they know each other well, and I got the feeling Ozzy would eventually take him as an apprentice, or a new "lord", like the crow - Murim, and the snake - Aziel.

And LGTS makes SUCH a big deal of, well, the deal between Ozzy and Elise, with him demanding her first born, and her offering her second born (in one of the rare instances of smarts from Elise), and him agreeing to it.

Thing is: both of them were lying through their teeth.

Elise had no intentions of ever having children, and Ozzy went after BOTH of her children in the end.

Did he know she was trying to trick him, and decided to make sure she had two children, and then take them both, as a punishement? Or did he have no intention of following whatever counter offer Elise made, and take a child of hers regardless?

Did Elise ever had a choice?

In the non-canon endings we see Elise lament that Ozzy took Goldia, meaning she's most likely dead, but given what we see in the Witching Hour ending, Ozzy either has, or will take Henri too.

There's no saving grace, there's no honour among thieves, there's no escape. Ozzy takes what he wants, period.

Hell, the PM ending where Elise didn't take Ozzy's deal, where she apparently never even learnt of his existence, has Goldia finding the shoes, just like she did. He's going after that lineage, no matter what.

Elise's birth, her whole existence is tied to Ozzy and the supernatural, hell, it's basically unnatural, and Ozzy decided to torment her in every way and path possible, including taking both of her children, just to further fuck with her.

Hell, he even went so far as to guide Rozenmarine, who was basically groomed to eventually be a willing sacrifice to something, to Elise, to make sure he got his way.

He's a bitch, but he's a dedicated one.

[suitmana]

i will be the first to admit that this might be reaching a bit. also discussions of religious concepts in lgts ahead

so catholicism in lgts is explored through the struggles of living in a small catholic town like kieferberg, and literally everything about walpurga, the forest deity turned saint. but imo there's also something to be said about how elise obtains the tender flesh: this might be a reflection of the sacrament of the eucharist as understood during the medieval era.

but what is the eucharist anyway? 

in catholic doctrine the eucharist is supposed to be the body of christ manifested through transubstantiation: the transformation of bread and wine into his flesh and blood respectively. this is based on the events of the last supper in the bible, wherein before his death jesus offers his body to his disciples through the bread and wine that they share. thing is, current understanding of transubstantiation is moreso in a metaphysical sense: catholics who do believe in it don’t actually think that they’re eating jesus’ physical body.

that wasn't always the case with medieval catholicism, however. there were theorists like st aquinas and berengar who argued for a metaphysical transubstantiation, but powerful church officials like cardinal humbert (who actually forced berengar to recount his claims) also believed that the faithful partaking in the eucharist were actually eating the literal, physical flesh and blood of jesus. there was quite a bit of concern too because of this: the body of christ, torn apart and chewed on by not just the faithful, but potential sinners? 

the average catholic of that time probably didn't care much for the specifics of how transubstantiation worked (either way, the bread is/represents jesus, whether or not that was physical or not), but the point is there was an ongoing debate—if only among high-ranking church officials and theologians—about what the eucharist really was. now keep in mind that aforementioned literal physicality of the eucharist, and how similarly that plays out to the relevant witching hour segments in lgts.

i want to first highlight the scene where the crows in murim's domain rip out parts of elise's hair for the wheat testament:

and the aftermath:

they sure are hungry, huh? and the way they get at elise is pretty violent, judging by her screams and the sounds of tearing flesh. their carnal hunger, expressed through their lines and the violence in how they form the wheat testament from her hair, brings to mind similar fears of an animalistic, near sacrilegious ingestion of a certain sacred body turned bread, only this time realized in a demonic trial. in other words, the entire trial subverts christ's supposed physical presence in the bread. besides, it's stated outright that elise is meant to physically combine a piece of her body—her hair—into that wheat. 

she does just that in the windmill:

her hair baked into the (apparently unleavened) bread is the tender flesh that the crows hungered for, that would eventually find its way onto ozzy's table.

so the process of acquiring the tender flesh seems to imitate that transubstantiation in the celebration of the eucharist. if that's the case, i wonder why ozzy and his minions would design them this way…

btw here's my sources for medieval transubstantiation (despite my unhinged rambling i did do a bit of research):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23964057 (Ego Berengarius by Chadwick, H., 1989)

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/some-later-medieval-theories-of-the-eucharist-9780199658169 (Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist by Adams, M. M., 2010)

[be-ly]

Guys, I have a theory!

I was rewatching some of the endings of LGTS (like the normal person I am) and I noticed something...

At the carriage sent by Roman Die Heilige (Elise's husband), there's a symbol at the top. Ozzy's symbol.

My first thought would be that it could be an hallucination, but nothing indicates that. Besides, the castle is heavily represented in his domain.

It could be linked to Elise's wish, but that itself doesn't explain why it's painted with Aziel and Murim in front of it on the big painting at the room before the end of the game.

My theory is that the Die Heilige family already worked for Ozzy and his marquis before. Probably not Roman himself, but someone in the family, and their deal were very important for them to gain more power or more influence at the region.