#sekiro: shadows die twice

[doyoulikethis-videogame-song]

Song: The Owl Artist: Yuka Kitamura From: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Listen on Youtube:

[st-hedge]

I wanted to draw something for the year of the snake and I’m Fromsoft brain dead at the moment

[ashinaisshin]

Sekiro scenery [11/?] 幻廊 / Hall of Illusion

[itspapillonnoir]

SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE — [1/?]

[vindicia]

A shinobi would know the difference between honour and victory.

SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE (2019)

[elykodi-k]

just Two one-armed, prosthetic-using, rot-affiliated, katana-wielding, fiercely loyal warriors

[tatzelwyrm]

I need a moment to yell about what a tragic and interesting character Emma is.

Yes, she's been placed in a stereotypically female role as the healer and the guide for the male protagonist. She's a doctor, a caregiver, yes, but there is so much more to her. She is integral to so much of the heartbreak in this story and not because she isn't trying. She just can't escape it.

She's not a fighter, but she has a sword, and the reason she learned how to use it is specifically because she is waiting for a man who means the world to her to turn into a demon so she can kill him.

The Sculptor rescued her from a battlefield when she was a small child and starving. He helped raise her and eventually placed her in Dogen's care.

She visits him often, she asks for his advice on some really difficult, delicate matters.

This is her father in all the ways that matter (and he's actually a good father compared to some other fathers in this story). She clearly respects and loves him.

And she also knows that he is turning into a demon and the only thing she can do about it is make sure she is ready to kill him when the time comes.

Her relationship with Isshin is also tied up in this. Isshin is her lord. He is also her teacher, since he is the one who trained her in swordsmanship.

Isshin's skill with the sword is so fabled they call him the Sword Saint. This guy lives to swordfight. His greatest achievement (according to him) isn't killing a tyrant and freeing his country, it's developing his own fighting style that he never stopped trying to improve it (and he hands out pamphlets about it).

That's the guy Emma got to train her.

Isshin got a tutor to train his beloved grandson (as is proper), but he trained Emma himself and it doesn't come as a surprise once you learn that Isshin was the one who stopped the Sculptor from turning into Shura before.

Emma must have told him what she wanted to learn swordsmanship for.

Imagine Emma asking Isshin to train her in swordsmanship. Isshin, who fought Shura and lived, must have looked at this small, waifish woman and asked her why. And then he ended up teaching her anyway.

Specifically so she can kill a demon.

(And the beautiful thing about this, in terms of Sekiro being a video game, is that this is not just something we're informed of, but it's reflected in the actual gameplay. If you end up fighting her, Emma's moveset is a slimmed down, slightly less reactive version of Grandpa Isshin's. She has the same perilous attacks (including the same grab), she has Ashina cross, she does that little slash if you stick too close.

Conversely, Genichiro, despite being Isshin's heir, fights nothing like his grandfather. Because he was taught by Tomoe. Actually, the way fighting styles are used for characterisation is another thing that has me raving about this game. Like the fact that Owl is the only enemy in the entire game who can perform a Mikiri counter...).

However, Isshin isn't just her lord and her teacher. He also dresses up as a mythological figure to hunt down spies and those of his grandson's allies he doesn't approve of in his castle. Emma knows this. Isshin knows Emma knows this and she gets away with teasing her about it. They have a cute, friendly relationship.

But more importantly, Isshin is also her patient and they both know he's dying.

There's this inevitableness about all of Emma's relationships. See also Genichiro: Emma and he were childhood friends. They used to hang out with Takeru and Tomoe by the sakura tree. If you share enough sake with her she'll tell you about how she used to sneak out of the castle to watch Genichiro pratice Tomoe's Lightning (and did Genichiro taking his shirt off when he does that move have anything to do with that?)

But she's spending enough time with Isshin to know that Genichiro's days, too, are numbered. And there's that sad memory in which she tells Kuro about the sediment and how people who use it lose their humanity bit by bit.

Oh, and since I mentioned Tomoe ... if you pursue the Purification route, you find out that Emma saw Tomoe attempt Purification (which only failed because she didn't have the Mortal Blade). Emma saw Tomoe, presumably her friend, attempt suicide. To spare Takeru.

And then there's Wolf and Kuro. Who not only act as a catalyst for the Genichiro situation to finally turn to shit. She also soon realises that Wolf and Kuro find themselves in the same bind as Takeru and Tomoe.

And with the knowledge that at least one of them has to die, one of them a small child, she chooses to let the child die and save the man. Witholding the information on how to attempt Purification is one of very few choices Emma actually gets to make in this story. Everything else is ripped from her control (Sculptor's condition, Isshin's condition, Genichiro's condition, the situation the entire country is in). And it's such an interesting choice to make for her.

There's this child, who is convinced that the only way to end the curse of immortality is for him to have his head cut off with a magic sword. And her choice is whether or not to tell the depressed Shinobi looking after this boy that there's an option for the child to live but it requires the Shinobi to cut his own head off instead.

And she chooses to say nothing.

She's making her decision and in doing so, she's effectively taking the choice away from Wolf. And it eventually leads to even more heartbreak, because if you actually make Wolf kill Kuro, Wolf is miserable for the rest of his days, taking the place of the Sculptor and set to eventually turn into a demon himself.

And that's so interesting.

And every day I'm cursing the gaming gods because Fromsoft hasn't made more story games like this.

Break my heart again, I can take it.

[benne-ve]

[the-damnable-fool]

The most annoying part of Sekiro fandom discourse is that like 40% of it consists of "Genichiro could've saved Ashina if he just-" No. He couldn't have. That's the point. That's the entire theme of the game. Ashina was always going to fall, and Genichiro's fatal flaw is that he's incapable of accepting that. He's not an idiot because he failed to retain control of Ashina, he's an idiot because his desperate obsession with retaining control of Ashina has blinded him to the fact that he's actively rendering the country uninhabitable. He's willing to subject commoners to fucked up experiments to create red eyed monsters as last ditch defenders. He wants the Dragons Heritage even though he knows what kind of damage the Dragon Rot will do. He literally set a fucking bulls horns on fire just to buy his armies a little bit of time when the Ministry invaded. Genichiro was always doomed. He just refused to see it.

[hajizomenoise]

給餃子老師（twi: J_ioioioio）的弦狼本本的G圖！！

[joh-a-umeko]

[lesbianralzarek]

i really appreciate in sekiro how fromsoft made it so youre never wondering who tf youre fighting or why when it comes to the big bosses. i dont have to stop and open up the wiki to figure out why i should care about fighting owl

that being said, the early game struggles to set up bosses before you fight them because, yanno, you just got here. so the final boss gets to be a 20/10 satisfying climatic showdown, but the first(-ish) boss is essentially horseback john cena

[st-hedge]

Aaasshiinnnnaaaaaaaa. And one of them huge roosters

[ashinaisshin]

Sekiro scenery [8/?] 源の宮 / Fountainhead Palace

[itspapillonnoir]

SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE ⤅ [ 10/? ]

Halls of Illusion

[vindicia]

SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE - Senpou Temple, Mt. Kongo