The Morality of Shadow of the Colossus
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.พ. 2017
- Clickbait title: This video will restore your faith in the entombed god Dormin
Shadow of the Colossus is a rare masterpiece of a game. The occasional janky controls and wonky physics aside, every element of this game holds up incredibly well. More than that, it's about the overall package just coming together in a cohesive and synergistic way, the mechanics of the game complimenting and reenforcing the themes and story. Probably the biggest reason we haven't seen a repeat is because it's less about a boss rush where you climb all over big monsters and more about the total package, and getting it right. Though it is also about the boss rush. The technological side of SotC is still daunting, and I'm sure plenty of game developers out there re-play it and go "wait, how did they do that?" Last word: the beginning of the fight with Avion, when Wander transfers from the ground to Avion's wing, is one of the purest moments in video game history.
Written and performed by Dan Olson
Twitter: / foldablehuman - เกม
I remember SotC being discussed on Reddit and one Redditor said he killed a couple of the Colossi but then felt so bad about waking up these majestic creatures only to slaughter them that he spent the rest of his time in the game just exploring the beautiful world, careful not to enter an area where he would wake the next one. Someone said to him/her "You probably don't understand why, but you pretty much won at the game with your actions". Not sure why but that interaction was very poignant to me.
H
Walter
@@thefreshprincer5587 a good boi
I first played this when I was just 6 years old. I had no idea what I was doing, so I just roam the land wonderously and swam in lakes. Eventually I find myself climbing into the first colossus' territory accidentally. At the first glimpse of this colossal monstrosity I quickly paused the game from pure fright. Over the long course of me running away from this beast, I no longer had much fear but still I would be cautious. It didn't take long for my young self to figure out I was to climb the beast from it's left foot. I then managed to slay the beast so mercilessly and was so excited I managed to make any progress in this game. But after seeing the cutscene of the beast collapsing onto the Earth I soon felt guilt. I came back to it's grave to pay respects for my brutality.
Now I have revisited this game once again in the new remastered version on the PS4. Had tons of fun with it and spent quite some time with that I even earned a platinum trophy for this game. This game truly is something unique.
Eh, I kind of feel like that misses the point of the game itself in that it's a set story and not something that you decide the outcome of.
I love that they left the 'call your horse' button on while you were being sucked back into the light. My Wander spent his last minutes screaming for his dead horse. Talk about some effing pathos.
twig collins Agro didn't died lol
gogeta jaguar yeah, but you didn't know that at that point
Damn... that was intense.
Jesus, when I first played I had my hand on the grip button so hard I was sweating up the controller, with tears in my eyes. I kept trying to jump from the stairs, which made me fall back further, and I gripped the edge of the fountain until my grip gauge emptied and I had to let go.
Seeing Agro come back with a limp broke me down in tears.
During every playthrough, I call for agro everytime after his death. Idk why
Another fun bit about Gaius: his eyes are blue until you deliver the stab to the head. And when a Colossus has blue eyes, it means that they're calm, docile. The entire time you've been trying to slay him, he's been playing. There was never once any malice on his part.
I've never played this game in my life but that just made me so fucking sad
@@nickchambers3935 same, I'm literally tearing up rn
Fuck, that really gets me.
How am I going to play this game NOW after reading this ;-;
yeah, he just tried crushing the tiny ant wander with his massive and gigantic stone sword as playful act. maybe...
Malus has aggressive eyes until he sees Wander's full form (instead of just a speck on the ground) and realizes that WANDER is human ;A; he humanizes his enemy just as we humanize the colossi
AUGHHH
He also tends to look at wander with curiosity when hes climbing him, wander at that point has a large part of Dormins soul, dormins soul being the essence of each colossus. I think Malus looks at wander as one of his own, curious and hurt when he's struck by who he sees as himself
Wow that is some remarkable beautiful and subtle story telling. I wish I had noticed this myself, but I’m so glad you pointed it out.
Shadow of the Colossus is a game about letting go. You spend the whole game keeping your finger on the hold button and the very last thing you do is let go of it.
I forgot that, indeed, all you can do in the very end while still in control of Wander is let go. You can struggle, but not pull away from the end, quite literally. Otherwise the tale does not end: Wander does not receive his death and rebirth otherwise.
...dang this is such a good game.
except that by not letting go you succeed in resurrecting mono. not letting go saved her life, possibly dormin too. it's important to remember that mono was "sacrificed" which is what we would today call, murdered by psychotic religious fanatics. while wander does die at the end he does so to undo a gross injustice. even then his death come not from an inability to "let go" but from a murderous cultist showing up to kill him.
we instinctively see a parallel between dormin and Mephistopheles. however if the colossi should not be judge as inherently evil simply because of their appearance why are we so quick to judge dormin as evil because of his? dormin kept his end of the bargain and wander only died due to the actions of the aforementioned zealot. said zealot is the one who claims dormin to is evil but I don't think the word of a fanatic who considers murdering young innocent women as righteous counts for much. plus of the two dormin causes no suffering. wander suffers during his journey to free dormin but he only has to do that because the priests imprisoned him, so again all the suffering inflicted on our characters traces back to Emons cult. even as dormin is fighting for his life he still makes sure to save mono before the end. given that ico's protagonist is mistreated due to his appearance it's hard not to see shadow of the colossus as a tragedy brought about by prejudges, dogmatism, and zealotry.
I don't think the game as a whole is about any one thing, it seems to thread several ideas into it's narrative in a way that prevents any one of them to be the "moral of the story." as for what that part near the end of the game is about I think that segment of the game isn't so much about letting go as it is about presenting a kobayashi maru, a no win scenario where it's not about the inevitability of your demise but more about how you will respond in the face of that inevitability. do you let go or do you refuse to give up till the bitter end there is no right or wrong to it.
This is what I wanted to hear in the video
you write very well
Jesus fucking christ this shit deep as fuck
*DORMIN I'VE COME TO BARGAIN.*
Dormin probably would've been smart enough to blast the Eye of Agamotto to smithereens before making any bargains.
+Centimeterworm And you think Dormammu didn't?
The problem is the eye being destroyed existed after the eye that would enter, therefore the eye existing before hand, was unharmed, and still capable of entering.
+Leaf Shade
...OH GOD MY BRAIN
That "bargaining" period may have bee literally trillions of years, and we just skipped to the end.
I can't believe that didn't occur to me. I have so much more respect for the climax of that movie now.
The first kill was such a strange feeling "Yes!... wait... did I do something wrong?"
"Why is the music sad? Was I not supposed to do this? Huh? ;-;"
Just as food for thought, I've always noticed one more dimension to the moral complexity of the story: the land itself. Throughout the game, it is shown to be barren, devoid of life except for a few hardy lizards and the colossi themselves. In the end scene and the credits, however, you see it start to come back to life. Grass starts growing again, and animals start returning. I've always interpreted this to mean that the imprisonment of Dormin actively caused the land to die, and that freeing him let it return to life.
Cary Bronson Hmm... you have a point there. I mean the moment you kill Malus(last colossi) the sky brightens up.
I dunno, but from my minimalistic knowledge of latin, ancient greek and some other ancient languages (a hobby) "Dormin" might be two things - it's spelled backwards as "Nimrod", a biblical figure, while name Dormin on its own suggest association with sleep/slumber.
My guess he's a god of life and sleep (with death being eternal sleep) - as cultists destroyed only bridge to ourside world reappearance of animals meant they likely slept without aging (not aging would explain Mono's body not decomposing), knowing japanese motifs of Ying-Yang and everything being in circles, he likely roamed the world when he was active, making stuff go sleep and moving on later leaving it to awake again, but being sealed locked him in one land, so after he was locked again a bit of nature woke up as his last conscious act was not only honoring his deal and ressurecting Mono, but also making dying Wander reborn on which he spent some of his remaining power (thus giving him horns).
@@mareczek00713 That's actually a really, really good theory.
I don't know... there is a certain diversity of life in the game's world. There are birds, fish can be found in certain areas, the lizards as you mentioned. I think these are too many elements to ignore in order to consider Dormin a hindrance to life in some way.
There is in fact always a column of light where the colossus is slain.
Fun fact! Ico is the game that inspired hidetaki miyazaki to go into game development. Basically you have Ico to thank for souls, bloodborne, and now sekiro.
Wow!!
Even if it hadn't, it would still be god darn Ico, and that's more than enough.
So SoulsBourne is the spiritual successor of Sotc, this makes me beyond happy.
I love the struggle to avoid the pool of light at the end. The whole rest of the game it's been training the player to feel desperation and panic as their grip runs out, and it puts you into Wander's desperate, panicked mindset as he's drawn into the light. It plays off the emotion it's taught you to feel to make the ending that much more tangible and personal.
Worth noting that out of all the colossal, that the cat and dog are at the end is also telling. For me, and I'm sure many others, it took the playfulness of the kitten behaviour (as seen as he tries to swat you through gaps) and the silliness of a puppy (as you goad the dog through walls like a puppy on a slippery kitchen floor) to really realize the overall innocence of the colossi; this is not how a monster/predator neither hunts or defend itself. Like a young animal learn new things through play and fighting, so does the colossus when it encounters Wander. Hell, the "wolf" emerges from a doghouse during his presentation.
Basically, you're almost literally throwing a kitten off a cliff and kicking a puppy. Not hunting tigers.
ya mean celosia and cenobia? colossi 11 and 14?
@@Eliza-hb1nc I think so. By "the end" I didn't mean literally the last ones you fight but they're close to the final act once you've gotten comfortable killing the big boiz.
This game did a great job of quietly yet confidently articulating one feeling, at least for me: "This is all wrong. Why does this feel this way? This is all wrong."
I always wanted agro to not follow me until the end when I wanted him to actually come back
Some food for thought: Dormin is Nirmrod spelled backwards.
Nimrod is a character from the bible known for wearing a bulls horns on his crown, building a great tower in a forbidden land abhorred for polytheism, and most importantly *being split into several pieces* when he died, which makes this more than just a coincidence.
After he died, his wife allegedly had a virgin birth and claimed the child was Nimrod reborn. At the end of the game, a baby with horns similar to Dormin's appears without any apparent mother.
You were really thorough in this video. All of people just mindlessly praise it and call it art without giving any reason as to why (probably because they just want to use it as ammo in the one sided "video games are art" debate). It almost never gets discussed or analyzed like this I'm glad the some people are actually talking about what makes this game special.
Good observation with Nimrod/Dormin, I hadn't caught that.
This would actually go further, as the Tower of Babel was a counterfeit temple intended to circumvent the rites and offerings of the Patriarchal lineage. Thematically it builds on the idea of Dormin as a disruptor.
Folding Ideas I just read Wikipedia way too much.
Wasn't Nimrod also known for being a great hunter? I know it's Wander that hunts the Colossi, but I think the connection is still relevant.
Interesting, I took it as the derivation of the Latin "dormio" (to sleep), which applies to Dormin's state (in a Lovecraftian "sleeping god" sorta way) and also Mono's. But you're absolutely right. Dormin = Nimrod.
This begs a redo of this video, or at least with that added in.
In the beginning of your closing statement you said that Dormin manipulated Wander, but I don't agree at all. From the moment Wander spoke with them, they told him that there would be dire consequences to himself if he were to revive them. Wander then cuts them off and says that this doesn't matter. Wander was not manipulated, he made a conscious choice, even if it was a grief stricken one. In fact, as you made it seem in the end, Dormin has shown no evidence of being a negative force in the world at all despite using Wander as a vessel, which was again, a conscious choice.
@Solemn Solace Dormin did exactly as promised.
@@TheLithp - It was a vague promise.
@Solemn Solace The whole point of the story is that it is ambiguous. Wander is clearly in over his head, but we don't know if Emon good, Dormin evil or the other way around.
The only evidence of Dormin being bad are that: he's imprisoned, he's a horned creature, and he takes over Wander. The former two describe the humble-hero protagonist in Ico (the previous game). As for the last one, not only does Dormin warn Wander of the price to pay in advance, but he only takes over Wander after Wander has been stabbed in the chest by Emon's men, and he insists that he's just "borrowing" Wander's body in order to kill Emon and his men.
The evidence of Emon being bad are that: it's implied that he ordered Mono's execution and he resorts to killing Wander even though Wander is still in control and isn't fighting back (his sole concern being Mono). However, he expresses genuine pity for Wander and hopes that, one day, Wander may be able to "atone" in some form.
Interestingly enough, the prologue indicates that Wander tricked Emon into telling Wander about the Forbidden lands and the ritual, then he stole the sword from Emon before heading to the Forbidden Lands.
@@lettuceprime4922 It's possible, and intriguing to think, that Dormin themself did not fully know what would happen when they were freed, only that there would be consequences.
@@matthewmuir8884 Adding to the ambiguity: Dormin actually keeps their word and revives Mono. And possibly Agro, because I have difficulty buying that she survived that fall into the ravine. How many deals with the Devil in fiction end with the Devil actually holding up their end of the bargain, without even twisting the wish into something horrible?
On the other hand, Dormin may have warned Wander that there would be a price to pay, but they weren't up-front about that price being Wander's physical corruption and Dormin gaining the opportunity to possess him, so I don't think they can be called "good".
Is the fact that Dormin loses the female half of his voice at the end implicating that the girl half goes into the girl and acts as the catalyst of her resurrection, while also freeing Dormin from what ever that element was?(Was she possibly helping seal him?)
maybe it wasn't even a resurrection. Given how Wander had to pretty much die inside in order for Dormin to possess him, Dormin's female half had a body that was full on dead. So really, Mono isn't Mono anymore, or at least not wholly, but rather part of Dormin took her body as the rest took Wander's. Makes you wonder what happened to the male half when he was sealed, and thus what Wander turnng into a baby means
ehc if dormin also possessed mano how come she didn't get drawn into to portal along with wander? And how come the shadow creatures are only around him after the battles. The way I understood it was that dormin is some sort of demon and was sealed away and when wander kills each of the collosus he actually breaks the seals and absorbed the trapped soul from within the collosus. All that makes sense to me. But I don't quiet get how mono is also possessed. I do think dormin is powerful enough to bring someone back to life I mean he is some sort of demon after all. I think mono was resurrected at the end but wander is gone.
Tong Vang I agree with you. Mono would have became a child too and their Mother would be a horse. I do think that Dormin does resurrect Mono at the cost of Wander's life.
The woman's half of the voice leavings could symbolise a lack of empathy or the darker grey of morality. Women are often thought of as empathetic and emotional, and through the game as each colossi falls, until only the male half of Dormin remains, it's much more.. Apathetic. Dormin and Wanders selfishness cause these magnificent creatures to perish, until Wander is a husk and incapable of either or, get it is Dormins Male Voice that pierces through all the rest, and dominates through the game.
@@annawarren1345 I think it's as simple as Dormin fully possessing Wander means that Wander has fully become a vessel for Dormin. Dormin is agender until it fully inhabits a physical form in a male body.
I got to my third Colossus before I just got this idea in my brain that I was the bad guy. I couldn't keep playing because I felt like I was doing something terrible. Lo and behold, I watched a play through online that confirmed my suspicions. To this day, I have still not been able to bring myself to finish it. 11/10
Lena Burch you're missing out
Lena Burch I don't really consider wander to be a bad guy.
+DarkMiros6 as the famous sammyclassicsonicfan said: "When will you learn that your actions have consequences?!"
DarkMiros6 Well they killed Mono because she has a cursed fate. Does she really deserve to die? If she didn't die then wander doesn't need to sacrifice everything including his life for Mono.
And Dormin is Nimrod tho. And also Dornim doesn't feel like he is completely evil since he did grant Wander's wish.
Coward...
"Aftshadowing" is a word I didn't know I needed until today.
Dayum, that story's got aftshadowing for days.
Timothy McLean that's just called "realization". as in "oh god, what have i done?"
I'm a simple man.
I see Shadow of the Colossus and I click.
Misread it as 'Shadows of Mordor' and almost didn't watch.
Agreed :)
Agreed.
...but first I have flashbacks of the poor horse in that one scene.... and THEN I click
linkexer same here man
Shadow of the Colossus's narrative strikes the perfect balance of telling you just enough to make you want to know more. Ripe for fan speculation, as much as I long to fill in the gaps, I think it's much better without that knowledge.
The morality of this game leaves a lot to think about. Most games make clear the justification of why to kill your enemies. They're the "bad guys". It's kill or be killed. Shadow doesn't do this. Many of the Colossi aren't aggressive at all.
Are the Colossi individual beings that deserve their strange existence? Are they merely automatons that only simulate the behavior of the animals or things their bodies represent? Are they just parts of Dormin that wishes to reassemble them back into itself?
The conclusion that I draw, is that Wander doesn't care. His passions override any sense of empathy he could feel for these curious and majestic creatures. His path only leads to his own destruction, and he sprints down it as fast as he can. Where Hercules labored to atone for his sins, Wander instead chases his goal like Ahab chased the great white whale.
Interestingly enough, that's the point: the game was created to be ambiguous. The game's director, Fumito Ueda, doesn't consider anyone's interpretation canon, and that includes his own.
I mean, it's not like Wander was fighting for no reason.
Personally, I feel like Wander is controlled by the player for too much of the game for their to be an argument that he "doesn't care". Characters currently being piloted inherently don't have much, if any, room for independent expressions, so I think it's unfair to claim that he's sprinting down some path of destruction when the pace is ultimately left up to the player to decide.
@@jinxed7915 Interesting. The player doesn't have much choice except the pace of completion and whether to do the optional things like collecting fruit to improve Wander's stats. The cutscenes do provide some context to his personality, even if the game intentionally leaves a lot ambiguous to build a dark and mysterious atmosphere. But the music gives indications how one is meant to feel when slaying colossi, which is quite a sad and remorseful tune. There is much room for interpretation for sure.
So true. While the game is a masterpiece, a big part of why it continues to get played, discussed, scrutinized, studied, even 18 years after it's release, is because we don't get all the answers. Fumito Ueda made a wise decision to keep things vague, but even he couldn't have ever foreseen the lasting impact this game would have & continues to have so many years later.
This video is fantastic. This is embarrassing to admit, but I've played this game once a year since 2006, and I never once realized I was sad after I killed each Colossus until now. Towards the beginning of the game, I always try to run Wander away from the tendrils. Somewhere around 8 or 10 I just stop, and let Wander meet his fate. I think at some point I start mourning them. I will never play this game the same way again. Thank you for making this.
You may not have noticed it, but your brain did.
MagickP00dle I'll never play the game . I'm not killing majestic animal's
wow if you played it this many times and didn't realise, either you're really stupid or the game doesn't succeed in what it's trying to do.
@@spenny179 clearly the game didn't teach you kindness either
@@cyber_grimm As Dan states, you are not making the choice. it is more of a reenactment of pasts and futures unchangeable. it happens wether you play it or not.
"Our instinct is to share the protagonist's desires to achieve their goals"
I remember being stumped for about four minutes trying to understand what The Last of Us wanted me to do to those doctors.
correct if i remember wrong, but don't you have the choice of leaving them alive?
you have to kill the first one as he blocks your way, the others don't matter
The Last of Us is a point where the will of the player and the will of the player character becomes straight up grating.
With Wander the idea of his morals being wrong is introduced rather slowly. You start of with: "I want my GF back and I have to kill some monsters for it." The idea of your doing being wrong is introduced in a subtle way and it's mostly done without a word.
+Njnia van der Wald
Well you have to shoot at least one of them. You can't even attempt to get Ellie and then he'd stab you in the back or something.
When you try to shoot that one in the hand he also dies.
Problem is: there's moments where you're "getting control" but you still don't have any choices.
I understand that they had a story they wanted to tell, and they wanted me to be complicit in it, but it REALLY broke my immersion when I tried every single thing possible to no end. After having just played Spec Ops: The Line, I naturally thought that they were giving me the opportunity to choose, but NOPE. Shooting in the air? Nothing. Shooting near the doctor? Nothing. Throwing a brick at his foot? Nothing. Throwing a brick at his face? Nothing. Shooting him in the toe? Falls over dead, everyone else runs screaming for their lives. I honestly couldn't believe it, my immersion was simply shattered.
I couldn't name a single favorite book, movie, tv series, piece of music, drink or dish, but without a doubt Shadow of the Colossus is my favorite video game of all time.
Thanks for making this excellent video, highlighting some of what makes it so special.
Let's see...book--"A Night To Remember", movie--James Cameron's "Titanic", drink--"ice tea", dish--"pizza", piece of music--why the original soundtrack to "Shadow Of The Colossus" of course. Which incidentally has not gone out of print on CD since it's release in 2005. How many game soundtracks have stayed in print non-stop for 18 years? I believe only this one. No doubt Kow Otani & Fumito Ueda will both best be remembered for this game.
Notice how ur health bar is red and the colossus' health bar is blue. A little bit of symbolism perhaps?
Nah, Red is a normal color for a health bar, and why not blue?
Eduardo Varela red typically signifies “bad”, and blue is the opposite of red, so “good”.
@@SorcererShangTsung And why the hell Blue is the oposite of red? Just because *FIREBOY&WATERGIRL* Said so?
Eduardo Varela you’re definitely not old enough to be having this discussion lmao
Eduardo Varela my guy go get your ipad little child find something on it that has red then invert he colors
I recently tried to replay Shadow of the Colossus, and had to stop when I reached Celosia; the utter terror it displays at the sight of fire, how it backs down and cowers as you wave your torch at it, forcing it closer and closer to the cliff's edge; it was too much for me. I couldn't enjoy hunting down and murdering these creatures that weren't doing any harm.
I hated that thing, first time I saw it it rammed me constantly, not even letting me get back up, I likewise felt no mercy, I felt the good for killing it, ask the others I felt sorry for
Same here. I felt so bad for him. Like I saw his innocence.
@@rickym6301 yeah but it’s also a story/experience that people get invested in. I cry at movies all the time even though they’re “just movies”. Games, especially ones like this, are kinda built to make u feel things
The content you produce is simply wonderful. Tank you.
Anemios tank and support you.
I´ll even gank you in early
yup Tank You
Tank you! I had a blast!
Tank you Andy,
Tanks
I loved what you said about the music. How it grows when you are close to action and how it ceases immediately after the ending of each Colossus so you can evaluate your actions.
I think this is amazing because I realized a few weeks ago that Hotline Miami does exactly that. It grows a tecno-electronic music that gives you a adrenaline rush to end each floor, but when the stage is done, when you kill the last person, there's a record scratch followed by a silence. You are forced to go back to the door you entered looking at the damage you have caused.
I wonder how much of this artistic decision in Hotline Miami was influenced by Shadow of the Colossus.
YES absolutely, hotline miami is a gem of a game
I sincerely hope it did.
Shadow of the Cooossus has so many amazing aspects that makes it so special, and a lot of know that... buuuuut what game developers have taken away from it is just "killing big thing go brrrrrrr" and thats really sad.
This was a game where every reviewer sang it's praise, as did every friend I knew played it. It was a technical triumph, containing wonderful puzzles and fantastic gameplay... and I could not bring myself to finish it.
I think I made it through 6 or so of the colossi, and with each one, my motivation decreased. Why was I killing these great creatures? They would happily leave me alone if I stayed out of their territory. Who was this woman I was trying to resurrect? I had no connection to her.
Eventually I gave up. In my telling of the story, while Wander did bring down a few of these beasts, in the end, he decided the price was too high. 13 lives, especially ones as beautiful and unique as these were not worth the one he was trying to reclaim. And so Wander abandoned his quest...
And I turned of the PS2 and never played the game again.
This is interesting. It's just given me an idea, one that I know many people won't agree with. To me Team ICO, as pretentious and stupid as it sounds, don't make video games in the same way other developers do. They don't prioritise fun and excitement, they don't make everything feel smooth and satisfying. Like with The Last Guardian, the beast is often a nightmare to control but somehow it seems that frustration is as integral to the experience as when it works well. Likewise, with SotC, there is little motivation outside of mechanical fun until you accept that as part of the experience.
I don't know how to express this idea well enough. But I get the feeling the team wouldn't find it at all surprising you experienced it the way you did. I know that at the end of the day, they're making a product, that product has to sell, and making purposefully difficult to enjoy isn't conducive to that. Yet I feel this notion is far too unexplored in gaming, even now the industry is shifting to features that are more or less ripped from cinema. Oh well.
I didn't really feel bothered by killing them...until the last Colossus' eyes turned blue and he just looked at me like "what is this little thing i was attacking...can we be friends" then it just hit me...he was just protecting himself...and he was lonely...couldn't play the game after that. My young heart was NOT ready for that.
So in a way he moved on, cutting Dormin's deal, left the sword and left the land.Wander then made a family with a new lover who is more than Mono. I like this side of the story, it's much more reasonable.
Nikko Hortelano So Mono doesn't have the right to live because of her cursed fate?
Emon: Uhh hey wander... your friend is cursed so she has to die... yeah....
Mono: Wat...
Wander: Wait wat... for real?
Well, everything has consequences, they kill Mono, Wander doesn't agree with it cuz Mono is surely precious to him, Wander took the sword of revealing light and went to the forbidden land.
It's up to you... Does Mono deserved to die because she has a cursed fate?
If Emon and the tribe didn't kill Mono then Dormin won't be released anyway. We'll never know.
@@AdvancePlays this is an incredibly old comment I know, but I agree that there's an interesting angle here that I've seen in a few other games, and you hit the nail on the head with "somehow it seems that frustration is as integral to the experience as when it works well. " Spoilers ahead for "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem" (minor ones in that one) and "Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII" (the latter being a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, and it's a pretty big spoiler in one sense but on the other hand if you know the storyline in full to the game that continues it, maybe not half as much)
For those who don't know, "Sanity's Requiem" is a game that has an ICONIC mechanic: "insanity effects" - I watched my spouse play through "Sanity's Requiem", because he wanted to show off the creativity of the game's concept by going on the path that makes the insanity effects the most intense, and let me tell you it was *amazing* to watch...but presumably very frustrating to play, especially if you didn't expect it!
See, in SR, your character would ACTIVELY HALLUCINATE...and a lot of the time you couldn't tell "you" (player) were in a hallucination at all until it *ended*. Perhaps the freaking funniest hallucination possible to get, being the one that literally gives you a FAKE ERROR MESSAGE saying your controller is unplugged/unconnected! Some might feel that's an unpleasant fourth wall break, but any gamer could also tell you that that would freak them out if they didn't know it could happen and would be FAKE, precisely because it's NOT EXPECTED and thus it's very unbalancing...and specifically, one must note, unbalancing in a "you, player, no longer have control over this situation" way. One can debate whether breaking the fourth wall was worth it (some might feel it takes one out of the story, idk) but it's hard to argue it didn't completely mess with the player's head, which...is the whole point of the insanity effects, because of course, your character's head is getting messed with, in-story, and they have even less control than you technically do.
The other example that comes to mind is, as I said, Crisis Core, whose protagonist is Zack Fair...which, those familiar with Final Fantasy VII maaay be familiar with, though may or may not know his name depending on who they visited Gongaga with, as he is the friend from the SOLDIER program who DIED Protecting Cloud.
So, if you know who the main character is, you absolutely know he's not making it out of the story alive, or at least, that he doesn't survive to the original game's story. You might, then, think you're prepared for him to die, even as he (who is pretty endearing, you're probably quite attached by then) and Cloud (ditto) get experimented on by Hojo, he escapes with Cloud, goes on the run, decides to try and go back to Midgar, and gets ambushed by snipers, which if you know FFVII, you know happens already, sure.
You might think "okay, this is sad, but I'm prepared to see this".
You might even be hypothetically correct that are prepared to see it.
You may have prepared yourself adequately to SEE it.
You are not prepared to PLAY THROUGH it.
Because as you play through Zack's Final Stand, at the very end of the game? YOUR CONTROLS START TO GET INCREASINGLY LESS RESPONSIVE.
That's right: as Zack, your character, "you", are DYING, your controls get...laggy. Sluggish, even. It gets increasingly hard to actually take actions to defend yourself, or hit enemies, in any timely fashion. You start to take more hits. You start hit fewer enemies, for less damage. You struggle to maneuver, to even MOVE.
And it's not a glitch - no, it's INTENTIONAL.
Because Zack was never going to come out of that fight alive. They had to have him die, because he dies before the story even begins in FFVII, and his death is incredibly important to the ENTIRE story of FFVII, since it's a major catalyst for Cloud's mental issues, among other things.
But even if you, the player, fully know the story, KNOW he's going to die, you're still not prepared to VISCERALLY FEEL *what it's like for him to desperately want to fight back and increasingly be unable* to.
It's rare that something labeled a "game" is THAT willing to go THAT far to make its player feel utterly helpless, just so they empathize as much as possible with a character, Square absolutely could have gotten away with going nowhere near that hard, but goddamn, for all their flaws, Square did right by the story with that choice. Even people who've known the death was coming just...are still hit super hard by it. It's VERY effective. All the more so because it wasn't done to make it "fun", or easier or even more challenging to the player if you were into that, no, it's literally going to be agony for anyone who plays through it! It was 100% done for the emotional impact, for the increased empathy and therefore PAIN on the part of the player on behalf of the protagonist they'd by then gotten to know and love. It was, in other words, done for the STORY impact, for the artistry, not for any other motive.
Dormin was honest from the start: the price you pay may be heavy.
Love it. I like the interpretation of the player as an actor. I always feel manipulated when I'm guilted for playing a character who does bad things when I had no choice (Spec Ops was amazing but failed at that for me), here it's more like I'm a witness to tragedy. I need to replay this game, I remember how much I loved it.
I dunno, when I knew full what what were *those* bright dots in the screen and the game still didn't let me let go off the mortars, I thought "well, this is mostly about walker, not me".
Agree. There is a degree of separation between reality and fiction that doesn't allow guilt except in the case of roleplay, and that must come fro the player not the game.
This is why I dislike the ending to Bioshock and always will. The game gives the player no agency in nearly all respects (aside from harvesting Little Sisters) and yet the grand finale is a lengthy speech berating the player for basically nothing more than *playing the game* in the only way it can be played. It felt like the equivalent of a bully pulling the "quit hitting yourself!" routine. I didn't feel chastised, I just felt annoyed at the overly-smug designers.
A good counter-example would be Fallout New Vegas. If you simply follow the House plotline without deviation, House will become dismissive and insulting to the player, calling them a 'dog' and questioning their intelligence and soforth. But the thing is, the player has ludicrous amounts of agency in FONV. They have many, many opportunities to tell House to fuck off, or even outright kill him. For House to call the player out on taking the simplest path that requires the least amount of effort or thought hits a LOT closer to home when the player has truly chosen to behave that way, as opposed to being gracelessly railroaded into it.
It's like a movie in which the main character does terrible things, but at the end, the movie berates you for having sat through it.
The people who made Spec Ops always were irksome to me for the 'the good ending was to not play it'. Then again, when I see that statement, it always came to me as smug and almost 'I'm better than you'. May not be what they wanted, could have been a knee-jerk response to people wanting to know if there was a good ending. Either way, still felt like you said.
Shadow of the Colossus, however, while I feel bad for killing some of the Colossi, I never felt guilty about it. It was a tragedy playing out and I wanted to know how the story ended.
Rule #1 of Gaming analysis: it *always* leads to Shadow of the Colossus.
Well, it's the best videogame of all time.
*This game is important to me* , because it came at the point of my life when I needed it the most. I can not describe how much it has changed my outlook on life, and even a little bit of how I live.
And so, I found every analytical video on the game to be very lacking, all of which stating the obvious, and re-telling the tragedy.
That was until your video. I thought I know everything about this game, but your analysis on the monsters and their "bottom-up" philosophy, had me pause the video and re-thinking my moments with the game. And perhaps you are the only one who gave proper attention to Dormin (and also correctly addressing them as "they", not it).
I watch a lot of anaytical/review format video (and even have a playlist), so I know which one's is actual analysis and which one's reading off of Wikipedia.
Also, the God of War parallel was really nice. I thought the same too.
The first time I played this game, I was 10 years old. I truly didn't think I was doing anything wrong until the end transformation. When I played again, I was shocked at everything I missed. This game is brilliant and I have cried so many times while replaying.
In this whole game your main goal is to hold on as long as possible. But in the end you realize you have to let go. That final scene where wander is slowly dying and he looks up at mono one last time it was and about sacrificing and letting go. What a truly beautiful story and sad too.
This game is a masterpiece and easily my favorite of all time. Awesome analysis on the muddiness of the morality. I have seen many discussions of this facet of the game (and even wrote something on this game that touched on the topic many years ago (it took me about 6 or 7 Colossi on my first playthrough before I really started considering "hmmm...is this ok, what I'm doing here?" and the final act of the game is probably the most emotionally effecting conclusion to a game I have ever experienced), but the way you discussed it was so thorough! Great work!
I see it in a simple matter - Dormin, besides being spelled "Nimrod" backwards, has a name associated with sleep (which is kind-of proven to us after Mono ressurects and meets a deer, suggesting nature didn't die there, just slept), states himself in the end he only borrowed Wander's body (reasonable, he likely needed to rest to fully materialize) and his last conscious act before being even more imprisoned than he was before was cleansing Wander's body to give him new life (plus horns) and ressurecting Mono - even as this deity knows he's screwed he decides to honor his promise.
Meanwhile humans come, attempt to kill Wander for whatever reason believing Dormin must be stopped (yeah, he stole a sword, big deal), leave Mono behind despite that in their knowledge there is next to no food out there and seal a deity which only real acts in story was self-defense from them, ressurecting Mono and making Wander reborn and leading Wander to destroy a few half sentient machines with promise (it's not manipulation as, to our knowledge, Dormin wanted to respect his side of bargain from the start) of ressurecting Mono...
He just had shitty PR as people judged him on looks.
Something interesting I've thought about with Shadow of the Colossus is its usage of faces to show sapience and inner humanity. Most of the Colossi Wander slays throughout the game have very distinguishable facial features, whether it's Gaius's monkey-like face, Dirge's mandibles forming a permanent smile if looked at a certain way, and Barba's aged look accentuated by its massive beard, just to name a few. The best way to de-emphasize the effects of harming a living creature or dehumanize an intelligent creature, like so many of the Colossi tend to be, is to not show their face. As mentioned in the video, the Colossi faces from afar can look threatening and malevolent but up close they look harmless and almost playful, but Wander almost never looks a Colossus in the face until the final fight with Malus, as he's usually too busy looking for sigils to stab to bring these creatures down. Initially the player is meant to see the Colossi as Wander does, horrifying and evil monsters that must be toppled to achieve victory, but the game evokes the player's empathy subtly by making the Colossi's reaction to being hurt the focal point of the camera's attention, like when Wander stabs Gaius in the head and we see its face as it cries out in pain. By the time Wander reaches Malus, the player is against Wander's mission to revive Mono due to the wonton murder he's committing to do it. It's only when Malus looks at Wander and Wander looks back, that it makes him realize these "monsters" are living, breathing creatures that wouldn't have hurt Wander at all if he hadn't struck first. But, Wander is too far gone at that point. He's lost Mono and now his noble steed he's relied on throughout the whole game, and he topples Malus, the most human Colossi in the game, representing Wander's destruction of his remaining humanity.
I had never noticed in the final fight that he simply observes and his eyes change, it was just as much of an impact as when I jumped and grabbed the 5th colossi. What a beautiful game.
What a beautiful video.
Wander is essentially selfishly single-minded in what he does. He wants to bring back Mono regardless of the consequences which at first appears to be a love story but seems to be more of a story of both loyalty and rebelliousness.
I always loved how terse and pragmatic Wander acts. He has this no-nonsense personality and his eyes are always focused on the horizon, he is constantly looking ahead with very little regard for himself or his horse. In the end he is used and discarded; an interesting message we rarely see and a beautiful exploration for the medium of a video game.
Jared Prymont It just shows that Wander is just a human being.
I think it's also notable that the game, as you progress, lingers more on the moments of vulnerability, weakness, and curiosity for each Colossus, causing more moments of empathy and sympathy to surface. Each Colossus has these moments, but the later ones seem to have more. The most relentless and aggressive Colossi aren't the ones at the end, but the ones close to the middle (Dirge, Basaran, and Kuromori).
The later Colossi have longer death scenes. The longest belongs to Phalanx, one of the latest Colossi, but also one of the most passive.
The later Colossi, while aggressive during periods when they attack, have longer periods during which they don't or can't attack at all. Pelagia makes no real attempts to shake you off, and can even be guided by you around its arena. Malus stops making any attempt to attack once you reach its feet. Phalanx hardly seems to know you're there. Cenobia, while vicious, spends most of the fight just watching you as you're out of reach.
Or have clearer moments of pain or weakness, like when Argus is forced to drop his weapon in pain when his hand is stabbed. Or when Celosia or Cenobia flail and struggle when their armor is broken.
I remember getting the game and start playing it with my wife watching, after I killed the first colossi we both got sad and could not keep playing. the emotional connection to the game was very strong, even to my wife who was just watching. To this day i just can't go back to the game and kill those amazing creatures. Now if that is not art, beautifully executed and emotionally presented, then i have no idea what it is.
Dormin technically didn't tried to manipulate Wander, actually, he tried to warning Wander about it.
and i like you didn't called the colossi animals, their have consciousness but they only wake up in first place because of the sword.
#DorminDidNothingWrong
we were jus tryin' to chill.
I mean he did try to warn Wander of what might happen to him
of course kyubey wouldn't object to taking advantage of young adolescents to further their goals while promising them their heart's desire in return...
Cokemonster it's harambe in disguise
Griffith
one of the things that i love when games do this is contextual music. banjo kazooie has that one theme that gets remixed depending on where they are.
SOTC does something similar, you have the travelling music, you then have 2 colossi music pieces for each colossi, they sound similar, im not very good at describing music so thats the best i can put it.
the 2 themes are
1) off the colossus, and on the ground
2) climbing the colossus
the switch happens almost instantly, whether thats you grabbing their fur, or when you get flung off cause the bird loves doing that. its just so cool.
related footnote: i love teh bird ones music, both of them, and the unsettling way in which the "not climbing" one starts
That's a morbid shirt dude. >.>;
What are you talking aboute, it's cute- ohh...
Next thing I knew, I was being accused of forced cannibalism.
@Butter Oh... oh lord.
I've been crying since the winter break in 2004.
AdaptiveReasoning Nah, it's cannibalistic. Such is moral complexity, I find the shirt funny. ( ; { )
A 13.5 minute video about the deep analysis of morality in video games, and that's what you say. HAIL HUMANITY! (Being sarcastic, btw.)
Trivia: this is the game Adam Sandler's character keeps playing in a drama movie he made that was actually good, 'Reign Over Me'.
The last good Adam Sandler movie.
@@SinHurr there was ever a good one?
I think there's something which is important to discuss when it comes to this game, and that's the fact not only does Dormin warn Wander that there will be a big price for getting involved here, but it seems that Dormin also keeps his word. The woman Wander wanted to save really is resurrected, despite the fact Dormin (seemingly?) dies shortly after. To me, it seems Dormin isn't all that "evil," really.
Wow, I'm loving this analysis!
I have mentioned this in one of my recent videos, but I remember that I used to try to run away from all the black tendrils that chase you after each colossus had died - but after that everytime a colossus died *I would just stand and accept my fate.*
It is crazy how games are able to make me feel that way.
I'll tell you someone who doesn't have morality; Nintendo. For not making the final boss of Breath of the Wild fucking climbable.
soooo true bestie
I'm finding myself re-watching the entirety of your content, and thought you should know that you're awesome. Great content and fantastic delivery - both in form and substance. Keep it up.
Fun fact: The soundtrack for Shadow of the Colossus was composed by Kow Otani, who is also known for the soundtracks that accompany Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, the Gamera Trilogy from 1995-1999, and Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack in 2001.
missed the end of your playthrough. happy to see the conclusion and a summary of your thoughts. thoroughly enjoyed both the play and vid, so thank you!
I don't know how I missed this video up until now, but this is genuinely the most affecting video of yours I've seen, and I'm a long-time fan. The way you dissect the story and the conclusions you come to are just 👌
This feels Lovecraftian without being hopeless. I love this.
I love the way you phrase the effects of moral decision so perfectly: starting at 13:04, but precisely I mean what you say at 13:12 ! Absolutely perfect, it truly encapsulates what so many people do not understand about things like slavery and Jim Crow: Just because those immoral practices have ended, does not mean the reprecussions of that immorality are not still deeply and negatively affecting the lives of their descendants. The slave owners grew empires for their lineage to prosper from for hundreds of years. And they built those empires on the backs of the slaves, whose poverty, long and tedious climb towards racial equality, etc. And it seems as though that climb towards racial equality is never over, and becomes infinitely more difficult to complete, the higher that people progress with it. Because when things become more blurred and less direct, like going from Jim Crow lynchings to the fatherlessness of many blacks due to the male-targeted lynchings of blacks, and the poverty that their race and the racist implications left behind after Jim Crow, the lack of opportunity and everything else that people grapple to explain, continue to torture African Americans to this current day. Blacks in America still suffer from the reprecussions of such deeply engrained, long-running racist institutions. I know if I had 20 slaves in todays day and age to do whatever I told them to, I too could make myself a fortune upon their backs, upon their work, and make a fortune so grand it would both (1) last for endless future generations of my family and (2) allow those generations to have such enormous amounts of disposable income that they would forever be able to have the large amounts of money required to invest in ways that only the elite can and profit in ways only the elite ultra-rich can. It does take money to make money, and it surely makes it a hell of a lot easier to make money when you start out with money as it opens up endless opportunities that do not exist to poor descendants of slaves who had 0 opportunity to create wealth for their bloodline, as they were often struggling to simply not be lynched for crimes they did not commit.
And the echoes of past immorality exist so deeply in cultural events like the treatment of Blacks in America since their inception into the country. Your quote so perfectly encapsulates that idea. And if someone listening to you speak is not willing to accept that, it is not because they disagree but because they refuse to change the racially beneficial ways they are set in. I don't believe in punishing the son for the crimes of the father, but I 100% believe it is necessary to acknowledge the crimes of forefathers when they are so heinous that they have detrimental and painful long-term effects on huge swathes of millions of Americans TO THIS DAY! As a white person, the philosophy of denying the continued disadvantageous situation of being born Black in America is a philosophy that is adopted (by those in the know of the alt-right rather than the sheep of the alt-right) to serve the continued perpetuation of racial imbalance where being born white will continue to offer advantages far beyond those of other races, especially blacks, for many more years to come. To deny that racial imbalance caused by past immoral abuse of slave labor and destruction of African American society on so many levels, it is simply a false and delusional outlook on the world, except for the people who embrace it as a way to prevent the advancement of racial equality. Those are the true philosophical descendants of past ideals, like slave ownership and Jim Crow institutionalization, of TODAY and of the modern age! They are continuing their forefathers and their philosophical inspiration to maintain an imbalance that allows the misfortune of African Americans to lift up the fortune of Caucasian Americans for as much longer as they can possibly delay said progress in finally balancing that scale, as it should be. It is a scale that weighed black people as items, and it has not been retired to this day, just repainted as Jim Crow, Segregation, etc, until it was repainted as "alternative" conservative beliefs of today.
And man, do I love the way 13:12 was phrased, because what I just spoke about is just one of many, many long-term intentionally propagated injustices for the benefit of the perpetrator(s). A beautiful collection of words by Folding Ideas.
Watching you stream Shadow of the Colossus was fantastic, I'm so glad you did a video analysis of it.
I just happened to pick this game up and start playing for the first time this year. Glad I came across this. The first colossus fight had me wondering if this would be an interesting game at all. However, the game had me at the colossus with the spiked feet that's peacefully sitting there until Wander arrives. The moral muddiness of sacrificing a creature that doesn't appear to have done any wrong (plus 15 other lives) in exchange for the life of a person we know nothing about just fascinates me to know end. There's a lack of background information for both the colossi and Mono that makes the question so much more tantalizing.
Shadow of the Colossus had an incredibly atmosphere to it... largely because the world is almost completely uninhabited apart from the colossi. That, and the lack of music throughout everything but the fights give it this melancholy, lonely sort of quality I've never experienced in another game.
okay now do the morality of shadow the hedgehog
I'm so glad there's still people bringing my favorite game back to study.
Thanks for the video!
Amazing video! Shadow of the Colossus is a masterpiece, mechanically and emotionally. To simply call it a game is an understatement, it's a beautiful work of art.
Agro!
TWEEEEEEEEET
My pick for best game ever made. It's just perfect in my eyes.
This is probably the best video I've seen discussing Shadow of the Colossus. Well done my friend.
First, let me say that I have just discovered your series of videos and I am absolutely enthralled by the depth of both intellectual thought and humanity that you approach these breakdowns. it speaks of you as a person, which brings another layer of enjoyment for me.
I watched this particular video because I was a huge (sorry, couldn't help myself) fan of the game back in the PS2 era. I played the game twice, and was intent on completing a third playthrough in order to gain enough stamina to reach the garden at the top of the temple. Cut to: I did not have the chance.
Fast forward to last year, when I (finally) got my hands on a PS3. the Ico/SotC re-release was one of the first things I purchased. I played Ico first, then settled in with "Shadow...", both to get may game on, and to show it off to my non-gaming GF. That very first shot of seeing the first colossus is still one of the best pieces of video game cinema ever made. It gives me chills every time I watch it. I was 100% committed to three playthroughs, when something happened; I felt genuinely bad when I killed the first colossus during my first playthrough of the re-release. My GF liked watching me play games, and commented pointedly on the fact that this creature was doing absolutely nothing to anything and I just walked up to it, bothered it, then murdered it.
Ultimately, I came to realize after I had felled the 12th colossus that i just couldn't play the game any more. The evocation of empathy for each slain creature built within me until, on my 3rd playthrough four or five years after my last, I could no longer enjoy a game where the sole purpose was to needlessly end the lives of grand creatures, even knowing the morally complex ending to the story, and even after having beating the game twice already.
This video helped me to understand some of what I felt and thought as I played that last time.
I have no malice towards this game at all. I still love it and hail it as one of the best games I have ever played. I just feel I can no longer enjoy playing it, and you've done a magnificent job of essaying all of the nuances behind my decision.
Easily the best video I've seen on this game
I came here for a makeup tutorial about some eye shadow...
I got choo fam
th-cam.com/video/P967aA7q44c/w-d-xo.html
My first makeup tutorial... not sure why, but yeah.
Folding Ideas ....... N..nee.need spoiler.... AL.. Alert.. Eeha
I relate to getting spoiled on things. I'd suggest you think about the type of channel and the title though. Morality of shadow of colossus. Sounds potentially spoilery doesn't it? Also he's analyzing the game in an academic sounding way. That sounds like it's focused on literally analysis instead of being a recommendation right?
and look what you found. the best story in all of gaming history. maybe you should try it out. BTW it is free to play on play station plus this month.
Great job encapsulating a lot of why this game had such an impact and why it's so special to me!
I can't tell you how much I loved this video. Amazing job. Thank you.
I've always seen SotC story as a simple question: how far would you go for love? Wander loves Mono so much that he was willing to pay any price to bring her back, even if that price was his own soul and the release of a dark entity. but Is Dormin a dark and evil entity? or is it the result of human negligence and recklessness? I've seen some analysis that compare Dormin to the master of the valley from the last guardian and the queen from Ico they are similar (not the same). the valley shows a lot of evidence that it was once inhabited but forsaken for some reason. I believe humans abused the dark and light powers of the land and that abuse let to the creation of Dormin. and as the presenter here says, Dormin became troublesome, disrupted the normal life in the valley and had to be sealed. that's why they created the colossi to trap Dormin's power and caged them in the land, but always leaving some back door open (weak spots) to kill them in case Dormin's power was needed again
You're writing is so beautiful.
Love it! You've hit everything I've felt, and even pointed out things I haven't! Thank you!
Binge watching your old videos has been a most satisfying experience.
I still have not played _Shadow of the Colossus_ because I refuse to destroy such beautiful things. I regret that I will not experience the game, which I've heard is very good, but I stand by my decision.
pkunkbwok After playing the game.. I definitely feel so guilty and so sorrowful.
weak
Best. Fucking. Game. Ever.
I have never seen such a clear and captivating description of this game! Beautiful video!
I love this channel so much, thank you for your hard work and analysis!
It's important to remember the significance that the Colossi are represented as statues, and that when he destroys them the statues are destroyed. This harkens back to the concept of iconoclasm, where Christians destroyed pictures of Christ, the Saints, the Theotokos, etc. out of fear that they were worshiping idols. This was eventually decided to be heretical, as Orthodox Christianity believes that God made himself incarnate, and to destroy an image of the incarnate is to deny the incarnate aspect of divinity. In Orthodox theology, all humans are living icons of the Godhead "in his image he created them" and murder and violence are in themselves iconoclastic. It's also important to mention that Dormin has all the trappings not of God, but of a false God. You don't make a deal with God; God isn't transactional. There is another spiritual entity that we traditionally make "deals" with and it ain't God.
monolith94 you must destroy the idol firstly, you Deafeat(not kill) the colossus because wander is mortal,why, people doesnt get this simple things.
monolith94 fantastic example of theology used well in games.
Clearly not a hebraic One, with that theology.
The problem with that reading is that the developers were japanese, and don't really share such cultural notions of the supernatural. Dormin probably really is just another member of a wider pantheon who doesn't actually share the Devil's position as an absolute representation of evil. Dormin is definitely much more of a morally neutral figure than Satan traditionally is depicted as in Western culture.
You will be surprised on how many Japanese actually well versed in western culture. The developers of Dark Souls series actually based its concept off many classic western medieval stories and he's smart enough to fuse it with eastern concept of rebirth and life cycles.
Phaedra isn't terrifying, it's a spooky bone horse and I love it.
also, the consequences of that action is what happens with the queen and the horned boys, who are canonically the descendant of the horned baby.
I really like your videos. They can be quite hard to grasp the meaning of sometimes but you have an intelligent and goal-focus way of writing & talking. What I like most is that you take the time to think a bit deeper to the media you observe. :)
Very nice synopsis. This is why SotC is my favorite game I have ever played. There is so much underlying struggle within what is right and wrong, after you experience the ending for the first time.
well damn. I just started working on a game about a month ago, and I explained my concept and story idea to my friend. he said, "dude, that is literally shadow of the colossus". now I had heard of this game before but I didn't know anything about it other than it's famous boss climbing mechanic. But after watching this video I can certainly say my idea is basically the same thing minus the size of the bosses, the climbing mechanics, and any particularly specific things as far as setting and plot. this bothers me because now I feel like i'm just making some ripoff of Shadow of the Colossus. however I also keep in mind the whole "there are no original ideas" spiel. after all, the Lion king is just Hamlet right?
That's right, it's not possible to have original ideas anymore. Although perhaps there are still some unused combinations, but are those relevant to anyone?
OH MY OD I HAVE THAT SHIRT
and also the profile pic
nice
Dormin dormin I forgive you
Ok this is my fav game of all time and you're doing a vid on it. This will be awesome
I am really happy with this getting such a neat break down in 2017. I am now a lifelong subscriber
It took most of this video for me to notice he had a shirt on with a pig eating bacon... that's messed up dude. almost as messed up as you selfishly killing these majestic guardian creatures.
I really liked this video. It states a lot of points that could've definitely been looked over
This video is so good! Seriously good job!
That's one of the point why i love SotC: unlike others standard games (ie Zelda), is not clearly defined what is right and what is not, but you are so emotionally taken by the quest of Wander that You don't seriously ponder on your actions and consequences. You don't esitate a moment even when your only friend dies. Only at the very end You will reconsider what You have done, thinking that maybe You were moved by mere egoism.
Is Shadow of the Colossus something like the Spec Ops: The Line of fantasy?
The only way to win is not to play?
Here's your moral complexity: murder 16 people and maybe something malicious does the impossible for you.
Kinda not seeing actual complexity there. "Aftershadowing" has no bearing on the actions of the present else every delusional lunatic can claim a human sacrifice averted the judgement of a god he can't prove exists.
"It just works that way."
Yeah no.
Interesting video though.
Beretta249 the complexity comes when you don't describe them as "16 people" and "something malicious", but instead as "16 hulking beings of unknown intent and origin" and "an all-powerful being that is being imprisoned by said creatures". We are not explicitly told that Dormin is malicious or that the colossi are benign (and indeed at the beginning of the game that suspicion may be furthest from our thoughts), it is something we must discover for ourselves as we see some of the colossi's playfulness and Dormin's mysterious... well, mysteriousness.
I get that, but I don't trust a reward that involves killing things I don't understand on _some_ level.
Who am I to decide if they should live or die based on my whims or needs?
And they're apparently unique creatures.
If we're being generous we assume they're constructs and see this as being merely disposing of 16 machines that happen to be able to die.
If we're not being generous we're all wiping out 16 species.
And whatever their unnatural and alien (again, all relative) origins are they attacking anyone? Do they have a prey cycle?
This also relies on Dormin being real.If this was all in Wander's head he'd be a serial killer taking pretty much the same actions for the same motivations.
Most of your complaints are increbily inconsequential. "What if Dormin does not exist?". This is a story set on a mythical land, where the religion is true and many Gods exist. There are absolutely no signs in the entire game, no wink to the audience, that this is anything but the face value here. Throwing a "what if he's delusional" is a really silly way to throw away the question.
"I don't trust a reward that involves killing things I do not understand". Well, I think you are not being able to put yourself in the mindset of the game, a mythical, tribal mindset. You are obstinatedly closing your mind to the atheistic, modern, cynic world, and if you shut yourself from a conversation with the work, then you can't blame it for the consequences it presents to pressupositions you refused to accept. The mentality of "I may be killing 16 different species" is wildly innappropriate for the time and setting, and are huge projections you have no reason to cast over the game. You are very clearly ignoring the mythical, ritualistic context that gives meaning to the whole process. Don't look at the thing as you see fit but as they are presented in the story: as a ritual, a deal with a God and a Devil, in a world where these creatures exist, and where your love for a girl makes you cast aside all norms from your tribe to travel to a place that is only known as the "Forbidden Land" - this guy is not a fucking biologist who's looking at these creatures as "species I might be killing and causing extinction". The flaws here clearly aren't in the game.
That's like saying: Well, we can't be SURE there is moral complexity on Spec Ops: The Line because it may as well be all a child playing with its toys in a make-believe situatuion and therefore none of the war crimes or the lunacy from the end game is real. It's just really dumb to throw ideas the game gives you no reason to believe in.
Why disable the likes and dislikes?
Rob Vel I don't think he did?
He does it for all his videos. You can still vote; it's just not visible to anyone except him.
I believe he said that he does this, because this way people will vote more fairly instead of going along with the crowd.
i dont like it. but hey his videos are great so his house his rules.
This channel used to get brigaded pretty hard by gamergate types when it was smaller.
How sad is it that I come here and see that, so my guess is "must've made a sjw-y video on games so he disables likes" and was totally right? Regardless of political position because I'm somewhere in the middle, it's weird that it's usually the social justice types that just give up and do that as opposed to the other side who also become controversial but take the heat? Wonder why that is.
I really, really enjoyed and appreciate this. Thank you.
This is really great, the stuff on enacting the inevitable when controlling Wander was fascinating. One thing I would say is that it would have been interesting to look at the few words Dormin gives to describe the next Colossus and how that colours our perception of all involved, also to note that some Colossi are (or seem to be, to me) presented as more sympathetic than others (Phalanx compared to Basaran, for example), the video does seem to suggest that they're all roughly equivalent.
That's a kind of minor quibble, but I think it ties into how Dormin can be both manipulative and coded as evil while still having the peaceful garden above his temple, and how the game in general refutes a unipolar interpretation of anything in it.
I've always wondered why the female voice left...
It possibly went into the revived woman
Rc3651 nice
Shouldn't you know where your other half went?
Rc3651 she has never called since. I feel lonely sometimes. Rc3651... You wouldn't understand
My GF came back to life after i turned into baby. WTF boi
I have one complaint, a small oversight in your final bit of discussion. What I love about this is the moral grey area. They feared Dormin, locking him away in a distant forbidden land. But if you look at Dormin's actions? He WARNED Wander from the very beginning what it would cost him. Wander didn't care. He didn't manipulate Wander, he struck a fair bargain. They both had an idea of what they were getting into, and even though after Wander succeeds at his quest Dormin remains sealed after all, he still holds up his end of the bargain and resurrects the girl. Even though Dormin did not get what he wanted, he gave Wander what he was owed. I have trouble seeing him as an evil entity.
That was a beautiful piece. A like would simply not be enough, that was beautiful my man. I'm subscribing to your channel off of this video alone.
hey... Either I got really lucky and early or you don't have nearly enough subs
You're pretty early. It's only been 30 minutes.
Mono is possessed by Dormin's second half, and later on she becomes the Queen from Ico.
Victor Vaz is this true?
that theory would be clever if it applied. shadow of the colossus is ico's successor, so it's impossible. also, the curious horned infant from the sotc ending would then be ico, who has no blood relation to the queen. yorda, the girl from ico, is the queen's daughter and ico is the boy leading yorda out of her castle to be free, the end.
i have to admit your theory would be cool, though.
arakida 涙 sotc is a sequel to ico...
arakida 涙 Your comment is contradictory. If SotC was a successor to ICO then the horned infant at the end could not be Ico, as you say it is.
Laineygirly no, you got it wrong; i said "the horned infant would *then* be ico", referring to the theory that mono is in fact the queen. that would happen *if* the theory applied, and it doesn't as i stated afterwards.
I have never noticed that thing about malus. He just... Stares at you. Even when youre killing him, his eyes are still blue.
Wow, awesome vid. Love the ideas being discussed here.
The only real choice is whether a person fights for Eros or Thanatos. Eros is messy, complicated, dangerous, chaotic, and filled with mystery. Thanatos is simple, stark, and easy to accomplish. As we've seen from the US elections, Thanatos is the choice of the stupid and the cowardly, people who want clear, concrete solutions -- even when those solutions lead to death and horror. The tangled messiness of life requires true courage to face because there are no endings. Endings are the domain of Thanatos. With Eros there is only endless, infinite possibility, and those who fear existential choice can think of nothing more terrifying.
Fuck Trump. Dormin/Sanders 2020.
A doctor wants clear, concrete solutions.
Said clear, concrete solutions often save lives.
So fuck you and your BS, pompous pseudo-philosophy.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes, Bernardo. In the Aristotlian model, there are three ways of obtaining knowledge: empiricism, rationalism, and revelation. The application of pure empiricism is science, the application of pure rationalism is philosophy, and the application of pure revelation is mysticism. All three are necessary for a holistic understanding of ourselves and the world. Science is useful in diagnosing an illness, but not so good at metaphysical issues like truth or meaning.
Just to be clear, NJNP, do you realize that the line "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" is an example of Obi-Wan dealing in absolutes?
Oh, this should be good. Well then, esteemed Alpha Male™, please enlighten us all with your knowledge of the inner workings of politics. Us mere Betas will surely benefit from your supreme wisdom.
Gee, I wonder why that could be. You seem so skilled at speaking diplomatically.