When The Hero of Legend Is Actually Horrifying
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"Imagine if the Dragonborn went around absorbing human souls?"
Oh, you mean like the Dragonborn if you have a soul trap weapon and carry black soul gems in your inventory?
Gotta get your 1% magic regen from the local Nazeem
Forgot gems, the Black Star is much more problematic.
My greataxe of shock isn't going to power itself. Do you _want_ my greataxe cut from the finest moonstone alloy to lose its charge?
So that it is infinite you should just use the Black Star
@@justiciar1964 am i really supposed to simply refuse to enchant items i exclusively intend to sell? if it gets me even one extra gold, that human soul is getting damned forever into a pair of shoes
Here's a fun bit of trivia: Dragons in TES are naturally inclined to domination, it's literally part of their being. Previous Dragonborn Emperors were noted for being megalomaniacs who committed all sorts of atrocities in order to subjugate the continent. So yes, the Dragonborn being a legit monster is a truly canon possibility.
Tiber Septim, Reman, Alessia, Mankar Cameron, Miraak, almost every Dragonborn we hear about sought power, usually through conquest.
Paarthurnax calls the Dragonborn "doom-driven", and I think this is what he means.
I think Elder Scrolls 6 will be another 100-200 year jump forward, and we'll learn that the Dragonborn conquered Skyrim then Cyrodiil, and began expanding his Empire to match the Aldmeri Dominion.
Paarthurnax mentions the true nature of dragons. He calls out their need for domination and he’s controlling himself constantly against his evil nature (as he calls it).
He even suggests the actions of the main character, that his morals (or lack thereof) comes from his draconic nature.
@@Pro_Butcher_Amateur_Human Would love to fight the Dovahkiin as another divinely heroic figure. It'd be a hell of a fight.
@@pillarmenn1936 It's possible. Canonically, the Hero of Kvatch mantled Sheogorath and became the new Prince of Madness, and it's him we meet in Skyrim.
So they've set a precedent for meeting the prior game's player character.
Ahh, of course the elder scrolls franchise has races that are inherently evil
Dragons soul will not go to the afterlife. They cannot die. They are immortal, basicly the Angels of Akatosh. The point of the Dragonborn is to kill the Dragons, absorb their soul bind it to his soul and when he dies, takes them with him to Akatosh.
That’s fucking cool as hell. What a weird and roundabout way to strip something’s immortality
@@ZeDitto3 Immortals don’t die easy. Even in Greek mythology, you need to cut a god from the source of their divinity, rend them limb from limb into countless pieces, and drain their power until they eventually stop trying to actively reform. And even then, there’s no way to stop them from eventually reforming without forcing their essence to be kept busy by endlessly torturing them. If you’re immortal-slaying plan is not a 10 step process, then you’re probably doing it wrong.
It is this very reason that the Dragonborn killing Alduin does not save the world but in fact guarantee it's destruction.
Alduin was *intended* to be the World Eater, but he wasn't doing that. He only cares about conquest and rulership.
Hermaeus Mora ends up saving the world in a round-about sort of way when he makes you replace Miraak at the end of his DLC.
@@coltonwilliams4153 "What happened to Alucard?"
"I killed him."
"Killed him?"
"Cut off his bleeding head."
*smug grin*, "Oh, that step one, what about two through ten?"
Que the Vampire Daddy reforming.
Sorry, just had to after seeing ten step process to killing immortals.
@@coltonwilliams4153 So, it's a lot like Hellsing then?
"That's step one. What about two through ten?"
If they don't want me to reap their souls, then they should STOP ATTACKING DAWNSTAR, WINTERHOLD AND RIVERWOOD EVERYTIME I GO THERE!
Uuuugh, don't even get me started on Dawnstar. Always under attack by a frost dragon.
Eh, Dawnstar is a shithole, it can burn/freeze for all I care
Haven't had much issue with Riverwood, but Falkreath, Alftand, Winterhold, and Dawnstar all really need some better anti-air. After the Eye of Magnus fiasco, Winterhold is basically just Essential NPCs because everyone else was eaten by dragons or destroyed by weird glowy things (I 100%'d the game and all DLC's on one character and was about lvl 150 by the time I got round to Winterhold, each fetch quest involved kicking in the tailbones of a legendary dragon for 10 minutes if I fast traveled to the wrong location).
Fr, i always spare non hostile dragons, but any hostile or attacking ones i dragon rend
In my save, they like to attack Windhelm. 😂
Friendly reminder that while Dovah Kiin can be translated as “dragon born”, it can also be translated as Dov Vah Kiin, “Born Dragon Hunter”.
Bio weapon of the divines.
Since all dragon names are also shouts, and all shouts consist of exactly three words, "Dov Ah Kiin" is more likely to be the correct translation while "Dovah Kiin"/"dragon born" is a misstranslation. As further proof of this, near the start of the game the Greybeards call out to you the Dovahkiin most likely with a shout, as it is in a similar fashion to when you later call Odahviing. The "Od Ah Viing" shout do nothing when you only use one or two words, and it is a reasonable assumtion that the same would be true for the "Dov Ah Kiin" shout.
Just the shouts are horrifying.
Fus ro dah alone can literally push you back with the force of a truck, and in the lore it can crush MOUNTAINS.
When the citizen describe how ulfric killed the king with his voice alone, I immediatly was confused why they aren't terrified of him.
And don't let me start with how the dragonborn will start climbing the ranks of the most powerful factions and collect DAEDRA ARTIFACTS if you want a 100% playthrough.
@@yamato9753IIRC, Ulfric admits he technically only knocked the high king to the ground with the voice, using his sword for the deed itself.
And yeah, the Dragonborn can in theory get 16-17 depending on exactly how bad you break Hircine's quest (you're only supposed to get 15, but that particular quest can break so badly that you can get the uncursed ring, hide, and the cursed version of the ring all in one go [basically you just hide the cursed ring in a chest or your follower, leave to get the uncursed ring, re-enter the cave and store the second ring, kill the guy for his skin and get the hide, then collect your rings and wait for Hircine's vengeance to come]...)
@@theapexsurvivor9538 Well, damn. Now I know what to do in my current playthrough!
Thank you!
Sort of, the player character is just one half of the Dragon-God Akatosh who is certifiably insane. Why is he insane? Because the very first dragon break happened when St. Alessia ripped the elven part of him away from the dragon part and he's been systematically destroying himself and time as we know it ever since. Coincidentally whenever time becomes non-linear it's referred to as "breaking the dragon". Hence the Kalpas and why you and Alduin are always destined to fight each other. You're both halves of the same entity still doing what your supposed to IE keeping time flowing forward, but also fighting yourself to both destroy and preserve the current world.
Consider also the Dragonborn using the dragonrend shout, the meaning of the shout is “mortal finite temporary.” Dragons are fundamentally incapable of understanding these things, the Dragonborn is forcing inconceivable knowledge into the heads of dragons to stun them long enough to kill them. That’s classic cosmic horror
If you look at Skyrim players' mod list, you'd never assume they're the good guys in the first place
I must be the odd man out because my skyrim modlists are usually just things that make life a bit easier, add some cool stuff, or change stuff in the game that's dumb (like telling the Blades to STFU about Partysnax or Ill end them, and they listen because I'm the Gods damn Dragonborn.)
My Fallout 4 modlist, however, should be a case study for the next Geneva Convention.... I turn people into glue, food, medicine, and ammunition that I then use to go get more.... Materials. Also drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.
Even in the base game, it's just a given that I'm choosing to become a wearwolf or vampire just as a given, I might not be a all-consuming badguy, but don't be shocked if you see me eating the bandits I was supposed to drive off, then use my ungodly powerful bow to snipe a dragon out of the sky like it was a pigeon on a railing.
Add in mods and things get far, far worse, I probably have an army of dwemmer machines following me.... around
@@UNSCPILOT Why wouldn't a Dragonborn be a werewolf? The disease immunity alone is reason enough.
>maximum carnage.esp
>frozen electrocuted combustion.esp
>more painful death noises.esl
>deadlier dragons.esp
>just another soul trap manager.esl
@@nobodyimportant4778
HeartBreaker.esp
And yeah this is why people said we needed an option to just END the Civil War, because WHO the hell is gonna tell you no and be able to back it up? 😂
One of the more frustrating parts of these games from an immersion standpoint. I'm known throughout the land as an unstoppable force (along with my Swedish murder machine companion) and random bandits try to intimidate me.
@@davidmoorcroft7117I hope they fix that with ES6, like if you have One-Handed at 100 bandits should surrender their chief when they see you coming 😂 and other attribute related options
@@PrinceIsot There are Perk-related outcomes. At the top of the Marksmanship Constellation is a Perk that makes it so that there is a chance that your shots will paralyze your targets. If you make the mistake of taking this Perk you unlock the same ability for all npc archers in the game. Same thing happens with all the spectacular Perks throughout the other Constellations.
@@leafcatcher1715 yeah but I'm talking about dialogue options.
I would have actually bothered with the civil war if that were an option.
I didn't like either side, and I'm still not sure who I would side with if I ever played it again.
A cool idea floating around is that the daedric armor/weapons in the franchise match the users soul. So the Dovakiin has a draconic and primal armor, while the main character in morrowind has a more mortal-ish look.
Huh. I always wondered why Daedric armor looked so dragony. That's a pretty good explanation.
Daedric weapons and armor actually have the vestiges (or “souls”) of daedra inside them, alive. It could also be that these forms of armor better represent the tastes of the Daedra at the time, especially since they seem to have mild shape shifting between lifetimes.
Why would the Nerevarine have a mortalish soul?
@@johndiddilyjoe6258 despite his skill as a warrior, Nerevar was still a mortal, his reincarnation, the Nerevarine only became immortal as a result of the ash blight.
@@badideagenerator2315 Couldn't we argue that neravar actually did achieve immortality. It's not quite the same but having your soul exist in different avatars throughout time isn't very mortalish.
I know this is all headcannon spew, I just kinda disagree with the notion the Nerevarine would have a normal soul.
My brother, in genus... if you only knew half of how utterly fucked and terrifying the elder scrolls universe is. Dragons are that any because they are an extension of Anu, given that Anu is "order" they tend to exaggerate a little bit and end up as tyrannical. But nothing is scarier than the Numidium, that fucker denies reality so hard that reality itself starts to break.
Yeeessssss I would love to see more elder scrolls content from him
Landfall is terrible writing, Kirkbride's other work in TES is just him turning his babies, the Dunmer, into Mary Sues, and I stand by that.
Still nothing compared to ESO's insanity. Mora legit made even the Daedra forget that one of their own existed. Sotha Sil, unlike Vivec (who was a complete liar), completed the Psijic Endeavor so hard that Nocturnal, one of the ur-Daedra, legit tried to steal the secret of Amaranth from him. And let's not forget that Meridia helped Molag Bal almost destroy Mundus which required the other gods to create Dagon the Destroyer just to kill him only for the two to turn Dagon into their own weapon. Elder Scrolls makes its own tropes, man.
@@ca_kay I don't like ESO's bullshit about the new daedric prince.
yeah, but did you consider that reality is just a part of the Dream?
And then there are the games that really lean in to this concept and run with it.
Like pretty much any Muso game, where the entire point is to play out the power fantasy of being a legendary hero from an epic tale, capable of slaughtering his way through entire armies of enemy troops.
Or the two most recent Doom games, where Hell itself is absolutely terrified of the Doom Slayer - a pissed off, dimension-hopping human with a divine suit of power armor and an undying love for firearms, whose only goal in life is to single-handedly wipe out all of demon-kind.
Meanwhile Drakengard 3 that punishes the MC for mass murder and al the atrocities you as the player've commited.
lol literally playing doom while listening to this vid
You're on a different level when Hell labels your actions "barbarous cruelty."
@@necorV And you’re the cause of the extinction of humanity on another planet! The fact that DG 3 led to Nier was a real kicker.
@@coltonwilliams4153 LETS GOOOOOOO!!
I love the implications of the Dragonborn having the ability to stop time, breath fire, freeze someone solid all while being the leader of a group of thieves, an assassin's guild, a noble(?) fighter's guild with all this information being public knowledge
And let's not forget a mage's guild, your choice of vampires or a paranoid armed militia, a different paranoid armed militia or a fledgling cult of dragons and dragon worshipers, and a sizable portion of the nation's military forces... Oh, and also they're in possession of ~15 Daedric Artifacts and have probably eaten Several people (we don't talk about their soul gem collection)...
honestly that's my main headcanon reason for a known Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood member not being arrested in any city: Because they're the Dragonborn, the only way they're gonna be put in chains is if they let you put them on. Good luck with that. This person has cleared bandit camps, torn dragons out of the sky, frozen people solid and burned others to ash all with the power of their vocal chords. If Ulfric - a regular dude - can shout Torygg apart then just imagine what someone who was literally BORN to use that power can do with it.
The city guards: "You have committed crimes against Skyrim and her people. What say you in your defense?"
Also the city guards: "We really don't get paid enough to raid this guy's house..."
@@theapexsurvivor9538 AAAAAND they're the thane of every single hold, the largest land-owner in the country and either a Stormcloak General or an Imperial Legate.
"You get to choose your fighting style" Incorrect Stealth Archer is chosen for you
Yes. You might start the game with the full intent of becoming a master mage, but by the time you learn all the Destruction Magic and realize it boosts your Enchantments, you fall for the classic trick. No matter what path you take, it always leads to Stealth Archer.
Unless you use the Cloak exploit.
i have never gone down the stealth archer route. it just seems so booring. what do you mean you spend the entire game crouch walking into every room with your bow out? oh you have no melee skills?
heavy hammer tank for life💪💪
you can be stealth archer or you can be wrong
@@scruffmaster0185 Spellsword. Spellsword every. damn. playthrough!
I love the "your hero is their antichrist" trope.
Surprised that Doom didn't get a mention, although in that case it's still objectively correct to be an absolute horror.
The horror that hell deserves.
Just as a Skyrim Lore titbit: Dragons are immortal, meaning that their soul never passes on to the afterlife anyway. When they are slain, their bodies turn to bones and the Soul is still inside until the Dragonborn collects it... basically, the dragonborn IS THEIR AFTERLIFE.
The other option for them is to just stay in their corpse for all eternity.
Unless alduin comes along and uses a canonical shout that the dragonborn isn't able to learn because we'd have no use for it in game.
Revive dragon
This shout awakens them from their death like coma and they regenerate their body.
@@TheImmortalBloodwolf Oh yeah... he does that during the mission where you prove yourself to Delphine.
This too.
@@TheImmortalBloodwolf
Imagine the dragonborn learning that shout and usi g the souls in their body after a time to revive a dragon army.
Like a skyrim rts where you develop your dragon army.
@@DkKombo I believe that once the soul is removed from the dragon's body the shout is useless because their connection between the dragon soul and there body is broken entirely because dragon souls don't have the same rules as mortal ones
@@TheImmortalBloodwolf
So they just pearn it or find a new way between dragon soul and learning it duh.
THEN they build dragon army.
Smart plan.
Me thinks lot.
I just scrolled through my steam library, and there is not a single game where the protagonist isn't a unambiguous sociopath.
This isn't completely true. Every game of Civilization is a race to keep Ghandi from nuking the world. I do it all to save the human race from a mad man.
Another point of clarification that a lot of people are saying:
Dragons are not just the children of Akatosh, but subgradients of him. When a dragon absorbs the soul of another they are combining the shards of Akatosh together, essentially making the dragonborn the slowly coalescing jigsaw puzzle of Akatosh.
Top that off with the theory of them also being a Shezzarine (mortal incarnation of Shor, the Nordic representation of Lorkhan that was the architect of Mundus implied by Shor's empty Throne in Sovengard) and the Last Dragonborn quickly becomes the closest thing to the Godhead in terms of multiple Gods occupying the same body
This is one of the confusing elements for me. I've heard the Dragonborn is, in fact, not of Akatosh. Akatosh is traditionally Ariel as the creator of dragons. The Shezarrine is an incarnation or champion of Shor. Shor is known as having a wandering spirit. This would potentially mean that the Dragonborn's soul was created by Shor to absorb Akatosh's soul brood thus stealing the spiritual essence of Ariel for the sake of Shor's rebirth.
@@ca_kay You're right. I was using Akatosh as shorthand for AKA the great spirit that is the oversoul of Akatosh, Arui-EL, and Alduin.
In the end all beings in the Elder Scrolls, gods and mortals are part of the Godhead, so the more beings higher up the gradients you combine the closer to the Godhead you get.
There's also ways around this, such as CHIM that we see Vivec and Talos achieve.
@@unamericano I've always believed CHIM was nonsense. Vivec is a straight up liar. Not in that his lies have a grain of truth like he claims, nor that he wishes the lies to become truth like Almalexia. No, he straight up makes things up because he's a troll. In fact, the only person to ever actually reach godhood was Sotha Sil because he didn't screw around and undertook the actual Psijic Endeavor. CHIM, Amaranth, etc are just nonsense falsehoods that intentionally distract mortals from the actual Psijic Endeavor. All of Vivec's lessons are BS and are intentionally designed to screw over mortals' attempts at enlightenment.
But anyway, my main theory is that the Dragonborn does not, in fact, have a Dragon soul. All Dragonborn aka Shezarrine have draconic souls, souls of Aka(tosh), but of its resonance (like how tonal manipulation can change the nature of things) rather than being part of the Dragon-Soul. This allows them to absorb Dragon souls but not have theirs absorbed, and these souls are granted by Shor, not Ariel/Akatosh. These souls can then be absorbed by other Dragonborn and the First Dragonborn Lorkhan, but the base soul of the Dragonborn, the actual Dragonborn Soul, is not devoured. An example of this is with Miraak, as we absorb his Dragon souls but his own soul is claimed by Mora and tortured from then on.
This also corroborates the idea that Tiber took upon himself Wulfharth, in that he devoured the Dragon souls from his corpse, then granted some of the souls to his Battlemage to create the new heart, which cursed his friend's existence. Tiber did reach godhood, but had lost many Dragon souls by that time, and perhaps he had none when he ascended.
This is all conjecture but it makes sense. Shor creates Shezarrine aka Dragonborn to steal the divine Dragon souls of Akatosh to one day reform himself, and his Dragonborn use these souls to enhance their own latent power and are supposed to devour the souls from each other's corpses as each new Shezarrine takes the mantle.
@@unamericano I've always believed CHIM was nonsense. Vivec is a straight up liar. Not in that his lies have a grain of truth like he claims, nor that he wishes the lies to become truth like Almalexia. No, he straight up makes things up because he's a troll. In fact, the only person to ever actually reach godhood was Sotha Sil because he didn't screw around and undertook the actual Psijic Endeavor. CHIM, Amaranth, etc are just nonsense falsehoods that intentionally distract mortals from the actual Psijic Endeavor. All of Vivec's lessons are BS and are intentionally designed to screw over mortals' attempts at enlightenment.
But anyway, my main theory is that the Dragonborn does not, in fact, have a Dragon soul. All Dragonborn aka Shezarrine have draconic souls, souls of Aka(tosh), but of its resonance (like how tonal manipulation can change the nature of things) rather than being part of the Dragon-Soul. This allows them to absorb Dragon souls but not have theirs absorbed, and these souls are granted by Shor, not Ariel/Akatosh. These souls can then be absorbed by other Dragonborn and the First Dragonborn Lorkhan, but the base soul of the Dragonborn, the actual Dragonborn Soul, is not devoured. An example of this is with Miraak, as we absorb his Dragon souls but his own soul is claimed by Mora and tortured from then on.
This also corroborates the idea that Tiber took upon himself Wulfharth, in that he devoured the Dragon souls from his corpse, then granted some of the souls to his Battlemage to create the new heart, which cursed his friend's existence. Tiber did reach godhood, but had lost many Dragon souls by that time, and perhaps he had none when he ascended.
This is all conjecture but it makes sense. Shor creates Shezarrine aka Dragonborn to steal the divine Dragon souls of Akatosh to one day reform himself, and his Dragonborn use these souls to enhance their own latent power and are supposed to devour the souls from each other's corpses as each new Shezarrine takes the mantle.
@@unamericano Did you get my second reply?
be careful, you're inviting all the elder scrolls lore nerds to philosophize and theorize in your comments, and we can be annoying lol
Nothing like shaking up a can of philosphizing BEEEES
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. As much as it has been memed into another dimension (ironically), in the middle of the game, slaps you in the face with the number of hapless mooks you've turned into perfectly cut meat squares. Then your character basically says what you say as you're playing: "Well yeah, it's horrifying, but I'm having a *great* time."
PSA: don't play Monopoly GO! The monetization is so aggressive that even people who like the game are having trouble justifying it. It's approaching Diablo Immortal levels of bad. Don't support that crap.
10:13 don't let him play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. the enemies actually beg for their lives when they become incapacitated. They cry for their mothers as the light leaves their eyes. whether their a lowly bandit, a hardened special forces, or a faction fanatic; they sputter, rasp, and beg like all men do when brought before the great equalizer. Even the zombies cry "don't shoot please, don't hurt me"
But then you realize that healing them doesn't make them friendly, and leaving them to potentially get up again is a hazard. Such is life in the Zone.
@@crowe6961 mercy is to end them quickly, if you can
The Dragonborn has saved all of Skyrim from Alduin!………. Who turned the sun off?
Oh I wouldn't say saved more like under new management.
The Dragonborn has reformed the Dawnguard to kill all the vampires plaguing our land!
"Ah, well, you see, about that..."
That dragonborn guy seems pretty terrifying.
Now imagine him being a vampire lord feeding of humans as well 👀
Lycanthrope devouring hearts as they go. Just slash and then stop for ten seconds to carve out the heart and eat. Then when they blessedly return to a humanoid form, they lob fireballs or shoot enchanted soul trap and fire arrows.
Genuinely, I feel like the dragonborn vampire lord that DOESN'T feed on humans is high-key more terrifying.
Like, you've got the closest to the unmitigated curse of a Daedric Lord there is flowing through your literal blood, a curse that is powerful enough that most who have it straight up lose their sanity regardless of if they feed or not.
And the dragonborn straight up does not care. The worst that happens is they feel a good bit weaker than normal in the sun, and there are no other downsides. They get literal immortality in exchange for feeling weak and being thirsty.
@@MrMuffinTacoI mean, it only makes sense when you consider that you're probably carrying at Least 2 Daedric artifacts by that point, if not 15+, and have at the very least probably be marked as the pawn of one (good old tentacle face)...
Also you're slowly devouring the shards of Akatosh and may be Shor's reincarnation...
I'm pretty sure sanity left you well before Helgen
@@MrMuffinTaco And that's not even the scariest part about it. In Skyrim and Skyrim specifically, the strain of vampirism roaming around makes vampires grow *stronger* when they don't feed. So the Dragonborn not eating anything is actually just them becoming increasingly more powerful as time goes on.
Interesting. This point is brought up by Tolkien in the two towers. In fangorn gimli remarks "I though you were something dangerous" addressing Gandalf. Gandalf then points out to him that he is dangerous, and so is gimli himself as are aragorn and legolas. My brother referred to this as the neutrality of potential. The greater your capacity for evil the greater your capacity for good. The powerful characters in stories can choose evil or good. That capacity hasn't changed only how they use it.
If you killed parthurnax you're evil.
It's the difference between harmless and peaceful. If you can't do harm, that's one thing, your being peaceful is expected. If you have capacity (potentially enormous capacity) to do harm, and you choose not to, that is when you are rightfully called peaceful.
@Sorain1 agreed. If you could not do harm then you aren't choosing peace you are merely weak.
The Dragonborn can commit any crime and get out of jail after a week. You can kill like 30 people and get a slap on the wrist. Some of it is explained as corrupt guards you can bribe, but even if you’re not in the thieves guild, you basically face no real consequences for serious crimes. Dovahkiin is above the law.
Because you are necessary to save the world. You're basically a living WMD and the guards would rather be on your good side by giving you some consequences but not pissing you off.
Alright Dragonborn you killed 30 people today so you know what that means, it's time for a 1 day vacation.
Probably takes a week for the paperwork to clear. They also know they're unlikely to be able to keep you for long, if pressed.
Multiple reasons. No one wants their MC sitting in a cell for 45 years cause they decided they had heard about the cloud district one too many times. Or, yeah..I WAS pickpocketing that BANDIT...a fine, you say? Nah. Not today guard/town/world.
I used to be a gamer like you, but that was all before I took an arrow to the carpal tunnel.
Narrative Dissonance is a huge issue with games, especially AAA games. Silent hill 3 took a jab at this when the Dr tells Heather "monsters? Is that how you see them"
I forgot what the game was called But it was a great game where the kid grinded up to max level but later got sent into the game as a different character.
In this game. We see that the hero by the view of the monster villagers is basically a cold hearted monster that burns everything to the ground. Steals and such.
Your mission is to basically revive and save everyone as well as learn about the world and such.
Basically an anti rpg game that's ending is to quit playing.
Edit: it's called moon remix rpg adventure
This wouldn't happen to be _Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt,_ would it? Or is it some other game?
@@nathancarter8239no not that game. But I'll check that one out later.
There is a scene where the hero comes to destory a monster but you trick him by making a fake one and setting a fire instead.
moon: Remix RPG Adventure?
That's Moon. Basically, Undertale's dad.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I'm so glad you brought up the Middle Earth: Shadow games.
Celebrimbor is a complete megalomaniac who was thoroughly corrupted by the One Ring to the point where he's just as bad as Sauron, and his evil rubs off on Talion over the course of their partnership with Talion starting off only wanting to protect Gondor and ending with trying to overthrow Sauron, however Talion isn't corrupted by the ring and at the last second sees Celebrimbor for what he truly is, triggering his abandonment in favour of Eltariel. Talion is then forced to don Isildur's Ring and subject himself to Sauron's influence, eventually succumbing and joining the Nazgul as their ninth member.
It's not quite the same, since he's not exactly a hero, but I've often said that it would be absolutely terrifying to have Agent 47 from Hitman come after you. Imagine someone who can get to you anywhere, and who kills with such precision that it would be impossible to to tell it wasn't an accident. An assassin who is the best at what he does, and who never gives up until he dies.
In Hitman: Contracts 47 gets gut shot by a target, but manages to escape. He stumbles to a safe house, nearly dead. A surgeon working for the Agency shows up and fixes the wound, but before he can finish properly he has to leave before the special forces, who tracked 47 to the safe house, arrives to finish him off. And what does 47 do? He disappears from right under the special forces' noses, returns to his target, kills him and escapes without being noticed. Straight up terrifying.
The reason every Hitman movie has failed has been because they keep trying to make an action movie. But Hitman isn't an action game. Sure, a movie about sneaking around and stealthing would be boring. But there is an option I don't think they've realized: Make it a horror movie. Tell the movie from the perspective of the bodyguard of Agent 47's target. Show the bodyguard repeatedly foiling 47's plans last second. Show 47 taking out anyone in his way mercilessly, and the more of his plans fail, the more unhinged and dangerous they get, and the less 47 starts caring about not causing collateral damage.
And then, in the end, since 47 only takes contracts on bad people, have Diana contact the bodyguard and inform him of the shit the target has done, and pay the bodyguard to do it instead. And end the movie with Diana approaching the bodyguard again, offering him a permanent job.
A movie like that would be fucking rad.
At least the few who know about 47 acknowledge him as a living legend and a ghost. But yeah, 47 would be akin to an 80's action hero using stealthier tactics instead of a walking, bullet deflecting mountain of muscle. Kind of like some parts of Rambo and the initial beginning action in Commando.
Fucking superb idea! Take my money and show me this damn movie!
Imagine that phone call opening with "Agent 47 has made a recommendation, that's why you are receiving this call." The realization that 47 surely could have killed our protagonist a dozen times over, and the character clearly knowing that as well. So they listen to that call, glancing around the room and trying to see how 47 will kill them if they refuse, not because they expect to spot 47, but as a coping mechanism to feel some control over the situation.
@@Sorain1 And, even though the protagonist doesn't see 47, attentive viewers will be able to spot him somewhere nearby in a disguise. The movie does nothing to help you spot him.
In fact, that's going to be true for several parts of the movie. Those paying attention will just be able to spot a disguised 47 observing them in a distance before and around the times of the attempted attacks.
“What if the Dragonborn went around reaping human souls?”
Me: Looks at the pile of hundreds of Turn Undead Iron Daggers I made to get to 100 Enchanting to get better boots
Ha ha… yeah… what if…
(He's a hero because he's defeating our enemies) god damn. That's good
Not uncommon in RGPs; the Baldur's Gate games and the second Knights of the Old Republic game use the character's background to explain the game mechanic of main character (or at least the "Urge" in BG3) getting stronger by killing enemies in their story context. You are a child of the previous god of murder, or you are a wound in the Force. Killing powers you up. You can be "good" or "evil" in your intentions, but either way, you (the player character) are terrifying.
John Skyrim is a pretty cool guy. eh fights alduin and doesn't afraid of anything
Damm that memes a deep cut
You kill so many people in _Uncharted_ they named the bodycount achievement "Ludonarrative Dissonance."
lol it's not tho as Nathan Drake isn't a hero, he's just an adventurer and that's it.
I don't believe dragons actually go to the afterlife if killed by a not soul devouring half dragon. They just sort of stick around the mortal plane, which is why alduin can fully revive them in game. Also, he eats souls for breakfast as well, so really the dragonborn is basically a reverse alduin.
Handsome Jack is a good example of a hero and monster from different perspectives he really thinks of himself as The Hero of the world complete with tragic backstory, wants to bring law and order and government to basically a alien hellscape but because he's opposed to the players faction an actual group of plundering bandits as he says himself,
but to the other perspective he's another Narcissistic rich CEO with a god complex that wants to take over the world, thats an evil monster, becuase he killed a main character, even though he kills less than a handful of people and the characters body count in the ten thousands.
I wonder what would be his killcount if he had to wander a wasteland populated by tribes of murderous, derranged and extremely brutal psychopaths instead of paying others to do it for him.
If we're talking about horrifying heroes in video games PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ON SPEC OPS THE LINE.
What's the matter? Don't you feel like a hero yet?
To be fair, that one is not only on-purpose, but that's literally the central point of the story.
Kinda out of place in a video essay about *unintentionally* horrifying protagonists
You're still a good person.
@@davispeterson1876 my brother in Christ it's why the comment was to make a video on the game "in general" not add this game to this videos specific topic of discussion.
And this is why Undertale's Geno route is so powerful. It's fully aware of the unintended trope, and then points out just how horrible you're actually being.
Then there's Everhood where it's the opposite, doing Geno in that game leads to the best ending for everyone involved
I Don't understand why people are "ashamed" of "wasting their time" on video games? Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. I'm more ashamed of the hours I've wasted in working and interacting with the people I don't care about. My time is more valuable than money
A manga that makes the unrivaled optimism and happy smiles of a shounen protagonist and twists it into the creepy and unsettling reality of someone that is boarderline psychotic for loving fighting and getting hurt so much is Teppu. The shounen protagonist character is actually the rival and the true protagonist we follow is more along the lines of a morally grey villain turned bitter rival like Vegeta. It's a MMA manga with some great character writing and unique takes on things. It's not too long either. Highly recommend it!
You sold me on that one. Gonna give it a try
@@kojeta3200 I'm thrilled to hear that. Please, if you remember, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy!
@@upg5147 gonna come back later to give you my first impressions
Glad you mentioned Tepee, highly underrated.
To a slightly lesser degree, I guess one can also kind of (and I use that in loose quotations) count Baki to an extent.
The title character, Baki Hanma, is actually a pretty good guy, but for several parts of the manga he purposefully gets into fights with people just to become stronger. He does later wisen up, and even admits he doesn't want to be strongest in the world, but just stronger than his father, who happens to be the deadliest creature on Earth. Still, this is a guy who kidnapped the president just so he could meet and fight with another character in a maximum security prison... for training.
Outside of our main character we also get to follow some stories and fights revolving around some of the weirdest and most violent individuals you can imagine. From a 19 year old yakuza boss who dwarfs most adults and finished is back tattoo using the blood of a rival gang, to a steroid infested monster of a man that eat the bones of his steaks, a dude who lives in prison just to mock the fact nobody can restrain him, an actual dinosaur fighting caveman who was thawed out like Captain America, and of course, the main character's father, who wakes up and falls asleep choosing violence because he is the living embodiment of Black Air Force Energy.
There's a book I'm going to read called _The Brightest Shadow_ that plays with this trope. The Hero has a very black-and-white mentality when it comes to the monsters (or "mansthein", as they call themselves), who have imperialist tendencies but are currently a federation, whereas the humans aren't exactly beacons of innocence and justice. The Hero character is treated as an absolute monster because he refuses to see any nuance in his enemies. There's also a big spoiler I'll put below.
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The reveal is that the Hero is not any given person. Even if the Hero is killed, someone else becomes the Hero, so the Legend of the Hero is baked into reality, and it doesn't matter whether those playing the parts are good or evil.
The Brightest Shadow is an amazing series! I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone reading this. The author is very skilled in subverting tropes in various compelling ways.
The books are slow-paced and long, which may be a bad thing for some. However, there is a lighter prequel which also explores this theme masterfully. It is called "Blades falling softly", and can be read independently. In fact, I would highly recommend this one as a standalone or an entry point.
Funnily enough I had a similar idea as a kid lol, but I want to check this series out because it sounds interesting
@mestreluk if only the author actually finished the serries
“It would horrifying to have someone going around stealing people’s souls”
Me with a pouch full of black soul Gems: Yeah…. Horrifying
My method for Elder Scrolls games is simple: ABC - Always Be Cat.
Dragonborn (becomes a vampire and gains the ability to control everyone’s minds)
“Are we the baddies?”
No legit that is the canon interpretation of the Dragonborn. Dragonborn naturally seek to dominate. What daedric prince is the Dragonborn most associated with? Molag Baal and Hermaeus Mora. The idea that the Dragonborn is driven by a lust for knowledge, status, and power is not very far fetched.
I love the cognitive dissonance in Watch Dogs 2. DedSec doesn't necessarily want to recruit Marcus because he has a license for a gun. At the same time (originally) you can only print lethal weapons. You can kill people without any repercussions from your allies and friends and so on. You can fully GTA the game and you're the hero.
In the first Tomb Raider reboot Lara feels her first kill. She's terrified later how easy it becomes for her.
Watch Dogs 2 is messed up tonally in tons of ways, such as when one of the DedSec guys dies and then is completely forgotten. I liked the new mechanics in 2 but liked Watch Dogs 1 better tonally given that Aiden is not the hero, he's a guy who used to be part of the criminal underworld who's out for revenge and it's up to the player if he ends up respected vigilante or feared criminal by the public. Just wish the hacking was more in depth, also DedSec was underdeveloped.
One addition that would have made the game more interesting was including some detective aspects where you have to find vulnerabilities both physically and in the in game internet (having to search through social media profiles to find a target, a website to find exposed private files or admin info, etc) or in code whereas in the actual game it had a bit of the physical and hackable items but also was too easy in that it let you have the "hacking vision" to find them. More inspiration from actual pen testing would be good. Another interesting mechanic would have been having hacking be like a puzzle and toolkit, which it sort of was but was far, far too simplified. It could have been more like spell making in Oblivion or something where you write a virus/program by mixing different sequences of simpler hacks and have to figure out the right combinations to hack different things.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731 WD21 had a lot of problems, but to me the tonality and the dissonance was insane. In the end you can be a full on psycho mass murderer and your buddies are quite alright with it. In Skyrim the game's world itself is an ambivalent thing. It is a very violent and hard world where a hero like a monster Dragon Born fits in. Basically one epoch is dying with the dragons and a new one begins.
Not so much in WD2 where you are positioned as the good guy. In WD1 you were an antihero, could be worse too. In WD3 you were a freedom fighter who's methods made you either the villain or the hero of the story.
Did you know dragon souls actually don’t move on they stick to the body unless killed by another dragon and any dragon can absorb the soul of another dragon
There soul sticks around allowing them to be revived by Alduin
And when alduin dies you don’t absorb his soul it goes up almost like he isn’t gone for good and akatosh is saving his soul for when it’s time for him to devour nirn
@@EldritchMage3922or maybe akatosh absorbed alduin's soul so that we wouldn't become more powerful than we already were.
My first thought when I saw that wasn't that oh he's still alive, it was that akatosh absorbed Alduin's soul in the same manner that the dragonborn absorbs a dragon soul. Likely so that we wouldn't.
As a few others have pointed out, TES dragons don't have an afterlife. They aren't children of Akatosh so much as they are fragments.
When they die, they're like a computer put into Sleep mode. Yes, all that's left of them in their burial mounds is bones, but their souls are still inside.
Alduin's shout to revive them _Slen Tiid Vo_ (Flesh Time Undo) is just giving them a fresh body.
The only way to permanently kill a dragon is to absorb its soul, something that can only be done by another fragment of Akatosh...like a Dragonborn.
Not unintentional writing, but the game 'Sekiro' ends up making its protagonist pretty terrifying in the eyes of his enemies.
Spoilers for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
He essentially goes through the whole game destroying every line of defense they have. It then results in the people they're at war against invading the place and burning it down.
Arthur Morgan
From start to finish him and the gang (depending on if you count gang conflicts and side robberies) commit 10 to 20 massacres, roughly half of which they cause.
Also, with the dead eye system, depending on which gun you're holding, Arthur can kill 6 (revolver) to 26 (even repeater) people in just a few seconds.
Arthur and the rest of the gang would all look like monsters to the people of any town they visit.
This is partially a consequence of what I like to call "open world protagonist syndrome" or just, "protagonist syndrome."
Basically, this is where a character kills so many people and/or does so many things that it becomes downright absurd to think nobody either knows the MC, or is at least familiar with their exploits in at least a loose way (like maybe someone could talk about coming across the aftermath of a shootout and the pile of bodies); and moreover, that the MC isn't somehow a living legend or feared beyond belief.
RDR2 is in weird space where the invention of guns actually makes Arthur a bit more grounded. Basically, a guy who's good with a gun, even a non-automatic/mahcine gun type of weapon, can do a lot of damage: a revolver could kill or critically injure 6 people, for example, and a sniper with good position could hold off a good number of men, and so on. This also conversely means that it seems reasonable a group of half a dozen men or more would think they could all have guns and get this one guy pretty easily. All of this in contrast to a medieval or fantasy game where it seems even more absurd this one man army isn't talked about.
However, the problem is that, due to RDR2 being a video game that needs to keep the player challenged and entertained, a gang that should number at 50 or so people at most like the O'Driscolls is now numbering in the hundreds and you're left wondering how the hell these guys haven't taken over half of the west by sheer numbers alone. They may excuse it with, "if you can shoot a gun and ride a horse, you're in." but even with us thinning their numbers down on a semi-regular basis, the amount of random dudes and Irish immigrants must be off the charts. Viva La Dirt League even made a parody video of it and actually made a brilliant idea/point that they honestly could be a political power due to the sheer majority they would have over voting alone; Colm could've gotten a man in his pocket to be elected mayor.
I always found it amazing that Skyrim lets you be an actual mythological figure in terms of nonsense. You literally ascend to *one* of Elder Scroll’s versions of heaven just to scrap with a world eating dragon.
dark souls play with this idea too. especially 3 where the whole plot is that you hunt down the lords who refused to link the fire a second time and continue the ghastly cycle of the age of light. either that or you side with a cult that worships humanity's flaws and wants to bring about an age of dark that may or may not involve spreading the eldritch horror of the abyss.
There's one game protagonist that is a lot less terrifying than than Nathan Drake, and that's Agent 47, he only kills his targets and often makes it look like an accident.
I've been trying to rewrite Fallout 4 as a tv show (solely in my head) and i can't get past the idea that there's seemingly no way to explain Nate or Nora turning into a complete psychopath. You can explain the killing of radroaches and some attacks on raiders as self defense, but so much of the game is you going to someone's home and taking them out. Simply because they are red on the hud.
You can remove the combat from a lot of those scenarios. The fighting only happens because its a shooter. And instead of having the player just murder their way through everything, maybe they have to sneak out because raiders arrive and they can't feasibly take on that many enemies at once. You have them recover the power armour from that first deathclaw fight, and as the plot progresses they find stuff they need to fix it, and you really sell the power armour as the reason Nate/Nora is capable of taking things on in the finale, alongside their chosen faction. Fights are smaller scale and farther between, and the player character isn't the only one to shoot anything.
Trauma does a lot of things to the human mind. PTSD compounded with continuous reoccurring traumas and the literal destruction of everything one knew. If Nora, you only have secondhand accounts of what the war with the People's Republic is like, most of which is done through subterfuge. If Nate, he likely either fought in the Annexation Wars or Anchorage. I don't think those situations were quite as harrowing as most Post-War combat if we were to base it on the Anchorage DLC in Fallout 3, which was scaled up in severity for training purposes yet the BOS didn't want to go through it themselves.
Then the trauma of betrayal by Vault-Tec, watching your spouse get shot for protecting your child, your actual first encounters with humans usually Raiders even if you avoid Concord and carefully reach Abernathy Farm, or any settlement now that I think on it, doesn't count because they send you to kill Raiders almost right away. You have that 'can do' attitude to you after all.
So you could attribute a good portion of the behavior to the Post Traumatic Responses of their situation and a survivors complex that makes them more likely to try to prevent the trauma in others.
I find that sky/obliv/fo34nv etc..always easier to be a bit 'bad' at the start. Steal some stuff, maybe a couple unjust killings, etc..make life so much easier it's...criminal.. then, you take that boost and either reform or go with it and megalomaniac your way to bliss.
C'mon anybody getting told another settlement needs their help for the umpteenth time is gonna be a little trigger happy when they're enemies around.
@@johnb3227 all of that. And the fact you can have ridiculous defenses in vanilla and still lose. Also, being a hero is great, til you realize you're the only one actually getting things done in the whole land.
If I remember properly, dragons of TES have no afterlife and simply reincarnate further down the Winds of Time. It's why Alduin was sent to the future instead of just being killed by the Tongues at the end of the Dragon War. Only a Dragon born can permanently kill a dragon
Honestly, Half-Life 2 approached this idea pretty well. In real life, a person that's scary is either going to be seen as a monster to fear or a hero to worship. He never managed to save a single scientist, but the only people he actively killed were aliens and the military, any killed a hell of a lot of those. That, and some well-placed rumors and manipulation, was enough to make him the center of what amounted to a religion.
Bethesda hero’s are scary because they are op by creation and lore. Even in fallout where it’s a bit more realistic with power your still do some downright mind boggling feet’s.
What makes elder scrolls so much scarier thou is we mostly know what they become. First guy imperial arch mage (he’s the weakest by the way). Second guy kills the champion to a deadra multiple times (you don’t just do that), the red guard punches a deadra (kinda), the neverines an immortal tank of a man, hero of kovatch becomes an actual deadra lord, while the dragon born is well the dragon born “power thous name is me”
Hell even the more soft cannon ones with blades and elder scrollls online do some work. The blade wrecks havoc for an in honesty normal man. While the vestige isn’t just an immortal vestige untouchable to the gods but also probably a walking dragon break as technically everything we do as a player is cannon while also being the same person (confusing)
When you think about it our mains are horrifying people of unimaginable potential and power
Two examples of "MC that is canonically horrifying" i recall are Trigger from Ace Combat 7 (In the mission anchorage raid when you blow up basically everything the enemy commanders will comment on how impossible it is that only 4 aircrafts are destroying everything and that it has to be a hallucination, a absolutely terrified Radar officer remarks that it isnt a hallucination but rather a nightmare.) And Raven from Armored Core 6 (Certain voiced enemies sound like they're seconds away from crapping themselves once they know who they're up against)
Thanks for uploading this on my b-day! ❤
Shaming an orc to the point their mind breaks then hearing its delirous noises is one of the few things that actually makes me want to cry in video games.
It's just so chilling. 😧
Bayverse Optimus: 👀
It's funny how you say that. Considering alduin IS eating a million souls a second in Skyrim. It's also funny how in WOW sylvanis is sending millions of souls tongell but it's oknin the end because she's really sorry (and a hot girl)
Oh, the Dragonborn is terrifying alright. Took on a bear with only a rusty old iron dagger. Then, once he managed to kill it with a death of a thousand cuts, quite literally, the nutjob started eating a bag of flour. Who even does that? Like, a line of moon sugar, sure, but no, he just stood there eating a bag of flour, before running off and chasing butterflies.
One more game where the hero is objectively terrifying is Final Fantasy 14. The player character has single-handedly taken down armies. They've torn apart mecha with their bare hands. They have slain gods. They have beaten the physical manifestation of despair. They've toppled kingdoms. Everywhere they go they bring upheaval, and the game barely acknowledges the pants-shitting terror that must come from being your enemy. There's one moment in Endwalker that acknowledges it and... that's kind of it. 20 seconds in a cutscene one time.
DRK questline does play with the idea a bit, in a more personal way. The entire Garlemald segment really puts into perspective how scary the WoL is from the enemies perspective. It's not just that one cutscene, you talk to Garlean soldiers and they're terrified of you, they talk about how they lost friends to you, and it legitimately bothers the WoL to be confronted with that fact. In From the Cold's solo duty even shows the sheer gap in power between a regular person and the WoL by directly putting you in the shoes of a regular soldier. It really puts into perspective how hard it is to be in those situations without all that power you've grown accustomed to. I also remember after the Naadam in Stormblood, where Hien compliments you on your performance, and explicitly calls you "terrifying". Probably even more moments like this that I'm forgetting. To be honest though, the WoL's such a people pleaser, and is generally presented to be so friendly to the vast majority of people that I don't think most characters we meet have a reason to directly acknowledge how scary they can be.
Also, a bit off topic, but I don't think it's fair to say that the WoL has single-handedly taken down armies, or done any of those other things alone. One of the core themes of the game is that for all your individual strengths, you can't achieve anything truly significant alone. There's a reason why we're always fighting alongside other people in every major victory, even if we're doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Our signature ability is literally the power to summon help.
Yes, they are by all accounts a terrifying certified badass superhuman, but they're still just one person. Not some unstoppable, unkillable doomguy super god mary sue who can snap their fingers and blow up a country. I feel like players buy into their own hype a bit too much because of the "god killer" title, and forget that "gods" in FFXIV are basically just powerful elemental monsters that can dominate the minds of regular people and are only called gods for cultural reasons. Even regular people without Echo protection have had to fight and take down Primals before. It's still impressive that we do it so consistently, don't get me wrong, especially the shit we pull in Endwalker, but it gets a bit tiring seeing that thrown around all the time without context.
Sorry for writing a novel, none of this is really meant to discredit the general idea of the WoL as a scary as shit hero, I just wanted to go on an autistic rant about details, I love this game.
A fellow writer struggling to be productive while being an avid gamer? You’re not alone brother.
Don't misunderstand me when I say this, if Skyrim gave me the option to kill unallied dragons I would (except Paarthanax. He's the goodest boy left standing) but all those dragons were brought back to life by Alduin to bring ruin to the world. He didn't just go raising any old bones he found willy nilly either. He brought back the dragons that backed his push for world domination instead of those that were against his choice to do so. I'm pretty neutral on the subject because the outcome feels the same to me but his job is to be the World Eater. Whether that be literally or figuratively he is supposed to bring about the end of the world. Instead he chose to go against his destiny, presumably bestowed upon him by his father Akatosh, and instead chose to subjugate it. If the dragons' souls aren't absorbed, with the exception of Alduin who won't die regardless, they will simply lie dormant until Alduin or another sufficiently strong dragon comes to resurrect them. No dragon heaven, no dragon hell, no eternal glory. Their choices are either long nap or be felt in every syllable that I utter
I don’t want to set the world on fire
The story aligning well with your game actions is the Nemesis system in a nutshell. Such a fantastic game.
I've always hated the way the player is the center of everything in this kind of game. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. Paradoxically, the more the game blatantly tries to tell me I'm the chosen hero, the less I feel like that. Like, when the characters all fawn over me and tell me I'm awesome for doing something that was very easy, I don't feel heroic, I feel like the world is a theme park waiting for me to come along so it can praise me. And since the world feels fake, the praise feels disingenuous and I don't feel heroic.
Skyrim is one of the worst games for creating this dissonance in me. Every organisation in the land lets you in, almost immediately subverts their internal processes (so you the player don't feel like a real part of that organisation), you have some special questline where you get involved in some major existential part of that organisation. You complete the questline and are handed the title of leader of that group despite having essentially just arrived, never having really been part of the group, and then that group may as well cease to exist, because they do nothing with it after you're declared leader. And it just doesn't feel earned. I would have loved a real mages college questline, but you attend half of two classes before it gets replaced by an artefact hunt where you may as well just be some random mercenary. I don't think you even need to cast magic to complete that questline, and the characters only really exist to fill the room for those first two classes. They do this in every single one of them, including Dawnguard. You often don't even get a single regular mission done before the illusion of the organisation breaks down and is replaced by your special quest.
This ties into a problem games have in general regarding scope in the narrative. Games subscribe very hard to a bigger = better philosophy that just doesn't work. Destiny for example, is a world where there were endless possibilities for smaller scale, deeply impactful storylines with lower stakes. But they almost immediately pissed away any chance of that by having one of the first villains be a billion year old hive god who might end the world. And now more recently so many interesting plotlines have had to be abandoned because the current villain is a universe ending threat. But when the stakes are that high, we all know they can't win. And when the stakes are that high, the actions the players take to stop them often do not fit the scale of the threat. So it winds up feeling extremely contrived.
Smaller scale threats ironically feel more dangerous, because you could realistically lose. Defending one village or one city from destruction is so much more engaging than defending the world.
Canonically tho, the Dragonborn only kills 2 Dragons (And Alduin makes 3 but he will be back he’s a legit God unlike his kin)
In the Dawnguard DLC we only kill 2 more (the twins under the frozen lake) and in the Dragonborn DLC we kill only 3 more for the Bend Will shout.
So… 7 tops. After that we can literally tell Dragons what to do, kinda removes the need to kill them.
Honestly a shame they didn't do more with the "alright, you're in charge of a very large portion of the flying natural disasters" bit.
7:30 Dragons do not have an afterlife the way you think they do.
They remain in their shell even after their body expires, that's why Alduin can resurrect them so easily.
The Dovahkiin eating them and carrying their souls with them into their afterlife _is_ the afterlife of dragons.
The 6th season of My Hero Academia is a great example of this as well. While we are following the super heroes, fighting against a villainous uprising, the entire first half is devoted to showing just how god damn terrifying heroes are if you happen to be on the other side.
A realistic hero is always just a monster that serves society’s interests instead of opposing them.
The one orc who yells “My boy!” Anytime he sees me ^_^
i think this is sort of a... pitfall? feature? bug? of a lot of story driven games, because from a more standard game mechanics standpoint, you gotta kill some dudes to level up and get gear etc.. but story wise that often has some really horrifying implications as you say. i really appreciate it when games aknowledge or play with this, or gives you opportunities and xp for solving things in other ways
They could simply make combat more complex so that each fight takes longer and is more interesting rather than simply having hordes of the same simple enemies to mow down, but the latter is easier to make. They could also have more interesting challenges such as in speech, potion making, spell casting, etc rather than the basic door puzzles.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731 combat complexity and puzzles doesent really have anything to do with the story tho. like it doesent matter how complex it is, of you can only solve things or level up by killing in game, that is going to be part of the sotry of the hero wether intentional or not.
@@laurentius3254 Killing isn't the only way to level up in Skyrim, you can get levels by using telekinesis or transmutation as well as alchemy, lockpicking, pickpocketing and sneaking, etc. If the dissonance between gameplay and story is that the hero shouldn't kill so many people, then you need to both reduce enemy count and still keep the game interesting with a sense of skill and progression which is where puzzles and problem solving come in or more complex fighting which reduces enemy count by increasing the time it takes to defeat a single enemy.
That story you had about the Kajhit that hunts humans and steals their souls reminds me of my main Skyrim character. She has dozens of black soul gems and of anyone even remotely annoys her, she'll send their soul to Soul Cairn.
Nothing will ever beat Morrowind and bribing 3 village Elders to sign off on you being dark-elf jesus. Peak gameplay.
The dragons are fragments of Akatosh, so all the Dovakiin is really doing is putting back together the pieces of one guy.
Also, as for humans souls, *_[The Soul Cairn]._*
Just add the step of consuming the victims while still alive, & youve got one of my fav characters, who is a Viking-Zombie-Ninja-Vampire
"You get to choose your fighting style"
The inevitable stealth archer would like a word...
:P
Great example of Naruto intimidating the kid with the massive power of Kurama hidden behind the friendly smile. Even earlier in the series (in the fight against the 10-tails at the end of the Naruto manga proper) there's a scene where everyone is fighting for their lives and someone asks "how are Naruto/Sasuke doing?" and then it cuts to them literally laughing as they cut through scores of enemies.
Just goes to show, a lot of these heroes are absolute savages at their core, even when it's tempered by traditional heroic virtues.
You have a super smooth voice my dude. You could have made this whole video about the evil stuff you actually do in skyrim alone like the daedric quests
I'm often surprised in Skyrim how many quests allow you do be seriously, objectively evil. Often, I find myself in a situation where the "good" side isn't ever clear. Other times, the only good choice is not to participate in the quest at all. Naturally, if you skip on these quests, you miss out of some interesting rewards.
Playing Civ 6 while watching this lol. Back in 3rd grade I was the first kid at recess with that clear purple game boy color. I remember everyone going crazy over it lol.
This is so true. Have you ever stopped to think how absolutely terrifying is a being like Kirby? Yes, yes, the pink one.
Me, soul tapping random bandits I find on the road: yes.
Then I go to the Soul Carin and taunt them with my ability to leave that hell
I feel like we can slide Kyoshi into this conversation...
Honestly man you came out swinging, all the games you mentioned are GOATED, 10/10
"He is essentially a soul vampire." - Redeemer and destroyer.
Using the egoraptor video to reference Pokémon in the intro is hilarious lol
Talion is a great example, but for me, Robert Neville from the original I Am Legend novel is a masterclass in this aspect. For us, he is a poor inocent survivor who tries to stay alive. For the vampires, a blood thirsty monster who seek for you during the day
If you like this trope, read the Suneater books if you haven't already. Hadrian Marlowe wuld make a truly terrifying villain, if he weren't the protagonist. Not only is he basically a charismatic dictator and cult leader, but he also has time powers that can literally make you stop existing through sheer willpower on his part, also he's basically immortal and has been genociding aliens for near millenia.
Love the Shadow games. The twist that Celebrimbor was just using Talion to replace Sauron was perfectly executed. Neither the player nor Talion seeing how corrupted he has become. And it makes perfect sense Talion would not notice since in the first game, he is too focused on revenge, and in the second, he realizes it too late. Choosing to become a villain to stop him for as long as possible, but knowing he's doomed in the end. It's really a shame what WB did to these games.
12:18 - "The Hero is only the Hero because he's on our side."
Yeah, that's every Hero, all of them. Ever. Literally no exceptions. Even a rescue swimmer saving someone from the ocean can be seen as a villain if you side with mother nature and her punishment of the hubris of man.
The moment you mentioned you can choose your fighting style I just thought about the fact no matter how I try to play I eventually revert back to stealth archer lol...
Really thought AoT would’ve been mentioned here. 😂 But great video as always!
Great video
Underrated channel😊
Some games convey this trope well; sometimes not even the MC. For example: Caim from Drakengard became a Legend in Drakengard 2; we who knew the things we did as him in DG1 know he takes pleasure in combat. He enjoys killing. And it is perfectly conveyed through his face.
There isn't tension, fear, or determination when he is slaying his foes. There is pleasure. And that terror carries over when the MC we play as meets this terrifying "HERO". He is the legend that will enjoy killing us. Not for honor or anything just pleasure. He is the villain, who was a HERO! The man we made so powerful ready to claim our life!
That bit about Uncharted is actually the core reason why I don't like those games at all. (I forced myself through all 4 main games since some guy I knew kept calling them the best games ever with peak storytelling) Since I didn't enjoy the shooting gameplay (or any of the other scripted pillars honestly), those parts became so mindnumbingly dull for me to push through and made me pay attention to how much I was forced to do it, and thus it influenced how I view Drake as a character. It's fitting that Nolan North also plays Deadpool in most non-live action takes on the character, I'll say that much... The fact that one villain and a trophy puts attention on his one man army tendencies doesn't really detract from the overall point imo. It just makes Drake feel unreal and unsympathetic to me. Which as you say, absolutely isn't what the developers intended...
Also, a great example of a game story aligning with the players actions is Ghost of Tsushima. Each of the three acts has their levels, enemies and progression system designed in a way that encourages either of your two playstyles (honorable samurai warrior, or stealthy proto-ninja) or a mix of them. And the story makes it very clear that it is intentional, and it is so cool.