Nocturne Is Getting Closer So I Wanted To Do A Little Something To Celebrate

Finally done i spent on this to much time

Another Castlevania padoru this time Juste

I don’t usually write rants like this, but I need to get this off my chest.

With Cyrene who is clearly an Elysia expy coming to Honkai Star Rail, I sincerely hope she won’t be too much like Elysia. I wouldn’t mind if she shared some conceptual similarities, as long as it’s done right this time. But honestly, my hopes aren’t high.

I have a lot of thoughts about Elysia, and none of them are positive. At best, I see Elysia as the biggest disappointment in the entire series at worst, I outright despise her.

The thing is, I love “perfect savior” characters. They usually come with deep emotional arcs, internal conflict, and explorations of both the good and bad sides of humanity. That’s why Elysia frustrates me so deeply.

She’s portrayed as this flawless, idealized being loved by all of the characters, and even the writers. The narrative constantly screams at you: “She sacrificed everything for humanity! She is perfect! She loves humanity! She married humanity! She’s your wife too! - Don’t you love her already?”

But it all feels empty and shallow. Her so determination rings hollow because she never actually struggles. She doesn’t make mistakes. The story tells us she’s witnessed humanity at its best and worst but we never see this. Everyone worships her, and the moment there’s even a slight hint that she might doubt herself as a Herrscher, the writing bends over backward to reassure her that none of it matters because she’s just that perfect.

She doesn’t fight her nature. She doesn’t question her convictions. And because she never experiences genuine negative emotion, her “goodness” has no weight. She’s like a cardboard cutout that is sweet to the point of blandness.

What makes it worse is that there was potential. There were hints she could have been more than just a flawless goddess — maybe even morally ambiguous. But those hints go nowhere. It’s a waste of setup and a complete letdown.

Perfect characters can work, when their perfection is shown to be inhuman, and even evil and dangerous in its incompatibility with humanity.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Fate a series full of complex savior figures like Morgan, Castoria, Kiara, Jeanne d’Arc, and all of the Beasts. Each of them is unique, carefully written, sometimes heroic, sometimes terrifying. They struggle. They question themselves. They feel. The writing doesn’t beg us to love them it just shows us who they are and lets us come to that conclusion on our own.

I still cling to a sliver of hope. The Amphoreus arc is written by a different team than the Elysian Realm, and they gave us Phainon a brilliant example of a savior archetype done right. He’s full of doubt, hiding his negative emotions behind a mask of perfect deliverer. He’s broken, lost, and empty yet he still fights to find his convictions and protect the world.

So I beg let Cyrene, who seems to be another “savior” type have real flaws. Let her feel, struggle, and have a opinions on the world around her. That’s all I ask.

there's meta to be had about just how much of viktor's arc is about loneliness and the blatant visuals they use in his evolution about metamorphosis, butterflies, cocoons, in utero, etc, as he molts from a soft, vulnerable larva who keeps getting hurt in his bids for love and acceptance, into a hardened final form complete with an exoskeleton acting as both physical and emotional armor. a shield keeping his emotions in and the pain of loneliness and rejection out, until it's cracked and his humanity is forcefully exposed. like. sorry if it's just the entomologist in me but this was blatantly obvious the very first time i watched the show and I've been continually surprised that no one's really pointed this out. as a certified lonely person it struck such a deep cord with me, when he accepted his fate, his path ahead, to be one he'd have to walk alone, finally putting up that last seemingly impenetrable wall around his soft parts (but keeping the blanket, this signal that he never asked for this, and that he's not unreachable). So much of his s2 arc centered around not just his desire to right his wrongs and help the world, but to connect with others and not feel alone, both of which got twisted by the hexcore. His attempt to create a hivemind where no one would ever suffer loneliness or rejection or loss, and he would feel their souls with him as well (even though that was an illusion in the end, he truly believed it). The whole 'I now speak with all their voices' but he's just floating in an empty space. And for the consequence of the glorious evolution to be eternal solitude, it just drives home how that's the worst possible fate imaginable for Viktor.

I have many thoughts about the Golden Scapegoat's mutterings and Phainon.

If the theory about Phainon being the Lord Ravager is correct, and the Golden Scapegoat's mutterings are about him, then this entry takes on a much more literal meaning.

It becomes far more straightforward the mark of property being made in the furnace corresponding to Nanook giving the mark of destruction to the chosen, their bodies being reforged in the Warforge they become Lord Ravagers and destruction becoming their destiny.

Interpreting it this way suggests that the rest of the entry should also be taken quite literally. That makes me wonder could Phainon, before becoming the Lord Ravager, literally speak to the dead? But the references to black iron and charcoal suggest a much more violent method of communicating with the dead than what you’d normally expect. I’m not sure what to make of that.

(Gardener - Garden of Recollection perhaps?)

This entry also seems to associate the dead more strongly with memories, but I think this one is referring to Cyrene, because she too is heavily associated with being a sinner, so I don’t know how useful this entry could be in trying to decipher 6B.

It is this time of the year. Richter padoru

Nanook and the Path of Destruction

The thing that makes Nanook and the path of Destruction so intriguing to me is that the methods are generally bad, but the goal, and what leads up to that goal, are much more complex and understandable than one might think.

Because Nanook wasn‘t some mustache twirling villain since birth, they were a victim of catastrophes started by other people and only through experiencing so much suffering did they develop their ideology of „This universe is bad and it needs to be destroyed.“ Fact is that if the universe did not exist in the way that it does in Star Rail, there wouldn’t be a path of destruction. Continuing that thought, there was and is Destruction in Star Rail‘s history that’s completely disconnected to Nanook. Nanooks ascension was more of a response to the suffering created by Emperor Rubert, Tazzyronth, the IPC etc. than something that happened in a vacuum.

If you look at all the antagonists we got in Star Rail up until now, do you notice how only a few of them are fully associated with the Destruction? And if you look at their goals, how many of them align with the path of Destruction?

Nanook and the followers of the path of Destruction are in no way justified in their actions, but acknowledging that they are the product of a continuous cycle of violence created by paths other than theirs than them is important for understanding the entire Star Rail story.

To end this I wanna point out how similar Nanook‘s goal is to the message of the game to ultimately show how flawed the Destruction is.

The message of Star Rail is to embrace the future. This is similar to Nanook wanting to destroy the current universe for a new one. Ending things to start new things isn’t wrong, but Nanook‘s desire to destroy the past is born out of an inability to see the past clearly for what it is, resulting in their actions being harmful. They internalized the violence they experienced as a human and now see it as some universal law and can‘t see past it to find a way to break the cycle of violence which they are now just continuing.

This is what makes Nanook‘s goal ultimately only a twisted reflection of the core message of Star Rail, because the AE Crew is creating a better future by understanding people’s problems and helping them (e.g. Sunday), not just by fighting bad people and never fully addressing the problem.

I tried making dramtic lighting for the first time it worked out fine i think

Nocturne lore portrayed in one single picture:

I wonder, is there any castlevania discord? (For a fans of games and animated series obviously)