Gazing into the Abyss in Soulsborne Games
Roger Whitson, Managing Editor
“They who fight with monsters should look to it that they themselves do not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
(Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Sekiro, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne)
Soulsborne games eschew simple distinctions between heroism and monstrosity, suggesting that they are embedded in one another. One of the most compelling examples of this embeddedness is, for me, the Demon of Hatred from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The Demon of Hatred is encountered late in the game after walking across the broken battlements of the Ashina Outskirts. Your eponymous shinobi character first sees what looks like a giant flaming monster fighting a squadron of enemy soldiers in the distance. As you approach, the demon starts dancing around the arena and throwing fireballs. The encounter is famous for its difficulty and many players decide to skip this optional section of the game. But if you persevere, and finally perform a killing blow, you hear a very human voice say “Wolf…thank…you.”
Sekiro and the Demon of Hatred - dancing beside the flames. Image from Creative Commons.
It’s a curious thing to hear from a monster as its life ends. You eventually figure out that the Demon is actually your friend, the sculptor. The sculptor saves your life early in the game. But he is also haunted by his own past. Like your character, he was a shinobi and killed many people before almost being consumed by shura. In Sekiro, shura refers to a state in which all conscious thought is eclipsed by the desire to fight and destroy. Given all of the political machinations and shifting alliances found in Sekiro, it could be said that the game’s most difficult boss is the looming threat of the cyclical violence of shura. One of the potential endings focuses on Sekiro, himself forever corrupted by the power of shura, continuing this cycle of violence by killing several of the major characters in the game.
Monsters in Soulsborne games are frequently connected with stories of trauma and suffering. In the first Dark Souls, Solaire of Astora is a powerful ally rumored to be the son of the god Gwyn. He helps you defeat several of the game’s bosses. An entire storyline in Dark Souls is devoted to saving Solaire from the influence of the Sunlight Maggot, a parasite that feeds upon his despair and drives him insane. If you make it to Lost Izalith before finding the Sunlight Maggot yourself, Solaire suddenly appears and attacks. He mumbles: “Finally I have found it, I have! My very own sun. I am the sun! Yes I did it!” Solaire is not difficult to defeat, but the battle is truly heart-wrenching and his absence is felt throughout the remainder of the game. As he dies, Solaire says “My sun, it’s setting. It’s dark, so dark.” Solaire, perhaps the best embodiment of sunlight and hope in the Dark Souls series is himself consumed by the darkness that threatens everything.
Father Gascoigne, emblematic of the cycle of trauma and violence in Soulsborne games. Image from Creative Commons.
Bloodborne is also concerned with the cycles of trauma and violence. Early in the game, you confront Father Gascoigne, a hunter who has succumbed to “bloodlust” and now simply kills for sport. As you approach him, Gascoigne is brutally and repeatedly hacking at a dead body. He grumbles “Beasts all over the shop… You’ll be one of them, sooner or later…” before attacking you. In the third stage of the fight Gascoigne transforms into a wolf, suggesting that the blood treatments used by the church to create hunters also transform them into beasts. Meanwhile, you can obtain a “Tiny Music Box” from Gascoigne’s daughter in the first level. If you use the music box during your fight with Gascoigne, he grabs his head in pain and mumbles to himself, giving you an advantage. Gascoigne’s daughter used the music box several times to remind her father of his humanity and call him home. On this night he never responds.
Gascoigne’s sad story reveals how Soulsborne heroes often become the monsters they’re fighting. Such games feature worlds where good intentions become quickly overwhelmed by greed, revenge, fear, or a desire to control. The church responsible for creating the hunters in Bloodborne also experiments on children, transforming them into Eldritch celestial larvae. The immortal blood given to you by Kuro in Sekiro, and which allows you to resurrect after death, also causes a disease called dragonrot and draws life from innocent characters. Yet it’s in the story of Sir Artorias the Abysswalker that I find the most compelling example of the monstrosity lurking in heroism. A century before the events of Dark Souls, Artorias and his wolf Sif are sent by Gwyn to save the town Oolacile from the darkness of the shapeless Abyss. Yet Artorias is overwhelmed by the Abyss and, in a final heroic moment, saves his wolf by conjuring a magical barrier around him. When you travel to the past to find Artorias, he has been entirely consumed by the abyss and is now nothing more than a corrupt shadow of his former self. You may defeat the cursed Abysswalker, lay him to rest, and venture further into the Abyss to save Sif as well. But in another part of the game, you must kill Sif in order to obtain an item essential for completing the game. If you fight Sif after rescuing him from the abyss, he recognizes you and only reluctantly starts the battle. This is one of the most complicated moments of the game. Who is the monster here? A chosen undead looking for a trinket, or a loyal wolf protecting his master’s memory?
In the Darkness, Manus lurks. Screenshot by thejuiceweasel on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls/comments/1cjrw2/til_you_can_see_ol_manus_lurking_in_the_darkness/
Such confusion gives a new meaning to Artorias’s nickname: the Abysswalker. Heroes in Soulsborne games commonly appropriate the power of demons and take on the risk of monstrous corruption. They are all abysswalkers. Several fans have speculated that Artorias’s entire storyline in Dark Souls is based on Nietzsche’s quote about the abyss from Beyond Good and Evil. Artorias never reached Manus, the mutated demon who is directing the Abyss to attack Oolacille. In fact, it is you who confronts Manus in the heart of the Abyss. And if you pause on a ledge above Manus’s boss room and gaze down at him long enough, you can faintly see his three red eyes gazing back at you.
