elfilis ramble (from cohost)

NOTE: this post is originally from my cohost, i have chosen to repost it here because it's long, and the blog format here better lends itsself to long posts.

so its fascinating how many ways you can pick apart elfilis when it's together and guess exactly which aspects of its personality went to either forgo or elfilin respectively and its a sign of very thoughtful writing that that's even possible but so far i haven't seen anyone post about elfilis' fighting style which is strange because i think it not only very beautifully illustrates elfilis' internal struggle after attempted reintegration but offers some great characterization (you know i love characterization - it's all i ever speak about)

"mini-characterization" is a term i coined in my head one day and decided was a thing now. it's a storytelling device, usually only applicable in the format of video games, wherein the audience is offered small and subtle yet subconsciously noticeable character building. this is a kind of characterization you can't receive simply through story-focused back and forth dialogue, which is why it's seen most often in interactive media wherein there are pauses from the main story that feel natural and equally important to the narrative.

my favorite example of this and the number 1 thing i like to bring this up in reference to is in the games in the Sonic the Hedgehog series that have several playable characters (Sonic Adventure 1&2, Sonic 06, Sonic Heroes, etc), where often times each character is given a separate, unique response to a situation every character encounters. in sonic, this is most often apparent during results screens, the part after the end of a stage where you're given your score and your rank. often, each character has their own set of responses to the ranks you can get that fall in line with their personality. this acts as a way to learn more about these characters and what kind of people they are by seeing how they respond both to failure and success on their own, but also in contrast to one another.

contrast tends to be important for mini-characterization, it heightens the effect of this trick when you both tell the audience who a character is AND who a character is not. to utilize something so small it's barely noticeable to offer the audience a window into this characters mind is cool enough, but it's fascinating to see it also done in a way that contrasts against another character. this is part of why i find the boss fights in kirby and the forgotten land so interesting, because this occurs from the first time you fight forgo.

so, the only times you are able to encounter forgo in battle are through them possessing another boss fight, because they can't leave their pod. (it's also just probably more convenient this way, if your meat puppet dies but YOU stay fine you cheat death and get to keep doing whatever you want) it's worth noting that for forgo possession and mind control are two different things, forgo does seem very capable of influencing someone to act, but the differences appear in battle because during this possession forgo completely embodies the host.

even so, looking at the forgo dedede battle paints an interesting picture. we get to see dedede before this in an earlier fight wherein it's clear in retrospect he's being influenced to act, but not necessarily being outright forced to fight. in the forgo dedede fight, however, this is less clear. it's obvious the mask he's wearing has some sort of effect, after a futile struggle for dominance his eyes glow red and he attacks you with more ferocity. where the lines between administrative influence and direct, active control blur a good bit is in the second half of the fight, when dedede drops to all fours, roars, and lunges at you.

weird, right? because up until this point, dedede had been attacking you, sure, so we know he's not himself right now, but he'd also still been attacking like himself. he wields hammers (and things that can be used as hammers) and pounds away at the floor trying to crush you, jumps around light as a feather, spins at high speeds in hopes of repeatedly smacking you, the gang's all here basically. in the second half, though, dedede drops the hammers. they literally despawn. he charges at you like a wild animal, he pounds at the ground with his bare fists, does things that shouldn't even be possible, so forth and so on.
he even goes so far with it it seems exhausting, as if he's got no clue what his own limits are, as if he doesn't care.

there is a shocking, sudden, and deeply primal nature to the second half of this fight. dedede drops all pretense of civility and calculation and comes at you like a rabid dog. it's mean, it's almost wrathful, it's animalistic, it's powerful, and, the way i see it, it's pretty clearly forgo. barring the obvious that forgo is literally in the boss battle name, the first time we are informally introduced to forgo is through this lens, and though on a first playthrough you might not get what's going on, in retrospect it tells us a good deal about forgo's nature.
(you could argue that this is more the influence of the beast pack but i'm inclined to believe the regular ass earth animals do not have mind control powers actually)

this is more apparent than ever with leongar, the fight immediately after this. you might assume that with leongar being a member of the beast pack, he'd already behave in battle in a more animalistic way, and you'd be very right. he does indeed pounce like a cat, claw at you, and generally behave like you might expect a big bipedal lion guy to. however, he's still acting pretty tame. nothing about his movements or animations indicates anything other than that you're in the way of what he wants and he's going to fight you about it. simple. the difference appears when forgo takes over near the halfway point. leongar stops for a moment to grab his head, as if in pain for a moment, and then what was originally a swipe with his claws is now a series of slashes that release a powerful burst of energy. what was originally a short pounce is now a slow crawl towards you with violently gnashing fangs. leongar releases a beam of raw energy from his mouth.

this isn't cat behavior anymore. this is something else, something beastlike in a way that no real animal can compare to it. those who are familiar with the experience of being very, very angry might recognize fairly quickly that this is likely an outward display of rage coded with an animallike visual language to make it easily recognizable. rage is a body-heavy emotion, hard to not express, and it's something we recognize as such. we display and portray extreme anger with gestures like growling, shouting, clenching teeth, punching and kicking and scratching, so is it any surprise that we so often associate this sensation with the embodiment of a beast?

yet still, this fascinates me about forgo. we see this character in how it viscerally expresses itsself, they went out of their way to make sure that we had a body language to associate with a character who is otherwise unmoving, it gnashes and runs around on all fours and crawls intently towards you and punches the ground, and all of this happens in contrast to what we know about elfilin. all of these extra, tiny details come to focus when imagining what forgo is like, and then act to draw a comparison against elfilin, your friend, who also used to be elfilis, just like forgo.

elfilin doesn't act the same. they don't fight much really, but we see in cutscenes that their focus is more magical. they have a more graceful appearance in movement, being able to fly around beautifully, and they can even speak in connected sentences (whereas forgo seemingly cannot) which gives you a sense that they may be the one who has the most ability to communicate. this makes them appear like the white swan almost in comparison to forgo. they're cute, they're nimble, they're the ego, almost, to forgo's id. this is even down to their appearance, with elfilin appearing like an adorable small animal in contrast to forgo's "melting skinless fetus" sort of look.

but, hold on, that's even more interesting now, because that means their appearances work in juxtaposition to the roles they represent within elfilis. you'd think that the animallike fluffy creature with big ears and a tail would be the one attacking like a rabid dog and speaking in broken up sentences and that the superpowered baby inside the big test tube would be the one with the magical abilities and tactful grace. you can easily imagine a version of this wherein elfilin is more creaturelike, yipping or meowing and licking their paws and generally being cute and fuzzy. wherein forgo is some sort of highly intelligent magic old-god type being with a grand scheme that actually works, but that's not what they do.

instead, elfilin's animal traits are used to convey that they are friendly, familiar, and kind, but the part of elfilis they are is the part with the empathy, with the joy, with the grace. the figure description for elfilis implies even that elfilin acts as a soul. forgo's traits are used both to convey a sense of alien hostility and unfamiliarity (much like lab discovera! this does come right after you hear full human speech clips suddenly with no warning), and also to make it all the more uncomfortable when you realize forgo was the one trying to tear you apart violently with their teeth. because forgo is the one with the destructive urges, the anger, the bloodthirst, the memory of what being the grim reaper was like. to give these two traits that complicate eachother is perfect, because it emphasizes that these are two halfs of what was once a whole individual being. the double contrast these small moments help flesh out provides us with a much more nuanced understanding of who elfilis was and is now.

this is where we can move on to elfilis, and it's so much fun to take a closer look and see exactly how these pieces originally fit together. it's clear visually right off the bat how this is true, you can clearly see elfilin's color and fur as well as the ability to fly, you can see forgo's whisker-things and their huge ringed eyes, it's a bit like looking at your own face and being able to pinpoint which features you adopted from which of your parents. if you look deeper though, this is evident in how they fight, as well.

elfilis has a notable elegance to it, first attacking you with beautiful arrowlike projectiles, floating around in the air like a bird, and the music you hear has elements you might not expect such as violins and sober vocal melodies and complex song structure. but this is powered by a yet still primal spirit, as elfilis is seen driving its spear into the ground and tearing the floor up into molten rocks, screeching and throwing debris at you, it's ear-wings folding and extending far away as it watches. they waste no time attacking you with ferocity and strength, and yet each time they do it appears so coreographed, so experienced, it's a dissonance that lends itsself to the feeling that many planets have met their fate at elfilis' hands. this is a great way to do a final boss, nothing else to it.

this can even work to illustrate the struggle to stay together at times, when elfilin rises from their back, is what's left technically elfilis, or technically forgo? well, we can guess, because when you try to free elfilin, what remains responds not by getting up, not by swiping you away, not by trying to fly off, but by trying to crawl away.

and to think that we got all of this simply by observing the finer details of the animation. that's what's so amazing to me about the technique, nobody came in and did an exposition scene explaining exactly what elfilis' deal was, that's something the game makes sure you can intuit based on the information it already gave you. fantastic genuinely really good and you can tell it's really good because it drove me batshit enough to write this entire post about it