Sin Analysis - Outis (LCB Sinner)

Important Warning
This is just about unedited stream-of-consciousness. I will edit it some day. But right now? I ball.

(I will probably forget to include a lot of information important to understanding, like, any of this.)

(Relevant XKCD)

Limbus Company's the third game by ProjectMoon, and takes place in the same universe as their other games, Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina. In Limbus Company, you play as Dante, and you're in charge of a team of 12 Sinner. In short: your job is to recover things known as Golden Boughs, remnants of The Light released in the previous 2 games, from derelict facilities across the city.

It's free, I recommend it, it is a gacha game, but it's legitimately not predatory like other gacha games I've played. I have almost all the identities, have done the whole story (and all the events), and have beat all the challenge content without paying a single cent.

(The tutorial tries to convince you to match colors. Don't do that. Forget it's even a mechanic. At best, you'll get a 3% damage buff out of it. I can't stress enough, the mechanic is a lie.)

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Outis LimbusCompany

So, let's get into the character we're looking at: Outis.

All the Sinners are based on various characters from literature. Outis is based on Odysseus from The Odyssey. And off the bat, something's strange here.

Outis is not called Odysseus.

Every other sinner is named after the main characters of their respective books. Gregor/Gregor Samsa from Metamorphosis, or Sinclair/Emil Sinclair from Demian, and so on and so on for all 11 other sinners.

But Outis doesn't follow that format. Instead, Outis is greek for "Nobody", the name Odysseus gives to the cyclops before stabbing its eye out. This definitely has future implications, and not the ones you might suspect. But that's for another time!

Personality-wise, Outis is a war veteran, and it really shows. It shows in every aspect of her, from her manner of speech to her behavior to her posture. And, at any given moment, she is ready to verbally rip into the other sinners like a drill sergeant. She also believes it is better to let someone else die than for the sinners to die - even if the sinners are literally immortal.

Around Dante - the character you control - however, her persona radically changes. She is, for lack of a better term, an ass-kisser. She agrees with everything Dante does - at least, verbally - and is constantly trying to do things like take over watch duty for Dante. This mask of hers is not very secure. It slips constantly, and it's clear she's doing this for some as-of-yet-unknown ulterior motive.

Outis probably sounds like a bit of an asshole. That's because she is. But her entire asshole-military-veteran persona is also a mask - one we only see slip a couple times in the game thus far.

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Sin Analysis - LCB Sinner Outis

(A lot of sin meaning here is based on Lu's post about sin analysis, seen here!)

In Limbus Company, every sinner has a set of Identities. Each Identity has 3 attacks. These attacks (or rather, the sins of the attack) represent aspects of the sinners themselves.

Every attack has a sin associated with it. The sins are Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Gloom, Pride, and Envy. You'll notice these aren't quite the standard biblical sins - that's deliberate. And in fact, throw all those associations based on biblical sins out the window! Those associations won't be very useful for this.

• The first attack's sin represents how the sinner is perceived by others, a face that they put on to the rest of the world.
• The second attack's sin represents who the character is on a deeper level. Why might they wear this face?
• And the third attack's sin represents what, at their core, drives the character. What might've driven them to put on this face in the first place?

So, what are Outis's sins? For her basic identity, they are: Sloth, Pride, and Gloom.

Skill 1

Let's start with Sloth. As a sin, Sloth is about apathy and resignation. To act with sloth is to ignore reality, and go with whatever's happening without complaint. While this usually appears as someone unwilling to act out, this can also show as blind obedience - and that is exactly what's going on with Outis.

On the surface, this represents the mask Outis puts on around Dante. She acts with blind obedience. Of course, this mask, as mentioned before, sucks. She frequently drops the mask, and it doesn't really fool anybody.

But, on a deeper level, I believe this also represents Outis' entire war veteran persona. While she never directly brings it up in-game, through Outis' other EGOs (especially Ya Śūnyatā Tad Rūpam), it's heavily implied that she has a lot going on inside when nobody's watching her. There is a whole other side to her, which we see exactly once: in Canto 4.

In Canto 4, an important plot point is that a certain character raised a sickly animal to health. He asks if the animal, all grown up now, might remember him. And Outis is the one to tell him it surely will. Outis' voice during this moment is wistful and quiet, as if she's remembering something as she says it.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus has a son named Telemachus. With how closely the other sinners we've seen parallel their source material, it's very likely that Outis has a son as well. And in this moment, she's thinking of him, and she drops her serious war veteran persona for a short moment.

Skill 2

The second sin is Pride. As a sin, pride is all about ignoring consequences. You might think the benefits outweigh the cost of doing something, or maybe you don't think about it at all.

In The Odyssey, one of the biggest reasons for Odysseus' delayed journey was blinding Polyphemus the cyclops, one of Poseidon's sons. It could be said that, in this moment, Odysseus acted with Pride, because he did not consider the consequences of blinding a god's son.

For Outis, it is hard to say what event might be analogous to this moment. There just isn't enough information to know what Outis may have done, only speculation. Fortunately, I have some speculation on-hand!

In Library of Ruina, there is a fight against the Apocalypse Bird. The Apocalypse Bird represents the rulers of the game's world: The Head. The Head is made of 3 companies:

• A Corp, the Arbiters.
• B Corp, the Beholders.
• C Corp, the Claws.

The most important of the 3 for this theory is B Corp. The most significant thing known about B Corp's Beholders is... we don't know much about Beholders. While we meet multiple Arbiters and Claws in previous games, we only see a Beholder - and it's not even known if it is an in-person beholder! - for about 3 dialogue lines.

What if Outis has blinded (metaphorically or otherwise) a Beholder - or someone relevant to Beholders - in her past? Doing something like this and getting away with it is unthinkable, considering the constant surveilance and near omnipotence of The Head... unless, like Odysseus gave a fake name to Polyphemus, Outis did something similar with the Beholder?

Or, perhaps the one "blinded" wasn't a beholder at all, and was simply someone of importance? It's hard to say until we get closer to Outis' chapter.

Skill 3

The final Sin of Outis is Gloom. To act with Gloom means acting out of negative emotion. Lashing out at someone, or maybe just crying in a corner. In a way, Gloom is about losing control of yourself due to these negative emotions.

I guarantee that the moment which established this as her core sin came about during the Smoke War - Limbus Company's analogue to the Trojan War. In all of her EGOs, the Smoke War is referenced. And in all of her EGOs - except the EGO with themes of being a false leader she must have enough Gloom sin to use them.

And it's no surprise that the Smoke War caused such a thing. One of the characters in Library of Ruina went through the smoke war, and it really fucked him up when he saw the thing the war was fighting over. So much so, that it left a permanent scar in his mind... even after having the memories removed from his mind. The vague impression still remains, and that is enough to haunt him.

While I doubt it's the sole cause, I do think a massive part of why Outis is the way she is came about because Outis was in charge of doing battlefield executions. And for this, we'll have to look at her EGO and passive abilities.

First, her EGO. If a target's health is below 50%, the attack deals extra damage. If the EGO kills the target, a random ally gains an attack power bonus. The cost to use her EGO is 2 Pride and 2 Sloth.

(It's here I should note that, while base EGOs are exclusively used against enemies, the EGOs don't always represent fighting enemies. For instance, Gregor's EGO represents trauma related to his insect arm, which acts on its own and tries to kill random people, but the EGO only attacks enemies.)

In the context of a battlefield execution, this sin cost makes a lot of sense. For Pride, Outis believes the benefit such an action would have on morale outweighs the costs of letting someone panic and bring everyone else down - further supported by the EGO boosting the attack power of a random ally on a successful kill, as if raising their morale. And for Sloth, Outis would certainly need to act with apathy. Ignoring her own feelings on the matter, and simply doing as she is told, killing her own allies for being afraid.

And the Sloth is especially notable, because it's shared with her 2 passives: Executor and Military Mindset. Executor grants a damage bonus to enemies with low morale, while Military Mindset grants a similar effect to whichever ally has the most health.

Military Mindset, in particular, is interesting for having a Sloth affinity. In her first skill, I suggested that Outis' military personality is only a mask she wears. Having the Sloth affinity - an affinity closely tied to masking one's self - on a passive called Military Mindset seems to support this. Her military mindset is an exaggerated act, meant to separate herself from her feelings about executing her comrades.

Of course, it didn't work. She still feels plenty of Gloom about it, deep down. As seen in her Ebony Stem EGO, she tries to justify it to herself.

"If this is to seize victory..."
If these executions will help her side of the smoke war win, then surely they're justified?

The Ebony Stem EGO comes from the abnormality Ebony Queen's Apple - and luckily, it's an abnormality that you fight in-game! There are two events during its battle. 

In the first, it's described as "a heart torn into thousands of pieces" which burrows itself underground to hide itself from all eyes. A heart torn into thousands of pieces and hiding itself from all eyes? It certainly seems like this would resonate with Outis. But what's even more interesting for what may happen in her future is the second part of this event. 

In the second part, you are told "no wound may remain unearthed". This line is from the apple's perspective - it wants to hide the pain it feels. And by selecting a sinner to pull up the vines, you are unearthing that pain again. Once a sinner is successful in pulling up the vines, you're told that "In their hands were the doubts of others. The Sinner realized… That while the injury may heal, distrust might take deep root in their heart."

While I can say this has potential to parallel Outis's past and future, I think I can go a step further in saying it absolutely is a parallel to her own past, and to her potential future.

As a character, Outis is shown to be deeply distrustful of her fellow sinners. She constantly disparages them, putting them down wherever possible, because she believes they're not good enough - much like the Ebony Queen's Apple is deeply distrustful of everyone else.

Why might Outis be so distrustful of others?

As she says. Experiencing a certain pain makes you learn to fear and avoid it. And above all else, she's saying this to herself. The other sinners show no such hesitation about pain and dying. But her tone of voice lowers in a manner much like when she tells Dongrang the calf will remember him - in a way that suggests she's not really speaking to him as she says it.

And another part of why she trusts nobody may be because whatever she did in the past? Whatever it was she feels Gloomy about? Outis is convinced that, eventually, those actions will come back to haunt her. You might even say...

... that Outis believes she has bad karma.

Ya Śūnyatā Tad Rūpam is an EGO based on the abnormality My Form Empties. The original abnormality takes the form of a stone buddha-like statue, which then cracks to reveal flesh beneath the stone. It inflicts bad karma onto your characters - or, instead, onto its allies, should your attack beat its own.

As a whole, the abnormality represents a false boddhisattva, using bad karma to punish the failures of its minions. I admit - I do not know nearly enough about buddhism to go much further detail than that. (But do keep the idea of being a false leader in mind!) Outis' form of the EGO, however, doesn't rest as heavily on buddhism. Instead, it leans on a different mythology

Take note of how Outis is staring at the sword. And her line, "Karma shall find its way back to you, and rest atop your head." This EGO is referencing the greek myth of the Sword of Damocles.

The Sword of Damocles is a story about a ruler and a courtier in the classical Greek era. The courtier tells the king that he's surrounded by wealth, and he's very fortunate to be. The king then offers to trade places with the courtier for a day, to which the courtier gladly agrees. But, the courtier quickly realizes he can't enjoy any of the king's wealth - because there is a sword above his head, tied by a single horse hair, threatening to cut off his head at any moment. He quickly begs the king to take his place.

Combined with the concept of karma, I suspect Outis believes that the executions she's done will, like bad karma, come back to haunt her. It is, like the Sword of Damocles, hanging over her head, and she believes it's only a matter of time until that hair snaps.

In her other identities which have subordinates, she always treats them very well - like Seven Association Outis giving them breaks when they look tired and money for snacks. While this isn't a part of Outis we've seen in the story so far, I believe this is meant to be in juxtaposition to Outis's actions toward her subordinates in the Smoke Wars, and that these actions are what her fear of eventual revenge stems from.

And in the context of her subordinates, I think her corrosion's line could take on a couple meanings.

In the first context, Outis is speaking to herself. She should act as if there is no suffering in the first place. She puts up her masks, puts on a show of apathy, and acts like nothing is wrong.

But with her subordinates, and with her execution of those who are panicking, this line takes on a darker tone. With the way she barely whispers this line... it is advice and a warning. Her soildiers must act like nothing is wrong. Because if they do not, they will be executed.

TODO: lack of trust, lack of connection. outis is the last sinner to interact with others in the end-canto art

TODO: read the end of the odyssey, what happens? Is Outis a sinner after her odyssey?

TODO: re-format the EGOs better

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That's A Lotta Text

If you read this far, my apologies.

I'll rewrite this Eventually! (so, in reality, probably never.)