Mirror Del: The best Elsword lore has had to offer since Elysion (before the Dantelion retcons)
Disclaimer: For the purposes of this essay, the new Mirror Del NPC will be considered as a boy called the “Observer”. The official translation refers to the character as a girl called the “Watcher”. My choice is influenced by the fan translation of the story quest, which is what I was exposed to first.
I’m going to say something I never thought I would ever say after Elysion and the Solace tragedy released: KoG is kinda cooking with this one. Now, granted, it’s KoG so it’s not a five-course meal made with immaculate taste and the finest ingredients, but it’s honestly very solid. It was genuinely enjoyable because you can see the attempt at a more experimental, more mature type of storytelling. And one of the reasons why it’s because it explores three things I thought KoG was allergic to: horror, non-linear narratives, and fatal character flaws. The other reason is because the new batch of retcons now give us a concrete timeline which we sure didn’t have for the game’s entire existence. That timeline also helps me place a more complete history of Elrios with concrete years, so expect that timeline to come up later as a separate post. This analysis will be very long as it is already.
So, if you’re down for the ride, get comfy, stay hydrated and let’s get going with the first point.
KoG can do horror? Since when?
Now, yes, I know. Apostasia and Herrscher exist. There’s “ghosts” in Feita, there’s zombie demons in Feita, there’s a demon god that almost got revived in Lanox and other “horror” creatures we’ve seen before. You could count all that under “horror”, but with how cartoony the violence is, I’m amazed KoG even decided to go as far as to deform Herrscher’s model in any significant way to inject a semblance of Cosmic Horror. Still, it’s all very surface level. It’s something you can just basically just chalk up to aesthetics.
The horror in Mirror Del is different because it’s actually crucial to the story. It’s the Elgang actually facing Eldritch horrors beyond their comprehension (in a “safe” simulation) and, I’m not gonna lie, it is structured as proper horror
Ciel (mind-controlled): You don’t have to find [the creature]/Lu (mind-controlled): It’s already here. Next panel is this.
It’s not something that will make anyone jump out of their seat, but I can appreciate the attempt at creating the unsettling beat and reveal. The voice actors help sell this, and I think that it could get some chills out of some if it was an animated cut-scene. As it is though? I wouldn’t have expected it out of Elsword.
The horror structure doesn’t even stop there. It’s also present with a very mind-controlled Chung. The scene starts with a happy-sounding Chung talking to Ara about a wonderful colour, and I think that in this case, the lack of animation and VN-style presentation adds to the horror because it’s not exactly clear what Chung is that excited about and why Ara’s not so keen on seeing it… until you then have this:
Even with just Elwiki dialogues, you can see that the intent was to make this scene at least horror-adjacent.
Ara is completely overpowered because she’s either too weak or too hesitant to truly fight back. She could end up hurting Chung and making it worse for the two of them or breaking free from mind control could have genuinely put her under physical strain. From the way the dialogues are spoken by the korean VAs, I personally see it as a mix of both, but from dialogue lines alone it’s open to interpretation.
In any case, her hesitation is going to end up being her undoing until Eve bails her and Chung out with a slap. It turns out she’s immune to the eldritch creature because Adrian somehow installed an anti-Cthulhu defence module on her for reasons I’m sure nobody will explain until 2036. It’s a bit of an anti-climactic ending, for sure, but let me insist on this point: Since when has KoG hired writers who are willing to fully explore eldritch horror and mind-control like this? Granted, I haven’t looked in detailed to Magmelia and Serpentium, and I think Magmelia also tackles dreams/mind-control, so those of you who know more recent demon-realm lore, pre-Atma’Ram, can correct me and tell me if KoG has planted small seeds of horror in their narrative like this. I genuinely find this to be new narrative ground for the game and I’m all for it even if it doesn’t scare me; I can absolutely respect the horror structure it’s relying on. I would love to see more of it if it was there in the past.
Another thing that Mirror Del does—to a degree of success that’s far above to a certain chinese sci-fi gacha that I’ve talked about before—is tackling a non-linear narrative centred around time-loops in a way that makes dialogue matter a lot to piece the full picture instead of serving to vague and shallow philosophizing dribble that destroys my enjoyment to a degree I didn’t think possible. And that's saying something considering I still somehow bother to give a chance to KoG’s way to write lore.
So, let’s get into that because Elsword’s newest region has a messy, but interesting, semi-coherent story that’s very fun for me to piece back together into a convoluted, but hopefully coherent, whole.
Mirror Del — An unbreakable time-loop?
Mirror Del starts as a very confusing arc. But from the get-go, you know that the Observer is an entity that is watching the happenings around the demon realm by shifting mirrors. He sees both the Henir cult making their moves and then focuses on the Elgang. The story then continues with a somewhat slice-of-life bonding scene and for a good chunk of the quest, I was of the belief that the Observer was just doing that: observing. And then two crumbs hinting at the truth happen:
Elsword is sick and isn’t sure why
Laby gets a dream about people completely unrelated to anyone we’ve ever seen
Point number 1 gets a red-herring explanation, that being the events of Serpentium where he got poisoned and whatnot. Obviously, this sounds suspect if you consider that they had their break in Atma’Ram and Elsword didn’t exactly complain about his health there, especially after the hotsprings. But you know good ol’ KoG like I do, don’t ya? Surely this is just another incoming retcon we’re gonna see later on, right?
Well, surprisingly, wrong. Whether they did this intentionally or not, KoG pulled a curve ball on me. They successfully subverted my expectations in a very pleasant way. Elsword being sick is the key to understanding that time isn’t flowing normally anymore and that raises the stakes far more than a bigger, meaner demon to beat. It’s the kind of existential obstacle that I hope the writers don’t mess up for next patch because in my opinion, Mirror Del could be the basis for making Elsword story become genuinely good.
But I’d rather not hold my breath because it’s still KoG writing this. They have plenty of time to shoot their own story in the face. So, let’s go back to clue number 2.
Laby gets a dream about mages and a swordsman who are trapped in some kind of underground place or building and are trying to save lives. We genuinely have no context for any of this before she just wakes up and wonders what she was dreaming about. So, at least for me, I thought this might be some sort of flashback hinting at her true identity. Reminder that Laby’s with the Elgang in the demon realm to find what she is besides a being a pink child who speaks in 3rd person and mellowed Add out into a tsundere.
There’s a very immediate problem with the easiest explanations to both hints though… it’s never clear where exactly the Elgang is right now. And that’s hint number 3. Which is the very first question I started to ask myself when, later on, when Rose and Raven seemed to awaken in a completely different place: Where was everyone before?
See, it’s easy to assume we’re maybe observing them talk and walk around Atma’Ram through the Observer’s perspective because that’s where they were. That’s where they learnt more about Henir’s cult, so it makes absolute sense, right, that they’re discussing Henir and the cultists as they’re making their way to… where? Where are they? Where are they going?
The answer? Nowhere. They literally cannot go anywhere because they are trapped within Mirror Del. Since when have they been trapped there? That’s one of the existential questions I hope they won’t mess up in the next lore update because the answer could be, dare I say, what would turn Elsword’s story into being actually good.
The important part for now is that the Elgang only realizes they’re trapped once they start appearing in an unknown underground realm with mirrors. The “visible” form of Mirror Del, to put it in simple terms. Raven and Rose are the first to wake up in that realm and the only way “out” is through a mirror they’re guided towards by the Observer. They’re all separated from each other in the beginning and they only reunite because the observer aids them to do so. That is also an important piece to confirm that the Elgang’s trapped once the story ends, so keep it in mind.
But, after all is said and done, everyone follows the mysterious voice to the mirror and reunites. And the voice is that of a young, pale boy: the Observer.
The Observer — An ugly mirror to the heroes’ impeccable image
See, to me, the Observer is the best NPC KoG has ever made because he doesn’t need that many headcanons (unlike Owen) to be a fascinating character. He speaks in broken sentences since his introduction, and he overall shows to be like most Elsword NPCs: helpful, tropey, talks with everyone, gives lore dumps to help them (and the player) understand how the realm works and how they can “escape”… except the game also gives plenty of flashbacks that flesh out the kind of backstory that, personally, made me question the true intentions of the Observer.
See, the Observer has beef with everyone. Very personal beef. Very understandable beef. It honestly baffled me to see KoG try and explore a more “grounded” reaction to the trauma something as violent as a demon invasion can have on someone. Now, sure, I understand, Chung got the right to be angry at Lu, she wasn’t immediately trusted, the new retcons are trying (and imo still failing) to make her alliance with the Elgang more natural than the literal tea and crumpets that convinced everyone to just accept her and Ciel no questions asked. That was the original lore. I remember. It’s seared into my memories.
However, try as they might, KoG inevitably starts to try and make the demons seem as “not that bad” the more they explore the demon realm. It was all a matter of “a few bad apples” and so on. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s a good take because yes, wars are generally caused by a powerful minority and if it were up to the majority, it wouldn’t have happened. But, that’s only a perspective people who didn’t live through the conflict itself, who didn’t lose anything directly, or who had a really, really long time to take a step back and see the other side without hatred in their mind can have.
The demon invasion is fresh on everyone’s minds. Everyone has lost someone, or has at least seen up close and personally what the demons have taken for them. And at least in late Varnymir early Rigomor KoG was at least willing to have Add point it out, but that’s all it is. Someone pointing it out. Chung getting mad at Lu for exactly one minute of dialogue before everyone treats his reaction like an over-reaction. And then, they all move on. Every conflict gets pulled under the rug because the plot must move on without it. That’s something I’ve always disliked about Elsword lore.
But then, we have the Observer.
Bro has Rena, Lu, Ciel, and Eve standing right there and he doesn’t care. Respect.
My eyes widened a little when I saw this dialogue because, much like the horror, we rarely if ever see KoG let anyone openly hate other groups, especially when there’s members of said group in the Elgang. Now, having a character have an emotional reason to hate Elves, Nasods and Demons and openly say so? Now, that’s a first.
As usual, though, KoG gives him his 2-minute hate and then has him talk with Rena with the others and he mellows out. Except I don’t really buy it. You see, from the flashbacks within Mirror Del (part of which was shown in Laby’s dream before), show the life of the Observer when he was the Hero. The flashbacks themselves take a good chunk of the story overall, but the important traits of the Observer are these:
He's unironically Doom Guy and sealed the Abyss and its power from encroaching into Elrios (he and his friends died for that)
Before being the Hero, he was the Rat, a street urchin with little to no future
He had a “blessing” that gave him special insight (which I believe is a type of divine power)
He “created” Mirror Del to make each mirror hold the monsters he and his friends faced to “study” them and find if there was ever a chance where his friends could've been saved
He can travel through the mirrors and move them but it's unclear to what degree he controls them.
Now point number four had me muttering “They should totally use that as foreshadowing for Owen,” but I digress. All these points are important but I put them in order because it's, more or less, the reverse chronological order in which these aspects of his character are unveiled. And yet, I think it's easier to tackle them in this order because that's how they build a full picture of the nuances of the Observer’s character.
The Observer is a character whose hatred towards demons has crystallized for centuries
First of all, he may have softened towards Rena because of the conversation they had, but the Observer generally avoids even talking to Lu and Ciel directly. He helps or at least considers helping everyone who's having a hard time against the monsters in the mirror worlds except for Lu and Ciel. Had Eve not had Chtulhu immunity and helped Ara, Chung and Rena reach the mirror world where Lu, Ciel and Add got trapped, the situation could’ve been more dire. The Observer does watch over what Eve’s group does and notes that in the end they didn't need his help, meaning he would've considered intervening, but we don't know what the situation might've looked like for Add, Lu and Ciel had Eve and the rest come up later than they did. There's a very real chance there could've been no one to save or that it would've ended in an in-group fight that goes beyond a strong slap.
The Observer was willing to gamble that. I don’t think he would’ve cared all that much if Lu and Ciel had died. You see, the reason I say he’s unironically Doom Guy is because of what he does some time after his friends are killed. He has one chance to go back to Elrios after the mission has failed, after he's the only one left alive and he's been fighting alone but you know what he does? He says: Nah. We won't stop until every demon is dead. Don’t believe me? I wouldn’t have believed myself either but it’s there.
Fair reminder that the duties the Observer has left was the Royal Mandate: destroy the demons at their source.
Now, beyond the fact that we’re told that the Observer spent roughly 3 centuries fighting demons and/or being trapped in Mirror Del like Doom Guy, is that he isn’t a clean, selfless, heroic Hero. No, far from it.
That’s why the second point I brought up is what matters. It’s what plays into the feeling I have that the Observer may not be helping the Elgang as much as they believe he is.
The Observer — the Rat who became attached to his image as the Hero
You see, before being the hero who would go with a suicide mission into the demon realm to rip and tear until every single demon dies, the Observer was an orphan, on the streets, in a village with no name who stole and hid like a rat to survive. Hence his first title. The Rat. After he's lost everyone and he's resolute to keep fighting demons, he doesn't do so as the Hero. No, he rejects that identity as much as he rejects his real name. The narration makes clear that he “transforms” back into the Rat. Scowling, feral, stealing and killing both to survive and for revenge. We know he remembers everything about his comrades; their names, their motivations, their stories and why they followed him. And why they died. Yet, he refuses to give that to himself. He even accepts and embraces to return to the worst yet “natural” version of himself—the Rat. Hell, the Observer even introduces himself as the “filthy Rat” to the Elgang, saying that he’s been known by that name longer than by his real name. And that may be true, but for reasons the Elgang doesn’t understand.
I don't know how intentional the dramatic irony here is because I've never seen nor expected KoG to ever try it. But if it is intentional, then this scene gains a whole new meaning because it's very likely that the Observer is lying when he says he wants to help, while telling the truth about what he really feels and how he sees Elsword. He laments that they didn't meet earlier because now he's full of hatred and not afraid to trap them with him even if he feels a certain kinship with Elsword. And the kinship the Observer feels towards Elsword comes from a very specific thing they have in common: they share the same blessing.
I think that blessing has to be some kind of divine power. At the very least, it’s what lets both the hero and Elsword to rally others around them. The Hero learns how to become an excellent swordsman with his gift and defeat enemies many times as big and strong as him, including demons. Now, remember what Elsword did at the very start of Ruben? Oh, right, use his power to overpower Berthe. But the blessing isn’t just brute strength. No, it’s a specific resonance with the El that Ain notes from the moment he sees Elsword go super-saiyan against Berthe.
And I think that the special resonance with the El doesn’t just give Elsword raw power. I think it also makes it so he can gather allies even from unlikely sources. We see it later with Raven, then with Eve. Something about Elsword is just made to “get the best” out of people and, curiously, we also have something very similar with the Hero.
I could go on with examples of everyone who joins the group, but you get the point already, don’t you?
Elsword has a power so big an exceptional he literally fused with the El, at least momentarily, to restore it. That’s something only the El Lady was supposed to do, yet Elsword’s divine gift is so strong it overrides that system entirely until his friends break him out of the crystal. That’s not something the Hero was ever even hinted to be capable of. Had he had such power, then his mission would’ve turned around restoring the El, like now Elsword subconsciously tries to do and hints at from the very early arcs of the game. This is real protagonist power, and the Observer is acutely aware of it. It’s the kind of power that would’ve made him a true Hero.
Reminder that Saving the El Lady implies restoring the El, too. This dialogue is from chapter 2. Elder.
Now, remember that I said that the Observer was at least half-honest with Elsword when he told him all about how he envied them and how they had a totally different attitude towards demons? Well, if that part is true but that his stated intent to help isn't, then what does the Observer really mean when he says he wants to become Elsword’s power? Why does he want him to forget their meeting?
You see, when Elsword wakes up again with the rest, he's very sick and has very vicious scars on his arm. Which is exactly where the Observer grabbed him and made their power resonate to conclude they had the same type of power. The clearest and longest goal for the Observer, formerly the Hero, is to kill the root of all demons. He's just found someone with more power than he had in life, someone with so much power in fact that, well, his goal could be achieved. So, when the Observer says he wants to become Elsword’s power, part of me wonders what the consequence of that will be. Because if it was as straightforward as that, then why the secrecy? Why would it be necessary to want to make Elsword forget his encounter and what they’ve talked about?
Why, because, there's a chance the Rat wants to hide within a new Hero and finish what he couldn't do in life.
That's also a very interesting hidden layer to what the Observer tells Elsword when he’s facing the flesh tree: You must be sometimes a fool and cut down the enemy right in front of you without seeing them as a person, because the more you know about them, the less enemies you’re gonna be able to face and defeat.
It can be read on the surface level as a very concrete advice for the illusion Elsword is set to face, but it also plays on a deeper level if we start questioning the true intentions of the Observer and just how truthful he’s been so far to the group.
Which is why the nature of Mirror Del must be analysed.
The Observer — how his dying wish gave a physical form to a time anomaly that may possibly hide something far uglier
I’m gonna go out and say it: I think that Mirror Del is, deep down, is the closest thing to the actual nature of Henir and his realm the game has ever shown in its story. I say this is because, if you think about it, the trials the Elgang has to go through Mirror Del (defeating monsters of the past) and the fact they’re separated and can only be reunited after defeating every monster is exactly how Henir’s Time and Space has always worked as a dungeon.
You cannot start that dungeon in a party. You go through 20 different stages. Nineteen of which you face old boss monsters, be they from SDs, mini-bosses or dungeon bosses from anywhere from Elder to Elrianode. Even the newest versions of Henir are demon-realm raid bosses you must’ve already faced before. And the final stage is facing a Henir creature directly in its realm. It’s either Obeaazar, Luto or Echoes of Doom. It’s also very important to note that you aren’t allowed to resurrect in any version or difficulty of Henir’s Time and Space. A death triggers an automatic failure and the end of the dungeon. The only way to advance is to defeat each boss and you can exit either by defeating all twenty bosses or by dying.
You know what’s curious about Mirror Del, too? Is that, as the Observer explains, there are only two ways of getting out: defeat the monster or die.
Now, here, the Observer tells Add that if he dies then he’ll get trapped like him in the mirrors, but I don’t think that’s true. The reason being that I think the Observer has already trapped them. He may say that he created Mirror Del like he does here, but this type of environment is way too complex to depend on the will of one person, and if it does, then we don’t know for how long the Elgang has been ‘meeting’ the Observer over and over again. Here’s some lines that hint that Mirror Del might be a prison they can’t just escape from the way the Observer says:
TL;DR: Multiple dimensions exist globally and the only thing the mirrors are doing is making them more visible, kind of really blurring the lines so the Elgang can hop from one dimension (mirror) to the next. The issue is that if true, then the mirrors themselves could be a closed circuit the Elgang can’t break.
Noah says this after Elsword comes back, so everyone is technically reunited again and out of the mirrors but… well… are they really out, I wonder….
The Observer admits to Add he doesn’t control what’s going outside the mirrors, but that’s the issue. It’s never clear what “outside” is, and I’m starting to wonder if it could be Henir’s domain itself. Because, you see, it’s already working under the same mechanics as Henir’s Time and Space, the only stage missing is the last one, where you now fight a Henir-themed monster. And that could be the Observer’s “true” form, if he’s indeed a sort of jailor who wants to become a Hero again. The reason I say this is because, in the last part of the quest, in the flashback, we see that in his dying moments, the Observer wishes for a way to see his comrades again.
Piamen says that the orb has powers that shouldn't be used because it’d cause ruin. The Hero assumes that the ruin will only affect him, but I think that's more his hope than an accurate fact. Why? Because after that the Observer spends his time seeing images of his companions without ever being able to interact with them or change the outcome. So, originally the artifact gave him access to a domain where he could witness all the possibilities and different actions his friends could've taken but never intervene or change their demise.
Meanwhile, what does he tell the El Search Party? Oh, well that he made the mirrors and recreated the monsters they faced within each reflection so he could study them and find if there was a way his friends could've had a chance to make it out alive. Technically, not a lie, but not the full truth either. The realm isn’t just something made from scratch because it has a real influence in the “real world”. It can attract and trap within it people outside of it.
Part of the hint of its true nature lays in the way some non-flashback related dialogues are still contained in brown speech bubbles, which Elwiki translates as pale brown text. The text alternates between the regular white speech bubble background and the brown one and sometimes at places so odd you can’t argue it’s a flashback. It’s something happening in the present moment.
Or, to be more accurate, they are glimpses at other timelines where they're still trapped within the mirrors.
Rose may not get it, but the mirrors are parallel realities, so best not to stare too much at them.
It's like the illusion you get in a room where you have a mirror in front of you and mirror behind you. You have endless simultaneous reflections and while it takes a very long time for the El Search Party to figure it out, if they look too closely at the mirrors, the more they will come to the realization they're only one of countless versions of themselves spread across different alternate universes reflected through Mirror Del.
The Observer also reveals they have something to make them withstand being trapped in the Mirrors. Something that's either a canon interpretation of the Master Artifact or some kind of new mechanic that'll get added later. It's something that preserves and strengthens their souls. You know, the very thing that can persist across dimensions, according to Atma’Ram lore.
After this, the Observer adds that it was a mistake for them to be involved, but the Hero flashback says that he specifically observed them and called them to Mirror Del because he wanted to see if they could overcome what he and his friends couldn’t, so I think it’s fair to say that the Observer doesn’t tell any of the ESP members the truth.
With that being the case, then I think it’s fair to ask just how powerful the Observer is. His control over Mirror Del isn't made clear, but I think that again, it's more than what he explicitly says to the Elgang.
The Observer — Saviour or Jailor?
You see, because we know that the Observer devolved from the Hero to the Rat, that he wants to cling to his old image as the Hero and that he seems to hold way too many grudges to have stayed as sane and as reasonable as the Elgang assumes he is, his role and his help don't come from pure altruism. Not when he admits he resented how the Elgang triumphed where he and his friends failed and how he regrets not being able to become friends now with Elsword.
The end of the flashbacks even go far as to say that when the Observer saw the Elgang and brought them to him because he wants to see if they can truly overcome everything.
That's a little dark. That's a little villainous. And it recontextualizes when he says that the monster dimensions they got sucked in was on accident. He says that he doesn't control very well the outside forces outside the mirrors and that's either a lie because it was all intentional, or it has a morsel of truth and the reason he cannot control the outside forces is because the outside forces is directly Henir and good luck controlling that.
But if he was telling the truth, then, the fact remains that he still trapped them within the mirrors and his curiosity can be seen under an equally grim light: he wants to see if they can break out and vanquish the forces outside and hopefully bring him out with them in the process.
It would make sense for the Observer to mark Elsword and “become” part of Elsword’s power if that means he gets a vessel to escape his entrapment within the mirrors eventually, if Elsword and Co. prove themselves strong enough. If they're not, then he loses nothing. He's already spent 300 years observing from his litle weird dimensional corner. He can't die, he's already a spirit, so nothing changes.
Again, is he certain because he can see the future or because Mirror Del is his closed-loop prison and he knows that?
The marks could be from the Tree (Blight Treant) or… the Observer becoming Elsword’s power. It’s not clear and the fact that, after this scene, we see the full story of the Hero plays more into the ambiguity about what the marks mean
The Observer has nothing left to lose and everything to gain. The reverse is true for the Elgang and their habitual trust of the people they meet could very well be their downfall because they refuse to be “fools” that just cut down their enemy with no concern about who they are as a person.
That's the tension Mirror Del is presenting and as much as part of me wants to believe somehow KoG hired writers willing to be bold and make the story darker, there's no guarantee that'll happen. They could flatten the Observer into a helpful force that genuinely erased 300 years of hatred and despair with a few pleasant chats to see the error of his ways. That's been their standard for years. That's why their characters overall feel more like tropes than characters and a big part of why the story has overall been bad overall.
Yet, credit where credit is due. Mirror Del shows a step in the right direction. They could always take it back, but at least the Observer isn’t the only one surpassing my expectations when it comes to KoG’s writing quality. Mirror Del introduces to Ain and Elsword something I thought would be impossible: fatal character flaws.
Elsword is kind and selfless and that's exactly what could get him killed
I've already gone over this point in my breakdown of the observer as a character, but I haven't gone through the most blatant proof that whoever's writing Mirror Del took his shonen-lead kindness and tendency to use talk-no-jutsu as weaknesses of his character, not strengths.
I'm talking about his encounter with the Flesh Tree.
In that scene, Elsword is the only one who hasn't made it out to where the rest are. He's trapped within an illusion caused by the Flesh Tree’s pollen. And it’s quite telling that the first vision Elsword sees is of the desperate fight against the demons in Feita and how much it seems to affect him still. From a guy who has gone to befriend the very same demons who invaded that town and simply kick Berthe’s ass in return, I wasn’t expecting him to be immediately so emotional even when he was warned by the Observer to not trust his senses beforehand.
And although yes, as you see in the dialogues above, the Observer manages to make him ignore what the Tree is showing, he makes the mistake of once again being like a shonen protagonist and say something so obvious the Tree immediately changes tactics.
He shows someone who Elsword can’t have known, someone who only seems desperate and in need of help, like all those kind strangers Elsword has helped along the way. He should know only the Observer has survived. He should know that it’s all an illusion, and yet when he hears Piamen’s voice, he still reaches out to save him and…
I have never seen KoG write something like this. Sure, we know Elsword is self-sacrificial by nature and that the people around him have called him out on it, but he’s always been noble in his self-sacrifice, always knowing what he was putting on the line. It was the case in Velder and it was the case in Elysion/Elrianode.
But here? You see it in his expression, in the way the image shows him freezing. This is genuine fear. This is Elsword at his most vulnerable in canon. I have never expected KoG to dig up Elsword’s trauma and have it matter. I thought that was my job as a fic writer with a penchant for angst.
I’m legitimately impressed by this sequence, because it has good buildup. What it lacks from its presentation as the usual very barebones VN-style it more than makes up for it with that single shot.
It’s almost like it’s not the same game anymore. The shonen-coded Elsword I knew wouldn’t do this to its protagonist and yet here we are. Regardless on where KoG decides to take this moment, whether it’ll matter later or not, I don’t think it takes away from how it lands in this arc. It’s genuinely good, it impressed me and I think it’s gonna stick with me because it’s one of the few times where I feel like some kind of kindred spirit is putting some of what I’ve always wanted for the game to tackle in its story.
Elsword aside, another character that I was sure I was never going to see good development from was Ain, my newest main in this game. I was a firm proponent to have “canon” Ain be Richter for the very simple reason that his attitude overall doesn’t change and, for a character supposed to embrace humanity, Ain rejects it in all but name. He can laugh, he can prank others, he can be sassy and occasionally have his moral dilemmas, but like everything else in this game, it gets swept under the rug. It doesn’t tell me anything about the real depth of the humanity Ain may-or-may-not be developping.
But the Observer challenges that perception I had of an Ain with a humanity so artificial I’d rather have him as an unapologetically inhuman servant of Ishmael.
What are Ishmael’s duties to humanity?
The Observer is not fond of Ain. He says it directly to Aisha when they meet later. He even tells her that he’s not kind like Piamen, the priest he used to know, and makes his dislike very known because Ain “bullied” him.
Ain doesn’t even deny this, by the way, which is in line with his canon portrayal. I was expecting some kind of vaguely humorous exchange with Ain making fun or something he said or making him a new nickname or something minor like that.
While yes, that does end up happening, it’s the way it leads there that makes me believe, for the first time that Ain may genuinely be becoming more human, not just saying he is and using “emotions” as fuel for his magic. Which basically meant to me like emotions to him were a commodity he never truly felt but could emulate and use as a power source.
You see, the Observer comes from an era roughly 200 years after the Primal El and Elrianode collapsed (thanks, Sola—I mean Dantelion) and because the El was the barrier that prevented inter-dimensional and time-travel to protect the balance of Elrios, it’s no wonder that a broken Primal El spread around smaller El Shards doesn’t give at all the same level of protection. Which is why demons can waltz into Elrios because portals keep opening and nobody can stop them.
And so, in such a world, the people who still believe in Ishmael, who still believe that the El is her sacred gift, have the same question the Observer asks Ain: Why did she abandon us? Didn’t she have the duty, as a divinity, to protect mortals like a parent protects their child?
Ain’s response, and especially his expressions in the game as he replies are incredibly telling.
Now, I don’t know why the official translation takes away the ‘wicked’ part of Ain’s reply and contents themselves to have Ain say the Observer’s questions are just ‘very brave’. But where that nuance disappears in the official translation, it adds more nuance to an earlier reply where Ain dismisses the Watcher’s humanity and redefines it as a “mortal who was created”. It’s very dehumanizing in a way we don’t see Ain be often. It’s a more insidious type of disdain.
Although he says that Ishmael “did enough” by giving the El Lady and the El to humanity, he also admits that he’s frustrated that not even he can understand Ishmael’s will. And that, because of that, the Observer is the one asking “brave/wicked/bold” questions.
And before the Observer can ask him anything else or clarify what Ain’s answer entails, Ain shifts to mockingly asked if his friends bullied him.
He closes the door to a line of questioning that’s bound to challenge his deepest character belief: that the goddess is good.
No, seriously. If Ishmael cannot care for Elrios enough even if she has divine powers and will not lift a finger for 5 whole centuries when her creation (the El) and her chosen one (the El Lady) get incapacitated and/or destroyed, then can Ishmael be good? I think Ainchase has no answer to that question that doesn’t involve some kind of ‘maybe’ and that scares him. I think it’s cognitive dissonance and Ain solves it in a very human way that’s also a very familiar way for him to act: deflecting by mocking the other in such a way they change topic.
Now, that’s a very human thing to do and I can respect KoG for finally showing that Ain can show a humanity that actually has depth to it and is not just sass and attitude and flashy healing magic.
Final Thoughts — This is the moment where I trust KoG the least
Remember Elysion? Remember Elrianode on release? Even if you don’t, the Elysion-Elrianode transition is why a big part of me doesn’t trust whatever may come after Mirror Del. Elysion, on release, was about as good as this for Elsword lore, even if, I dare say, that Mirror Del does a lot more that Elysion just didn’t do. However, that’s the problem with it; next patch could break everything like how Elrianode introduced the mess of lore around the El that KoG is still untangling to this day. Just to cite an example. Then there was the whole forced introduction of Henir’s Cult, Seven Tower and again, a narrative mess they’re still untangling almost a decade later.
I know that the chances are, KoG may pull another Elrianode and introduce so many messy variables the story just stops working. They’re already introducing a lot with Atma’Ram and, just to show it as an example, they’re already shooting themselves in the foot. Don’t believe me? Here’s something that bothered me after reading through Mirror Del
So, we know that elves are spirit-adjacent beings that are losing their connection to the spirit realm for unknown reasons possibly not tied to the El because it’s restored now and Rena still says that it’s a problem. Yet, in Atma’Ram, the Spirit Lord herself says that spirits have a non-intervention rule in mortal matters. Ain even receives directly that order from Ishmael when he spawns. Yet, because he gets more and more involved with humans, he is becoming more “human-like”, and his current status with his connection to Ishmael is… well, up for debate to say the least.
So, with that in mind, why does Rena say that it was a bad thing for elves to not get involved with any other people but spirits knowing that spirit-like creatures have a rule of non-intervention, lest they become less spirit-like? Why then say “Well, if they lose their connection to the spirits and their society collapses it’s their fault anyhow”? Didn’t Rena start travelling with the Elgang precisely to avoid such collapse?
This is her initial quest
I’m all for character change, but, much like how the Henir cultists took their importance out of nowhere, we’re having contradictory information between Rena and the Spirit King (which could be explained away) and, to top it off, something that shouldn’t even be that easily achievable for characters that are basically just bare-bones tropes: OOC behaviour.
KoG has so far not given me anything that would explain why Rena would just do a 180 on the plights of her people by the time she reaches Mirror Del and talks with the Observer.
So, if something so major, character-wise, is already going south, it’d be naive to expect everything else to hold.
Still, I don’t think that takes away from how the arc stands right now because it can very much stand on its own as an uncharacteristically strong arc in the story of this game. Next time, I’ll do the Elsword timeline with the exact (or approximate) years, so stay tuned.
