Rituals of Becoming | Darkness as a Teacher | Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
“The darkness held a question. Are you strong enough? She doesn’t know the answer yet. But they will tear it from her mouth.” — Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
This line from the video game embodies the core of my written work, using darkness as a theme. Darkness is metaphorical for the aspects of ourselves we’re too afraid to face: the shadow self. Whatever words people use to describe it, it’s all the same pursuit of reaching our inner truth. That truth is what we suppress, hidden in the deepest part of ourselves.
I constantly write characters who suppress their truth, yet I have them reveal it in some way. My character Jezebel in The Mark of the Skull uses writing to express it. And I make that known on the first page.
Do you know what story teaches the importance of speaking the truth? Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga literally punishes those who aren’t truthful — with death.
Senua’s journey through Helheim in Hellblade reminded me of the initiation process of becoming. And what’s more profound than coming to terms with life and death? The philosophy of Hel is impermanence. It’s not self-deception anymore when you face that truth. In Senua’s case, she had to overcome the ingrained lies her father told her to see reality clearly.
One truth: her father had her mother killed, burned at the stake. He abused his family, claiming Senua was cursed. In the game, she had to overcome not just fear but illusion.
The first boss I fought was Valravn, the God of Illusion. To reach him, you navigate a landscape of illusions; nothing is what it seems. Yet he guides you, chanting from a distance. It’s haunting yet beautiful, mystical in its way.
The second boss, Surtr, tests physical and psychological strength. You run through a landscape of flames, fighting as you burn. It forces endurance — pain as transformation.
Life inflicts discomfort and pain beyond imagination. Heartbreak is one of the things most people know. Sometimes endurance is the only way through. In that section of the game, you can’t stand still — you must keep running, taking action diligently and strategically. That’s the lesson: living is constant action.
After that come trials of fear — the journey of becoming.
Toward the end, Hel stabs Senua with a sword. She bleeds out and dies, but Hel transforms into Senua. I don’t know the developer’s intention, but I saw it as the death of the old self. My mind blazed with amazement. Senua’s entire journey was trials, and she succeeded. Even failure had real consequences: the black rot creeping up her arm could kill her and restart the game if it reached her head. That mechanic made dying matter.
Senua’s journey represents releasing the old self. Why do I interpret it that way? If a foundation isn’t solid and has too many cracks, it crumbles. Her old foundation was weak — built on abuse, isolation, and grief. Destroying it and rebuilding from the lessons she learned, embodying Hel’s philosophy, gave her a stable base to grow. With a strong foundation, the sky becomes the limit.
The second game is about integrating those lessons — her new foundation. Philosophies you can’t integrate into reality are just air, like food with no nourishment. They do nothing for the self or others.
So why is facing our shadow selves — our darkness — so important? Because it strengthens the self, and by doing so, it helps others. In Hellblade II, Senua helps others and becomes more selfless. She frees giants from pain, helps tribes survive attacks, and exposes a fearful king’s deception.
Even then, trials of becoming remain. You never stop becoming. Transformation happens often — like the butterfly’s cycle of caterpillar, chrysalis, and rebirth. For me, it feels like it happens every decade. Each decade, I become someone new, building upon my foundation. I metaphorically live the death of the old self, becoming the new version of me.
Interestingly enough, I’ve always written the death of the old self into my stories. In my first story, An Ocean’s Solitary Star, the Harpy ritual of becoming required taking a dagger to the heart — a literal act of death and rebirth to join the Harpy clan and receive their blessing and power. Even in The Daughters of Darkness, the main character, Kristen Brenner, undergoes the same cycle of dying and rebirth. Her entire journey is about becoming.
But...as always...
I leave it at that.