Name: Gemra
Debut: Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Gemra is a member of a little club I like a lot: the club of enemies that debuted in Return to Dream Land, and then never appeared again, even in the 3DS games that used the same engine! Plenty of RtDL enemies became regulars, and plenty just never returned. To Dream Land. Or maybe they stayed exactly where they were, and Kirby and friends just didn't go back to those specific areas ever again.
Hello Waddle Doo. Thank you for coming. I don't need to introduce Waddle Doo to Waddle You, because you know and love Waddle Doo already! It is a simple creature. It has one enormous eye. You know what it means when a creature has one enormous eye! Whether it's in a video game or in real life, that creature is going to have the ability to emit harmful energy from its eye. Waddle Doo does it in the form of a Beam, a whip-like series of plasmatic orbs, that is the basis of perhaps the most iconic Copy Ability, the one that most players of Kirby's Adventure likely discovered before any other!
And Beam is a WEIRD ability. Most of the other original Copy Abilities are very basic elemental traits or weapons. Beam is, originally, an ambiguous whip thing made of energy. It actually took until Squeak Squad for it to officially be depicted with any electrical attributes, and until Planet Robobot in 2016 for it to be "confirmed" that the beam is made of electricity! I must confess, I liked it more as an ambiguous energy that can't quiiite be placed, but it's fine as electricity... I guess... don't mind me...
What, besides big ol' eyeballs, is Beam associated with? The answer is, again, Weird! Since Super Star, Beam Kirby has worn the absolutely iconic orange and red jester hat. It's so whimsical and cute! It's one of Kirby's most recognizable hats for sure! And what does it have to do with energy beams? I have not a clue! In Super Star, Kirby swung a crystal-orbbed wand to summon the beams, but in all prior games and every other game before RtDL standardized the wand again, it just came out of his hand.
The wand is cute! I like it! My one problem with it is that in Star Allies, playable Waddle Doo uses it, too... enemy ones still use their eyes, but playable ones stop that entirely! I don't like that! This is the animal that evolved to shoot beams from its eyes, and you're giving it an external beam-shooting tool? Might as well give a gray squirrel a ladder, at that point! Give a flying squirrel a hang glider! Give a marmot a shovel! See how ridiculous Waddle Doo's situation looks when compared to all these hypothetical squirrel tools? Ultimately, I cope by telling myself that Waddle Doo uses the wand as a way to concentrate its beam attacks while now being able to see normally as it does so.
#waddle doo #kirby enemies #kirby #not mario #wait a second. This was not supposed to be a Waddle Doo post! Bring back the angry hat thing!
Okay. Thank you. I explained all that about Beam because the hat and crystal orb are integral to Gemra itself! This is a unique, new (at the time) Beam enemy, made to fill the niche of a flying Beam enemy. And its design is COMPLETELY based on Beam Kirby! One colorful, frilly, pointy, pom-pommed hat, like half of Beam Kirby's hat. A crystal orb beneath it, from whence the energy beams manifest.
This almost feels like... a retcon? A revelation? It feels important. Beam Kirby's outfit looks nothing like Waddle Doo, and everything like Gemra. It's like Gemra was the "original" Beam enemy that the ability's aesthetic derives from, we just never saw it until now. All this time, could Waddle Doo have been a "secondary" ability enemy? A Cairn, a Boxin, a Mookie? One shudders to think...
I guess what I'm trying to say, and using so many words to say, is I think it's just plum neat how Gemra's design is based entirely around the aesthetic of Beam Kirby, with no influence from energy beams themselves or even Waddle Doo.
