Queer Analysis of ULTRAKILL and why its so important to the story
Credits to @saturnaous for showing interest in this so I could lock in and actually talk about this topic and @twotalks (main blog) and @sinnerofgrace (Who I think is the actual guy that asked) who are my irls and wanted to read this
Put a cut bc long post and spoilers for the entire game
Had to whip out Tumblr on my laptop for this because there's actually so much to cover here. Sorry if none of this makes any sense bc this is honestly just rambling.
First off: ULTRAKILL's is fundamentally about identity and free will. The sentience of literally every character in the game, including and especially the machines and angels, is a big part of this.
Most people, when they talk about the free will in ultrakill, bring up the lack of it and the tragedy it brings to everyone involved, which is very true, (again, especially with machines and angels) but it's also that discovery of self that feeds into the trans-coding of it all.
All of the machines in ultrakill are inherently genderless, which makes sense ofc because they are robots and do not adhere to human ideas of gender, but despite that there are examples of them searching for ways of self-expression that can be (and are, in this case) read as trans.
The most obvious example of machine trans-coding is the Mindflayers (You can't talk about the trans-coding in ultrakill without bringing up the Mindflayers at least once) who build themselves a plastic body, FROM SCRATCH, simply because they want one. Most Mindflayers you'll encounter have feminine shapes, and the revamp updated added a chance for them to be masculine, though the only real difference is the torso.
Mindflayers take pride in their bodies and the terminal entry for them highlights this more by saying that, "despite it being a waste of resources, Mindflayers will do everything in their power to protect the plastic body from harm, even if it means destroying itself in the process" which is the lore reason why they enrage at low health on higher difficulties and self-destruct upon being defeated. They literally blow themselves up when their body gets too damaged and curl up around themselves when doing so.
There's something so beautiful about making a body for yourself to me, especially since this isn't even the only example of a machine doing this.
The Swordmachine's original form is, "unrecognizable" because it has altered it's body to such an extent and it's actually got multiple copycats which are the other Swordsmachines you see post Prelude. Its form is also described as "ugly to most but beautiful to enthusiasts" which sounds mean at face value, but I actually find to be nice. The Swordsmachine is beautiful to the people that value it as such and even if it wasn't it wouldn't care.
Then there's the angels. Oh boy the queer angels. We've only met two angel characters so far that I can thoroughly go, the Powers and Gabriel, but despite that there's a lot to go into.
First off, again, inherently genderless. Angels have no gender or reproductive organs and Greater Angels only go by masculine pronouns as a sign of status and respect because it shows they are closer to "Him" (God).
That in of itself is very queer but the Powers in particular are interesting to me because they have apparent body dysphoria. The golden arm that hovers on their side is useless and is purely cosmetic because the Powers want to look more like the completely formed archangels.
Body dysphoria in of itself is not inherently a trait found in people under the trans umbrella, of course, but since the archangels are the closest to God and therefore represent, "ideal masculinity" in a way, the desire to resemble them (and especially resemble Gabriel since he represents "Gods Will") reads like the desire to fit and conform into typical gender roles that you are not fitting if you look at them through that lens.
Heaven, from what we know of it, is all about conformity and fitting a specific "role" given to you. Gabriel no longer fits into that specific box after his first loss, so he is discarded. Note that the Council refers to him as "it" in the Act 1 cutscene, while the Powers still call him "he" because they still respect him.
Speaking of which, oh lord Gabriel. To be honest, I could make an entire separate post just about Gabriel and how important his queerness is but for the sake of not clogging up this entire post with just him, we're gonna summarize.
Like previously mentioned, and as you probably know if you've played the game, Gabriel is an archangel and a warrior, who acted under the Council's will after the disappearance of God. He is stripped of his status and Holy Light after his first defeat to V1 and is left with 24 hours to fix his mistakes before he dies.
We'll get into the second fight in Heresy in a bit, but let's cover some before things first. Like Minos, for example.
Again, you probably know who King Minos is, and you're probably wondering why I'm mentioning him here, but hear me out. Minos was the King of the Lust Layer, and the whole reason he started the Lust Renaissance in the first place is because he "felt that eternal suffering was an unfair and unreasonable punishment for those whose only sin was loving another.". Heaven sent Gabriel to strike him down for defying Heavens rule and God's decision to punish sinners, and Gabriel, ever obedient and unquestioning, didn't listen to Mino's pleas and attempts at reason.
Minos thought it wasn't a sin to love one another, and he was killed for it. And Gabriel was the one to kill him because that was what he was told to do and what he thought was just. And the notoriously oppressive Heavenly Council were the ones to give the order. I don't know if I'm getting my point across here and though may be a stretch I hope you see what I'm trying to say. Minos loved humanity, every part of it, and he thought that loving each other was a grand thing that should be celebrated. He tried to spread that idea and the people in power responded with violence and locked him up and forced his husk to be the thing to trample the things he built.
Sisyphus is similar in this trait, though his rebellion is violent. Sisyphus is also very different from Minos in that he knew that his rebellion would never end in victory. "To him, fighting an impossible battle with full knowledge of its futility and taking joy in just the act of resistance itself is the ultimate rebellion against the oppressor". Was it selfish? Perhaps. But one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Minos and Sisyphus themselves represent two very different, but in the end not so different at all, types of rebellion. And while not queer in a direct form, they both rebelled against the same oppressors for the freedom and rights for similar groups of oppressed people, which I think is incredibly important to take into account when analyzing Ultrakill as a piece of queer media.
Back to Gabe though, it's also so very important that he is the one to snuff out these rebellions. Gabriel is loyal to a fault remains that way even after losing for the first time. In his view, all of the blood spilled and all of the suffering caused is justified because the person (Or people in the case of the Council) wills it. The wool is not pulled off of his eyes until after the second fight.
Here's the part I bet people have been waiting for, the fight in Heresy. First off, lets start with the setting and title of the level. "Heresy" is pretty obvious, Gabriel is a heretic in the eyes of the council and by the end of the fight becomes a proper one (or maybe he was from the beginning because of the Council but lets not get into that rn). Heresy is unique in that Gabriel speaks to you in the level before his fight, and while his monologues pre-fight are, of course, dripping with hatred. I find it interesting that Hakita has confirmed that the "Come to me" in the final room in 6-1 is "Meant to sound exactly like what it's implying." and that while Gabriel himself claims that, "all that is left is perfect hatred" 6-2 is titled "AESTHETICS of Hate" and the title of Act 2 itself is "Imperfect Hatred". The Terminal entry for The Apostate of Hate also says directly that "Gabriel realized he had been mistaken" and that "The strong fire that burned inside him was not hatred at all, but passion."
Perhaps Gabriel also enjoyed the first fight too, in a way? But didn't have the knowledge to even know that himself, too overwhelmed with fighting and losing against a difficult opponent for the first time and later having to face the Council in shame.
The first half of the fight is still not technically of his own volition, he's fighting V1 again because he wants and needs to regain his status and holy light, and the second half of the fight is Gabriel realizing that he LIKES the struggle and he WANTED to fight the machine again and he realizes how GOOD it feels to want and have something for yourself. He even stops to taunt V1 like usual, but unlike the first fight where he speaks to it all "holier than thou" the second fight voice lines are a lot more emotional. The terminal even notes this (See "Gabriel's pride stops him" vs "Overcome with emotion" in the section about him stopping to taunt.)
And then his dialog directly after the fight. I feel like I probably don't have to go into detail about that one but I do want to mention that the "May your woes be many and your days few" is diffrent than the second fight. It's said lighter and he also lets out a small laugh before the "and your days few." which could have many reasons. I personally think it's because he sees V1 in a new light after this, he knows that it's less of a curse because V1's woes WILL be many because and it prefers it that way because of more potentiality for fuel, and because he knows that BOTH of them have very limited time.
All in all, Ultrakill is a game about free will, identity, and what it means to act for yourself, and inherently those things are going to read as queer. Ultrakill as a piece of media cannot exist without those directly queer references and themes, because it's entire story revolves around them. Ultrakill is a queer piece of media, through and through.
Then, of course, the end of act cutscene. The second fight with V1 was the driving force to get Gabriel to see the error of his ways and beliefs. Again, I won't go into too much detail about it because this post is so long and has so much Gabriel in it already, but I think this is BECAUSE of his struggle and enjoyment of the fight. Maybe something about actually being against an equal struck him? Maybe the enjoyment and want for the fight made him realize that he's never been able to want before? Maybe just generally realizing that if fighting and losing to V1 was that exhilarating, and he was punished for it, then who's to stay that any other punishments enacted by the Council were fair? If they weren't, then were they truly acting by God's will?
I'm quite excited for Treachery and to see how the game wraps up Gabriel's character arc. Him dying in one last bloody battle with the machine that helped him see his faults, thus dying on his own terms and not by the Council's, would be the perfect way for him to go.