#kain lok

[vivern-of-nosgoth]

Oh come oooooooon... I hate it, he could be SO GOOD

[paragonrobits]

i've had the pleasure of playing Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver's remaster, and as one of the most foundational games for me overall, its given me time to think about stuff. its more or less how the game works; its fundamentally an exploration/puzzle solving platformer with action elements, with the best example being that most of Raziel's upgrades aren't making him stronger but allow him to traverse in new ways, and its gotten me to think about something I've had on my mind ever since i played Soul Reaver 2 back when it released in 2001 (i think):

the exact circumstances of Raziel's rebirth as a wraith, and exactly what's going on with him, is incredibly murky because the only real source Raziel has to go on is enormously suspect and explicitly lies all the time to your face, and that's the Elder God.

The Elder God claims to have spared Raziel from complete dissolution and acts as a benefactor, but Raziel is shown to be deeply suspicious of him around Soul Reaver 2. At first I thought that was a shocking swerve back in the day because the Elder God had always been helpful by the standards of the series, but it bears reminding that Soul Reaver wasn't able to do everything originally planned for it, with many of the unfinished aspects showing up in SR2 and Defiance in some respects (and also i recommend looking up the cut content, it is very cool); crucially, the ending would have had Raziel darkly asking the Elder God if he actually DID save Raziel and remake him as a wraith, or if Raziel was altered by unknown circumstances and the Elder God just took credit for it to manipulate Raziel for its own purposes.

Tellingly, the Elder God simply laughs, and ceases to communicate with him. Afterwards, Raziel would go back in time in an attempt to correct his course. This suggests that the Elder God was always meant to be ambigious and untrustworthy, and almost certainly did NOT have any involvement with whatever Raziel has become.

And the thing about it, the very thing that kept bugging me as I played through the game as a kid and now as an adult, is that Raziel is hardly unique, as a vampire wraith.

They're a common enemy in-game. When a vampire is killed, but their soul is not consumed by Raziel, they become a wraith that floats around the Spectral Realm as probably the most dangerous recurring enemy. As long as their body is intact, the vampire wraith can always return to that body, becoming far more powerful; among other things, gaining the ability to auto-drain Raziel's health, implicitly devouring his soul much as he does to them.

Exactly as Raziel operates.

This is more explicit with the most powerful of the vampire bosses, Raziel's brother Dumah, who alongside the second eldest (Turiel), were the ones who executed Raziel. Dumah has been killed by human hunters and impaled by spears, but his spirit is still around, and once those spears are removed, he is a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut that requires environmental tricks to kill for good. Possessing his body, becoming stronger than before, and vampire wraiths apparently being a fairly natural power for vampires to manifest if killed but not permanently destroyed, all points to Raziel's nature as a wraith not actually being that unique.

So what's different about him to being a walking paradox who, alone of all beings, has free will?

The setting establishes that older vampires are more powerful; Dumah is incredibly strong because his spirit has endured the Spectral Realm for so long. Most vampire enemies vary from needing a few hits to take down, with fledgelings far weaker, and this implicitly shows their toughness because the HUMAN enemies you fight will immediately die from a single hit from the Soul Reaver, or at least two melee weapon hits. It's not that vampires are weak, they're really quite strong, and Raziel is no exception. Raziel, furthermore, was the eldest and most powerful of Kain's lieutenants, and he was submerged in the Spectral Realm for a VERY long time. The specifics are unclear, but it has at the very least been centuries, enough that the landscape is rather different and vampires have mutated into completely inhuman forms. Raziel may be the most extreme form of a vampire wraith, as he honestly doesn't seem that different from the regular wraiths you fight, he's just older and far more powerful.

And this brings us to the actual thought I had here: Raziel's status as a fate-destroying pawn of prophecy is not actually related to him being a wraith, but because of the Soul Reaver.

The title of the Raziel games is rather specific; Raziel IS the Soul Reaver, the most powerful weapon in the first Blood Omen game, devouring the souls of its targets. And the ravenous, insane sentience IS Raziel; he winds up within it, consumed and merged into the blade, driven mad and feral by the long eons within it until, as time passes, it merges with the Raziel we initially play as, far in the future.

It is emphasized that this is a paradox. Its the same person, within the blade and BEARING the blade; an impossible situation, and this may be what causes Raziel to break fate. Kain, during a moment of genuine sincerity, tells Raziel that his ability to defy fate is because of his remaking. He is also fully aware of Raziel's doom; for all of Kain's ambition and desire for power, and his disinterest in a particular moral concern like Raziel has, he is genuinely trying to free Raziel from that doom. So, does this mean that Raziel becoming a wraith is the remaking Kain alludes to here?

It's important to note that in this series, no one really has the full picture. Kain might BELIEVE he knows the specifics of Raziel's remaking, but its hard to be sure if that's actually true or if he misunderstands it; as we see here, vampire wraiths are a known phenomenon and while quite powerful, they don't really seem to have that same kind of reality-breaking property, which may instead be due to Raziel's status as a walking paradox.

[paragonrobits]

mega crossover setting where the entire joke is that Kain and Raziel of Legacy of Kain, depicted here as the ultimate progenitors of all varieties of vampires (with the GAngrel of Vampire the Masquerade/Requiem specifically being descendants of Raziel and he is a bit perturbed that 'Razielim' is not the main name)

they have both been banned from Legally Distinct AU Twitter, not for any particular violations of terms or doing things or even being particularly annoying:

literally the only way of communication they can BEGIN to tolerate is extremely long and grandiose speeches to the point it takes them over 15 posts and replies just to express a single idea, the site banned them for this

causing them both to dedicate extremely passive-aggressive revenge by attempting to break into the spirit world and locate the spirit of the concepts that relate to the idea of internet forums specifically to intimidate the Spirit of Internet Communications to relax the character limit, unaware that a micro-blogging site is probably better for their desires

(they also kept getting into trouble for including massive videos in ALL their posts, because their communication is very dependent on arm gestures and dramatic poses and if they can't do that they feel silenced)