Dang, the first few times I heard the song In The Flood from the Horizon games, I didn’t really give it a good listen. I thought, oh it’s pretty and a little mystical and ethereal and I like the sound. Kinda an oddly light and flutey choice but pretty.
But giving it a more focused listen now that I’ve beat Horizon Forbidden West? Holy shit, I can’t listen to it now without literally bursting into tears. I wish I was exaggerating it’s actually almost disruptive how emotional it makes me feel.
The way it has this sound and pacing that builds in strength in this subtle way feels so authentic to Aloy. She’s powerful, badass, an amazing fighter and climber and all these things. She’s also relatively squishy as hell and looks like she weighs like 130 lbs soaking wet. She’s little. Objectively on the smaller delicate side. Tough as nails, but still. And the way this song at first flew past me as a little lilting and not serious... It feels like it’s mirroring that. People do that to Aloy all the time. See one small girl with her bow and arrow and think, pssht, what? Her? A threat? Nah. And then get their asses handed to them.
THE LYRICS just holy fucking shit.
“ Am I the one to hold
This crown of ash and salt?
Their kindness calls to me
I have to block it out
My voice has grown so somber
These words don't seem like mine
But the iron won't subside
No matter
No matter what I try “
HOLY SHIT. This song... it’s like a quiet plea for help from someone terrified to show a moment of vulnerability.
“ Am I raindrops in the flood?
In this emptiness
In the storm
If I'm broken
If I'm torn
The wave inside my soul carries all I know
Who can take my hand in the flood?”
There’s this moment when she’s with Tilda in her house and looking at the art pieces and she looks at the statue of the person carrying the world (Was it Atlas? Idk) And she says “I know the feeling”. It wasn’t a big dialogue thing, it wasn’t one of the paintings, Tilda doesn’t respond. It’s a small bit of words and it is HAUNTING ME. She is thinking, Elizabet saved the fucking world and all the pressure was on her. She is the reason any of this exists today. I AM THE ONLY ONE who can protect this vision, who can save what she started. She feels for so much of the journey it is HER ALONE who is carrying this. If she stops, if she falters. If she is broken or torn. It’s all going to be destroyed and there will be no one who can save them. If it isn’t her, it’s no one. No one is going to take her hand in the flood.
Yall. I can’t stop thinking about this game. It’s consuming my thoughts, reality doesn’t feel real. I took a long walk today and it only kinda brought me out of this headspace. I just want to disappear in the story again, the music, the world. Aloy.
