#nil hfw

[paintedlight1]

Mini Sweaters 🌱 Warming up for the new year!!!

[kittleskittle]

nil and zoroark (yes, it's zoroark in both - look closely ;))

second in my horizon x pokemon series!

previous illustrations in this series:

aloy

[bibutterflies]

niloy november day 8 - call

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (2024) | Horizon Forbidden West (2022)

[kattiiganvales]

Niloy November Day 3: Feather → horizon zero dawn remastered (2024) | horizon forbidden west (2022)

[bog-mummies]

yapping at length about stuff that nil says in zero dawn (i do not have his transcript for forbidden west. if anyone has that then HMU pleaseeee). a lot of my analyses may seem like a stretch but please just trust me. hold my hand. these are all from when aloy first meets him, and when she clears devil's thirst.

"Yes, yes, yes, trespass is forbidden on pain of death… Strange phrase, the pain of death. See, this one’s in no pain at all."

i like his little "yes yes yes". iirc he displays similar repetitive speech patterns later on and i find it very endearing. also, he's prone to philosophizing. based on his (likely) previous status as a kestrel and just the way he speaks and carries himself, i headcanon that he 1. came from a noble, or at least well-off/respectable family and 2. is well-educated and well-read. i think in another world he could've been a poet

2. "A thief, a slaver, a killer– the kind that give honest killers a bad name."

he sees himself as different, even though we *definitely* know that he's a killer, and was probably previously a slaver (or at least complicit in the enslavement of non-carja). dunno about thievery, but to his credit he doesn't seem like the stealing type to me (i'd imagine he sees it as beneath him. he's proud). anyway, he rationalizes his violence by framing it as more *civilized* than the shit bandits do. i think it's that carja exceptionalism he was probably raised with that's poking thru - he *cares* about honor. he cares about being civilized. it's important to him that he can justify what he does. he may come across as entirely amoral, but that's not really true. he does have convictions, he does believe in things other than violence, even if it's not immediately obvious.

3. (referring to a corpse) "This one and I just need a moment longer. To reflect on all we’ve been through."

i just think this is funny. he's such a freak.

4. "Call it a shared interest. And call me Nil."

there are multiple circumstances in which you can meet him for the first time, and he *always* introduces himself like this. "call me nil", not "my name is nil". i think this tiny difference is an intentional choice on his part - he is very explicitly *not* claiming that it's his name. Nil obviously not his original name, but does he even believe in names at all? i don't think he ever refers to aloy by her name in HZD - just calls her "huntress". personally, i like to think that he never learns her name until after he asks to duel. i headcanon (and this may just be projection) that nil prefers *titles* (or maybe nicknames) to names. a name is just a... sound, but a title is what you *are*. aloy is a huntress. nil is nothing (not true, but that's how he wants to perceive himself). and when he becomes "red teeth" in forbidden west, that's also a title, kind of. i'm not sure if it's something he chose, but it's still descriptive and meaningful. it's a nickname based on the mask he wears to hide his face, to hide the fact that he's carja - possibly even to hide the fact that he is *specifically* the scary-ass bloodthirsty carja from the red raids, depending on how well-known he was (spicier if it's the latter). it's based on his deliberate rejection of his past and identity, of his choice to assimilate into a foreign culture after being carja all his lifeo. it's not *just* a nickname - it's a symbol of the death of his previous identity. it mirrors how he likely changed his name after leaving sunstone rock, to reject his previous identity as a soldier, to become *nothing*. except this time, he's not nothing. he's a mask, a mystery, but he's still someone, and i think that's significant. because.

5. "Look there- those old rocks? A bandit clan squats under them. Disturb the rocks, and they’ll come wriggling out, (turns back to Aloy) worms that they are."

more of him reducing bandits to something lesser, something inhuman. more of him saying "i am not like that. i am *better* than they are."

6. "My partner and I shadowed these scum for days. Good tracker, but he went on ahead without me. We’d talked about this kind of behavior."

he never actually names his partner. significant? perhaps. perhaps not.

7. "Still, I understand. Leave it too long, your fingers itch for the bowstring."

i struggle a bit when it comes to analyzing his relationship with violence. a common interpretation i see is that for nil, sex and violence are intertwined. and i can see that (he does have a *lot* of suggestive dialogue), but i prefer a different interpretation: that he engages in violence *in place* of sex. i don't quite know how to put it into words, but i think that violence for him fulfills a similar purpose as sex (i headcanon him as ace <3). it provides him with both physical and emotional catharsis, and nil, to some degree, also sees violence as a form of intimacy (see also: some of his fight dialogue). i don't have any evidence that explicitly supports my interpretation over the other one, i just think it's more interesting this way.

8. "Trust is a rare egg to find, isn’t it? I’m just a traveler, with a bow, a concern about the state of these lands, and a missing partner."

something something "i'm nobody" something something. it's subtle but he's kind of diminishing himself here. not like, putting himself down, but making himself seem like less of an individual, less of a person. and aloy notices, and calls him out on it! "i don't think you're 'just' anything at all". and then he deflects, avoids talking about it. man it pisses me off how much he deflects and avoids talking about his past (i need to know literally everything about you and you are making it DIFFICULT for me. fuck you and fuck your stupid headdress and double-fuck your dumb haircut).

9. "And if you’re the heroic kind, who needs a little extra– there’s the captives."

implicitly distancing himself from heroism. more of that "im nothing im nobody i dont believe in anything" bullshit

10. "Feels good, doesn’t it? Hold it inside you one last breath, then let it out."

is this aftercare? discuss.

11. "They killed him. I hardly feel surprised. He was already getting cocky when we carved through the last bandit camp. I thought he and I were agreed: only enjoy the killing as much as the challenge. (he shrugs) No great loss. Nothing in the wilds I can’t handle, just me and the Voice of Our Teeth here."

distancing himself from personal relationships and ties to other people. back on his bullshit again. i do like his whole disaffected vibe tho, it's fun. i think it's interesting that he named his bow though - it's useful, it's (presumably, based on the fact that it looks like it has a mishmash of stuff from a bunch of different tribes) been with him for a while (almost certainly during the red raids), and most importantly, it's a tool for killing. violence is central to his identity, so he feels comfortable attaching himself to the tool he used, and continues to use, for violence. and he names it. y'all know how i feel about nil and names, so this is significant. i don't exactly know *how* it's significant, but i know that it is. idk im sleepy.

12. "They wrong us all. They live filthy lives, so they have to die that way, too."

see: 5 and 2.

13. "No, no– for sport. I can’t wait for wars any more: life’s too short, and the thrill of death too sharp. If you kill a tribesman, there’ll be retribution. Hunt a boar, they complain if you waste the meat. But bandits? They’re vicious. They always put up a fight. And no-one cares if you kill them."

a practical solution to his bloodlust. but it shows that he *does* care about honor (carja stuff again), that it matters to him that he does things the "right" way. i'm not sure it's really about right and wrong, more about clean and unclean. he'll challenge aloy to a duel, but he won't shoot her in the back. he'll slaughter civilians for sun-king jiran, but he won't kill innocents when there's no war to justify it. there's something there, i think.

i have a huge blind spot when it comes to nil and it's whatever the fuck he's got going on with aloy. like obviously she's a killing machine and he's enamored because of that but like. is that really *it*??? it cant be. but i suck at romance and analyzing romantic relationships so unfortunately i do not Get It™️

niloy stuff aside, i might add more onto this later. i've only really gotten out like a third of what im thinking (esp his whole deal with being carja, how his experience as a soldier for the sundom affects his relationship with violence, etc etc. and also the thing with his bow and his dealio with names. and why he seems to reject his past and personal identity so much. and common fan theories about him) but i just dont know how to put it into words.

also also also. if you liked this then you should also read this fic: 

Daylight - Anosrepasi - Horizon (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

because it's a very good character study on the little freak

[setavvo]

For the wonderful ArtseeWinks! This is from her fic Blood Born, Chapter 22

In a time where Aloy accepted Ullia's offer to take her as a daughter, Ullia had already taken one child of the East to be her own. A young man she met in Sunstone Rock…

[antreaslovota]

Nil.

He was my crush in HZD.

[horizonzerodawnaesthetic]

RIP Nil, you would've loved motorcross and Mario Kart