I have a lot of feelings about Ra-la, okay. For one, her stretch of the dungeon is freaking gorgeous -- I am weak for glowing plants and lens flares and starscapes -- and for another, her design is amazing. Part cat, part dragon, part ... deer? with the horns? ... and of course, the wings, which call to mind Meteion’s own design. Something about her expression is placid and feral at the same time which just nails her Catness for me.
But I think the thing that gets me the most about Ra-la is her similarity to Meteion. Ostrakon Deka-hepta is an obvious mirror of the Ancients, and Ra-la is an obvious stand-in for Meteion. And like Meteion, she was also created for a specific purpose, without any regard for her own thoughts and feelings on the matter. What did she know? What did she understand? Maybe she was a vicious, mindless hunter, and killed her creators the same way cats hunt even when they're well-fed by their owners -- because it was her instinct, and she found joy in death.
But maybe -- based on what Meteion says in her narration -- maybe it wasn’t her instinct to kill. Maybe it was all a game to her. Maybe she worked her way across the glowing world, playing a tremendous game of hide and seek with her beloved, gentle friends, who were always so happy to see her. Until one day there was no one left to find, no matter how hard she looked.
Maybe she wandered, searching, wondering where everyone had gone. Maybe the world went dark around her, statuary and stone crumbling to dust, and still no one came. How long until she settled? She was created by a powerful, immortal race to be their destruction -- how long did she live?
And that’s the thing that gets me about Ra-la, that right there. How long did she live, and how long did she wait? Long enough for the Life Tree to die? Long enough for the islands to fall? Long enough to understand how she had been used ... long enough to understand how she had been betrayed?
Is there enough time for that? Long enough to stop missing her creators, to learn to hate them, and then to forgive and love them again. Is there enough time for that?
“So they created the kindest, most gentle of beasts…”
Ra-la, The Last Mercy. I’ve been wanting to draw this boss design since I saw it. It is indeed very beautiful, a perfect incarnation of “a gentle death”
