Since Cooking Companions and now Dread Weight pull from Slavic Mythology.
With their inclusion of the Baba Yaga.
I wondered if any of our new characters in Dread Weight carried any similarities.
Their is definitely something up with Kurt.
Why would the Baba Yaga want him specifically dead.
If it was just another mass murder like she's done before I wouldn't question it.
But it's made clear over and over that everyone else in the mansion would be spared if Kurt was handed over to her.
There's also the the spirits, Maximillion the Duck who says he'd love to leave but because Kurt won't allow him too.
I saw a comment on Superhorrorbro's playthrough of the demo that wondered if Kurt could be Koschei the deathless.
So I chose that as my starting point.
The first thing that pops out to me is the involvement of not only the Baba Yaga in this tale but a Prince called Ivan.
Ivan being the name of the person Potato mentions at the beginning of the game.
"We need to repay him for Ivan."
The him being presumably Kurt.
There's also the note which reads:
Dearest (the name is smudged out)
I know your still upset about Ivan.
I'm asking the impossible, but please forgive me and let's end this madness.
We're different. To lose track of time.
To let feuds rot inside of us, undying, while the rest of the world moves on.
This isn't healthy. It took me ages to unlearn this.
I am asking you, PLEASE let this one die.
-(the name is illegible)"
So there's a mysterious person called Ivan, something happened to him that we want repayment for.
We're upset about what happened and someone is telling us to forgive them.
And we know this person is Kurt.
Because it's his mansion the Baba Yaga ends up attacking.
The story of Koschei the Deathless comes from a Russian fairytale in which Koshei, an immortal man who had a habit of kidnapping young girls.
He's known as the Deathless because he stores his soul inside of a needle which in turn is stored into an egg.
Which fair, some people store their soul in an animatronic suite and than upload their digital consciousness into it's circuit boards.
And divide that into several tapes several tapes.
Though the egg is stored inside of a duck.
And wouldn't you know it, Kurt keeps a duck around in the mansion.
And being the container of his immortal soul sounds like one hell of a reason as to why Maximillion isn't allowed to leave the place.
Though in the story it's a lot more complicated with duck being hidden inside of a hare, who's in turn inside a chest which is buried under a tree etc.
But it could be why a duck and a rabbit are specifically the animals in the mansion.
Much like how Baba Yaga in Slavic Mythology has a cabin on chicken legs.
And under the floor boards of the cabin you can find chicken bones.
It's said if the egg was destroyed the duck would fly free, which is what Maximillion wants.
The story of Koschei the deathless tells the tale of a Prince called Ivan who stumbles upon a fuck ton of bodies, from Koschei's army in the woods.
Finding out Koschei himself had been captured by the warrior queen Maria Moreenva.
Who Ivan later meets, falls in love with and marries. Though when it came for the warrior queen to go to war she showed Ivan a door to a locked closet and warned him not to open it.
Im sure we can all guess what comes next.
Inside the closet is an old man, chained and begging for water.
Feeling pity for the old man, Ivan gives him water and to no ones suprise the man turns out to be Koschei.
Now having regained his strength from the water, he breaks his chains and kidnaps Ivan.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Way to go smart guy.
His wife finds out and after probably giving the worlds biggest face-palm goes to recur her husband.
However, Koschei was prepared for this and ambushed her, cutting her into pieces.
Apparently she had 3 shape-shifting brothers who came to her aid as a falcon, a Raven and an eagle. Sprinkling some good ol life water on her, Queen Maria was back.
Knowing Koschei was too fast to catch up too, she went to person who had the fastest horse.
Who gave her a sickly looking horse but the more Maria rode it it became stronger. And she eventually caught up to Koschei.
Maria nabbed her hubby back and took off with Koschei following her.
Until Koschei's horse hit a rock, Koschei fell off and Maria used the opportunity to impale and set him on fire.
Queen Maria, do not fuck with her.
And they live happily ever after.
Moral of the story, listen to your wife.
Although with all myths their are different iterations.
And this is no exception.
One that caught my eye was one in which instead of kidnapping Ivan, Koschei decides to get revenge on his captor Queen Maria.
With Ivan the one who goes on a mission to rescue her.
He escapes with her twice but is overcome by Koschei on his much faster horse.
Ivan tries to fight against him but the other is far too powerful, resulting in Ivan being cut down, put in a barrel and set out to sea.
However, Ivan is able to cheat death with the aid of his sisters who had all married powerful sorcerers.
They located him, Ivan managed to get Baba Yaga's horse. And defeated him.
Some with him impalong him, others have him dying by the horse kicking him in the head.
Before he's properly burned.
And so I wonder if in Dread Weight, we have a case where Ivan wasn't or couldn't be revived.
It definitely seems like he is dead in the game.
And Kurt, if he is Koschei and the one to kill him than much like what happens to the Baba Yaga, he begins to grow soft.
He starts to feel remorse for his actions.
He writes a note and asks for forgiveness, that they are both immortal and cannot spend their lives like this.
Kurt being Koschei explains why despite being immortal and having his whole soul in a needle, egg, duck etc why he is afraid of the Baba Yaga.
Because if there's one thing Koschei despises it is the idea of his own death and he knows if anyone can kill him it's the Baba Yaga.
Even without her having his soul.
... Though that is definitely something to worry about.
Though there's definitely not enough evidence for this I think it's a cool idea.
Because Koschei or not there's definitely something up with Kurt.
The info for this for anyone curious came from the video the Death of Koschei the Deathless on The Folktale Project's YouTube channel,
And the video Koschei the Deathless | Russia's evil sorcerer from the YouTube channel Mythology Unleashed.
