So Ariel was Skyler. That makes sense, that actress has a true talent interpreting a woman trapped forever into the plan of some crazy power hungry monster while at the same time being able to be as flawed as the ones that condemned her.
That's funny how so many people don't know that Skyler was the voice of Ariel; Michael Bell who plays Drew Pickles & Chaz Finster from Rugrats; He also plays as Raziel, & Tony Jay[Mortanius, Elder God]who played Shere Kahn from Jungle Book He also played in the movie Twins as the Doctor who put the experiment together.
Lets all take a moment to appreciate how great all the voice actors were and how much they put in thier roles in an era where video games weren't thought of as narrative art.
Literally why I'm not wholly wanting a remake. As good as Troy Baker, Nolan North, and Yuri Lowenthal are...they're no Tony Jay, Michael Bell, and Simon Templeman. Purely speculation but those 3 get all the good roles in VA. Maybe we'd get Jennifer Hale to cover for Anna Gunn. Assuming they recast the whole thing like remakes tend to do
Kains birth, which instantly had him become the balance guardian, was the mark in time when Ariel died. In other words, Ariels murder and the following corruption of the other guardians due to Nupraptors insanity is BO minus 30 years (30 is the age Kain reached before he was murdered in front of that inn at Mortanius' order).
@@Chlorate299 No, the Pillars choose their guardians at birth. Regardless of Ariel's murder, Kain would have still been the Balance Guardian. Just like Malek, who didn't serve as the Conflict Guardian since birth, Kain would have waited until Ariel's natural death. But since the Hylden pull off their timey-winey shenanigans, they orchestrated the entire charade to be right at the precise moment Kain was born. Thus Blood Omen is NOT the first timeline, but rather its second. Kain said it perfectly; he was ordenaded to be Nosgoth's Guardian and Raziel to be its savior, but since both destines were changed, their fates were changed aswell.
If legacys lore is too folow she was mant to die bc raziel was only one who can choose so kain was meant to do that so kain refused the secrfice i had to do it lol. im like ultimate fan of this game saince my childhood and first part i kow every line cant wait for conferd remake
I think it's because Mortanius stopped his soul from leaving his body and thus not fully dead yet and then became a vampire since the original guardians were vampires and thus undead I think there is a loophole there. I always thought that in order for the new guardians to be chosen the elder God had to devour the soul of the previous guardian. Thus continuing the cycle. So by kains soul being withheld he remained balance guardian despite his death at the hands of bandits.
Legacy of Kain made such an impact on me in my teens that when I watched Breaking Bad for the first time and saw Anna Gunn's name come up, I screamed "that's fucking Ariel!" Much to the chagrin and confusion of those in the room with me
I was obsessed with SR1 when it came out 20 years ago. I remember each voice line as well. I stayed obsessed through Defiance. Just recently picked up the game again to play.
Same!! Wow that's exactly it no one else put it into words before. I was only 12ish when I played a few games and don't even remember their name but they were HARD and had beautiful world building. I can hear Kain speaking still in my head. His elegant criticisms of the world....Kain has always been in any media I see, a benchmark of a True Perfect Vampire. Most shows don't have vampires as cool! The dialogue still stays in my head years later and watching on RUclips doesn't hurt either!
the thnig with Ariel and Raziel's encounters is that they happen in reverse order chronologically the SR1 encounter is the one that happened last, while Defiance is where Ariel and Raziel 1st meet.
@@Teixas666 exactly. I think she remembers, but she might not really recognise him -it's been 1500 years after all and she only registered him as a demon the first time she saw him (and the second time in SR2 was very short). It is also possible that she is just pretending not to know him so he can ask her what to do. The third option is that she remembers him, assumes he remembered her but just goes along with her speech as usual. She is a ghost after all. Ghosts are literally trapped in loops both physically and mentally. Edit: Ariel might also understand that Raziel told her in Defiance "though you not yet know me" so she might just have understood what that implied and assumed he was the one who didn't know her late on
Not just the voiceacting but the entire series should never be forgotten instead. Do much depth, philosophy, tragedy and darkness in a short series of only 5 official games... I am still hooked since the day when I played Bloodomen 1 on the PS1 😁 Great video & I am with you: The tortured soul of Ariel seems unlikely to have suffered memoryloss. Didn't even came to my mind yet 🤔
Literally my favourite character moments from the series is seeing Ariel's demeanour change throughout time. From the "spirit guide" in Blood Omen, to the ancient tortured soul in Soul Reaver to the scared girl in SR2 to the sassy "ye go die with Vorador for all I care, I got my shit together here, I'm totally in control, everything will work out just right..." in Defience
@@xandan1668 God I'd love a "remaster" of theoriginal Blood Omen. I would imagine it being done in a new game engine (simillar to the Hades one, came out recently a nice game), but with the old Voice Acting (or reconstruction of it somehow, for legal reasons).
I didn't expect another part but I am glad. Now the only important characters left are Janos Audron, Vorador and Mortanius. Then again you could also do one long video about the other guardians, the Nemesis and maybe even King Othmar
Vorador and King Othmar/Nemesis would be pretty interesting. I really enjoy that so many years after this series people meet up on the net and talk about it's deeper meanings. Back in the days I had only one or two people to talk about this stuff, no one else really recognized the series that much 😐 (I am posting from Germany, especially the Bloodomen-parts haven't been that well known here; Soulreaver 1 was probably the best known of LoK).
I'm working on one for janous. The hidden tenth guardian the reason the pillars don't completely fall in ruin from human rule but rather nosgoth falls with the circle
I suspect that Ariel is a bit like Dr. Strange in the Avengers. She alone truly understands how to unravel the time loop and does everything she can to make it happen in the end. If she has to play ignorant with Raziel, she will. If she has to manipulate Kane through time to make him do what's necessary, she will.
Indeed, it's not lack of memory, the SR1 future Ariel couldn't remember the meeting with Raziel in Defiance, because in SR1 timeline, Raziel is absorbed by the sword so the meeting never happens, possibly the same can be said of the meeting in SR2, because that is also a different timeline than the SR1, one where Kain doesn't die in William's Chapel.
"Those blinded by rage are by destiny ensnared". It wasn't lack of options, but blind rage that made me take up the reaver" It was a warning of the finale of soul reaver 2.
Excellent analysis!! There exists some original design art from silicon knights, and it shows Ariel being stabbed in the back. Your idea that her corpse was possibly mutilated after her death(stabbed in the eye, face partially skinned), transferring that same disfigurement to her soul is all the more tragic. Hope you do one more for Mortanius. He and Vorador were my favorites back in the day.
I think her disfigurement is symbolic, it represents her hate, grief and her clouded judgement. Every time we see Ariel her single minded obsession with Kain is obvious, she never even stops to question the actions of the other guardians that led to her death and how Kain has been played by them too, she's convinced killing him will magically solve all problems when not only does she not have any evidence for that, but it's clear that Kain's and her enemies have made plans for that eventuality too. When we see her at the spirit forge she sounds like she's had an epiphany and finally sees the whole picture.
I'm no expert, but maybe the reason why Ariel doesn't remember earlier encounters with Raziel is because as she is trapped at the pillars as a special balance guardian soul, thus her being also cast out from the wheel of fate makes her immune to timeline shift changes like Raziel and Moebius. Raziel is outside the wheel for being a wraith, he is outside of time change influence. Ariel is outside the wheel for being a ghost trapped in the material real at the pillars, she is also outside of time change influence. Moebius just has special privileges TWO FOLD due to being both a time guardian and a pawn of the Elder God. So Ariel doesn't remember Raziel because she can or has to experience timeline changes linearly as they happen, just like Raziel or Moebius, not retroactively like Kain and everyone else.
the reason why Ariel doesnt seem to remembers the encounterwith Raziel is simpler than that. Its because they happen out of order. it's in DEfiance she 1st meets Raziel and Sr1 was the latest encounter with him.
6:40 that is obviously because the developers at the time were planning for the game to be released alone, with raziel absorbing ariel then killing kain in soul reaver 1
I am glad that Soul Reaver's development was such a clusterfuck. The game we were supposed to get would be entirely forgettable, compared to the lore of the 3 games that followed
@@TheKyrix82 I agree, but for some reason I couldn't get through all of SR2 that game really agitated me. I don't remember why since it was so long ago. Blood Omen 2 was pretty bad as well but the other three games were fantastic.
I really like how Soul Reaver's cut content is accounted for in the future games. I actually think it's far more interesting for Raziel to meet Ariel in the past, unintentionally invalidating her future claim that she “remembers what others forget” by the mechanism that history is rearranged. It adds a layer of irony when you replay SR1 only to hear her say that and know she isn't *wrong* when she said it, but the player knows that this is retroactively false. It's really well reasoned, poetic, and illustrates the way time works in this series while embodying the theme of characters having their beliefs destroyed. The thing I love most about this series is that it's full of characters that have their assumptions challenged and disproven, especially Raziel. Undermining Ariel's only claim to knowledge is very fit for a series where you're constantly finding new information that challenges your own assumptions about the truth.
I love Ariel's character. Something that I had never considered was that Anna Gunn was the voice actor! I never would have guessed that detail. Thanks for the video
I take the way Ariel acts towards Raziel as more of her hiding just how much she knows like she first did with Kain, and possibly some genuine surprise/shock at seeing him so many times. Think about it, if she started with the fact that she already knew Raziel, he definitely wouldn't have trusted her at all. The timeline shenanigans also makes perfect sense and I could see a combination of the two also being the case. That all said, I do like that they changed her death to Raziel into something much more gentle. She honestly deserved it after everything she went through and I think it shows a lot about both the way the timelines have changed, and how Raziel had grown throughout the series.
Great point about Ariel meeting Raziel earlier...but that comes to the question on which time loop we're on vs new ones being made. I'm obsessed with the Terminator franchise and even that is easier to keep track of than this mixed up timestream!
I'd like to thank you for introducing me to this series. Though since I have learned of the series I have wondered about two things from the series in regards to the guardians. 1-If the guardians are born the moment the guardian dies shouldn't a new one have been born when kain was slain? We see in in sr2 that the pillars corrupt instantly and kain makes it clear he is born the same second ariel dies. 2-Why were no other guardians ever selected? shouldn't a whole host of new guardians have been born from kain killing the old ones? If these answered in the game that's my error, I've not had the luxury to play the games yet.
Hmm, let me see if I can try to explain how I see it. Kain is corrupted much like the other guardians. In order to restore their pillars, they must die and a token of their respective pillar (such as Azimuth’s Third Eye Pendent, or Mortanius’s Death Orb) must be brought to it in order to restore it. Kain was killed, but nothing of his to represent his pillar was brought to it. As the Guardian of Balance, perhaps new guardians can’t be born if the Balance Pillar is corrupted. The others may be restored, but only temporarily, and may fall to corruption once more. As long as Kain lives, no new guardians can be born. As long as the Balance Pillar is corrupted, even if the other pillars are restored, no new guardians are born. The Pillar of Balance is the key to it all. I hope that makes sense? I can elaborate more if need be. This game series is a big part of my childhood, and the lore to it is forever ingrained in my brain.
I guess that makes sense as I know bo1 makes a big deal of the items you get from killing the pillar guardians though if it takes the item being placed before a new guardian can be born that still leaves kain as the odd one out unless Ariel's killer took an item of hers and had it at the pillar within milliseconds of her dying. But that just seems unlikely or outright impossible unless she was killed at the pillars.
@@kylepeters8690 The tokens were needed when the Pillars were corrupted. When Ariel died, the pillars were still whole. What corrupted them was Nupraptor finding her dead and plunging into madness, corrupting all of the other guardians, including Kain. In Kain's own words: "At the moment of my first cry, Ariel’s beloved - the Guardian Nupraptor - finds her corpse. Wracked with grief and tormented by suspicions of treachery, Nupraptor plunges into a madness which overflows and infects all of the Guardians, who are symbiotically bound. Including me."
The pillars stopped functioning when they corroded, so no new circle members are being chosen. The sorcerors could still do their magics, but their pillars were no longer.... whirring? The planet wasn't being regulated properly anymore. (the Decay in the SR1 era). This remains Kain's problem even now-- how to get the pillar system up and running again without killing himself to restore the final pillar (his own). The purifying done at the end of Defiance sets him up to get the job done at last.
Given Kain had made the pillars his seat of power and the balance pillar his literal throne would lead Ariel a front row seat to seeing things and to know that the vampire raziel was somehow the same as the wraith that had twice visited her, and that she would have seen kain's de-winging of him and ordered execution as moment of realization that somehow this raziel would become the wraith that had met her before, so she had to guide him since he SOMEHOW would end up in the past and thus might be able to undo all this before she's ever bound. Would have been interesting if they had gone through with a blood omen game set thirty or so years before the first legacy of kain and had kain prevent Ariel's murder.
Causality would prevent this. Ariel's Murder will happen no matter what, its a situation of " if you prevent this event then you delete the reason why you had ot travel back in time ot begin with hence making this event inevitable." to be mroe proecise removing Ariel's Muder would unravel the time stream since this would remove , Kain, Raziel, Janos and potentially the soul reaver itself.
@@Teixas666 Except by that point Kain is a walking paradox and even without that he can always go ensure the soul reaver from that time is at the sanctuary where Ariel is at (rather than carry on his person as the pressure of a nexus event seems to cause a virtigo like effect on the mind.) Unlikely, but an amusing idea on how to just flip the table over completely and negate Blood Omen 2.
The thing about her line about remembering what others forgot is just implying she will remind the player what to do should he or she forget. Since it was her role as guide in Blood Omen. Though it does feel odd in hindsight. I'm sure the developers didn't expect the series to go as far as it did by that point.
Love watching your content on legacy of kain.. one of my all time favourite game series.. I don't see a character study on Vorador, either I missed it or you haven't done one, if it is the later then could I request that you cover Vorador please.. ✌🏻
@dorothydreams oftornadoes eaons. That's what is alluded to at least. The elder god created a timeline completely corrupted and counted on the loop to last forever and that is what the scion of balance (kain and raziel combined) is up against. An eternity of lies... That's the work of the new eon of horus, to right thousands of years of ignorance and deception...
I always figured(ignoring the cursed development of the franchise) that she did remember him in sr1 and 2 and was doing some 4d chess to send him in the right direction Which if you take defiance into account implies there's at least one more encounter between them even further back
Nooooo! Unless Amy Hennig was at the helm, the series would be destroyed. That's not even the biggest issue... NOBODY would be able to replicate Tony Jay. The only man with that much bass in their voice is James Earl Jones and even then, people would joke that Darth Vader was the Elder God. lol I'd be for a remaster though @60fps!
Also curious of the vision in Soul Reaver. It's explained in Defiance as the purification of the Soul Reaver. However, that timeline as it was wouldn't of included Raziel ever purifying the blade.
Maybe she's just following the Temporal Prime Directive. lol. Only half joking. She was the Balance Guardian. Overseeing the Time Guardian was one of her duties. She likely understood just enough about Time Travel to know how badly she could eff things up if she said the wrong thing to Raziel and sent him down the wrong path. So she played dumb. He wasn't ready to know the things she knew yet. It wasn't time.
I both want and fear a remake or continuation to the story. Side note- I like your theory about Ariel's memory. It's better than the "wibblly wobbly timey wimey we didn't plan that far" likelihood. I know I'm late to the party but I've been doing a dive into LoK lore for a D&D campaign I'm running, with the cleansing of thePillars as a focus.
I think it's plausible Ariel's memory becomes faulty. I'm reminded of doctor who, when Rory pledges to protect the Pandorica for two millenia as an auton, and the doctor tries to dissuade him, stating "You'll be conscious for every second of it, you'll go mad".
I feel nothing but pity in my heart for the spectre of the murdered Balance Guardian, Ariel, for setting Kain up to slaughter the remaining members of the Circle and reveal the truth that Kain was her successor and the inevitable Balance Guardianship duty bestowed to him by the Pillars itself. What a beautiful woman she was, and her story was very tragic indeed.
If you notice Ariel's conversations with raziel are always like it's the first time she met with him. I think the whole spectral realm being frozen in time plays with this idea because spirits are not aware of their time and place. Only what they once knew and of the present. The games play with this notion where you hear wailing and screaming of souls in the spectral realm. They have no idea of time and place they are just existing with fragmented memories of their lives.
Since balance guardian sounds like a necessary executioner of sorts, I wonder how Ariel (Hebrew for "Lion of God") used her mortal powers for combat, or just relied on basic white magic and divination, as well as anything connecting her to the time guardian Nuptraptor (whose name is something along the lines of Nup French for "marrying" and raptor, like in velociraptor, is Latin for "seized plunderer" so do with what you want with that info) that would assist in her own duties as the Lioness of Balance.
Yeah we know that it's just funny he like other characters and locations in this game have made up names. Like Mortainius and Moebius have names relating to their pillar, and even Dejoule's name is in reference to joules, but who tf came up with Nupraptor???
It's likely that she does remember meeting Raziel in the SR1 era, but her blind rage at Kain and her horror at being possibly trapped for an eternity has caused to simply ignore some memories while focusing on those that increase her hatred and despair. Like after centuries of being bound in one place and seeing the years go by with untold amounts of monsters, vampires and humans passing by, Raziel just became another face in the crowd by the time they meet again.
I always figured there was just the one timeline, but things can reshuffle and even be entirely removed/added depending on the paradoxes and their causes. For Ariel, I thought perhaps it was a case of her just not knowing who or what he was in SR2, only coming to realize who he was later in the SR1 era due to witnessing the former vampire's unlife beside Kain. While it does still leave a bit of a hole with Raziel technically having his "first" meeting with her in Defiance, it could be a case of the alterations made to the timeline due to Kain delaying Raziel's imprisonment within the Reaver, which in turn could mean that in the post-BO1 era where Raziel finds her at the pillars, she would know him or at least recall seeing such a creature. It's also possible that she was still reeling from Kain's betrayal after Blood Omen, making her briefly forget the Wraith had once spoken to her shortly before. Obviously, there's a lot about the way the timeline works that we never got, and probably never will. Sometimes, I do kind of wish Amy Hennig could just give us the skinny on what would have been, if only to clear up the loose threads.
I kinda thought over the centuries Ariel kept thinking Raziel was a few different wraiths. I’m sure she’s met a lot. He never really introduced himself. I felt like she didn’t know who Raziel was until she purified The Reaver.
soo let meh get this right 🤔 wen razil absorbs ariel at the end of def. dose her soul get traped in the blade 2 or did it end up going back intu the wheel of fate 🤔 an if its the latter 1 then how??? becuz as far as im awere of the souls razeil eats are the 1s tat end up back intu the wheel of fate but not 1s he slays from the wraith blade 🤔 unless the wraith blade can spin souls 2 😮 and altho i wanna see it this way idk if id be right becuz theres nu evidance or lore stateing the reaver/wraith blades being able too send souls back intu the wheel of fate 🤔....tho i could be wrong
06:40 don't forget that when Ariel met Raziel in SR2, the events of Defiance (and BO2) were not accomodated into history yet. Ergo, what the player witnessed was their original chronological first meeting.
07:25 then again, Raziel was NOT supposed to go to the post-BO era, so their ACTUAL ORIGINAL first meeting was in SR1. So from Raziel's point of view, Ariel met him for the first time on 3 separate occasions. LoK storyline is not just a simple circle, it is a circle that keeps redrawing itself. "We haven't unwritten anything, we've merely rewritten it".
Thanks for a really interesting analysis. I'm struggling to work out how Raziel's failure to kill a future Kain in Williams Chapple created the Timeline where he met Aerial in SR1 & how it would create a slightly different version of her who would not have known Raziel. If he'd killed Kain, he still would have met Ariel when he returned to the pillars after being tricked by Mobeius in SR2, but the events of Defiance wouldn't have played out so she wouldn't have met him during their first 'chronological' meeting. Given that, she should still have remembered him - I think! I suppose the other option to consider is that she did know him but acted as though she didn't. I'm sure I'm missing something there. I asked myself this same question. Get's quite complicated lol!
They WOULD have met in SR1. (for the first and only time). Raz woulda killed Kain with her guidance.... and retired. He then doesn't do the extra time traveling to meet Ariel again in the past. No need to. So she doesn't recognize him from the past yet cuz they don't got no past yet. But SR2 paradoxes added those new events into the reaver timeline. If you buy that theory.
SR1 Ariel does not remember Raziel because she never met him before. On SR2, when they meet, its already on a different timeline after Raziel refused to kill Kain. And on defiance, is on yet another timeline, after Kain saves Raziel from the sword.
I know that Kain is a ruthless, essentially evil, character; but it's hard to imagine him not feeling guilt over Ariel's state during the centuries he rules the world. I had thought the decay of the world was enough for him to want to right the balance, but maybe that close tie with the prior Balance Guardian would be more impactful.
I am going with your theory about Ariel not remembering who Raziel is in SR1 because of the different timelines. She never appears to be aware of the manipulation of time or the importance of the Soul Reaver till the last part in Defiance and even then that is only in the way of how it can cure Kain of his corruption.
I think that in the end of Defiance, all that happened was indeed through Kain's shuffling the time lines in order to accommodate the outcomes, though one thing he may have not yet understood was of the purification of the Soul Reaver. Kain as Balance Guardian himself may have had the innate ability to correct things and in fact bring balance to everything, hence his actions on the Time Streaming device throughout time had him twist things, and even when they appeared as messed up, it was as Kain said "History realigning itself" to the changes. Since the Soul Reaver was a time spanned weapon used as a tool to mess around time SINCE Blood Omen one, and the manipulations of the Elder "god" and the Hylden/Dark Entity and Moebius, in a way Kain was basically playing a global game of chess against the forces against him, and in his realigning of time to Balance everything up, The key was as it had been since the beginning, The Soul Reaver but in this case purified by the very essence of ALL Balance Guardians themselves, including Kain. All of their spirits, and Kain in the physical world, this is also why could be alive without the Heart of Darkness, and Raziel with the Purified Soul Reaver heals Kain finally. All of the powers of the Balance Guardians together in Blade and Man/Vampire.
Good stuff overall, though i can't help but poke at a few things. I feel like it would been mentioned that there was a different balance guardian between the one murdered by Vorador and Ariel. Ariel does not remember Raziel because Defiance and SR2 were made after SR 😂 Simple as that. The timeline shifts may fit actually, but that is more accidental than intentuinal by EIdos.
She has Hela face! (Norse goddess of hell). And she's the last prison guard of Nosgoth's hell, keeping The Unspoken in check. Kain probably can't talk to her because he can't see ghosts? (Raz is a solid wraith.) That's why Raz had to introduce Kain to Elder, cuz Kain couldn't have found that mofo on his own. But come to think of it doesn't Kain see and fight LOTS of ghosts in BloodOmen? Hmmmmm.
About ghosts. I think the Elder God(EG) 'cracked' the barriers between the material realm'(world of the living) and the spectral realm(afterlife). EG is clearly a life form of the spectral realm that messed up Nosgoth's Wheel of Fate. EG not only wants to feed on the spiritual but also the physical. However the Pillars not only keep the Hyldan out but also EG. This explains more of EGs hatred of the Vampires that worships him. When Kain and the Soul Reaver became whole/purified, he was able to temporarily force manifest EG in the material world which while EG wants also makes him vulnerable to the true Soul Reaver.
But it is also possible that the first time they meet Raziel tells her "I know you well, though you not yet know me", she might remember that and understand that he doesn't know her yet. Although I do think your theory is possible. Definitely if the meetings happened in the original timeline they would have played out differently anyway.
I would not be surprised if Ariel simply lied to Raziel in the distant future and pretended not to recognize him. Maybe hoping to manipulate him and and fan the flames of his rage in order for him to exact her revenge on Kain. After all, it wouldn't be the first time she pulled something like this.
The LoK fandom remembers what others have forgotten.
You are worthy..
@@soulflame5635 And so do we all.
So Ariel was Skyler. That makes sense, that actress has a true talent interpreting a woman trapped forever into the plan of some crazy power hungry monster while at the same time being able to be as flawed as the ones that condemned her.
Nice.
That's funny how so many people don't know that Skyler was the voice of Ariel; Michael Bell who plays Drew Pickles & Chaz Finster from Rugrats; He also plays as Raziel, & Tony Jay[Mortanius, Elder God]who played Shere Kahn from Jungle Book He also played in the movie Twins as the Doctor who put the experiment together.
Seriously though? You’re right.
@@1Smoovepimp Judge Frollo from the Hunchback
@@FromBeyondTheGrave1And Rex Smythe-Higgins from Hey Arnold.
He also voiced one character in Rugrats.
Aaah the dialogues in this game❤️❤️
Flesh and bones are required to recline..taaliyaaan!!!
@@swastijain4114 It shall be our official statement for resting after a long day
@@yetneshdubey860 adds two recliners in the cart.
@@swastijain4114 subserviently goes into the kitchen to make two cups of tea
This game came out in 1999 , and i learned more about prose playing this game than my high school teacher
Wow, I had no idea that Ariel's voice actor was in Breaking Bad. That's nuts.
Same here crazy stuff
So underrated
So is The Practice.
Wait; WHAT?!?
Also in Gargoyles. She played Demona.
It could well be that she remembers, but is also aware that he won’t remember and would rather not explain that to him.
Lets all take a moment to appreciate how great all the voice actors were and how much they put in thier roles in an era where video games weren't thought of as narrative art.
Literally why I'm not wholly wanting a remake. As good as Troy Baker, Nolan North, and Yuri Lowenthal are...they're no Tony Jay, Michael Bell, and Simon Templeman.
Purely speculation but those 3 get all the good roles in VA. Maybe we'd get Jennifer Hale to cover for Anna Gunn. Assuming they recast the whole thing like remakes tend to do
Kains birth, which instantly had him become the balance guardian, was the mark in time when Ariel died. In other words, Ariels murder and the following corruption of the other guardians due to Nupraptors insanity is BO minus 30 years (30 is the age Kain reached before he was murdered in front of that inn at Mortanius' order).
Wait, hold on. If Kain was born to be guardian the moment Ariel died, surely another person would have been chosen when Kain was murdered?
I'm guessing that mortanius kept kain from crossing over and thus a new gaurdian was not selected. He is the gaurdian of death after all
@@Chlorate299 No, the Pillars choose their guardians at birth. Regardless of Ariel's murder, Kain would have still been the Balance Guardian. Just like Malek, who didn't serve as the Conflict Guardian since birth, Kain would have waited until Ariel's natural death. But since the Hylden pull off their timey-winey shenanigans, they orchestrated the entire charade to be right at the precise moment Kain was born. Thus Blood Omen is NOT the first timeline, but rather its second.
Kain said it perfectly; he was ordenaded to be Nosgoth's Guardian and Raziel to be its savior, but since both destines were changed, their fates were changed aswell.
If legacys lore is too folow she was mant to die bc raziel was only one who can choose so kain was meant to do that so kain refused the secrfice i had to do it lol. im like ultimate fan of this game saince my childhood and first part i kow every line cant wait for conferd remake
I think it's because Mortanius stopped his soul from leaving his body and thus not fully dead yet and then became a vampire since the original guardians were vampires and thus undead I think there is a loophole there.
I always thought that in order for the new guardians to be chosen the elder God had to devour the soul of the previous guardian. Thus continuing the cycle. So by kains soul being withheld he remained balance guardian despite his death at the hands of bandits.
Legacy of Kain made such an impact on me in my teens that when I watched Breaking Bad for the first time and saw Anna Gunn's name come up, I screamed "that's fucking Ariel!" Much to the chagrin and confusion of those in the room with me
I bet they were all like "the little mermaid??"
What is strange about this series is that I remember almost everything, each voice line, as if I played it yesterday.
An absolute gem of a series. Every line in the series is extremely quotable.
Likewise. That's how good this series is. Storytelling at its best.
I was obsessed with SR1 when it came out 20 years ago. I remember each voice line as well. I stayed obsessed through Defiance. Just recently picked up the game again to play.
Same!! Wow that's exactly it no one else put it into words before. I was only 12ish when I played a few games and don't even remember their name but they were HARD and had beautiful world building.
I can hear Kain speaking still in my head. His elegant criticisms of the world....Kain has always been in any media I see, a benchmark of a True Perfect Vampire. Most shows don't have vampires as cool! The dialogue still stays in my head years later and watching on RUclips doesn't hurt either!
Maybe SR1 Ariel remembers the meeting with Raziel in SR2 and just tries to manipulate him like she did with Kain
the thnig with Ariel and Raziel's encounters is that they happen in reverse order chronologically
the SR1 encounter is the one that happened last, while Defiance is where Ariel and Raziel 1st meet.
@@Teixas666 exactly. I think she remembers, but she might not really recognise him -it's been 1500 years after all and she only registered him as a demon the first time she saw him (and the second time in SR2 was very short). It is also possible that she is just pretending not to know him so he can ask her what to do.
The third option is that she remembers him, assumes he remembered her but just goes along with her speech as usual. She is a ghost after all. Ghosts are literally trapped in loops both physically and mentally.
Edit: Ariel might also understand that Raziel told her in Defiance "though you not yet know me" so she might just have understood what that implied and assumed he was the one who didn't know her late on
@@KatherinaBathory she did work with a time traveller
Realistically I think it's just a development issue with the games. SR1 had an insane amount of cut content.
@@KatherinaBathory no. Defiance and the second part of SR2 are part of a different timeline. They did actually first meet in SR1 (originally).
Legacy of Kain was such a big part of my late childhood gaming. I have such nostalgic love for the series
Not just the voiceacting but the entire series should never be forgotten instead. Do much depth, philosophy, tragedy and darkness in a short series of only 5 official games... I am still hooked since the day when I played Bloodomen 1 on the PS1 😁
Great video & I am with you: The tortured soul of Ariel seems unlikely to have suffered memoryloss. Didn't even came to my mind yet 🤔
Literally my favourite character moments from the series is seeing Ariel's demeanour change throughout time. From the "spirit guide" in Blood Omen, to the ancient tortured soul in Soul Reaver to the scared girl in SR2 to the sassy "ye go die with Vorador for all I care, I got my shit together here, I'm totally in control, everything will work out just right..." in Defience
Tony Jay was the voice in the Spiderman TAS (1996), his voice is so distinctive.
Tony Jay was also on Hey Arnold and Rugrats and Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
WE REALLY DO NEED A REMASTER/REMAKE AND NEW GAME
WITH ALL THE CUT CONTENT
Remaster, if they remake it they would hire new voices and ruin the already fine story.
@@xandan1668 God I'd love a "remaster" of theoriginal Blood Omen.
I would imagine it being done in a new game engine (simillar to the Hades one, came out recently a nice game), but with the old Voice Acting (or reconstruction of it somehow, for legal reasons).
Glad you mentioned the superb voice acting in the LOK series, some of the finest to date in any game, would love this series to continue.
I didn't expect another part but I am glad. Now the only important characters left are Janos Audron, Vorador and Mortanius. Then again you could also do one long video about the other guardians, the Nemesis and maybe even King Othmar
Many more LOK vids to come :) Next up is the brothers.
@@strictlyfantasy great! I'll be waiting eagerly!
Vorador and King Othmar/Nemesis would be pretty interesting. I really enjoy that so many years after this series people meet up on the net and talk about it's deeper meanings. Back in the days I had only one or two people to talk about this stuff, no one else really recognized the series that much 😐
(I am posting from Germany, especially the Bloodomen-parts haven't been that well known here; Soulreaver 1 was probably the best known of LoK).
I'm working on one for janous. The hidden tenth guardian the reason the pillars don't completely fall in ruin from human rule but rather nosgoth falls with the circle
@@jackmakmorn I'm german too
Another character Study!!
Thank you so much! ❤️
I'm just waking up and my day already became better
I suspect that Ariel is a bit like Dr. Strange in the Avengers. She alone truly understands how to unravel the time loop and does everything she can to make it happen in the end. If she has to play ignorant with Raziel, she will. If she has to manipulate Kane through time to make him do what's necessary, she will.
I always find myself rewatching these videos, excellent work my friend 🔥🔥
I agree
Indeed, it's not lack of memory, the SR1 future Ariel couldn't remember the meeting with Raziel in Defiance, because in SR1 timeline, Raziel is absorbed by the sword so the meeting never happens, possibly the same can be said of the meeting in SR2, because that is also a different timeline than the SR1, one where Kain doesn't die in William's Chapel.
"Those blinded by rage are by destiny ensnared".
It wasn't lack of options, but blind rage that made me take up the reaver"
It was a warning of the finale of soul reaver 2.
Excellent analysis!! There exists some original design art from silicon knights, and it shows Ariel being stabbed in the back. Your idea that her corpse was possibly mutilated after her death(stabbed in the eye, face partially skinned), transferring that same disfigurement to her soul is all the more tragic. Hope you do one more for Mortanius. He and Vorador were my favorites back in the day.
I think her disfigurement is symbolic, it represents her hate, grief and her clouded judgement. Every time we see Ariel her single minded obsession with Kain is obvious, she never even stops to question the actions of the other guardians that led to her death and how Kain has been played by them too, she's convinced killing him will magically solve all problems when not only does she not have any evidence for that, but it's clear that Kain's and her enemies have made plans for that eventuality too.
When we see her at the spirit forge she sounds like she's had an epiphany and finally sees the whole picture.
I'm no expert, but maybe the reason why Ariel doesn't remember earlier encounters with Raziel is because as she is trapped at the pillars as a special balance guardian soul, thus her being also cast out from the wheel of fate makes her immune to timeline shift changes like Raziel and Moebius.
Raziel is outside the wheel for being a wraith, he is outside of time change influence.
Ariel is outside the wheel for being a ghost trapped in the material real at the pillars, she is also outside of time change influence.
Moebius just has special privileges TWO FOLD due to being both a time guardian and a pawn of the Elder God.
So Ariel doesn't remember Raziel because she can or has to experience timeline changes linearly as they happen, just like Raziel or Moebius, not retroactively like Kain and everyone else.
the reason why Ariel doesnt seem to remembers the encounterwith Raziel is simpler than that.
Its because they happen out of order. it's in DEfiance she 1st meets Raziel and Sr1 was the latest encounter with him.
6:40 that is obviously because the developers at the time were planning for the game to be released alone, with raziel absorbing ariel then killing kain in soul reaver 1
I am glad that Soul Reaver's development was such a clusterfuck. The game we were supposed to get would be entirely forgettable, compared to the lore of the 3 games that followed
@@TheKyrix82 I agree, but for some reason I couldn't get through all of SR2 that game really agitated me. I don't remember why since it was so long ago. Blood Omen 2 was pretty bad as well but the other three games were fantastic.
I really like how Soul Reaver's cut content is accounted for in the future games. I actually think it's far more interesting for Raziel to meet Ariel in the past, unintentionally invalidating her future claim that she “remembers what others forget” by the mechanism that history is rearranged. It adds a layer of irony when you replay SR1 only to hear her say that and know she isn't *wrong* when she said it, but the player knows that this is retroactively false.
It's really well reasoned, poetic, and illustrates the way time works in this series while embodying the theme of characters having their beliefs destroyed. The thing I love most about this series is that it's full of characters that have their assumptions challenged and disproven, especially Raziel. Undermining Ariel's only claim to knowledge is very fit for a series where you're constantly finding new information that challenges your own assumptions about the truth.
Keep up the phenomenal work my friend!
I have been loving all of these character studies, thank you for doing them
Gotta love Raziels dance stance during his in game dialogue 😂
This was great! I learned quite a few new details about Ariel!
So cool that as I played this game again this weekend you were getting ready to upload this video.
I love Ariel's character. Something that I had never considered was that Anna Gunn was the voice actor! I never would have guessed that detail. Thanks for the video
I take the way Ariel acts towards Raziel as more of her hiding just how much she knows like she first did with Kain, and possibly some genuine surprise/shock at seeing him so many times. Think about it, if she started with the fact that she already knew Raziel, he definitely wouldn't have trusted her at all. The timeline shenanigans also makes perfect sense and I could see a combination of the two also being the case.
That all said, I do like that they changed her death to Raziel into something much more gentle. She honestly deserved it after everything she went through and I think it shows a lot about both the way the timelines have changed, and how Raziel had grown throughout the series.
When the dialogues start in this game you listen and nothing else its so good
My favourite dialogues in any series of games.
Great point about Ariel meeting Raziel earlier...but that comes to the question on which time loop we're on vs new ones being made. I'm obsessed with the Terminator franchise and even that is easier to keep track of than this mixed up timestream!
I'd like to thank you for introducing me to this series. Though since I have learned of the series I have wondered about two things from the series in regards to the guardians.
1-If the guardians are born the moment the guardian dies shouldn't a new one have been born when kain was slain? We see in in sr2 that the pillars corrupt instantly and kain makes it clear he is born the same second ariel dies.
2-Why were no other guardians ever selected? shouldn't a whole host of new guardians have been born from kain killing the old ones?
If these answered in the game that's my error, I've not had the luxury to play the games yet.
Hmm, let me see if I can try to explain how I see it.
Kain is corrupted much like the other guardians. In order to restore their pillars, they must die and a token of their respective pillar (such as Azimuth’s Third Eye Pendent, or Mortanius’s Death Orb) must be brought to it in order to restore it. Kain was killed, but nothing of his to represent his pillar was brought to it. As the Guardian of Balance, perhaps new guardians can’t be born if the Balance Pillar is corrupted. The others may be restored, but only temporarily, and may fall to corruption once more.
As long as Kain lives, no new guardians can be born. As long as the Balance Pillar is corrupted, even if the other pillars are restored, no new guardians are born. The Pillar of Balance is the key to it all.
I hope that makes sense? I can elaborate more if need be. This game series is a big part of my childhood, and the lore to it is forever ingrained in my brain.
I guess that makes sense as I know bo1 makes a big deal of the items you get from killing the pillar guardians though if it takes the item being placed before a new guardian can be born that still leaves kain as the odd one out unless Ariel's killer took an item of hers and had it at the pillar within milliseconds of her dying. But that just seems unlikely or outright impossible unless she was killed at the pillars.
@@kylepeters8690 The tokens were needed when the Pillars were corrupted. When Ariel died, the pillars were still whole. What corrupted them was Nupraptor finding her dead and plunging into madness, corrupting all of the other guardians, including Kain.
In Kain's own words: "At the moment of my first cry, Ariel’s beloved - the Guardian Nupraptor - finds her corpse.
Wracked with grief and tormented by suspicions of treachery, Nupraptor plunges into a madness which overflows and infects all of the Guardians, who are symbiotically bound. Including me."
Ah, okay that makes more sense. Okay, thank you
The pillars stopped functioning when they corroded, so no new circle members are being chosen. The sorcerors could still do their magics, but their pillars were no longer.... whirring? The planet wasn't being regulated properly anymore. (the Decay in the SR1 era). This remains Kain's problem even now-- how to get the pillar system up and running again without killing himself to restore the final pillar (his own). The purifying done at the end of Defiance sets him up to get the job done at last.
Awesome video! Awesome channel! Happy Christmas!🙂☃️🎄👍
Given Kain had made the pillars his seat of power and the balance pillar his literal throne would lead Ariel a front row seat to seeing things and to know that the vampire raziel was somehow the same as the wraith that had twice visited her, and that she would have seen kain's de-winging of him and ordered execution as moment of realization that somehow this raziel would become the wraith that had met her before, so she had to guide him since he SOMEHOW would end up in the past and thus might be able to undo all this before she's ever bound.
Would have been interesting if they had gone through with a blood omen game set thirty or so years before the first legacy of kain and had kain prevent Ariel's murder.
Causality would prevent this.
Ariel's Murder will happen no matter what, its a situation of " if you prevent this event then you delete the reason why you had ot travel back in time ot begin with hence making this event inevitable."
to be mroe proecise removing Ariel's Muder would unravel the time stream since this would remove , Kain, Raziel, Janos and potentially the soul reaver itself.
@@Teixas666 Except by that point Kain is a walking paradox and even without that he can always go ensure the soul reaver from that time is at the sanctuary where Ariel is at (rather than carry on his person as the pressure of a nexus event seems to cause a virtigo like effect on the mind.)
Unlikely, but an amusing idea on how to just flip the table over completely and negate Blood Omen 2.
She'd have to be manifested in the physical realm to see any if that go down.
Also think of Ariel's awareness at the soul forge like that of the elder gods, who sees thru all time but as you said able to see multiple timelines.
The thing about her line about remembering what others forgot is just implying she will remind the player what to do should he or she forget.
Since it was her role as guide in Blood Omen. Though it does feel odd in hindsight. I'm sure the developers didn't expect the series to go as far as it did by that point.
Had to subscribe now. Love these games and your recent upload gave me all the reason I needed to do so
Would be pretty cool if this got made into a series on tv
+1, great work and a fantastic playlist to listen through.
I want a remake of this serie. These games deserve an HD remake.
Yes. I totally think she is summoned from the "future" to the spirit forge, too!!
Keep making these they’re great.
Love watching your content on legacy of kain.. one of my all time favourite game series.. I don't see a character study on Vorador, either I missed it or you haven't done one, if it is the later then could I request that you cover Vorador please.. ✌🏻
"What if you flip a coin so much that one day it lands on it's side"
Thrice born raziel gives rise to the thrice born(reborn) kain
@dorothydreams oftornadoes not such a waste when it literally changes the history, past and future, of the world...
@dorothydreams oftornadoes eaons. That's what is alluded to at least. The elder god created a timeline completely corrupted and counted on the loop to last forever and that is what the scion of balance (kain and raziel combined) is up against. An eternity of lies... That's the work of the new eon of horus, to right thousands of years of ignorance and deception...
“Enough times”
EDGE
"But suppose you throw a coin enough times... suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
I always figured(ignoring the cursed development of the franchise) that she did remember him in sr1 and 2 and was doing some 4d chess to send him in the right direction
Which if you take defiance into account implies there's at least one more encounter between them even further back
The Entire Legacy Of Kain Franchise needs to be remade
Nooooo! Unless Amy Hennig was at the helm, the series would be destroyed. That's not even the biggest issue... NOBODY would be able to replicate Tony Jay. The only man with that much bass in their voice is James Earl Jones and even then, people would joke that Darth Vader was the Elder God. lol
I'd be for a remaster though @60fps!
@@alexsmith6914There’s Corey Burton who did really well.
Ariel Spent 1000 years in the pillars, she can have easily forgotten those first 2 encounters.
Also curious of the vision in Soul Reaver. It's explained in Defiance as the purification of the Soul Reaver. However, that timeline as it was wouldn't of included Raziel ever purifying the blade.
The lOK games from soul reaver-defiance are Hands down the most well written and best acted games ever.
Thanks for your work.
Maybe she's just following the Temporal Prime Directive. lol. Only half joking. She was the Balance Guardian. Overseeing the Time Guardian was one of her duties. She likely understood just enough about Time Travel to know how badly she could eff things up if she said the wrong thing to Raziel and sent him down the wrong path. So she played dumb. He wasn't ready to know the things she knew yet. It wasn't time.
Love your videos. Can't wait for more
I both want and fear a remake or continuation to the story.
Side note- I like your theory about Ariel's memory. It's better than the "wibblly wobbly timey wimey we didn't plan that far" likelihood.
I know I'm late to the party but I've been doing a dive into LoK lore for a D&D campaign I'm running, with the cleansing of thePillars as a focus.
Great channel of content
I've always wondered if Mobius was the one who manipulated a romance between Ariel and Nupraptor knowing what was going to happen
I think it's plausible Ariel's memory becomes faulty. I'm reminded of doctor who, when Rory pledges to protect the Pandorica for two millenia as an auton, and the doctor tries to dissuade him, stating "You'll be conscious for every second of it, you'll go mad".
Thank you very much for this Sir!!! LoK will never die! :)
It could be said that Anna Gunn has the dulcet tones of an angel with regards to her portrayal of Ariel.
I suggested it and here it is thank you👍
Loved it
I feel nothing but pity in my heart for the spectre of the murdered Balance Guardian, Ariel, for setting Kain up to slaughter the remaining members of the Circle and reveal the truth that Kain was her successor and the inevitable Balance Guardianship duty bestowed to him by the Pillars itself. What a beautiful woman she was, and her story was very tragic indeed.
Killed it in this video man!
Thank you
girl YES!!
If you notice Ariel's conversations with raziel are always like it's the first time she met with him. I think the whole spectral realm being frozen in time plays with this idea because spirits are not aware of their time and place. Only what they once knew and of the present. The games play with this notion where you hear wailing and screaming of souls in the spectral realm. They have no idea of time and place they are just existing with fragmented memories of their lives.
Kind of reminds me of the first game... where dead prisoners come back as ghosts who still believe they are helplessly chained up to the walls.
Since balance guardian sounds like a necessary executioner of sorts, I wonder how Ariel (Hebrew for "Lion of God") used her mortal powers for combat, or just relied on basic white magic and divination, as well as anything connecting her to the time guardian Nuptraptor (whose name is something along the lines of Nup French for "marrying" and raptor, like in velociraptor, is Latin for "seized plunderer" so do with what you want with that info) that would assist in her own duties as the Lioness of Balance.
Nupraptor is the Guardian of Mind.
Yeah we know that it's just funny he like other characters and locations in this game have made up names. Like Mortainius and Moebius have names relating to their pillar, and even Dejoule's name is in reference to joules, but who tf came up with Nupraptor???
It's likely that she does remember meeting Raziel in the SR1 era, but her blind rage at Kain and her horror at being possibly trapped for an eternity has caused to simply ignore some memories while focusing on those that increase her hatred and despair. Like after centuries of being bound in one place and seeing the years go by with untold amounts of monsters, vampires and humans passing by, Raziel just became another face in the crowd by the time they meet again.
I always figured there was just the one timeline, but things can reshuffle and even be entirely removed/added depending on the paradoxes and their causes. For Ariel, I thought perhaps it was a case of her just not knowing who or what he was in SR2, only coming to realize who he was later in the SR1 era due to witnessing the former vampire's unlife beside Kain. While it does still leave a bit of a hole with Raziel technically having his "first" meeting with her in Defiance, it could be a case of the alterations made to the timeline due to Kain delaying Raziel's imprisonment within the Reaver, which in turn could mean that in the post-BO1 era where Raziel finds her at the pillars, she would know him or at least recall seeing such a creature. It's also possible that she was still reeling from Kain's betrayal after Blood Omen, making her briefly forget the Wraith had once spoken to her shortly before. Obviously, there's a lot about the way the timeline works that we never got, and probably never will. Sometimes, I do kind of wish Amy Hennig could just give us the skinny on what would have been, if only to clear up the loose threads.
Such a cool character background
And now imagine somebody shoots the Legacy of Kain series and Anna plays Ariel! My brain goes boom!
I kinda thought over the centuries Ariel kept thinking Raziel was a few different wraiths. I’m sure she’s met a lot. He never really introduced himself. I felt like she didn’t know who Raziel was until she purified The Reaver.
amazing videos!
I really enjoy the story during the game💕💕💕💕💕
soo let meh get this right 🤔 wen razil absorbs ariel at the end of def. dose her soul get traped in the blade 2 or did it end up going back intu the wheel of fate 🤔 an if its the latter 1 then how??? becuz as far as im awere of the souls razeil eats are the 1s tat end up back intu the wheel of fate but not 1s he slays from the wraith blade 🤔 unless the wraith blade can spin souls 2 😮 and altho i wanna see it this way idk if id be right becuz theres nu evidance or lore stateing the reaver/wraith blades being able too send souls back intu the wheel of fate 🤔....tho i could be wrong
Can we get a remaster of Blood Omen
06:40 don't forget that when Ariel met Raziel in SR2, the events of Defiance (and BO2) were not accomodated into history yet. Ergo, what the player witnessed was their original chronological first meeting.
07:25 then again, Raziel was NOT supposed to go to the post-BO era, so their ACTUAL ORIGINAL first meeting was in SR1. So from Raziel's point of view, Ariel met him for the first time on 3 separate occasions. LoK storyline is not just a simple circle, it is a circle that keeps redrawing itself.
"We haven't unwritten anything, we've merely rewritten it".
Thanks for a really interesting analysis. I'm struggling to work out how Raziel's failure to kill a future Kain in Williams Chapple created the Timeline where he met Aerial in SR1 & how it would create a slightly different version of her who would not have known Raziel. If he'd killed Kain, he still would have met Ariel when he returned to the pillars after being tricked by Mobeius in SR2, but the events of Defiance wouldn't have played out so she wouldn't have met him during their first 'chronological' meeting. Given that, she should still have remembered him - I think! I suppose the other option to consider is that she did know him but acted as though she didn't. I'm sure I'm missing something there. I asked myself this same question. Get's quite complicated lol!
They WOULD have met in SR1. (for the first and only time). Raz woulda killed Kain with her guidance.... and retired. He then doesn't do the extra time traveling to meet Ariel again in the past. No need to. So she doesn't recognize him from the past yet cuz they don't got no past yet. But SR2 paradoxes added those new events into the reaver timeline. If you buy that theory.
My favorite part of the game is when kain talks about the coin
SR1 Ariel does not remember Raziel because she never met him before.
On SR2, when they meet, its already on a different timeline after Raziel refused to kill Kain.
And on defiance, is on yet another timeline, after Kain saves Raziel from the sword.
Thank you. Didn't want to type that out on my xbox.
Tony Jay will be missed....
I know that Kain is a ruthless, essentially evil, character; but it's hard to imagine him not feeling guilt over Ariel's state during the centuries he rules the world. I had thought the decay of the world was enough for him to want to right the balance, but maybe that close tie with the prior Balance Guardian would be more impactful.
I don’t think Kain is evil.
He did do bad things, but it was to save vampires, save Nosgoth, resurrect the pillars, and fight the true enemy.
I am going with your theory about Ariel not remembering who Raziel is in SR1 because of the different timelines. She never appears to be aware of the manipulation of time or the importance of the Soul Reaver till the last part in Defiance and even then that is only in the way of how it can cure Kain of his corruption.
hylden lord very smart !
I think that in the end of Defiance, all that happened was indeed through Kain's shuffling the time lines in order to accommodate the outcomes, though one thing he may have not yet understood was of the purification of the Soul Reaver. Kain as Balance Guardian himself may have had the innate ability to correct things and in fact bring balance to everything, hence his actions on the Time Streaming device throughout time had him twist things, and even when they appeared as messed up, it was as Kain said "History realigning itself" to the changes. Since the Soul Reaver was a time spanned weapon used as a tool to mess around time SINCE Blood Omen one, and the manipulations of the Elder "god" and the Hylden/Dark Entity and Moebius, in a way Kain was basically playing a global game of chess against the forces against him, and in his realigning of time to Balance everything up, The key was as it had been since the beginning, The Soul Reaver but in this case purified by the very essence of ALL Balance Guardians themselves, including Kain. All of their spirits, and Kain in the physical world, this is also why could be alive without the Heart of Darkness, and Raziel with the Purified Soul Reaver heals Kain finally. All of the powers of the Balance Guardians together in Blade and Man/Vampire.
You really have to wonder what Ariel saw in ol' pumpkin head, Nupraptor.
Guess she was sapiosexual.
He was 30 years younger when she was with him. I think he was twisted by his own corruption.
@@wareforcoin5780 I hadn't considered that. I sure hope it was his madness that turned him into what we saw in BO1.
That poor girl. I always felt sympathy for her character.
I used to feel bad, but she was a little shifty not telling Kain he had to kill himself at the end.
Same here.
Good stuff overall, though i can't help but poke at a few things.
I feel like it would been mentioned that there was a different balance guardian between the one murdered by Vorador and Ariel.
Ariel does not remember Raziel because Defiance and SR2 were made after SR 😂 Simple as that. The timeline shifts may fit actually, but that is more accidental than intentuinal by EIdos.
RIP: Tony Jay (Elder God) & Rene Auberjonois (Janos Audron) :'(
And Paul Lukathor, voice of Vorador.
I still think this story is good enough to be a animated series or movie.
These Lok videos are gold👏. Do you have a Patreon?
What is the soundtrack that starts at about 10:00? It’s one of the most calming tracks I’ve ever heard.
💖
Time loops are never easily reconciled.
Who can blame kain, she lied to him, everyone lied to him.
I would have avenged myself for sure.Kain make sense and this is why we love him.
Ok, but on the flip side, the last thing Kain ever did without an ulterior motive was die outside the tavern where he could more easily be cleaned up.
She has Hela face! (Norse goddess of hell). And she's the last prison guard of Nosgoth's hell, keeping The Unspoken in check.
Kain probably can't talk to her because he can't see ghosts? (Raz is a solid wraith.) That's why Raz had to introduce Kain to Elder, cuz Kain couldn't have found that mofo on his own. But come to think of it doesn't Kain see and fight LOTS of ghosts in BloodOmen? Hmmmmm.
About ghosts. I think the Elder God(EG) 'cracked' the barriers between the material realm'(world of the living) and the spectral realm(afterlife). EG is clearly a life form of the spectral realm that messed up Nosgoth's Wheel of Fate. EG not only wants to feed on the spiritual but also the physical. However the Pillars not only keep the Hyldan out but also EG. This explains more of EGs hatred of the Vampires that worships him. When Kain and the Soul Reaver became whole/purified, he was able to temporarily force manifest EG in the material world which while EG wants also makes him vulnerable to the true Soul Reaver.
But it is also possible that the first time they meet Raziel tells her "I know you well, though you not yet know me", she might remember that and understand that he doesn't know her yet.
Although I do think your theory is possible. Definitely if the meetings happened in the original timeline they would have played out differently anyway.
I would not be surprised if Ariel simply lied to Raziel in the distant future and pretended not to recognize him. Maybe hoping to manipulate him and and fan the flames of his rage in order for him to exact her revenge on Kain. After all, it wouldn't be the first time she pulled something like this.