In brief: Potemkin is a former slave who helped assist in a democratic revolution in his native country, and currently is part of his country's elite presidential guard. Despite his appearance, he's actually a pretty thoughtful guy who detests violence, but as you can probably tell he is very, *very* good at violence when it becomes necessary. His song is to a large extent about his personal doubts about his country, the revolution he helped start, and all the difficulties that come with trying to build a better future. He is well aware of the fact that some of the things he does are morally questionable at best, but it is all in service of creating a world where such things will no longer be necessary.
The reason for Potemkins appearance is due to a genetic disorder that causes his muscles to grow infinitely. He's actually wearing a bunch of limiters because without them he could easily blow away the entire world many times over at this point. When he was younger he was strong enough to destroy mountains and that's when he and his country decided the limiters would be necessary lol. Even with them on his physical strength is unparalleled compared to other humans, which is impressive cuz even normal humans in this series are capable of insane feats. The only pure human perhaps stronger than him is his best friend and leader, Gabriel, who is so strong that the most powerful character in the series, a vampire named Slayer who is constantly holding back whenever he fights, considers him a worthy rival Edit with some additional info: Even with Potemkins extreme strength and battle skills he struggles to feel worthy in a world with so many extremely powerful enemies to face. In the game before Strive he took some humiliating losses to Ramlethal and Bedman, and some people think those losses influence this song too.
@@geraldthegoose1685 yeah Gabriel trashed Bedman in Xrd lol. Bedman didn't take him seriously enough and got caught for it, altho it still ended up working in Bedmans favor in the end
Armor-clad faith sounds like a holy knight kind of thing, but Potemkin is a Buddhist so instead of a proud declaration of unshakeable fervor, it's a paradox. I think the imagery of this song is describing his backstory more than his present circumstances. As a slave in the flying empire of Zepp, he sees the injustice, inequality, and cruelty of the country he lives in. Although all of that is morally repugnant to him, as a Buddhist he tries to remain detached, knowing that suffering is the nature of Samsara (one day all will rot away). But his compassion (all I do is embrace the wounded soul) still makes him want to do something about it, and that's why when Gabriel (the big nose guy in the video) offers him the opportunity to spearhead a revolution and end the system that enslaved him, he puts aside his pacifist ideals and takes him up on it, preferring to damage his own karma through violence than allow others to suffer. EDIT: oh and btw he's named after the Russian battleship Potemkin, which is famous for being the site of a mutiny during the Russo-Japanese War, as a protest against that war. Rising against your masters and fighting to end fighting is this character's whole deal, so he took that name (as a slave, he didn't have a name, just a number. In the earlier games he was shirtless and you could see it tattooed on his arm as a barcode)
If I'm not wrong the country where Potemkin's from originally split off from India , so that might be why they used Sitars at the start of the song and why Nirvana keeps getting referenced
It's not so much that it split off from India as it is heavily based off India. Zepp has the aesthetics of the Soviet Union and culturally resembles India, especially India's caste system which is the slavery he revolts against. In Strive Potemkin also increasingly references Hinduism - you can see some Hindi imagery in his super, Heavenly Potemkin Buster, as well as the sitar part of his theme.
I really like Pot theme overall, but I REALLY like the lines at the end. "I'm a fool, may be worthless, But this world created my faith, So all I do is stay hopeful and pray." I actually reminds me a lot of the Charles Bukowski quote. “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Pot himself says he's not sure if what he's doing is right, but getting paralyzed with self-doubt is bad, so he just hopes he's doing the right thing and moves forwards regardless. It's a great message people filled with doubts. Thanks Pot theme for legitimately giving me a better outlook on life.
So Potemkin was born in an authoritarian, oppresive country. He's a mutant with absurd strength (like "punch a skyscraper into dust" strength). He was enslaved with power limiters (all the metal stuff he wears) and forced to serve in the military. Thing is, he's a very thoughtful and peaceful man who enjoys meditating and painting and hates fighting. He became the right hand man of a guy who led a revolution to overthrow the oppressive state and established a democratic, egalitarian society. Now he fights to protect it, but he's wracked with self-doubt and worries that all the fighting makes things worse, but he has faith and hope that it will all lead to a better world. He's my favorite Guilty Gear character and is also, imo, really fun to play in Strive.
The power of music relies on rising and falling actions. Dillon Goo explains (when refering to animation but can still apply) that building suspense makes the impact hit harder. Therefore, even this song needs its own peaceful "nirvana" before the "discord" can preside.
Potemkin as a character is one of the most conflicted guys in Guilty Gear. Born into the fictional militaristic slave state of Zepp (which apparently encompasses most of India and its surrounding middle east asian territory), he spearheaded a revolution with his mentor figure, Gabriel, who then became president of the liberated Nation of Zepp. The two worked together and even got their country officially acknowledged as an independent nation by the World President. But over the course of this revolution, Potemkin was basically weaponized as a one-man-army. He despises conflict, and prefers diplomatic solutions over fighting, but acknowledges that this is idealism at its finest. He's also filled with doubt, questioning the progression of Zepp and its continued focus in military prowess, despite wanting to end exactly that. This internal struggle has him question his very purpose, but because he has no answer, he hides himself behind the purpose he is given and does as he is told - he fights for his people, and under direct orders from Gabriel. This lack of conviction is not lost on the rest of the cast. Several other characters call him out on it, telling him that he cannot hope to win a fight he doesn't believe in and that he needs to find exactly that if he wants to really understand what kind of freedom he is actually looking for. As a little bit of insight to the hype behind him: back when his Strive reveal was first shown, we only got the intro, the main chorus, and a part of the followup. This led to a metric ton of "we live in a society" jokes, which was only made worse (or better, depending on your view) with people mishearing the intro as "I'm a clown of fate". Thus the memes went straight to Joker references, and the song itself was even titled "Society" by most fans before the official name drop. Some people still call it that today, simply because it's funnier.
I like to think the more light, softer prts are a mix of his desire for peace in the midst of all of his fighting and a fun little representation of his anti air grab super everyone known him for, Heavenly Potemkin Buster, where he just. Snatches someone out of the air, throws them on his back, launches himself and them into the air with fucking rocket boots, and slams back down, doing a TON of damage.
It was actually very interesting for a Russian to find a Japanese made char with Russian name. Potemkin’s name is actually a reference to real ironclad Potemkin (named after a duke Potemkin, who organized Russian Black sea fleet and Crimean territory during rule of Ekaterina II), that revolt at 1905 against the current situation at Russian Empire and lead to February and October revolution. His whole story is pretty similar to history of this uprising and it is very cool. Potemkin is based and I love him!
Potemkin is from Zepp, an airship fleet nation that broke away from India to become a bastion for banned technology after the international community banned most 90s technology. However, Zepp pursued such progress regardless of ethical implications, with eugenics, slavery, and human experimentation playing parts in Zepp society and one of the slaves would end up a very powerful soldier: Potemkin. Potemkin, however, detests violence and is instead a creative and gentle soul, enjoying the arts like painting and writing (though his monstrous strength sometimes gets in the way), but as a slave had no choice in the matter. That is, until his superior officer, Gabriel, gave him his freedom and offered a position in his planned revolution to turn Zepp into a democracy. Despite Potemkin's desiring of more spiritual and creative endeavors, he wanted to use his strength to help whoever he can and eliminate slavery and joined in. Now Potemkin is one of the heads of Zepp's military, and despite his spiritual near-enlightenment and views on the ways existence is, his pull to still use his strength to help however he can still keeps him grounded in the world. Zepp may be one of the more democratic nations in the world now, but the spectors of its past and continued disparity of power shows there's still much more work to be done. In previous games he had to even wear his slave gear just to keep his monstrous strength under control, and his current military garb and heavy, almost cybernetic, elements probably fill a similar role, on top of being weapons he can use to in battle to keep up with the rest of the cast that are using magic and supernatural abilities. His previous themes, In Slave's Glory and Burly Heart, rank among some of the best in the series. Would highly recommend them.
Oh hey the funni grab man song. Okay but jokes aside, Armorclad Faith is a really good look into Pot's inner thoughts on the world and himself. He knows the world is messed up and that his own actions make him a hypocrite, but its all he knows so he's sticking to his guns hence the "Armorclad Faith". He's a hypocritical clown, but he's hoping his actions will lead to a better world.
Please listen to Forever lost by myth & roid, its from the same anime song you did a break down on called hanezeve caradhina, its not the same singer but it absolutely will not disappoint.
@niceflower9408 @iphonz1137 @ivanyy Fascism is derived from national socialism, of which the end goal, like all socialist ideologies, is communism. Anti-fascism and anti-communism are ideologically the same.
In brief: Potemkin is a former slave who helped assist in a democratic revolution in his native country, and currently is part of his country's elite presidential guard. Despite his appearance, he's actually a pretty thoughtful guy who detests violence, but as you can probably tell he is very, *very* good at violence when it becomes necessary. His song is to a large extent about his personal doubts about his country, the revolution he helped start, and all the difficulties that come with trying to build a better future. He is well aware of the fact that some of the things he does are morally questionable at best, but it is all in service of creating a world where such things will no longer be necessary.
The reason for Potemkins appearance is due to a genetic disorder that causes his muscles to grow infinitely. He's actually wearing a bunch of limiters because without them he could easily blow away the entire world many times over at this point. When he was younger he was strong enough to destroy mountains and that's when he and his country decided the limiters would be necessary lol. Even with them on his physical strength is unparalleled compared to other humans, which is impressive cuz even normal humans in this series are capable of insane feats. The only pure human perhaps stronger than him is his best friend and leader, Gabriel, who is so strong that the most powerful character in the series, a vampire named Slayer who is constantly holding back whenever he fights, considers him a worthy rival
Edit with some additional info: Even with Potemkins extreme strength and battle skills he struggles to feel worthy in a world with so many extremely powerful enemies to face. In the game before Strive he took some humiliating losses to Ramlethal and Bedman, and some people think those losses influence this song too.
Iirc didn't Gabriel not only teach Potemkin fighting moves but also fought the original bedman and win
@@geraldthegoose1685 yeah Gabriel trashed Bedman in Xrd lol. Bedman didn't take him seriously enough and got caught for it, altho it still ended up working in Bedmans favor in the end
Everybody originally misheard the lyrics as I'M A CLOWN OF FATE which is fantastic.
Armor-clad faith sounds like a holy knight kind of thing, but Potemkin is a Buddhist so instead of a proud declaration of unshakeable fervor, it's a paradox.
I think the imagery of this song is describing his backstory more than his present circumstances. As a slave in the flying empire of Zepp, he sees the injustice, inequality, and cruelty of the country he lives in. Although all of that is morally repugnant to him, as a Buddhist he tries to remain detached, knowing that suffering is the nature of Samsara (one day all will rot away). But his compassion (all I do is embrace the wounded soul) still makes him want to do something about it, and that's why when Gabriel (the big nose guy in the video) offers him the opportunity to spearhead a revolution and end the system that enslaved him, he puts aside his pacifist ideals and takes him up on it, preferring to damage his own karma through violence than allow others to suffer.
EDIT: oh and btw he's named after the Russian battleship Potemkin, which is famous for being the site of a mutiny during the Russo-Japanese War, as a protest against that war. Rising against your masters and fighting to end fighting is this character's whole deal, so he took that name (as a slave, he didn't have a name, just a number. In the earlier games he was shirtless and you could see it tattooed on his arm as a barcode)
Hindu
what was he named in the previous games
If I'm not wrong the country where Potemkin's from originally split off from India , so that might be why they used Sitars at the start of the song and why Nirvana keeps getting referenced
It's not so much that it split off from India as it is heavily based off India. Zepp has the aesthetics of the Soviet Union and culturally resembles India, especially India's caste system which is the slavery he revolts against. In Strive Potemkin also increasingly references Hinduism - you can see some Hindi imagery in his super, Heavenly Potemkin Buster, as well as the sitar part of his theme.
@@FalseHeraldadditionally like, literally saying Nirvana suddenly with India's ties to Buddhism
I really like Pot theme overall, but I REALLY like the lines at the end. "I'm a fool, may be worthless, But this world created my faith, So all I do is stay hopeful and pray." I actually reminds me a lot of the Charles Bukowski quote. “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Pot himself says he's not sure if what he's doing is right, but getting paralyzed with self-doubt is bad, so he just hopes he's doing the right thing and moves forwards regardless. It's a great message people filled with doubts. Thanks Pot theme for legitimately giving me a better outlook on life.
So Potemkin was born in an authoritarian, oppresive country. He's a mutant with absurd strength (like "punch a skyscraper into dust" strength). He was enslaved with power limiters (all the metal stuff he wears) and forced to serve in the military. Thing is, he's a very thoughtful and peaceful man who enjoys meditating and painting and hates fighting. He became the right hand man of a guy who led a revolution to overthrow the oppressive state and established a democratic, egalitarian society. Now he fights to protect it, but he's wracked with self-doubt and worries that all the fighting makes things worse, but he has faith and hope that it will all lead to a better world. He's my favorite Guilty Gear character and is also, imo, really fun to play in Strive.
The power of music relies on rising and falling actions. Dillon Goo explains (when refering to animation but can still apply) that building suspense makes the impact hit harder.
Therefore, even this song needs its own peaceful "nirvana" before the "discord" can preside.
I love this song so much, goddamn. I will listen to it until the end of time. Great reaction and analysis!
The first Strive song I heard way back from before the game came out. Another banger and one of my favs. Love the heavy tracks
YEAHEHAHHH GUILTY GEAR FRIDAY, I ALWAYS LOOK FORWARD TO THIS
Potemkin as a character is one of the most conflicted guys in Guilty Gear.
Born into the fictional militaristic slave state of Zepp (which apparently encompasses most of India and its surrounding middle east asian territory), he spearheaded a revolution with his mentor figure, Gabriel, who then became president of the liberated Nation of Zepp. The two worked together and even got their country officially acknowledged as an independent nation by the World President.
But over the course of this revolution, Potemkin was basically weaponized as a one-man-army. He despises conflict, and prefers diplomatic solutions over fighting, but acknowledges that this is idealism at its finest. He's also filled with doubt, questioning the progression of Zepp and its continued focus in military prowess, despite wanting to end exactly that. This internal struggle has him question his very purpose, but because he has no answer, he hides himself behind the purpose he is given and does as he is told - he fights for his people, and under direct orders from Gabriel. This lack of conviction is not lost on the rest of the cast. Several other characters call him out on it, telling him that he cannot hope to win a fight he doesn't believe in and that he needs to find exactly that if he wants to really understand what kind of freedom he is actually looking for.
As a little bit of insight to the hype behind him: back when his Strive reveal was first shown, we only got the intro, the main chorus, and a part of the followup. This led to a metric ton of "we live in a society" jokes, which was only made worse (or better, depending on your view) with people mishearing the intro as "I'm a clown of fate". Thus the memes went straight to Joker references, and the song itself was even titled "Society" by most fans before the official name drop. Some people still call it that today, simply because it's funnier.
I like to think the more light, softer prts are a mix of his desire for peace in the midst of all of his fighting and a fun little representation of his anti air grab super everyone known him for, Heavenly Potemkin Buster, where he just. Snatches someone out of the air, throws them on his back, launches himself and them into the air with fucking rocket boots, and slams back down, doing a TON of damage.
It was actually very interesting for a Russian to find a Japanese made char with Russian name.
Potemkin’s name is actually a reference to real ironclad Potemkin (named after a duke Potemkin, who organized Russian Black sea fleet and Crimean territory during rule of Ekaterina II), that revolt at 1905 against the current situation at Russian Empire and lead to February and October revolution.
His whole story is pretty similar to history of this uprising and it is very cool. Potemkin is based and I love him!
I really like how it abruptly ends like that, Potemkin always says what he has to and then not much else, it fits him.
FINALLY! The track that got me in to GG Strive. Amazing song!
Potemkin is from Zepp, an airship fleet nation that broke away from India to become a bastion for banned technology after the international community banned most 90s technology. However, Zepp pursued such progress regardless of ethical implications, with eugenics, slavery, and human experimentation playing parts in Zepp society and one of the slaves would end up a very powerful soldier: Potemkin. Potemkin, however, detests violence and is instead a creative and gentle soul, enjoying the arts like painting and writing (though his monstrous strength sometimes gets in the way), but as a slave had no choice in the matter. That is, until his superior officer, Gabriel, gave him his freedom and offered a position in his planned revolution to turn Zepp into a democracy. Despite Potemkin's desiring of more spiritual and creative endeavors, he wanted to use his strength to help whoever he can and eliminate slavery and joined in. Now Potemkin is one of the heads of Zepp's military, and despite his spiritual near-enlightenment and views on the ways existence is, his pull to still use his strength to help however he can still keeps him grounded in the world. Zepp may be one of the more democratic nations in the world now, but the spectors of its past and continued disparity of power shows there's still much more work to be done. In previous games he had to even wear his slave gear just to keep his monstrous strength under control, and his current military garb and heavy, almost cybernetic, elements probably fill a similar role, on top of being weapons he can use to in battle to keep up with the rest of the cast that are using magic and supernatural abilities.
His previous themes, In Slave's Glory and Burly Heart, rank among some of the best in the series. Would highly recommend them.
If you are a potemkin main the people say that you are "part of the society"
That is my favorite running geg in the game
We ain't a society.
*We're a hive mind*
*join*
Can't wait for Zato's theme the show up.
Oh hey the funni grab man song.
Okay but jokes aside, Armorclad Faith is a really good look into Pot's inner thoughts on the world and himself. He knows the world is messed up and that his own actions make him a hypocrite, but its all he knows so he's sticking to his guns hence the "Armorclad Faith". He's a hypocritical clown, but he's hoping his actions will lead to a better world.
Please listen to Forever lost by myth & roid, its from the same anime song you did a break down on called hanezeve caradhina, its not the same singer but it absolutely will not disappoint.
Instead of thinking of those couple of vocal sections as being like an announcer, they feel to me more like a military propaganda film.
I AM A FOOL, I KNOW NOTHING
:3
Potenkin is bassically 2 tons of muscle , kindness and anti-communism stuffed in a mech suit
*anti-fascist
Potemkin is not Anti-Communist, he's Anti-Fascist.
One could say, Antifa
Where did you get the anti communism part?
@niceflower9408 @iphonz1137 @ivanyy Fascism is derived from national socialism, of which the end goal, like all socialist ideologies, is communism. Anti-fascism and anti-communism are ideologically the same.