About Senua's wounds and " enemies"

[The Grin]

Poor Girl Senua is afflicted by mental illness we all know that BUT i want to understand two things:
1) Are the wounds on Senua's body self-inflicted wounds related to a sort of need of suffering to fight her inner monsters " the darkness" ?
2) If she allready suffers of hallucinations, aren't those "NORSEMEN", the enemies we fight actually, real people, villagers we encounter, defending themselves against a so called "intruder", but that Senua sees as monsters or foes?

[TheKabbale]

I thought the same thing of you 😂

[Reverielle]

As I understand it:
1) I think most are in her head, excluding 'environmental' trauma, such as when she falls off the bridge and breaks her sword. And subsequently uses the hot broken blade from the fire to burn herself.
2) All the battles with the norsemen are illusions I believe. For the most part we see growing darkness before the battles, especially in the beginning, that I think highlights that she's 'losing herself' a little, and beginning to to have altered perceptions. To Senua of course they are deadly real, but to a fly on the wall it might see her swinging around and fighting against nothing, or lying on the ground. Like Dillion sees her, more or less. As shown later in the game when he helps her back from the darkness. A cut-scene from one of the shard trials.

[LtAdams2247]

I don't think any of it is real.

After beating the first two bosses and opening the door to Helheim you see a cutscene that shows Senua returning home from her time in thw wilds and finding the village burnt to the ground and her love strung up and killed by Vikings. She instantly gets a psychotic episode right there and then. Her companion from the wilds told her all about nordic myth so that's the reality she adopts. So I think the entire game, including the enemies and the wounds shown on her, plays in her mind, trying to come to terms with it and in actuality she's still kneeling on that hill in the burnt down village.

[The Grin]

Originally posted by LtAdams2247:

I don't think any of it is real.

After beating the first two bosses and opening the door to Helheim you see a cutscene that shows Senua returning home from her time in thw wilds and finding the village burnt to the ground and her love strung up and killed by Vikings. She instantly gets a psychotic episode right there and then. Her companion from the wilds told her all about nordic myth so that's the reality she adopts. So I think the entire game, including the enemies and the wounds shown on her, plays in her mind, trying to come to terms with it and in actuality she's still kneeling on that hill in the burnt down village.

Ahaaaa...yes this seems like a nice explanation. I think that the solutions to all those questions are infinite, exactly like all the possibilities of BIOSHOCK INFINIITE (hence the word "infinite") that´s actually the freedom that is given to players to guess what they see themselves.......i´m going to wait a bit until i play this litte jewel again!

[A.W.S.H.]

Look at the enemies. There's actually a genius method to their design: They're all bugbears. Men in spooky costumes posing as grotesque caricatures of Norsemen, to scare children and propagate xenophobia. Senua doesn't know ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the Norsemen and their mythology, other than the tales Druth told her, and the basic iconography she picked up from the stuff they left behind. So she imagines them as bogeymen. That's why the Valravn (who actually doesn't exist as a God at all; it's an evil spirit from local Danish folklore - the creature in the game is more likely related to the Nattramn, another bugbear figure in the form of a monstrous raven that tortures and eats children) has its entire setup built around scrarecrows and wind chimes made from bone. And that's why she imagines Garmr not as a wolf, but as a boar, because as a Celt she was taught that the boar is the most horrible beast in existence.

[Lars]

It's fun to see other people pick up on it <3

It gets me wondering sometimes with how many seem to take it as trying to be a canon representation of actual norse mythology if even this central detail is too obscure for the gaming audience. I would be losing my mind as the writer.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by Lars:

It's fun to see other people pick up on it <3

It gets me wondering sometimes with how many seem to take it as trying to be a canon representation of actual norse mythology if even this central detail is too obscure for the gaming audience. I would be losing my mind as the writer.

It is one of the best games when it come to the Norse lore. Quite acurrate, but also rightly "wrong", considering the Protagonist isnt Norse, she's Orkney and all she knows of the Norse lore is what's been told her and from what she has experienced from the brutality of the Norsemen.

Other games that can compare in accuracy is: Rune(the old FP"S"), Frostrune and Through the woods(Not a "viking" game but its full of Norwegian lore and Norse lore).

2: I think Tapetrve nails it pretty good.
I see them like "fighting her inner demons" to not sucumb to the darkness. (Fits well in with what Seuna is told: "every victory is a defeat".

[Lars]

Originally posted by joridiculous:

Quite acurrate, but also rightly "wrong"

Right? This was one of my very favorite things about the game and even one of the tipping points that made me buy it. They clearly knew enough about norse mythology to the point where you knew all the things that seemed "off" weren't simply mistakes or oversights, and you knew they were to be seen through her.

It was a huge motivation to really pay attention to her memories, knowing everything is so deliberate.

[joridiculous]

Exactly.
I thought it to be just another hack-n-slash and didnt pay attention to it.
Then i watched a video (Last Fan Friday by Jesse Cox) and the Lore and voices just drew me right in and i bought it

[A.W.S.H.]

In addition to what I said, have a look at the early concept art of the game. It used to be a lot, and I mean a lot more grotesque, with all sorts of gratuitously icky monstrosities. But all of those creations were really just that, crass for the sake of edginess, without any meaning behind their appearance, as opposed to the grounded - still intimidating but way more relatable - creatures in the final product. The only sort-of outlier I guess may be the Silent Hill-esque bloat monsters in the Trial of Blindness, but those are very much equivalents of the shifting spots and shapes you "see" when you stand in the dark or have your eyes closed.

[The Grin]

Originally posted by TΛPETRVE:

In addition to what I said, have a look at the early concept art of the game. It used to be a lot, and I mean a lot more grotesque, with all sorts of gratuitously icky monstrosities. But all of those creations were really just that, crass for the sake of edginess, without any meaning behind their appearance, as opposed to the grounded - still intimidating but way more relatable - creatures in the final product. The only sort-of outlier I guess may be the Silent Hill-esque bloat monsters in the Trial of Blindness, but those are very much equivalents of the shifting spots and shapes you "see" when you stand in the dark or have your eyes closed.

oh yes i immediatly tought of silent hill or THE THING. But somewhat i find it didnt really have its place in the game. The Norsemen where better integrated in the story than those gooey things.

[Daikatan]

villagers we encounter, defending themselves against a so called "intruder", but that Senua sees as monsters or foes

https://youtu.be/s9TgylZgvlk

bloat monsters in the Trial of Blindness

oh my, they were creepy! also because of shapeshifting

[The Grin]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

villagers we encounter, defending themselves against a so called "intruder", but that Senua sees as monsters or foes

https://youtu.be/s9TgylZgvlk

Nice example ;) " they look like monsters to you ?"