Story explained (theories)

[Miik3-ruhi]

Hello, I just finished this amazing game (the unrated version) and I wanted to share with you my interpretation and I also need to get your advice on it. In particular if you have elements pros or cons it.

So I will try to clearly expose my interpretation of the story based on the research I performed. In the game, we control a soul named Nimrod. First, let us clarify a bit the context of his story.

The background :

The story turns around the mix of two myths. The first is related to the King of Babylon : Nemrod (or Nimrod) whose one of its ancestor is Noe who saved humanity from the flood driven by the wrath of God against the humanity. It is thus legitimate to think that Nimrod is not a fervent of God... The game seems to follow the myth written in the book “the Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop in 1853. In this legend, we can read that Semiramis was the consort of Babylon and mother of Nimrod. After an incest consumed, a son named Tammuz is born. The second myth comes from the legend “Inannas’s Descent into the Underworld”. This legend tells the story of Ishtar(Inanna) who tried to conquer the underworld from her sister, but fail to manage it. To return on earth, she decided to exchange her life against another one and she chose her husband Dumuzid, also called Tammuz. Here appear according to my vision a conflict between the two Tammuz which is just a name coincidence, that’s why I will call the second one Dumuzid.

Nimrod, a pact with the Devil :

From the comic present in the game I understand the following key points. First a plague or something else is falling on Nimrod and its citizens (page 1) : “I will do anything for them, even if it means replacing you on the throne”. I assumed here than by "them", Nimrod meant its citizens and by "you" he meant naturally God. Thus, Nimrod plans to replace God building a great tower that would reach the sky : the Babel tower. To manage it, he chose to make a pact with the Devil : “the lord of darkness”, offering him its own soul (page 2). Nimrod begins to serve the goddess Ishtar following the advice of Semiramis. The construction of the Babel tower needs a lot of workers such that they have to recruit people. Semiramis has thus for idea to kidnap young girls (page 4, becoming the priestess of the goddess Ishtar (or Inanna) whose the role is to have sex with men in exchange of their work on the tower (page 6 + page 7). The men who died were also used as material of construction. Once the tower is finished, Nimrod begins to fall more and more in madness due to the demon pact he made (page 9). At the end we discover than Semiramis is now possessed by the “Red Goddess”.

An extension of the hell :

A lot of complementary informations are now brought by the notes in the game. “K.N” ones being the more important since written by "King Nimrod". With them, we learn that Nimrod, whose the madness seemed to increase, was gone in a kind of crusade for the “Blood Goddess”. Upon its return, he discovered Babylon in chaos, blood and fire flowing everywhere. Even worst, Nimrod took conscious that the time was missing before he became completely out of control due to the demon pact he performed. Its only hope was thus to leave its restricted earthly body performing a Great Ritual, namely killing a royal kid still pure of evil : “ I will suppress the remnants of humanity within me. I will become like him (God) ”. After some ritual, the Red Godess first managed to take control of Semiramis (page 10 + notes). After sleeping with her, a kid is born from this incestual union : Tammuz. Soon after that, Nimrod became more and more certain than the Goddess was manipulating him and was as evil as God itself, hence he planned to defeat both of them : ” Today they both will kneel before me, regretting everything they taught me ! ”. One way or another, he failed… She found out it and decided to take the control of the city (painting : the red Godess - Tammuz). On this painting it is clearly possible to identify the Babylon tower in the background whereas the foreground is depicted with Semiramis walking on Nimrod, Tammuz in her arms. There is strong evidences to think that after the Nimrod betrayal she killed him. From my point of view, Babylon is at the frontier between heavens and hell and became after these events an extension of the classical hell referred as the Black City where the Beast and Lucifer are dwelling. Once at the head of the city, the Red Goddess reformed the Hell, reproducing the same schema than at Babylone. There are indeed high similitudes between the priestesses and succubus, the bodies also used as material, and so on. She also tried to control the Beast but at some points she failed. The beast (whose the design is clearly inspired by the Dante description of Lucifer) is too strong and not completely under her power.

Unleash the demons :

Nimrod was killed and his soul was dropped in Hell. However, if a soul cedes to its anger it can revive indefinitely : “Some of them use their anger to bring their mutilated body to life once more and fill their veins with the burning blood of a demon”. At the end of the first cinematic, our character looks like one of this Ifrit demon which is however not in fire but looks like a kind a foggy spirit. The Red Goddess is aware than Nimrod is still alive and that he purchases her even if he lost his memory. I have the sensation that our characters actually died a lot before to be sufficiently powerful to reach the Cathedral, each time its memory cleared off, except with the image of the Goddess. This idea is supported by the fact that, in Hell, we can read the letters written by Tammuz our son who is no more a kid and tried to found a getaway for all martyrs. However a particular interesting letter addressed to his father sounds like an attempt to warn him that the Red Goddess is manipulating him through his anger : “Father, remember who you are trying to fight against. Will it not be better for us all if you surrender ? Is a meeting with mother really the only way out for us ? Do we have a chance this time to resist her charm and bring this madness to an end ? ”. Unfortunately, he did not receive the advice and she finally used its anger to her advantage. During the game she helps us to become more powerful until we are sufficiently strong to control the Beast itself in the final fight, the unique demon which was resisting her. Once done, we broke the heaven doors which were situated above the Babylon tower what launches the apocalypse, this is the first end.

A new King of Hell

An alternative ending can be unlocked if instead of just "looking for the goddess", we decide to serve her, killing a sufficient number of people controlling demons. We can indeed note that a strange relationship links Nimrod and the Goddess, with a kind of anger and submission at the same time. Nevertheless, it is not a paradoxical situation since Nimrod hates the goddess from its past life, whose he lost most of its memory. It is also evident that the Goddess used to charm in order to control people (paintings of the ancient goddess form). In this ending we finish fully transform in demon, having sex with the succubus, this latter becoming pregnant and making logical the first ending of the succubus. Now that a devil prince is growing inside the succubus, the goddess doesn't need us anymore and chain us inside the pitfall. Interestingly enough, once you are attached, if you launch a new game, you will find again the demon inside the pitfall tower. We can thus wonder who are we actually playing ? A first option is that Nimrod soul managed to escape the demon body. A second option would be that we control now its son Tammuz. This possibility raised in my mind when I read that both were "only one soul". A bit like if the soul of Nimrod were shattered in several pieces. Finally, in the Nimrod ending, we perform the Great ritual with the succubus which allow us to govern the Hell. Here you may ask why the Red Goddess helped us to manage it and do nothing against it ?

The Goddess - Lucifer rivality

The most logical explanation according to me is that since the heavens gate are now open, she needs somebody to control the Hell, replacing her on the open position she left. Indeed, we note after the first succubus ending that the Red Goddess is now completely absent of the Hell. But she needs somebody who will serve on her throne and on her behalf (Lucifer looks thus like a pretty bad option), that's why Nimrod appears like the best candidate. This would also legitimate the Baphomet ending where Baphomet, who is described as "the faithful and brutal servant of Lucifer", stops us in our quest because we do not belong to the Goddess but to the Dark Lord. : “ You’ve sign a pact with the Dark Lord and your soul will always belong to him. Not to that red w*ore and its fuc*ing beast”. I have not valuable explanation for the second succubus ending (actually I cannot find anywhere the video to reread her dialog with Nimrod). I only know to the Goddess helps her to bring back her "lost wings", maybe to allow the succubus to follow her in the sky. I think that maybe a kind of rivality is present between Lucifer and the Goddess which would be coherent with the myth of Ishtar. In the myth Ishtar send her husband to take her place in Hell, whereas Ishtar comes back on Earth.


Open questions :

There are still some points unclear despite all my researches, for instance what are the black ghost everywhere ? They are also describe as the eyes of… something else : “ Even the Red Godess doesn’t seem to be aware of their presence. If succubus are the ears of the goddess, then whose eyes are these monsters ?” My Theorie is that these silhouettes come from the Black city which belongs to the lord of darkness Lucifer. I also do not understand why the succubus has to kill so much children (30) to get wings back, so certainly I'm missing a myth here.

[Frisby]

Very insightful thank you. I was looking for some meaning in this crazy game

[Daquarius]

thanks for the explanation