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lucifersluminary · 1 month ago

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Fashion and Power; Hair and Identity: An Analysis of Olrox in Castlevania Nocturne

So. I've been thinking a lot lately about Olrox's design and how he dresses.

Like we have Drolta who is serving cunt in a totally different, usually wildly anachronistic, outfit every other scene... And we have Alucard still wearing the same tattered, moth-eaten overcoat he was sporting 300 years ago...

And then we have Olrox, whose outfit is very much in keeping with the style we see worn by our model french nobleman, the Marquis:

You can see the similarities between their looks: the stockings and shoes, the cravat, the tall collar, the pleats, the contrasting trims and accents, the highlights that suggest the fabric has a silken/satin sheen.

...But for his first appearance in Boston, he's wearing something similar—but not so flashy. Which makes sense, because a lot of the above details would be too ostentatious for colonial sensibilities and just not as accessible there. His Boston look is very clearly in the same style as Julia's outfit:

The boots with the dramatic cuffs, the wide lapels, the longer coat, the way the trims and accents are much more subtle, and the lack of that satin sheen we see in the French outfits.

I point this stuff out because it tells us that not only does Olrox dress well, but he dresses according to what is in fashion around him. He's not like Drolta, expressing himself by wearing whatever the fuck he wants—nor is he like Alucard, still dressing the way a past version of himself once did, existing sort of outside of time. That Olrox has two subtly different outfits in the span of ten years seems to indicate that this is a man who speaks the language of fashion, who understands the role it plays in society, and how it is used to assert power for oneself in the right contexts.

I've seen the take a few times of like, "Olrox is probably itching to take off those stuffy white people clothes" or whatever and... I can't say that I agree. I get the sense that he enjoys not just wearing fine clothes, but dressing in a way that signals to the people around him: "Do not presume that you are better than me". It serves as a form of armor, a safety blanket, a way to protect himself and assert the power he fears he will be denied otherwise.

I've said this before but like... his dialogue in his scenes with Drolta and Erzsebet is positively laden with these sort of subtle, calculated assertions or denials of power. From the moment he first arrives in Machecoul, he refuses Vaublanc's escort, thus refusing to engage on the terms they are trying to set for his visit: you are not my host, I am not dependent on you, I am here acting on my own interests and not to answer to your beck and call. He speaks carefully, politely, and hides his true feelings behind a façade of respectability. Saying all the things they want to hear, but wearing none of it on his face, in his eyes, in his tone of voice. He's playing a part, playing the game, and playing it well—all the while hiding his true intentions and dodging questions he doesn't want to answer.

That Olrox is such a careful, eloquent speaker can be read as a quintessentially 'Aztec' thing: the Nahuatl language is very full of metaphor, the nobility spoke a different dialect that distinguished them from the rest of society, and the ability to speak beautifully and wisely is something that was regarded very highly. Furthermore, the words we have on record that Motēuczōmah Xocoyotzin said to Cortés and that the Spanish would later use to claim the Mexica thought Cortés was a god, were probably more like... sarcasm. You've heard of malicious compliance; the Mexica were apparently fond of malicious politeness: over the top flattery meant to mock rather than praise. Which is exactly the vibe Olrox gives off in his exchanges with Erzsebet. ("Yes, charmed to meet you", "Flattered, for a god to have heard of me," "As you well know, I both admire and worship you, goddess," etc.)

I think his manner of dress functions as an extension of this.

While Olrox's clothing bears like, zero resemblance whatsoever to how men styled themselves in the Mexica empire (Fantastic references by Daniel Parada on ArtStation), the Mexica did have strict sumptuary laws about which classes of people could wear which types of clothes/colors/fabrics/jewelry/hairstyles. Maybe he was a commoner who had to wear clothes out of rough maguey fiber and never wants to go back to that. Maybe he was nobility and this is a mentality that he has clung to. Either way, fashion as a language of status, power, and control is something Olrox would understand intimately.

Consider Drolta for a moment: in retrospect, the fact that she has so many outfits and wears whatever she wants to the point of outshining Erzsebet in every scene she's in, was a strong indicator that she was the one with the real power, the one pulling the strings all along.

And here creates a stark contrast: Drolta who asserts her power by dressing in a way that expresses herself in her own visual language, vs Olrox, who is asserting his power in the visual language of his oppressors. Even in Drolta's more conservative outfits, there are a lot of details that are undeniably her own spin on the style; she's playing with these conventions rather than conforming to them. She does not have to play the game and follow the rules in the same way that Olrox does.

So now let's address the elephant in the room:

Olrox's hairstyle is... not at all accurate to how men were wearing their hair in pre-colonial mesoamerica, which was either a sort of shoulder-length bowl cut, shorn on the sides, or long but matted and tied back. (More fantastic references by the same artist on ArtStation) But unlike his clothing, it's also not a style that would be considered fashionable to the European upper class.

I've seen plenty of people theorize that it's meant to resemble a style that would have been appropriate for Mahican men at the time—a way to pay homage to the man he loved. But I don't really think this is the case. For most tribes in the northeast, men either traditionally wear two braids, or in times of war, a 'roach' or 'mohawk' hairstyle: with most of the head shaved except for a single lock, which might be adorned with feathers, beads, and so on. At most, Olrox's single braid could maybe be a nod to this, but not the hairstyle as a whole.

Honestly, I struggle to find any tribes whose men traditionally wear their hair loose, and I'm sure half of this design choice was just the animation team trying to give him some likeness to his voice actor. Zahn McClarnon, who is Hunkpapa-Lakota, often wears his long hair loose—though this hairstyle isn't necessarily characteristic to the Lakota either, who also traditionally wear their hair in 2-3 braids (and which to be fair McClarnon also wears often). The other half of this design choice I'm sure lies in the fact that loose hair lends more flexibility for animators to use it expressively in-frame.

Regardless, any piece of media is in conversation with a contemporary audience. Nowadays, it's pretty common for indigenous men from various cultural traditions to sport long, loose hair. And there's a reason for this: regardless of the specific beliefs and practices around hair from one tribe to another, hair has become a strong marker of cultural identity for the larger, pan- indigenous community, as the forced assimilation of indigenous people often manifested as the cutting off of indigenous men's hair in boarding schools. In this context, to grow out one's hair can be a way of reclaiming a part of their identity which has long been forcibly taken from them.

So... the cultural/historical inaccuracy of Olrox's particular hairstyle aside, we can still look at the significance of hair itself in a broader sense: Hair is important to his character.

I look all the shots we get of Olrox's hair, the way it is used in the frame, used so expressively, and it feels like... yeah. His hair is the piece of himself he refuses to let go of. The clothes can change, he can bow down to Bàthory, get branded, etc. But his hair is an inextricable part of him. In this context, his hair becomes his identity, this stand-in for his true self when all the rest of him (clothes, speech, etc) are functioning instead as a sort of social camouflage.

We normally see Olrox's hair neatly swept behind his shoulders, often with a few strands framing the side of his face. But we get a couple of scenes where this isn't the case:

The first time we get a shot of Olrox's hair kinda spread out and disheveled outside of motion scenes is the cut to him and Mizrak lying in bed after having had sex. Paired with the askew angle of his body contrasted against Mizrak's rigid body, Olrox's hair suggests that he is in a vulnerable state, that he has let his guard down if not physically, then emotionally. He has "let his hair down" and already caught some kind of feelings for Mizrak—while Mizrak spends this scene putting up a giant brick wall.

The majority of Olrox's hair here is also to his left—away from Mizrak. While Olrox has given up some measure of power here, he doesn't need Mizrak to know that yet. He turns his head to see what Mizrak is doing, and receives a clear message: Mizrak is not ready to give up any power or control. Not ready to be vulnerable with him. And so Olrox takes this cue to sit up and let his hair return to its usual, neatly gathered position—thus putting back up a kind of wall of his own as he tries to coax some honesty out of Mizrak through more deliberate means.

In the S1 finale, we see Olrox's hair cover his face just as Machecoul falls to Erzsebet and becomes enshrouded in shadows. One Nahuatl expression, "Axcan mixtlapachmana yn tonatíuh" translates to, "Today the sun has covered its face." This is an expression of grief over the death of a leader or elder, the fall of a city, or the loss of a tradition. Despite the stoicism on his face in this moment, Olrox's hair tells us how he really feels. Something has been lost, and despite the fact that he probably expected it—despite the fact that he has been here before—he is still grieving that loss.

During the S2 branding scene, we see Olrox get on one knee and bow to Erzsebet—thus arriving at the inevitable conclusion of the game he's been playing all season. In his effort to survive by playing along, conceding his pride, his ego, his integrity, his self—he still finds himself trapped. As he accepts his fate, his hair fails over his face in a pattern that resembles the bars of a cage or prison cell. (Interestingly, his dialogue before this is "What did he do?", which makes this whole scene echo his "what crime did you commit?" scene with an imprisoned Edouard in the catacombs back in S1)

In S1, we also got a scene where Olrox bows to Erzsebet, but it's very different from this one. He never gets on his knee, and his hair remains neatly draped over his shoulders. He's conceding a little bit of power, but it's a strategic thing he ultimately does with some degree of willingness. In the S2 bow however, it is because he recognizes he is cornered and no longer has any moves left to make.

In S2E6, we see Olrox waiting at the harbor, preparing to leave to return to the New World. In the previous episode, he asks Mizrak to come with him—who refuses on the grounds that they would spend their lives hiding from Erzsebet. I'm sure @mysteryanimator could write an essay about the framing in this scene and how it makes it so that Olrox is boxed in and can't leave—but his hair is flowing freely. He doesn't have to leave. He has always had a choice: the choice to stay and to fight, and to win true freedom—not just a life on the run, or the sort of double life of having to carefully navigate the social world of others and keep his true self hidden in order to survive.

Now, in the S2 finale, Olrox turns a dying Mizrak into a vampire—but they have an interesting conversation leading up to that moment, and for just about the entirety of this conversation, Olrox's hair is obscuring his face. There is something he is hiding from Mizrak in this scene, something keeping them apart and keeping this conversation from being an open and totally honest one. I've written about what I think this scene foretells, and @mysteryanimator has also done a really thorough shot-for-shot analysis about the visual storytelling happening here, which also touches on the role Olrox's hair plays in this scene.

After Olrox turns Mizrak, we see him lying in bed with his shirt open, exposing his chest and bisecting his heart. The Nahuatl "Omeyolloa" translates to "two hearts", or "the heart is split in two", and refers to an internal conflict. But Olrox's hair is splayed out around him, adding to the sense of vulnerability and being laid bare. While Olrox's hands are folded in his lap with apprehension or restraint, his hair seems to reach in Mizrak's direction in their stead. The hair gives voice to the half of his heart that cares about Mizrak and wants to reach out to him, while the rest is immobilized by the guilt or remorse over what he had to do to keep him.

I've also written a bit of analysis about how this shot mirrors the shot of Julia bleeding out in S1E1: how Olrox's hair is pooled around him the same way her blood was, and how these compositions suggest a sacrificial offering. In this scene, Olrox is offering his hair—his self—up to Mizrak in a gesture of love and penance.

Anyway I could probably go on but I have reached the 10 image limit and this is long enough already. I guess if there's a point to be made with all of this, it's that I don't think the cultural/historical inaccuracy of Olrox's design detracts from his character, but actually does a lot to tell a story about how he has been affected by the forces of colonization, and in what ways his identity as a Mexica man influences the way he now navigates the world around him.

But mostly??? I just love Olrox Castlevania Nocturne and like thinking about him a totally normal amount 🫠🫠🫠

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