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nysus-temple · 1 year

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ULTRAKILL's references to Greek folklore

Wellp, here it is brought to you by a girl who can't shut up about a game she sucks at playing. ANYWAYS—

BEFORE YOU GO DOWN this is, to no one's surprise, filled with spoilers. While it's true that lore in this game is secondary, if you wanna learn it by yourself when playing it, then save this reading for later. Ultrakill is avaible at Steam, and there's for now an Early Access version in case you wanna try it before buying it. It's filled with blood, but it's still a masterpiece, me thinks.

!! - Guide of this thingy:

Introduction.

King Minos.

King Sisyphus (not full).

Honorable mentions ( mostly things that i'm probably imagining ).

1 - Introduction:

There's many people out there who have already talked about everything that reminds them of the Divine Comedy regarding the game, besides the fact that it takes inspiration in DMC too; but almost no one seems to notice the details that reference Greek folklore, and it's true that they are not THAT important, most likely i'm just imagining references in places where there are actually none, but this is what brainrot does to a girl. So wether they are true or not, i'll still will write this thing down or else i'll explode with my thoughts.

2 - King Minos:

To make it short, Minos was the king of the Lust Layer, he felt that the sinners of said layer did not deserve such punishment just for loving one another, and when God dissappeared and Heaven turned into chaos, he build next to the inhabitants of the layer a prosperous place. Sadly, when the council took control of Heaven back, they implied Minos' intentions had gone against God's will by freeing the sinners, and Gabriel was sent down to kill Minos.

Minos instead of fighting back, tried to find reason in the angel, but Gabriel didn't hear any of his words and ended him, imprisioning his soul.

"...Gabriel struck down Minos, his flesh torn asunder with torrents of crimson pooling at his feet as we all cried out for clarity. 'Justice,' Gabriel decreed to all, with our just ruler writhing in wailing agony, 'The Lord's Will be done.' We watched on in horror as Minos lay broken, now waning, screaming in defiance of God's Will, Gabriel."

Text from a book found in the second level of the Lust Layer.

Minos' corpse was now controlled by parasites and Gabriel was the new Judge of Hell. Oh, yeah, that's why thorns are blinding him. Justice is blind and Minos was, wellp, a Judge of Hell.

And here's when my shenanigan's begin!

So you see, it's true the first Minos we know from Greek folklore was a king, was made a Judge of Hell after his death too, and all the shenanigans... But can we see any of that in this Minos? While it's true that most of the things are original or coming from the Divine Comedy, here's this detail i spend some time thinking about:

"Despite once bringing upon the renaissance of the Lust layer, his corpse now only seeks sinners to punish."

Terminal data of The Corpse of King Minos from the game

While the Christian elements are heavy here ( Divine Comedy, WUH ) and we have the Father's name, God, therefore not many references to the Greek Gods ( specially knowing Minos was one of Zeus' sons ), this detail is what reminds me of him becoming the Judge of Hell in the original folclore.

Minos was so respected by everyone, even the gods, that they decided to make him a Judge of Hell. Meanwhile in Ultrakill, after Gabriel killed him and became the new Judge of Hell, they still kept his corpse searching for sinners to punish. Tragic and bittersweet, but apparently they still thought of his corpse as a Judge of Hell, even when no soul was with it. Just like Greek Minos was respected enough to be turned a judge in Hell, this Minos is respected enough to maintain his corpse as a Judge, just like he once was.

3 - King Sisyphus:

Since Sisyphus hasn't come out as a boss yet and we therefore don't have 100% his lore explained, I can more or less summarize it:

"King Sisyphus has acted in secret until now, amassing an army whose strength and numbers swell, but now there is no need to hide anymore. We have lived in the shadow of Heaven long enough to forget the taste of fear. Now the Sisyphean Insurrectionists prepare for war.

I have heard of Minos beginning a peaceful revolution, but our King Sisyphus knows such pacificity will gain no favor from our cruel captors. He knows that one can only fight power with power, and he shall lead us to freedom."

Text from a book found in the second level of the Greed Layer.

Minos decided to do a peaceful revolution, building his own shenanigans in the Lust Layer, but Sisyphus didn't think the same way; he decided to do a revolution too, but it was anything but peaceful.

Full terminal data of the Sisyphean Insurrectionists in the game:

"The Sisyphean Insurrectionists were an army of Husks gathered and trained by King Sisyphus for overthrowing Heaven's control of Hell, freeing the sinners from their eternal torment. [...]

Upon the establishment of the Council and subsequent return of peace to Heaven, Gabriel and an army of angels were sent down to crush the insurrection and subjugate Sisyphus' army.

Although their battle was well-fought, the inexperienced Insurrectionist could not match the educated strategy of the angels, who quickly descended upon King Sisyphus with great force, eventually overpowering and killing him, leaving the Insurrectionists without a chain of command.

Left scattered and disoriented, the warriors were easily picked off one by one, their bodies cut apart, leaving behind only the bare essentials to carry on their eternal punishment of hauling heavy boulders up the monuments of mankind's arrogance and greed.

Although the blood of their enemies still stains their bodies and their grasp still clutches their fallen foes, their will and fierce fury only serve as mental torment in knowing how close they were to freedom."

The Insurrectionists mantain Greek Sisyphus' original Hell punishment, carrying a rock up to the top of a mountain ( in the game, a pyramid ) that will eventually fall down again.

Now, more interesting details... Greek Sisyphus wasn't that much liked by the gods since he, wellp, cheated death a couple times, unlike Greek Minos who was so respected that he was turned into a Judge of Hell. So just like Greek Sisyphus was thrown into Hell with a punishment and Greek Minos was turned into a Judge of Hell; in this game, Minos' corpse is still used as some kind of Judge... more or else, as I said before. Meanwhile, Sisyphus corpse isn't used at all ( not yet, remember the game isn't finished ), it is just imprisoned with no head, even. Perhaps that has something to do with the Greek Sisyphus being punished instead of turning into a Judge of Hell, or similar, like the Greek Minos was? Or maybe i'm just imagining stuff. Hmm.

Oh, by the way, unlike Minos being blind being due to him being a Judge and Justice is blind; Sisyphus was blinded by greed, so he literally is blinded by gold.

4 - Honorable mentions ( mostly things that i'm probably imagining ):

You know I could just jump into Hakita ( developer ) and ask him "is this bullshit i came up with actual references?" but there are better things to do in life, I guess, sooooo let's leave them here, shall we?

THE ENTIRE LAYER OF WRATH is, for my stupid mind, an antire Odyssey reference. Except the last level i guess.

The entire layer is ambiented around boats and the sea. And while you can say 'odyssey' is a word used for 'really long travel' nowadays, my mind goes beyond that with this concept.

The first level of the layer is named "In the Wake of Poseidon", you have no idea how much i screamed when i first read it. Like, the first level, just like while in the Odyssey many stuff happens, before all of those stories are told, Odysseus is first thrown at the sea after leaving Calipso's island, by none other than Poseidon. If we go to the second level "Waves of the Starless Sea" we'll be, no shit Sherlock, in a sea. But full of broken boats, completely destroyed, just how Odysseus' small boat was left after Poseidon came at him. The third level is "Ship of Fools" and, okay, i'm sorry for saying this is Odyssey related too, but Odysseus' companions were, indeed, fools. ( The game has many DMC references too, so maybe i'm mixing things, but i'm no fan of DMC so uuuuhh ).

Also, the third level of Wrath, the boat, has an ost called "Death Odyssey" and it gets sinked down. If THAT doesn't ring a bell, what else does it?

The Ocean is literally called "Ocean Styx". Ring a bell? River Styx?

You can choose not to fight the Ferryman by giving him a coin. Ring another bell? Charon? The whole 'putting a coin in the corpse's mouth so that they could pay him in the Underworld to take them by the river' shenanigans?

Cerberus is the boss in the Prelude, who in later-game becomes a common enemy. Funny enough, he isn't shaped as a dog, but as a humanoid, and the explanation given in the terminal data of the game regarding that, is this one:

"Although they do not resemble the mythological three-headed dog, this name was chosen due to their nature as protectors of Hell."

Gotta love them for that.

WELLP that's all folks. Hope you had fun reading my ramblings, as usual. Feels good to be back into the essays world.

#this game makes me think about so many things. feel about so many things #Gabriel is still the big fave. but. sometimes i do think about those two kings......#Minos is pretty popular since he's been in the game for a while. hope Sisyphus eventually comes to beat out asses soon #it still surprises me they put names like Cerberus and Poseidon #in a game with God. Christianity and all that due to Divine Comedy shenanigans #pretty excited for the last act #this game has been my hyperfixation for a while and it's not even my fault #OKAY i'll go now. PLAY ULTRAKILL #greek mythology #essay #references

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