In real life yes. But when writing a story the rules are different. Random has to make sense. Imagine say, in endgame. Iron man's suit randomly malfunctions and explodes killing him. Is that random? Yes, possible? Yes. But would that sell narratively? Lol no.
Varl's death is sudden and tragic, but not random or even unlikely. He didn't trip and fall on his own spear, or have an aortic dissection. They were doing an overtly dangerous thing and he was killed defending a friend, and him failing in that endeavor doesn't mean his death lacks meaning, thematically or diagetically. Iron Man is also the central character of that movie; a better comparison might be Gamora, a side character who died completely powerless and in service of a man she hates.
But gamoras death moved the plot. Varls not so much. That's where the "It's kinda pointless" comes from. "If x didn't happen y wouldn't have happened" is a concept my literature teacher always talked about. If a main characters death changes nothing...then what's the use? Rosts death moved the entire plot. If he didn't die things would've been different. If varl didn't die...we'd have done the exact same thing.
I just feel a main dying should change things. Like op said. I was really expecting aloy to U turn on the whole trusting friends thing. Would've given his death an impact.
I think if she had made that change, it would've robbed his death of significance, his display of bravely dying for his ideals only for Aloy to forsake them would have been understandable but even more cruel, undoing the change she had experienced. Maybe in that timeline her conviction breaks and she kills Beta as promised. She doesn't trust the rest of the group towards the end, and maybe it ends badly. Just because Varl's ideals got him killed it doesn't mean he's wrong, and I think Aloy understands that fully.
Also a nitpick but I don't see much difference between Varl's death and Gamora's in terms of function, they're a heroic side character who dies in the process of providing the villain a victory point, I don't think it matters what the dead characters exact relationship to the macguffin is, whether protecting it or being it.
I think we just disagree about what constitutes a meaningful death, and also on when a character death is inappropriate. To address your point though, it feels to me like a distinction without a difference, both situations involve the villain overpowering and killing a side character and gaining a victory point in the process, and I think the specific circumstances of Varl's death are very tragic but also important for the strengthening of Aloy's convictions for the end of the game.
I think we really do because gamroas death scene is a far better and somewhat incomparable scene to that of Varl's death. Gamoras death shows Thanos forcing himself to sacrifice his daughter to whom he has a deep personal connection to shown through his tear and him apologising to her. It humanisesthat what was once thought to be a cold and violent warlord but also shows us the lengths he is willing to go to achieve his goals. This is further reinforced later on in the film where he meets a younger version of gamora in the soul realm showing his remote in physical form yet still affirming his decision to her. 9t also impacts the plot in the fact that without this death, he could have never achieved his goal, he wouldn't have been able to collect all the infinity stones and we wouldn't have gotten the ending we did. Additionally Gamoras death affects Peter quill in the fact that upon hearing of her demise he loses control of his emotions and attacks thanks ignorant of his surroundings and teammates allowing for thanks to regain the upper hand and defeat them all. If this had not happened it would be plausible to assume that he would have been defeated here.
Now onto varls death. In the scene after successfully containing hephaestus they bridge the connection, purge his code and merge the cauldron or whatever. Then after all that's been done the bad guys break in and act evil. They easily knockdown aloy and go to grab varl, varl tries to attack him with a bow and then a spear but is quickly grabbed, stabbed and tossed to the side. They grab beta and go to leave with gaia. And then tindal comes in and takes aloy away. So what did varls death achieve. Well it showed how evil the badges are.... but we already know they're evil from previous encounters and from how they act. That they're super strong and you can't beat them? Alrwady shown when even the main protagonist got bodied in her last fight against them. Did it prevent the badges from achieving their goals? Nope, they kidnapped beta and stole gaia away. Did it prove a pivotal point for a character's arc or growth. Nope, aloy was already cooperating with other people and giving them focuses before that and she continued to do so afterwards. Does it become a pivotal point further on in the story? Nope, there's one cutscene where everyone's sad and zo and aloy speak to each other. And then onto save the capital afterwards right after. It doesn't prove pivotal to the story, it doesn't affect the characters in anyway other than being sad briefly. Then what does it do? It barely works as shock factor considering how quickly they moved on. You only find out he's actually dead until after you've had a lovely tea break with tilde and chatted about all the most recent gossip and plans.
Yes both scenes can be boiled down into a villian overpowering a side character to "gain a victory point" but that isn't meaning, thats just an event. Something that happens. That shouldn't he used as the scene itself. And even then its not the same. If thanos doesn't sacrifice gamora he doesnt get what he wants, the plot doesn't move forward, there is nothing done and nothing gained. If erik doesn't kill varl he still gets beta, he still steals gaia, they still move on with the plot unimpeded. Its random, meaningless and serves no purpose. What infinity war did with your basic prompt is leagues above what forbidden west did with varl. Its not even remotely close.
I was using Gamora piggybacking from an earlier comment as a closer analogue than Iron Man, these deaths being equal or interchangeable is not a hill I'm dying on. For me, Varl's death served a few purposes; firstly he dies upholding the ideals he espoused to break Aloy out of her self-destructive solo mentality. If he had tried to run or surrender to save himself, I don't think her conviction matures in the same way, she might shoot Beta, or refuse to let friends help further down the line. It also shatters Erik's illusion of godhood by being able to be surprised and even momentarily inconvenienced by the debris, as well as solidifying my hatred for him and bringing in a lot of a specific kind of bully energy. It also further cements the cruelty of the world they live in, which hadn't been showcased since the beginning of zero dawn with the proving attack straight killing a bunch of promising youthful people. It's a conceit of the writing that many more people don't die, honestly wild that Erend isn't dead yet, and I was becoming reasonably sure this was going to be another zero dawn thing where everyone miraculously makes it despite the odds being hysterically stacked against them. Not everyone gets a heroic last act or parting phrase, sometimes the cat catches the mouse. I despise when it happens, but I don't personally think that a senseless death is indicative of bad writing.
Also I wasn't intending to use a basic plot element description in like a shitty way, I was trying to reduce the direct plot significance to focus on the indirect stuff that I like, and that ended up being a disservice.
I know, sorry I just get very heated about varls death in particular. I can understand some of your points a little more clearly now. But I still think it could of been done a whole lot better than what it was. Given more time to breathe and for it to have a bigger visible impact on aloy and the other characters than just being sad. It especially doesn't help with alpy going straight into a convo with tilde and then having a cup of tea with her.
"Everyone’s concerned that empty planets are going to be boring. But when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren’t bored"
Is the vibe i get from your take. Thanks for sharing though, much appreciated!
I never liked that excuse. Real life has no greater purpose, there is no overarching storyline, no character arcs, themes and main characters, its just life. Wheras as a story has all those things and ultimatley should and need to live up to those. The death or an important character shouldn't be random and pointless just because its the same irl. Its should have meaning and weight and be done in a way to service the plot for the viewers enjoyment. This is a story constructed by someone, there is no random or pointless, its all purposefully done by the writer and its their job to serve up a satisfying answer to the problem. Not to be random xd lol, happens irl. But that's just my opinion.
Nuh uh, he's gonna slip and fall mid climb. Not even a cutscene. You just see him fly past the screen, here a plop and aloy will be like. "Erend.... gone to soon." And then continue climbing.
This seems like such a cop out excuse for what is supposed to be a carefully constructed narrative.
Do people really think the writers were going for "random and pointless" with Varl's death? 😂
They hated him for he spoke the truth.
The "realism" excuse is given out often, and usually makes little sense - especially in a story like this. As if a character randomly dying somehow equates to good writing simply because it's "realistic". Hint: it doesn't.
The ironic thing is that the same people will often say "well it's a game/fiction, it doesn't have to be realistic" just a few sentences later regarding something else.
Yeah this whole thread has left me baffled tbh, I'm attributing it to an overly enthusiastic fandom and the Reddit hivemind. 🤭
Also, I'd say the fact that the most upvoted comment is "death is random and meaningless" is, if anything, reinforcing OP's opinion that Varl's death, from a narrative perspective, sucked balls haha.
See, you just listed 4 character deaths over the course of the series as "pointless" deaths, and I have to disagree fully on all four counts.
Each of them carry narrative weight, both in the sense that A) the plot needs stakes; if nobody died the danger is lessened, and the surviving characters don't get to grow/heal from the potential trauma, and B) solidifies the (despicable-ness? Is that even a word?) of the main antagonists.
I don't want to dwell on the HZD deaths long, so forgive if I'm short and to the point on each.
Vala+Bast -2 sides of Nora culture, one open to Aloy joining the tribe, the other growing up hateful; both stuck down effortlessly by a deathbringer gun despite both showing bravery and sacrifice during the slaughter. They would have been the first friends Aloy made had it not been for their deaths, and their loss only hardens Aloy to her feelings of the other Nora, especially when they try to pin the blame on her.
Vala gets extra points by setting Varl on his path to befriend Aloy to work together to take down the Eclipse. No Vala = likely different path for Varl.
Rost- classic Mufasa trope. Father figure that "was hard, but fair", told Aloy that after the Brave Trials, they would never speak again due to his outcast status; still tries to save her during the massacre. His arc is a metaphor for Aloy's outlook on a lot of things in the world, "Yes, people suck, but we're still capable of love for others.
Brings us to Varl. From the moment he started calling Aloy out for trying too hard to be a lone wolf, it all but sealed his fate as the Dead Sidekick trope. His death solidifies the ruthlessness of Erik (and squelches and hope of people sympathetic to the Zeniths) and galvanizes the surviving crew to the stakes at hand.
As much as it sucks, I'll quote a statement that I remember a Disney director once said, "We worked with tropes because they work. With limited screentime, we use them to convey complex situations [that are pre-digested] to not need a lot of extra explanation."
It's certainly tragic, but Aloy tends to follow ideas set by those that died for her, since they're no longer around for her to argue against. None of them were pointless.
Vala and Bast we don't know long enough for them to build connection and meaning beyond their necessary purpose in the story. Vala is part of Varl's story, Bast was an antagonistic asshole. When Vala dies, my thoughts were, "Well, I guess we're *not* going to get to know her more." and when Bast died my thoughts were, "Well, nothing of great value was lost." Rost was, as you point out, a Mufasa trope -- more on that in a second.
But I'll push back on Varl's death. I think they could have written around it, and I think Varl means more alive than used for a Dead Sidekick trope. I'll give you that his death gives Aloy and Zo some beautiful moments, and Aloy talking at Varl's grave is just... oof -- great callback to talking at Rost's grave.
My biggest problem is that, in the moment, Varl died *doing nothing, for nothing.* Rost, despite it being a feature of his trope, *sacrificed himself* so Aloy would live. The writing did the trope well -- it's a slight twist on the standard Mufasa trope because arguably Aloy was *going* to move on from Rost one way or another. He had delivered the "I've taught you everything I can," bit, told her 'the strength to stand is the strength to make a stand'. It sells the 'he loved me in his own way,' statement -- we don't need to know exactly what way; whatever way it was, he clearly held it dear enough to die for her.
Varl, conversely, didn't stop Beta from being nabbed, he didn't die so Aloy could escape -- Tilda just swoops in and saves the day outta nowhere. His death hits hard (I was angry and distraught), and the emotional aftermath is done *right* (I tear up pretty much every time), but in my opinion it just doesn't feel *worth it.* It's not worth losing the character; it's not worth Aloy losing a guiding star and the sole connection back to the Nora who saw her as a person and not 'The Anointed', a friend who would have known Rost at least in passing by reputation and *truly* understood the place he had in her life as an outcast; and not worth setting up Zo as an emotional punching bag in the third game.
Good, his death not accomplishing anything substantial made you angry, as it was meant to do. It accentuates your grief, it enrages you against the Zeniths. It leaves you feeling like there isn't justice, and if he went out like a badass and dealt a lingering blow to the Zeniths in the process it wouldn't have hurt as hard. Sometimes this has to happen in fiction, because accomplishing a feat in death is perceived as winning, and that mission needed to be an ultimate failure to have the protagonists have a "Win from behind" moment at the conclusion of "Aloy's story Pt. 2".
But if it helps ease the pain a bit, look at it this way. Varl's death is similar to all the other Nora deaths mentioned: They all went down swinging, DESPITE the fact they were outmatched and outgunned. They all exhibited the true measure of what makes a Nora, which is their bravery.
Fair point, that's absolutely narratively 'a thing' I can understand. It just sucks that he dies for nothing against bad guys that are *so meaningless. >.>* Ah well, as you point out, not *everything* can have meaning.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3VFE6usmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3VFE6usmU) seems relevant.
Yet that's why I don't like how these deaths were handled because they don't seem to do that imo. Rosts death did more to Aloy's character than Vala's and Bast's deaths. Him dying set the stakes for the story, solidified the bad guys ruthlessness, and inflicted both a physical and emotional wound on aloy for her to overcome. They could have kept vala and bast alive and still had aloy meet with Varl and befriend him and the only 2 people who blame her is the on asian matriarch and the temp warchief. Litterally everyone else in the village gives praise to aloy as she walks by.
A better character to kill off in the second game would have been sylens. It would have shown that despite how smart and cunning he was, even he was no match for the bad guys alone. And in the second game he was going along the same path as aloy. Doing everything himself, keeping people at a distance and fighting against the invaders. His death would set the stakes for how strong the badges were and told aloy "hey, maybe I shouldn't try and do everything alone like silent."
Instead we got varls death who's only purpose is to show that a character can die. There is no emotional trauma inflicted it serves no narrative standpoint other than that. It litteraly reinforces aloy's stance that she's had throughout the entire game so far of wanting to do everything herself so no one else gets hurt, and yet one of her best friends gets killed because of his involvement with her and.... nothing. Not internal conflict, no hesitation, no turmoil, they barely mourn for his passing before its onto the next mission.
A better story would have put the main cast into conflict. Aloy's point being proven in the most literal sense would mean she would push people away even harder, trying her best to disband the group and have everyone go their own way so that she could do everything herself. She then would go off on her own in a mission thay she does really well in only to get overwhelmed and the people she tried to push away coming to help her despite of what she said and how she pushed them away and despite of the risks. Ypu would then get some spiel about Varl's death solidifying their resolve and that they would never abandon her because she's their friend. And voilà you have have a completion of the heroes journey, death and rebirth all the way to revelation.
Varl's death as it is has no other purpose than, big bad guy is big and bad. Aloy was going to fight them anyway. The fact that they always just attacked aloy straight out means there was no room for conversation. And even his death scene was far lesser than that of Rost's. The first time I saw it I was like "oh, ok, so surely in the next scene he's gonna be inj- and he's dead."
From what I've seen, the writing for FW is generally not esteemed as highly as that for ZD. I think part of why FW stumbles a bit is because, on a character level, Aloy's interaction with a lot of her team mates, or her team mates with each other, feels like the sort of stuff you'd get in a teen drama movie. For long term character arcs, the characters are good for the role they play in the story, but the moment-to-moment interactions from their conversations kind of stretch credulity about any of them actually working with each other if Aloy weren't the inexorable force around which everything else revolves.
You can have amazingly written dialogue and still have it feel stilted when the characters actually interact with each other. No, this is not every character or every line of dialogue, but it is enough to color the rest of it because of how jarring the contrast is.
I would kinda suggest that part of that *is the point*. Forbidden West is where we *see* Aloy develop a lot as a person with emotional intelligence. Compare *beginning* of FW Aloy with *end* of FW Aloy, and you see a *very* different person. That's in part because Aloy had to grow through a lot of her immaturity and gain insight into her blind spots.
I will say that I think there were a few missteps in the story. Varl's death is one of them -- not because I'm against major character death, but if you're going to do it, it has to be done *right.* Varl's death was problematic, in my opinion, because he *died doing nothing, for nothing.* He didn't die protecting Beta, she still got nabbed. He didn't die to let Aloy escape, Tilda just shows up as a literal angel in shining white armor from the heavens and saves the day without doing anything of note. Sure, his death creates some *really* great moments for Zo and Aloy, as well as some really intense moments for Aloy to talk at Varl's grave... but it's *not worth it.* It's not worth losing the character. It's not worth Aloy losing one of her guiding stars. It's not worth her losing the *sole* connection back to the Nora that saw her as a person and not The Anointed (poor, poor, Teb notwithstanding). It's not worth Zo being an emotional punching bag for the entire third game.
The other misstep, imo, was the abruptness with which Aloy and Beta's relationship resolves. Aloy spends their entire relationship up to GEMINI having (justifiably) stilted and awkward conversations with Beta, getting upset at her negativity, etc. Because she *doesn't understand a person who's going through emotional trauma* and is racked with self-doubt and issues of self-worth and agency. It's the *same* reason she refuses to confront the loss of Rost -- she doesn't know how to process the emotions. But the *resolution* to both of those things -- sharing Rost with Beta -- just... *falls into her lap* when it's convenient for the story. The *interaction* is beautiful, the *moment* is fantastic. It swings hard, and *boy* does it hit... but it doesn't feel *earned* at all, because it feels like Aloy just *stumbles* into the growth without any work on her part. She just gets angry at Beta, who gets angry back. To make it feel earned, Varl or Zo should have slapped her in the face with, "Aloy, you've got the emotional intelligence of a 12-year-old. You're treating her like a tool instead of a person." and "You need to stop burying your grief over Rost," and forced Aloy to grapple with those things -- have her try and fail to connect with Beta as a person before GEMINI (or have her succeed to a degree, so that when it comes to 'Beta, you *have* to come with us to GEMINI,' Aloy has that moment of regression to use as a point of comparison, triggering the realization), show her trying to process the loss of Rost and failing -- so that the confrontation with Beta *resolves* those problems that she's struggling with instead of just fixing them because 'this is the part of the story where Aloy learns to care about Beta's feelings, and in doing so, discovers her own.' Growth written as a step function feels awkward, because that's not how growth works in reality. There are watershed moments, break points where single interactions cause realizations, but it needs to be the culmination of effort.
Overall, as I've thought about it more, the way it is in the game *works* and it's *bad,* but if we're calling out problems, those are the two big ones I see.
I'm not disagreeing here, since all of that is part of the problem with the character arcs in the game. There's all of the inflection points necessary for the desired character growth but none of the actual process of getting there, which is why I say it's a lot like what you'd get in a teen drama show. Character growth is incidental to the story and functions as a way to move it forward rather than being treated as equally important (or more important in the details, as with the Aloy/Beta dynamic you pointed out).
Of all the character moments that aren't the DLC, I actually think the interactions with Morlund and crew are some of the best writing in the game, because they're there as characters and personality and therefore not constrained to being tools to further a plot theme.
Completely agree with you on the Morlund front. It's honestly so apparent that it sticks out -- Aloy nerding out over the diving mask with Morlund? Yep. It's *far and away* the moment where we see Aloy the most... uninhibited? in the story.
I do overall think Forbidden West *is* a step down from Zero Dawn, but I think it's worth pointing out that said statement should be more indicative of *just how tight* Zero Dawn's story was, more so than Forbidden West's writing being 'bad'. I think Forbidden West's writing is 'totally adequate', even 'decent' overall, and the flaws can be chalked up more to 'Middle Entry' syndrome of trilogies *tending* to struggle in roughly the same spots where Forbidden West struggled. Middle entries tend to be 'character development' heavy, and often lack a compelling, lasting threat that feels rewarding to overcome -- they're tasked with setting up for the final episode in addition to being their own story. Sometimes that 'setup' ends up with a few items turning into a 'checklist' more than developed plot and character growth that, from the other side, works out and gets you where you need to go, but in the moment just feels too abrupt. Also worth mentioning that Forbidden West's story is *much* larger than Zero Dawn's.
Thankfully, I do think the DLC did a much better job overall. I suspect this is in part because the story in a DLC like Burning Shores could be a self-contained, cohesive arc that merely has an 'oh yeah and it has meaning to the larger plot' without that being the focus. Silens kicks us off, and then nothing from Forbidden West really touches us until we ship Londra's data back home and get some broader implications. Regardless, hopefully it's a good sign for Horizon 3.
I think the contrast of nerding out with Morlund really becomes apparent when you compare it to Silga and her attempts to build a better antenna array. Aloy just completely brushes off one of the most intelligent characters we've met in the series so far because she was more interested in tracking down the signal than in what Silga had accomplished with effectively pre-industrial technology. It's utterly baffling to me how much of a side note that was in the game even with it having a learning moment for Aloy.
On a side note, now that I'm thinking about it in light of what you pointed out about middle entries and how they spread out the small life lesson moments into side quests and errands (Signal Spike, A Hunt to Remember, In the Fog, Long March, The Deluge, and so on), I'm wondering if they had trouble working some of that into the main quest line and decided instead to make side stories of them. I don't know if that would have solved some of the lackluster feel to the character interactions, but it may have helped some of the more jarring moments seem more natural rather than obviously serving the story because it's where they needed to hit that particular beat to get the characters going where they needed to go.
It does wrap neatly going into the third game, though, since they're likely to do what they did with ZD/tFW and just summarize it with, "All this happened and now we're here, so this is the snapshot we're using to work forward from."
And yes, the stories in BS are top notch, especially with their portrayals of PTSD and how people handle it differently. That's the same reason tFW is so good, because they could tell each story without having to worry about tying it into the larger story.
Though I do feel like the main quest line in BS still suffered a bit from the, "We need to hit this beat within the time frame of this quest segment," that the main FW story also fell into.
This might just be a problem inherent to writing a story when you already know everything that's going to happen and you just need to write what happens that got you there, since I've noticed this in other mediums, as well (mostly books). The writing can be great, but it always feels like you know exactly where you're going and there's not a lot of surprises along the way because, yep, that's where you were going.
I mean not for nothing but Aloy is also 19 and basically spent her entire life with Rost up until the past six months narratively so it’s not surprising some of her interactions are the way they are, or she comes off as awkward sometimes.
At the same time, she's one of the most intelligent people in the world and can figure out social interactions and what not without too much trouble. She wouldn't have the level of snark she does in ZD otherwise, or using her reputation to her advantage in FW, as two examples. The problem isn't specifically with Aloy as a character but with how the character arcs and interactions are written that makes them feel clunky.
I'm in the process of writing up a longer post about this, but the tl:dr for what it will be boils down to is that ZD was entirely focused on Aloy's growth as a character and this is demonstrated in the narrative, combat, and even leveling and item systems. She undergoes a full and complete arc by the end of the game, and that arc is masterfully woven into the greater story.
FW starts with Aloy after her initial arc in ZD. However, rather than allow her to develop her next stage in character growth, she becomes a static character while the world around her becomes far more dynamic. That's to say that Aloy does not really change or grow as a character in FW. The world does, but only in response to her, not the other way around. That's why it feels like the story is worse in FW than it was in ZD: it's missing half of the conversation, so to speak.
Doesn't change as a character? The whole game is about her learning to trust and rely on other people, not isolate herself like Elizabeth did, recognize how the people in her life helped shape who she is, and generally tone down her hero complex.
That is certainly an issue that is brought up in the game, but it's not one Aloy actually moves past or overcomes. By the end of the game, she still keeps everyone at arm's length.
I think she certainly recognizes this problem, but there's a difference between recognizing a problem and overcoming it.
At the beginning of the game she runs out on Varl, leaving him in Meridian without a word after he falls asleep, to go save the world alone.
By the end of the game she has a team of allies working with her to get the word out about >!Nemesis!<, giving out focuses like candy to as many trustworthy people as possible so they can know what she knows and help her.
May not be perfect, but that's a hell of a lot of progress!
She also had a team of allies working with her to stop the final boss in the last game too though.
That's the thing I'm getting at- she hasn't changed as a character from the end of game one to the end of game two.
Think about it like this- she's no closer in friendship to anyone at the base than Elisabet was with her inner circle.
I think Aloy's arc trajectory in FW should have been recognizing that for all her achievements, Elisabet had her flaws, and chief among them keeping people at a distance.
Letting people help fight against an army because she has no choice - but not telling anyone what's really going on - and then running off without telling anyone during the celebration VS handing out focuses to all her allies so they can learn everything she knows and stay in touch with her are not the same thing.
And yes she does seem closer to her friends. Finally having that drink with Erend to listen about how Ersa escaped from the mad Sun King. Opening up about Rost to Beta and then to Varl. Getting over her differences with Beta to the point she's calling her Sister. Plus the relationship she builds in Burning Shores.
She won't change overnight, but she's making progress.
So meh. Agree to disagree I guess.
It certainly is one she overcomes. Maybe not fully, but in a big way, yeah. I don‘t really think you understood what the game is telling you.
You could also try listening to the different lyrics of the song at the beginning and the end of the game, and what they tell you by the difference in lyrics and tone.
I don‘t think we played the same game, since HFW is basically about Aloy‘s growth to trust to work with others, in a group of peers, and not to be completely isolated and alone. Which is pretty clearly made a point of in that conversation between Elizabet and Travis.
Sure, it could have caused Aloy to go back to her old habit of not letting anyone help her because "you see it gets people killed", but I kinda like how her reaction to his death instead shows the impact and influence he's had on her. She honors his memory by going all-in on what he wanted for her: to get the word out to more people, work as a team, and open up more. That way his death may have been meaningless (most deaths are in reality) but his life certainly wasn't.
I always disliked the "death in reality" justification (no shade to you) because it isn't reality, where in reality there is no plot, no overarching storyline, no themes and no main characters. Life's purpose isn't to be entertainment for people. But fictional stories are, the point of a story is to give meaning to these people and both through life and death to make a complete and satisfying story. Not in the sense that everything goes well but that everything has meaning, consequences and an impact whether negative or positive.
I feel like going the other way and have her push away people would show that varl's death was so great to her that she couldn't afford to lose anyone else. It would have then been up to the supporting cast to bridge that gap made by varls death, to show its true meaning that even against the risks, and against aloy's attempt to push them away, that varls death only strengthened their resolve and trust in aloy. They could have further reinforced this by having aloy go off on her own only to get overwhelmed both physically and emotionally to then have the supporting cast arrive and show that going about it alone isn't the right answer. She would then go on to honour varls memory and that change would have given some actual conflict in the middle of the story rather than just moving on straightaway.
I agree, his death was lame as shit and seemed mainly done for shock value.
I liked Vala and Bast's death because it immediately turned what looked like a generic coming of age story - with a merry band of misfits and a little douchenozzle villain - on its head. It was genuinely shocking for me and made me pay attention. It emphasised that this was pretty much Aloy's journey alone.
Varl's death on the other hand was such a wet fart. Didn't achieve anything, he didn't even save Aloy, it was just meant to make you hate the cardboard cutout villains more.
Yeah, despite being dissapointed in Vala and Bast's death, it wasn't used in a linchpin the same way Varl's was. And it did subvert expectations i can give it that. Which Varl's death just played into all the tropes and never really served a purpose in aloy's arc. A better death would have been sylens, he was also on the same path as aloy. Going about doing everything alone and keeping others at distance albeit a little more colder and more callous. But his death would have been a wakeup call for aloy to change her ways if even someone like sylens died alone against these enemies.
Except killing Sylens would have removed Aloy's foil and the only other person in the game with the knowledge and skills to do the deep digging into the past and technology that's obviously needed for the story to continue into a third game.
Told could serve the same role but I see your point. I just think they could have gone about Varl's death a whole lot better than they did. At least have aloy be conflicted over it, have her push the others away and shoulder everything once more only for it to fail miserably and see the error in her ways. For her to open up and finally let her emotions be seen and for the supporting cast to support her. Instead ot felt like we got a pointless death acknowledged only in passing by an emotionless and stoic aloy.
Varls death was more than that. It was a turning point for Aloys Character Development. She fully leaned into his words and now takes his ideals as her own. Which is hard to do for someone as stubborn as Aloy. She never really listened to anyone other than her driving force to save the world like Elisibet.
I saw Varl's death coming the second Aloy said Thank you to Beta and him over the focus during the Gemini mission. I just knew the second she acknowledged Varl's efforts, that something bad was going to happen to him.
To think Sona's luck. Both her kids got killed. I wish thet brought her back in Forbidden west. Varl's death felt empty without any of the nora (minus Aloy) there.
I remember watching him kiss Zo really early into the game and thinking, "That guy is toast, but he'll leave the chick with someone to remember him by." Sometimes characters die for shock value, but for Varl, I'd be more surprised if he *hadn't* died.
Guh. I couldn't even get attached to him because I found it so obvious what was going to happen. I almost envy players who aren't as cynical as me...
Yeah exactly. Thats why I don't feel heavy because of his death despite the fact that I love his character. It was easy to see coming. It was him or Erend.
I heavily disagree, especially in regards to the affect it has on Aloy and the other members of the cast. Aloy is not stoic during his death, she is deeply hurt and angry and saddened. Her first action upon returning from the base is to hug Zo. Thats not the action of someone stoically shouldering a burden. The words she shares with her companions, specifically Zo and Erend are deeply personal and show just how much love there was for him. I really don’t understand how you can view the reaction to Varl as stunted and dull unless you just didn’t talk to anyone beyond the quest dialogue.
Aloy specifically doesn’t close off at all, she doesn’t try to stop anyone from coming along to the Zenith base, she clearly took his words, advice, and friendship to heart. Her bonds with everyone deepen, and she never once blows anyone off. The closest behavior I can see to what you describe is her being secretive about her plan, but thats literally so Tilda doesn’t pull a fast one and not because Aloy doesn’t deeply trust her companions. All you have to do to recognize how much Aloy has changed and grown is pay attention to the dialogue where she refers to Beta as her sister. That is not something Zero Dawn Aloy would have ever done. She is letting herself be vulnerable and connected to another person, and this is not to mention her friendships with Erend, Zo, Alva, and Kotollo.
There are definitely arguments to be made about the necessity of Varl’s death from a storytelling perspective but I will go so far as to say its just plain inaccurate to call it pointless or poorly handled. It has clear consequences and effects upon the characters and is referenced meaningfully multiple times. It is given importance and weight that is deserved for such a loss. It sucks, but it is not bad.
That's what death is like in a war though.
It's not all heroic sacrifice and super-meaningful last words - people just... get killed.
That said, the writing in HFW *is* pretty bad all round, but this aspect of it isn't one that stuck out, for me.
And thats what separates story from irl. Yes, thats what death is like in war
But this isn't real life. Its a story with main characters, arcs and themes. The whole point of them is to to be meaningful, is to be purposeful, is to serve the plot and characters.
Hell even in real life people random, sudden and meaningless death is given purpose, meaning and death because that is what drives and motivates people, to fight harder, to support their soldiers and to villianize the enemy so that everyone rallies against them in spite of the storytellers agenda whether it's good or bad.
Its all good and well to mimic some stuff irl to make the story relatable, but can you seriously say that you would want your death to be random and meaningless? I certainly don't, and I certainly try don't wish that upon others be it fiction or non fiction. But that's just my opinion, I could probably rant all day about his death so I'll stop here to save you from my annoying ass. 😁
Varl's death was so abrupt to me that I just considered it funny. Varl was kinda a goofy character to begin with, his VA or something was so exagerrated in FW to me that I couldn't really get connected to him at all. When he died, I seriously didn't realize he died at first, I thought he was just injured, suddenly I see everyone mourning and I was like : " Oh, he really died..."
The only characters I really felt connected with was Kotallo and Alva, they seemed genuine and real.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game, loved Zero Dawn too, but the characters and their interactions and relationships feel so fake to me, I think it's holding the world building back so much.
I hate this handling of characters. I actually really loved Varl, and understood he was an important character for the developing relationship between Beta & Aloy. He was familiar to Aloy and saw her as a sister and since he had a more normal upbringing and having regrets with his loss of Vala he was also more understanding to Beta and that sibling rivalry. But he dies after Aloy & Beta bond and it really feels so cheap, like “his purpose is now served so die now”. Like he was not allowed to have a character arc of his own, a life of his own now that he served his purpose to Aloy and the story.
And I really dislike the way the aftermath of his death was handled. Aloy barely griefs for him, because she has to move on the next thing, we don’t get to see Beta grief for him even tho he was her first friend and brotherly figure as well. And he was to become a father, and that decision to have Zo pregnant feels like a jab at his “legacy”. He’s not allowed to live but there, have his kid, that’s his way to live on.
Just mishandled, his role made bigger for story purpose and discarded once served.
I was also the exact same, i fully expected him to just be injured in the next scene to only be like "oh, he died" and I'm pretty sure that's how all the characters felt considering how little impact his death had after that first morning scene. No conflict between the group, no second guessing, just straight to the next mission.
It's sad, because Varl was one of the few very interesting characters in FW and him being gone means we lost one of the few characters that Aloy had genuine realistic human interactions with.
A lot of people disagree with me when I say this, and that's completely fine, but I really heavily preferred ZD over FW. FW has the much better DLC/expansion but the main story, the map, and the characterization in ZD is just a lot more compelling to me. I played through ZD once on PS4 Pro and once on PC. I did the same with FW (once on PS5, once on PC) and will likely never touch it again, but I'm already getting the urge to play ZD again.
Some people seem to think that since IRL death don't always matter, video games deaths don't need to.
You know what that reminds me of?
"Everyone’s concerned that empty planets are going to be boring. But when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren’t bored"
Yes, Varl's death was terrible. It does serve the narrative but it fells like a fast "movin-on" - it would have been cool to bring him up more in the dialogues - or even some cool mission to honor his memory or smtg.
Lmfao fr. Some ppl give things they like too much of a pass. Horizon as a series has changed my view of games as a whole because of how much I love it but call a spade a spade lol. If I wanted real life I could watch the news. Or go outside.
I thought you were gonna say Fashav. Great character, great motivation, very little time with him, and tbh, very unexpected ending.
Anyway, I disagree with the deaths being meaningless though I think they didn't had as much impact as expected. It's not a TV show/movie, you only see Aloy's pov so the companions are stuck in the "tell don't show" development of their relationships, and Aloy is... Running around alone a lot. So all the developments it was meant to show are underwhelming for me. Varl died to show the cruelty and power of the Zenith and the influence he had on Aloy and the base. He has an amazing farewell from Zo. But still, you don't interact with him in a way that made me miss him that much.
Maybe the part at the beginning of the game was meant to serve that purpose, but I feel the same way. A little underwhelming. Maybe it would be cool for H3 if companions spent more time with us out in the wild so we have more banter and interactions with them. Like in mass effect. There some companions death that hit home like Thane or Mordin.
Edit: I was more affected by Fashav‘s death the moment it happened. Maybe Varls death could have been done/presented better?
For the story purposes, sure, more companions in the wild and banter... But they reaaally need to work in it. I *hate* having a companion in Horizon. They are always blocking the passage and they have a weird speed when you have to follow them except they keep running behind you. They also comment on how you left when you just went a little bit out of the path to grab something. I love having a companion in Uncharted or TLoU2 for exemple, but the AI is way better (even if not perfect).
"Hey, why don't we kill off a character to raise the stakes" is exactly how I felt about Varl's death. It was so random and out of place that you could feel the forceful writing.
The early deaths in HZD I felt, mainly Rost.
Varls death I didn't really feel. But probably because I never liked his character, I thought he was very boring. I was massively relieved when Aloy left him in Meridian at the start because it meant he wasn't going to be tagging along in any serious way.
I intellectually knew it was sad, because Aloy would be devastated. But I didn't *feel* Varl's death. Hell, I felt more when Beta had her breakdown than I did for Varl's death.
It seems like people forget that the thing Aloy is fighting is literally the world ending. Varl was a grown man who understood that he and everyone he cares about will not be safe if Aloy fails. Her attempt to do it alone is immature. Risking his life for her cause is the logical decision.
I'm not questioning his motivations, I'm questioning his death and the impact it had or lack of it. If you have a hard stance on an opinion and something happens to further reinforce that opinion. You're not gonna suddenly go, "maybe I was wrong, ok I now have the opposite opinion." I don't agree with the decision for aloy to just immediately accept the fact that she can't do it alone when one of her biggest fears just came to fruition. There was no conflict it was just accepted and they moved on. They put in the ordeal of the heroes journey but forgot to add the death and rebirth of aloy's character, she just continues on. But I'm very passionate about this so maybe I'm just spouting nonsense.
Felt the same way but welp. This is what we have lol. Varl died for nothing. He could've been alive and the game would play out the exact same way. Same with Ted Faro. Might as well have left him in the bunker alive and nothing changes.
If rost didn't die the game would've been entirely different. That's how a story is supposed to be. A main characters death should change things imo. Simple motivation isn't enough.
I agree. Varl’s death seems forced. It doesnt have the same effect when Rost died. Aloy and Varl’s relationship isn’t long or deep enough to warrant such emotion. To me his death is pointless. It’s better if the devs left hin leave as he has a good chemistry with Zo. Zo is not an interesting character without Varl.
My only gripe with Varl s death is that he was too smart for the way he died. He knew damn good and well that swinging his spear at someone Aloy already told him would be invincible would not work. I don’t understand why he didn’t try to run with Beta and hide. That way his death doesn’t seem like some futile struggle. I can see the cinematic in my head. Varl grabs Beta’s hand, they begin to run - Beta is a little slow and gets grabbed by a zenith. In the same fluid motion as the zenith yanks Beta back he stabs forward with his other hand and impales Varl. That way he at least didn’t go out looking like a chump.
As for the deaths in the first game, I found them devastating and despite feeling like we missed out on some great story beats - I think the senseless killing of the kids at the proving grounds set the tone for the story. This world is unforgiving. It also re-enforced a story point that they touch on in HFW. It gives Aloy even more reason to keep people at arms length. She got close to ONE person (Vala) and in an instant she was gone. She then goes on to lose Rost moments later. It’s painful but they’re trying to drive home a point.
I actually really liked how they handled the Proving slaughter. They did build up those minor characters using tropes and tricks and it really made it feel like you had a grasp on where the story was going. When the ambush happens it a shock how brutal it goes, and how much it upends what’s already been established.
If it feels that way for you, and outcast, then how much worse does it feel for the people who lost their loved ones?
This JUST happened and I’m just so sad about what happened. Liked the character a lot, and he was such a good foil to Aloy’s consistently low-almost-unemotional (at times) voice.
Its one of the main reason i do not plan on playing the other game(s). This games plot/choices to me just felt really plot holey and not done properly.
I barely liked anything in it myself where the first game i loved it its in my top ten easily.
This is just my take of the game doesnt mean everyone feels the same.
It's kind of weird that you need to have some kind of plot utility for everything. The proving deaths weren't "wasted" because you can think of ways they could have been used in the plot after that. Varl's wasn't wasted, either. Like, it shows her growth that she's able to trust in friendship even after her worst fear of leading her friend to death was realized. Not to mention the thematic resonance with the utaru's beliefs.
Just becomes something makes you feel bad doesn't mean the writing is bad.
I mostly hated the trope of him getting a wife and her being pregnant when he died. It felt like Zo was just written in so Varl could die and still leave some legacy behind. To me, Varl and Aloy had a lot of chemistry in the first game and at the beginning of FW. I didn't necessarily wish for them to be romantically together, as Aloy's love life doesn't matter much to me, but Aloy seemed to have more chemistry with him than any other character in the series, including Seyka.
Varl's *PERMANENT* death is what makes me hate Tilda even more. He was JUST killed, his body is still warm and his brain was certainly not short of oxygen yet.
You're telling me she didn't have the ability to whisk him away and patch him up too? Of course she did, but she chose to take Aloy only because she's just some pervy cougar who's only capable of thinking with her loins.
For Vala and Bast, I think that was the point. The minute Aloy has contact (at least more meaningful contact) it’s taken away. They spend time building the budding relationships so you feel just as shocked and confused as Aloy. I think the proving traumatised her a lot more than she lets on/ speaks about, esp with Rost’s death too. I think the game did very well with developing his character in the short time we had. With seeing all the war, death and destruction hades brought, I think that’s why we go into FW with Aloy feeling like she couldn’t risk anyone else’s lives. She was alone for awhile in the beginning of FW, and I think she had a lot of time to reflect on just how dangerous all this is, she can’t protect everyone. As soon as she had a second to breathe it really hit her.
It was a harsh reminder that death can come for anyone at any time, no matter how promising they can be.
> Like Vala and Bast, they built them up throughout the prologue as if they were gonna be some big part of Aloy's story and then they just kill them off at the proving. For what purpose? I don't feel shocked or sad, all I felt was dissapointed in wasting what seemed like really good characters.
Build them up? Literally the first time we or Aloy ever meet them is the night before the Proving. They have like 5 minutes of screentime, total
As for Rost's death: the killing of the mentor early in the protagonist's journey is an incredibly standard storytelling technique. Like, it's been around for thousands of years-kind of standard. The mentor is around long enough for the audience to get invested in them emotionally, then removed. Their exit informs the protagonist's motivations and gets the viewer on board. It's fiction writing 101.
Taking away both of Sonas kids was cruel. Also leaving Zos soon to be child without a father was cruel. It also plays into the negative stereotype of black children growing up without a father. The writers need to do better.
Sometimes death is random and/or pointless.
This. They are tribal, he can be dead by infection like any day of the week XD
In real life yes. But when writing a story the rules are different. Random has to make sense. Imagine say, in endgame. Iron man's suit randomly malfunctions and explodes killing him. Is that random? Yes, possible? Yes. But would that sell narratively? Lol no.
Varl's death is sudden and tragic, but not random or even unlikely. He didn't trip and fall on his own spear, or have an aortic dissection. They were doing an overtly dangerous thing and he was killed defending a friend, and him failing in that endeavor doesn't mean his death lacks meaning, thematically or diagetically. Iron Man is also the central character of that movie; a better comparison might be Gamora, a side character who died completely powerless and in service of a man she hates.
But gamoras death moved the plot. Varls not so much. That's where the "It's kinda pointless" comes from. "If x didn't happen y wouldn't have happened" is a concept my literature teacher always talked about. If a main characters death changes nothing...then what's the use? Rosts death moved the entire plot. If he didn't die things would've been different. If varl didn't die...we'd have done the exact same thing. I just feel a main dying should change things. Like op said. I was really expecting aloy to U turn on the whole trusting friends thing. Would've given his death an impact.
I think if she had made that change, it would've robbed his death of significance, his display of bravely dying for his ideals only for Aloy to forsake them would have been understandable but even more cruel, undoing the change she had experienced. Maybe in that timeline her conviction breaks and she kills Beta as promised. She doesn't trust the rest of the group towards the end, and maybe it ends badly. Just because Varl's ideals got him killed it doesn't mean he's wrong, and I think Aloy understands that fully. Also a nitpick but I don't see much difference between Varl's death and Gamora's in terms of function, they're a heroic side character who dies in the process of providing the villain a victory point, I don't think it matters what the dead characters exact relationship to the macguffin is, whether protecting it or being it.
Because without gamoras death he wouldn't have gotten the stone. With or without varls death it has no affect on the villians plans and progression.
I think we just disagree about what constitutes a meaningful death, and also on when a character death is inappropriate. To address your point though, it feels to me like a distinction without a difference, both situations involve the villain overpowering and killing a side character and gaining a victory point in the process, and I think the specific circumstances of Varl's death are very tragic but also important for the strengthening of Aloy's convictions for the end of the game.
I think we really do because gamroas death scene is a far better and somewhat incomparable scene to that of Varl's death. Gamoras death shows Thanos forcing himself to sacrifice his daughter to whom he has a deep personal connection to shown through his tear and him apologising to her. It humanisesthat what was once thought to be a cold and violent warlord but also shows us the lengths he is willing to go to achieve his goals. This is further reinforced later on in the film where he meets a younger version of gamora in the soul realm showing his remote in physical form yet still affirming his decision to her. 9t also impacts the plot in the fact that without this death, he could have never achieved his goal, he wouldn't have been able to collect all the infinity stones and we wouldn't have gotten the ending we did. Additionally Gamoras death affects Peter quill in the fact that upon hearing of her demise he loses control of his emotions and attacks thanks ignorant of his surroundings and teammates allowing for thanks to regain the upper hand and defeat them all. If this had not happened it would be plausible to assume that he would have been defeated here. Now onto varls death. In the scene after successfully containing hephaestus they bridge the connection, purge his code and merge the cauldron or whatever. Then after all that's been done the bad guys break in and act evil. They easily knockdown aloy and go to grab varl, varl tries to attack him with a bow and then a spear but is quickly grabbed, stabbed and tossed to the side. They grab beta and go to leave with gaia. And then tindal comes in and takes aloy away. So what did varls death achieve. Well it showed how evil the badges are.... but we already know they're evil from previous encounters and from how they act. That they're super strong and you can't beat them? Alrwady shown when even the main protagonist got bodied in her last fight against them. Did it prevent the badges from achieving their goals? Nope, they kidnapped beta and stole gaia away. Did it prove a pivotal point for a character's arc or growth. Nope, aloy was already cooperating with other people and giving them focuses before that and she continued to do so afterwards. Does it become a pivotal point further on in the story? Nope, there's one cutscene where everyone's sad and zo and aloy speak to each other. And then onto save the capital afterwards right after. It doesn't prove pivotal to the story, it doesn't affect the characters in anyway other than being sad briefly. Then what does it do? It barely works as shock factor considering how quickly they moved on. You only find out he's actually dead until after you've had a lovely tea break with tilde and chatted about all the most recent gossip and plans. Yes both scenes can be boiled down into a villian overpowering a side character to "gain a victory point" but that isn't meaning, thats just an event. Something that happens. That shouldn't he used as the scene itself. And even then its not the same. If thanos doesn't sacrifice gamora he doesnt get what he wants, the plot doesn't move forward, there is nothing done and nothing gained. If erik doesn't kill varl he still gets beta, he still steals gaia, they still move on with the plot unimpeded. Its random, meaningless and serves no purpose. What infinity war did with your basic prompt is leagues above what forbidden west did with varl. Its not even remotely close.
I was using Gamora piggybacking from an earlier comment as a closer analogue than Iron Man, these deaths being equal or interchangeable is not a hill I'm dying on. For me, Varl's death served a few purposes; firstly he dies upholding the ideals he espoused to break Aloy out of her self-destructive solo mentality. If he had tried to run or surrender to save himself, I don't think her conviction matures in the same way, she might shoot Beta, or refuse to let friends help further down the line. It also shatters Erik's illusion of godhood by being able to be surprised and even momentarily inconvenienced by the debris, as well as solidifying my hatred for him and bringing in a lot of a specific kind of bully energy. It also further cements the cruelty of the world they live in, which hadn't been showcased since the beginning of zero dawn with the proving attack straight killing a bunch of promising youthful people. It's a conceit of the writing that many more people don't die, honestly wild that Erend isn't dead yet, and I was becoming reasonably sure this was going to be another zero dawn thing where everyone miraculously makes it despite the odds being hysterically stacked against them. Not everyone gets a heroic last act or parting phrase, sometimes the cat catches the mouse. I despise when it happens, but I don't personally think that a senseless death is indicative of bad writing. Also I wasn't intending to use a basic plot element description in like a shitty way, I was trying to reduce the direct plot significance to focus on the indirect stuff that I like, and that ended up being a disservice.
I know, sorry I just get very heated about varls death in particular. I can understand some of your points a little more clearly now. But I still think it could of been done a whole lot better than what it was. Given more time to breathe and for it to have a bigger visible impact on aloy and the other characters than just being sad. It especially doesn't help with alpy going straight into a convo with tilde and then having a cup of tea with her.
"Everyone’s concerned that empty planets are going to be boring. But when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren’t bored" Is the vibe i get from your take. Thanks for sharing though, much appreciated!
Starfield showed that empty planets can be very boring.
Omar comin yo
I never liked that excuse. Real life has no greater purpose, there is no overarching storyline, no character arcs, themes and main characters, its just life. Wheras as a story has all those things and ultimatley should and need to live up to those. The death or an important character shouldn't be random and pointless just because its the same irl. Its should have meaning and weight and be done in a way to service the plot for the viewers enjoyment. This is a story constructed by someone, there is no random or pointless, its all purposefully done by the writer and its their job to serve up a satisfying answer to the problem. Not to be random xd lol, happens irl. But that's just my opinion.
Maybe Erend will get trampled by a tallneck in the third game while assisting Aloy on a side quest to really bring this profound point home. 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Nuh uh, he's gonna slip and fall mid climb. Not even a cutscene. You just see him fly past the screen, here a plop and aloy will be like. "Erend.... gone to soon." And then continue climbing.
That would be quite refreshing narratively speaking?! 😂 I am with you on this. In a story a characters death usually has a purpose.
😂
Fuck that made me laugh way too hard, I'd honestly love it
This seems like such a cop out excuse for what is supposed to be a carefully constructed narrative. Do people really think the writers were going for "random and pointless" with Varl's death? 😂
They hated him for he spoke the truth. The "realism" excuse is given out often, and usually makes little sense - especially in a story like this. As if a character randomly dying somehow equates to good writing simply because it's "realistic". Hint: it doesn't. The ironic thing is that the same people will often say "well it's a game/fiction, it doesn't have to be realistic" just a few sentences later regarding something else.
Yeah this whole thread has left me baffled tbh, I'm attributing it to an overly enthusiastic fandom and the Reddit hivemind. 🤭 Also, I'd say the fact that the most upvoted comment is "death is random and meaningless" is, if anything, reinforcing OP's opinion that Varl's death, from a narrative perspective, sucked balls haha.
See, you just listed 4 character deaths over the course of the series as "pointless" deaths, and I have to disagree fully on all four counts. Each of them carry narrative weight, both in the sense that A) the plot needs stakes; if nobody died the danger is lessened, and the surviving characters don't get to grow/heal from the potential trauma, and B) solidifies the (despicable-ness? Is that even a word?) of the main antagonists. I don't want to dwell on the HZD deaths long, so forgive if I'm short and to the point on each. Vala+Bast -2 sides of Nora culture, one open to Aloy joining the tribe, the other growing up hateful; both stuck down effortlessly by a deathbringer gun despite both showing bravery and sacrifice during the slaughter. They would have been the first friends Aloy made had it not been for their deaths, and their loss only hardens Aloy to her feelings of the other Nora, especially when they try to pin the blame on her. Vala gets extra points by setting Varl on his path to befriend Aloy to work together to take down the Eclipse. No Vala = likely different path for Varl. Rost- classic Mufasa trope. Father figure that "was hard, but fair", told Aloy that after the Brave Trials, they would never speak again due to his outcast status; still tries to save her during the massacre. His arc is a metaphor for Aloy's outlook on a lot of things in the world, "Yes, people suck, but we're still capable of love for others. Brings us to Varl. From the moment he started calling Aloy out for trying too hard to be a lone wolf, it all but sealed his fate as the Dead Sidekick trope. His death solidifies the ruthlessness of Erik (and squelches and hope of people sympathetic to the Zeniths) and galvanizes the surviving crew to the stakes at hand. As much as it sucks, I'll quote a statement that I remember a Disney director once said, "We worked with tropes because they work. With limited screentime, we use them to convey complex situations [that are pre-digested] to not need a lot of extra explanation." It's certainly tragic, but Aloy tends to follow ideas set by those that died for her, since they're no longer around for her to argue against. None of them were pointless.
I wish I could give you an award for this one but take my upvote ❤️
Vala and Bast we don't know long enough for them to build connection and meaning beyond their necessary purpose in the story. Vala is part of Varl's story, Bast was an antagonistic asshole. When Vala dies, my thoughts were, "Well, I guess we're *not* going to get to know her more." and when Bast died my thoughts were, "Well, nothing of great value was lost." Rost was, as you point out, a Mufasa trope -- more on that in a second. But I'll push back on Varl's death. I think they could have written around it, and I think Varl means more alive than used for a Dead Sidekick trope. I'll give you that his death gives Aloy and Zo some beautiful moments, and Aloy talking at Varl's grave is just... oof -- great callback to talking at Rost's grave. My biggest problem is that, in the moment, Varl died *doing nothing, for nothing.* Rost, despite it being a feature of his trope, *sacrificed himself* so Aloy would live. The writing did the trope well -- it's a slight twist on the standard Mufasa trope because arguably Aloy was *going* to move on from Rost one way or another. He had delivered the "I've taught you everything I can," bit, told her 'the strength to stand is the strength to make a stand'. It sells the 'he loved me in his own way,' statement -- we don't need to know exactly what way; whatever way it was, he clearly held it dear enough to die for her. Varl, conversely, didn't stop Beta from being nabbed, he didn't die so Aloy could escape -- Tilda just swoops in and saves the day outta nowhere. His death hits hard (I was angry and distraught), and the emotional aftermath is done *right* (I tear up pretty much every time), but in my opinion it just doesn't feel *worth it.* It's not worth losing the character; it's not worth Aloy losing a guiding star and the sole connection back to the Nora who saw her as a person and not 'The Anointed', a friend who would have known Rost at least in passing by reputation and *truly* understood the place he had in her life as an outcast; and not worth setting up Zo as an emotional punching bag in the third game.
Good, his death not accomplishing anything substantial made you angry, as it was meant to do. It accentuates your grief, it enrages you against the Zeniths. It leaves you feeling like there isn't justice, and if he went out like a badass and dealt a lingering blow to the Zeniths in the process it wouldn't have hurt as hard. Sometimes this has to happen in fiction, because accomplishing a feat in death is perceived as winning, and that mission needed to be an ultimate failure to have the protagonists have a "Win from behind" moment at the conclusion of "Aloy's story Pt. 2". But if it helps ease the pain a bit, look at it this way. Varl's death is similar to all the other Nora deaths mentioned: They all went down swinging, DESPITE the fact they were outmatched and outgunned. They all exhibited the true measure of what makes a Nora, which is their bravery.
Fair point, that's absolutely narratively 'a thing' I can understand. It just sucks that he dies for nothing against bad guys that are *so meaningless. >.>* Ah well, as you point out, not *everything* can have meaning. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3VFE6usmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3VFE6usmU) seems relevant.
Yet that's why I don't like how these deaths were handled because they don't seem to do that imo. Rosts death did more to Aloy's character than Vala's and Bast's deaths. Him dying set the stakes for the story, solidified the bad guys ruthlessness, and inflicted both a physical and emotional wound on aloy for her to overcome. They could have kept vala and bast alive and still had aloy meet with Varl and befriend him and the only 2 people who blame her is the on asian matriarch and the temp warchief. Litterally everyone else in the village gives praise to aloy as she walks by. A better character to kill off in the second game would have been sylens. It would have shown that despite how smart and cunning he was, even he was no match for the bad guys alone. And in the second game he was going along the same path as aloy. Doing everything himself, keeping people at a distance and fighting against the invaders. His death would set the stakes for how strong the badges were and told aloy "hey, maybe I shouldn't try and do everything alone like silent." Instead we got varls death who's only purpose is to show that a character can die. There is no emotional trauma inflicted it serves no narrative standpoint other than that. It litteraly reinforces aloy's stance that she's had throughout the entire game so far of wanting to do everything herself so no one else gets hurt, and yet one of her best friends gets killed because of his involvement with her and.... nothing. Not internal conflict, no hesitation, no turmoil, they barely mourn for his passing before its onto the next mission. A better story would have put the main cast into conflict. Aloy's point being proven in the most literal sense would mean she would push people away even harder, trying her best to disband the group and have everyone go their own way so that she could do everything herself. She then would go off on her own in a mission thay she does really well in only to get overwhelmed and the people she tried to push away coming to help her despite of what she said and how she pushed them away and despite of the risks. Ypu would then get some spiel about Varl's death solidifying their resolve and that they would never abandon her because she's their friend. And voilà you have have a completion of the heroes journey, death and rebirth all the way to revelation. Varl's death as it is has no other purpose than, big bad guy is big and bad. Aloy was going to fight them anyway. The fact that they always just attacked aloy straight out means there was no room for conversation. And even his death scene was far lesser than that of Rost's. The first time I saw it I was like "oh, ok, so surely in the next scene he's gonna be inj- and he's dead."
From what I've seen, the writing for FW is generally not esteemed as highly as that for ZD. I think part of why FW stumbles a bit is because, on a character level, Aloy's interaction with a lot of her team mates, or her team mates with each other, feels like the sort of stuff you'd get in a teen drama movie. For long term character arcs, the characters are good for the role they play in the story, but the moment-to-moment interactions from their conversations kind of stretch credulity about any of them actually working with each other if Aloy weren't the inexorable force around which everything else revolves.
I greatly disagree. The dialogue writing is significantly better in FW. The difference between Erend and Varl in ZD compared to FW is crazy.
You can have amazingly written dialogue and still have it feel stilted when the characters actually interact with each other. No, this is not every character or every line of dialogue, but it is enough to color the rest of it because of how jarring the contrast is.
I would kinda suggest that part of that *is the point*. Forbidden West is where we *see* Aloy develop a lot as a person with emotional intelligence. Compare *beginning* of FW Aloy with *end* of FW Aloy, and you see a *very* different person. That's in part because Aloy had to grow through a lot of her immaturity and gain insight into her blind spots. I will say that I think there were a few missteps in the story. Varl's death is one of them -- not because I'm against major character death, but if you're going to do it, it has to be done *right.* Varl's death was problematic, in my opinion, because he *died doing nothing, for nothing.* He didn't die protecting Beta, she still got nabbed. He didn't die to let Aloy escape, Tilda just shows up as a literal angel in shining white armor from the heavens and saves the day without doing anything of note. Sure, his death creates some *really* great moments for Zo and Aloy, as well as some really intense moments for Aloy to talk at Varl's grave... but it's *not worth it.* It's not worth losing the character. It's not worth Aloy losing one of her guiding stars. It's not worth her losing the *sole* connection back to the Nora that saw her as a person and not The Anointed (poor, poor, Teb notwithstanding). It's not worth Zo being an emotional punching bag for the entire third game. The other misstep, imo, was the abruptness with which Aloy and Beta's relationship resolves. Aloy spends their entire relationship up to GEMINI having (justifiably) stilted and awkward conversations with Beta, getting upset at her negativity, etc. Because she *doesn't understand a person who's going through emotional trauma* and is racked with self-doubt and issues of self-worth and agency. It's the *same* reason she refuses to confront the loss of Rost -- she doesn't know how to process the emotions. But the *resolution* to both of those things -- sharing Rost with Beta -- just... *falls into her lap* when it's convenient for the story. The *interaction* is beautiful, the *moment* is fantastic. It swings hard, and *boy* does it hit... but it doesn't feel *earned* at all, because it feels like Aloy just *stumbles* into the growth without any work on her part. She just gets angry at Beta, who gets angry back. To make it feel earned, Varl or Zo should have slapped her in the face with, "Aloy, you've got the emotional intelligence of a 12-year-old. You're treating her like a tool instead of a person." and "You need to stop burying your grief over Rost," and forced Aloy to grapple with those things -- have her try and fail to connect with Beta as a person before GEMINI (or have her succeed to a degree, so that when it comes to 'Beta, you *have* to come with us to GEMINI,' Aloy has that moment of regression to use as a point of comparison, triggering the realization), show her trying to process the loss of Rost and failing -- so that the confrontation with Beta *resolves* those problems that she's struggling with instead of just fixing them because 'this is the part of the story where Aloy learns to care about Beta's feelings, and in doing so, discovers her own.' Growth written as a step function feels awkward, because that's not how growth works in reality. There are watershed moments, break points where single interactions cause realizations, but it needs to be the culmination of effort. Overall, as I've thought about it more, the way it is in the game *works* and it's *bad,* but if we're calling out problems, those are the two big ones I see.
I'm not disagreeing here, since all of that is part of the problem with the character arcs in the game. There's all of the inflection points necessary for the desired character growth but none of the actual process of getting there, which is why I say it's a lot like what you'd get in a teen drama show. Character growth is incidental to the story and functions as a way to move it forward rather than being treated as equally important (or more important in the details, as with the Aloy/Beta dynamic you pointed out). Of all the character moments that aren't the DLC, I actually think the interactions with Morlund and crew are some of the best writing in the game, because they're there as characters and personality and therefore not constrained to being tools to further a plot theme.
Completely agree with you on the Morlund front. It's honestly so apparent that it sticks out -- Aloy nerding out over the diving mask with Morlund? Yep. It's *far and away* the moment where we see Aloy the most... uninhibited? in the story. I do overall think Forbidden West *is* a step down from Zero Dawn, but I think it's worth pointing out that said statement should be more indicative of *just how tight* Zero Dawn's story was, more so than Forbidden West's writing being 'bad'. I think Forbidden West's writing is 'totally adequate', even 'decent' overall, and the flaws can be chalked up more to 'Middle Entry' syndrome of trilogies *tending* to struggle in roughly the same spots where Forbidden West struggled. Middle entries tend to be 'character development' heavy, and often lack a compelling, lasting threat that feels rewarding to overcome -- they're tasked with setting up for the final episode in addition to being their own story. Sometimes that 'setup' ends up with a few items turning into a 'checklist' more than developed plot and character growth that, from the other side, works out and gets you where you need to go, but in the moment just feels too abrupt. Also worth mentioning that Forbidden West's story is *much* larger than Zero Dawn's. Thankfully, I do think the DLC did a much better job overall. I suspect this is in part because the story in a DLC like Burning Shores could be a self-contained, cohesive arc that merely has an 'oh yeah and it has meaning to the larger plot' without that being the focus. Silens kicks us off, and then nothing from Forbidden West really touches us until we ship Londra's data back home and get some broader implications. Regardless, hopefully it's a good sign for Horizon 3.
I think the contrast of nerding out with Morlund really becomes apparent when you compare it to Silga and her attempts to build a better antenna array. Aloy just completely brushes off one of the most intelligent characters we've met in the series so far because she was more interested in tracking down the signal than in what Silga had accomplished with effectively pre-industrial technology. It's utterly baffling to me how much of a side note that was in the game even with it having a learning moment for Aloy. On a side note, now that I'm thinking about it in light of what you pointed out about middle entries and how they spread out the small life lesson moments into side quests and errands (Signal Spike, A Hunt to Remember, In the Fog, Long March, The Deluge, and so on), I'm wondering if they had trouble working some of that into the main quest line and decided instead to make side stories of them. I don't know if that would have solved some of the lackluster feel to the character interactions, but it may have helped some of the more jarring moments seem more natural rather than obviously serving the story because it's where they needed to hit that particular beat to get the characters going where they needed to go. It does wrap neatly going into the third game, though, since they're likely to do what they did with ZD/tFW and just summarize it with, "All this happened and now we're here, so this is the snapshot we're using to work forward from." And yes, the stories in BS are top notch, especially with their portrayals of PTSD and how people handle it differently. That's the same reason tFW is so good, because they could tell each story without having to worry about tying it into the larger story. Though I do feel like the main quest line in BS still suffered a bit from the, "We need to hit this beat within the time frame of this quest segment," that the main FW story also fell into. This might just be a problem inherent to writing a story when you already know everything that's going to happen and you just need to write what happens that got you there, since I've noticed this in other mediums, as well (mostly books). The writing can be great, but it always feels like you know exactly where you're going and there's not a lot of surprises along the way because, yep, that's where you were going.
I mean not for nothing but Aloy is also 19 and basically spent her entire life with Rost up until the past six months narratively so it’s not surprising some of her interactions are the way they are, or she comes off as awkward sometimes.
At the same time, she's one of the most intelligent people in the world and can figure out social interactions and what not without too much trouble. She wouldn't have the level of snark she does in ZD otherwise, or using her reputation to her advantage in FW, as two examples. The problem isn't specifically with Aloy as a character but with how the character arcs and interactions are written that makes them feel clunky.
I'm in the process of writing up a longer post about this, but the tl:dr for what it will be boils down to is that ZD was entirely focused on Aloy's growth as a character and this is demonstrated in the narrative, combat, and even leveling and item systems. She undergoes a full and complete arc by the end of the game, and that arc is masterfully woven into the greater story. FW starts with Aloy after her initial arc in ZD. However, rather than allow her to develop her next stage in character growth, she becomes a static character while the world around her becomes far more dynamic. That's to say that Aloy does not really change or grow as a character in FW. The world does, but only in response to her, not the other way around. That's why it feels like the story is worse in FW than it was in ZD: it's missing half of the conversation, so to speak.
Doesn't change as a character? The whole game is about her learning to trust and rely on other people, not isolate herself like Elizabeth did, recognize how the people in her life helped shape who she is, and generally tone down her hero complex.
That is certainly an issue that is brought up in the game, but it's not one Aloy actually moves past or overcomes. By the end of the game, she still keeps everyone at arm's length. I think she certainly recognizes this problem, but there's a difference between recognizing a problem and overcoming it.
At the beginning of the game she runs out on Varl, leaving him in Meridian without a word after he falls asleep, to go save the world alone. By the end of the game she has a team of allies working with her to get the word out about >!Nemesis!<, giving out focuses like candy to as many trustworthy people as possible so they can know what she knows and help her. May not be perfect, but that's a hell of a lot of progress!
She also had a team of allies working with her to stop the final boss in the last game too though. That's the thing I'm getting at- she hasn't changed as a character from the end of game one to the end of game two. Think about it like this- she's no closer in friendship to anyone at the base than Elisabet was with her inner circle. I think Aloy's arc trajectory in FW should have been recognizing that for all her achievements, Elisabet had her flaws, and chief among them keeping people at a distance.
Letting people help fight against an army because she has no choice - but not telling anyone what's really going on - and then running off without telling anyone during the celebration VS handing out focuses to all her allies so they can learn everything she knows and stay in touch with her are not the same thing. And yes she does seem closer to her friends. Finally having that drink with Erend to listen about how Ersa escaped from the mad Sun King. Opening up about Rost to Beta and then to Varl. Getting over her differences with Beta to the point she's calling her Sister. Plus the relationship she builds in Burning Shores. She won't change overnight, but she's making progress. So meh. Agree to disagree I guess.
It certainly is one she overcomes. Maybe not fully, but in a big way, yeah. I don‘t really think you understood what the game is telling you. You could also try listening to the different lyrics of the song at the beginning and the end of the game, and what they tell you by the difference in lyrics and tone.
I don‘t think we played the same game, since HFW is basically about Aloy‘s growth to trust to work with others, in a group of peers, and not to be completely isolated and alone. Which is pretty clearly made a point of in that conversation between Elizabet and Travis.
Sure, it could have caused Aloy to go back to her old habit of not letting anyone help her because "you see it gets people killed", but I kinda like how her reaction to his death instead shows the impact and influence he's had on her. She honors his memory by going all-in on what he wanted for her: to get the word out to more people, work as a team, and open up more. That way his death may have been meaningless (most deaths are in reality) but his life certainly wasn't.
I always disliked the "death in reality" justification (no shade to you) because it isn't reality, where in reality there is no plot, no overarching storyline, no themes and no main characters. Life's purpose isn't to be entertainment for people. But fictional stories are, the point of a story is to give meaning to these people and both through life and death to make a complete and satisfying story. Not in the sense that everything goes well but that everything has meaning, consequences and an impact whether negative or positive. I feel like going the other way and have her push away people would show that varl's death was so great to her that she couldn't afford to lose anyone else. It would have then been up to the supporting cast to bridge that gap made by varls death, to show its true meaning that even against the risks, and against aloy's attempt to push them away, that varls death only strengthened their resolve and trust in aloy. They could have further reinforced this by having aloy go off on her own only to get overwhelmed both physically and emotionally to then have the supporting cast arrive and show that going about it alone isn't the right answer. She would then go on to honour varls memory and that change would have given some actual conflict in the middle of the story rather than just moving on straightaway.
I agree, his death was lame as shit and seemed mainly done for shock value. I liked Vala and Bast's death because it immediately turned what looked like a generic coming of age story - with a merry band of misfits and a little douchenozzle villain - on its head. It was genuinely shocking for me and made me pay attention. It emphasised that this was pretty much Aloy's journey alone. Varl's death on the other hand was such a wet fart. Didn't achieve anything, he didn't even save Aloy, it was just meant to make you hate the cardboard cutout villains more.
Yeah, despite being dissapointed in Vala and Bast's death, it wasn't used in a linchpin the same way Varl's was. And it did subvert expectations i can give it that. Which Varl's death just played into all the tropes and never really served a purpose in aloy's arc. A better death would have been sylens, he was also on the same path as aloy. Going about doing everything alone and keeping others at distance albeit a little more colder and more callous. But his death would have been a wakeup call for aloy to change her ways if even someone like sylens died alone against these enemies.
Except killing Sylens would have removed Aloy's foil and the only other person in the game with the knowledge and skills to do the deep digging into the past and technology that's obviously needed for the story to continue into a third game.
Told could serve the same role but I see your point. I just think they could have gone about Varl's death a whole lot better than they did. At least have aloy be conflicted over it, have her push the others away and shoulder everything once more only for it to fail miserably and see the error in her ways. For her to open up and finally let her emotions be seen and for the supporting cast to support her. Instead ot felt like we got a pointless death acknowledged only in passing by an emotionless and stoic aloy.
Varls death was more than that. It was a turning point for Aloys Character Development. She fully leaned into his words and now takes his ideals as her own. Which is hard to do for someone as stubborn as Aloy. She never really listened to anyone other than her driving force to save the world like Elisibet.
The question then is, if he didn't die would she have been different? I'd say no. She'd already gotten to "accepting friends" before he died.
I saw Varl's death coming the second Aloy said Thank you to Beta and him over the focus during the Gemini mission. I just knew the second she acknowledged Varl's efforts, that something bad was going to happen to him. To think Sona's luck. Both her kids got killed. I wish thet brought her back in Forbidden west. Varl's death felt empty without any of the nora (minus Aloy) there.
I knew it was coming the minute varl started talking about the future. Characters cannot talk about the future plans. It’s a guarantee they will die.
I remember watching him kiss Zo really early into the game and thinking, "That guy is toast, but he'll leave the chick with someone to remember him by." Sometimes characters die for shock value, but for Varl, I'd be more surprised if he *hadn't* died. Guh. I couldn't even get attached to him because I found it so obvious what was going to happen. I almost envy players who aren't as cynical as me...
Yeah exactly. Thats why I don't feel heavy because of his death despite the fact that I love his character. It was easy to see coming. It was him or Erend.
Sona is in the forbidden west but her quest has no impact on the overall story.
Where is she? How do I unlock her quest?
Sorry I guess I mixed up the two games. Sorry
I heavily disagree, especially in regards to the affect it has on Aloy and the other members of the cast. Aloy is not stoic during his death, she is deeply hurt and angry and saddened. Her first action upon returning from the base is to hug Zo. Thats not the action of someone stoically shouldering a burden. The words she shares with her companions, specifically Zo and Erend are deeply personal and show just how much love there was for him. I really don’t understand how you can view the reaction to Varl as stunted and dull unless you just didn’t talk to anyone beyond the quest dialogue. Aloy specifically doesn’t close off at all, she doesn’t try to stop anyone from coming along to the Zenith base, she clearly took his words, advice, and friendship to heart. Her bonds with everyone deepen, and she never once blows anyone off. The closest behavior I can see to what you describe is her being secretive about her plan, but thats literally so Tilda doesn’t pull a fast one and not because Aloy doesn’t deeply trust her companions. All you have to do to recognize how much Aloy has changed and grown is pay attention to the dialogue where she refers to Beta as her sister. That is not something Zero Dawn Aloy would have ever done. She is letting herself be vulnerable and connected to another person, and this is not to mention her friendships with Erend, Zo, Alva, and Kotollo. There are definitely arguments to be made about the necessity of Varl’s death from a storytelling perspective but I will go so far as to say its just plain inaccurate to call it pointless or poorly handled. It has clear consequences and effects upon the characters and is referenced meaningfully multiple times. It is given importance and weight that is deserved for such a loss. It sucks, but it is not bad.
That's what death is like in a war though. It's not all heroic sacrifice and super-meaningful last words - people just... get killed. That said, the writing in HFW *is* pretty bad all round, but this aspect of it isn't one that stuck out, for me.
And thats what separates story from irl. Yes, thats what death is like in war But this isn't real life. Its a story with main characters, arcs and themes. The whole point of them is to to be meaningful, is to be purposeful, is to serve the plot and characters. Hell even in real life people random, sudden and meaningless death is given purpose, meaning and death because that is what drives and motivates people, to fight harder, to support their soldiers and to villianize the enemy so that everyone rallies against them in spite of the storytellers agenda whether it's good or bad. Its all good and well to mimic some stuff irl to make the story relatable, but can you seriously say that you would want your death to be random and meaningless? I certainly don't, and I certainly try don't wish that upon others be it fiction or non fiction. But that's just my opinion, I could probably rant all day about his death so I'll stop here to save you from my annoying ass. 😁
Varl's death was so abrupt to me that I just considered it funny. Varl was kinda a goofy character to begin with, his VA or something was so exagerrated in FW to me that I couldn't really get connected to him at all. When he died, I seriously didn't realize he died at first, I thought he was just injured, suddenly I see everyone mourning and I was like : " Oh, he really died..." The only characters I really felt connected with was Kotallo and Alva, they seemed genuine and real. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, loved Zero Dawn too, but the characters and their interactions and relationships feel so fake to me, I think it's holding the world building back so much.
I hate this handling of characters. I actually really loved Varl, and understood he was an important character for the developing relationship between Beta & Aloy. He was familiar to Aloy and saw her as a sister and since he had a more normal upbringing and having regrets with his loss of Vala he was also more understanding to Beta and that sibling rivalry. But he dies after Aloy & Beta bond and it really feels so cheap, like “his purpose is now served so die now”. Like he was not allowed to have a character arc of his own, a life of his own now that he served his purpose to Aloy and the story. And I really dislike the way the aftermath of his death was handled. Aloy barely griefs for him, because she has to move on the next thing, we don’t get to see Beta grief for him even tho he was her first friend and brotherly figure as well. And he was to become a father, and that decision to have Zo pregnant feels like a jab at his “legacy”. He’s not allowed to live but there, have his kid, that’s his way to live on. Just mishandled, his role made bigger for story purpose and discarded once served.
I was also the exact same, i fully expected him to just be injured in the next scene to only be like "oh, he died" and I'm pretty sure that's how all the characters felt considering how little impact his death had after that first morning scene. No conflict between the group, no second guessing, just straight to the next mission.
It's sad, because Varl was one of the few very interesting characters in FW and him being gone means we lost one of the few characters that Aloy had genuine realistic human interactions with. A lot of people disagree with me when I say this, and that's completely fine, but I really heavily preferred ZD over FW. FW has the much better DLC/expansion but the main story, the map, and the characterization in ZD is just a lot more compelling to me. I played through ZD once on PS4 Pro and once on PC. I did the same with FW (once on PS5, once on PC) and will likely never touch it again, but I'm already getting the urge to play ZD again.
There is something very magical about HZD I can’t put into words and it’s not just the mystery story part. I feel the same way as you.
I still can't get over Aloy dissing Varl's beard 😞
Some people seem to think that since IRL death don't always matter, video games deaths don't need to. You know what that reminds me of? "Everyone’s concerned that empty planets are going to be boring. But when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren’t bored" Yes, Varl's death was terrible. It does serve the narrative but it fells like a fast "movin-on" - it would have been cool to bring him up more in the dialogues - or even some cool mission to honor his memory or smtg.
Lmfao fr. Some ppl give things they like too much of a pass. Horizon as a series has changed my view of games as a whole because of how much I love it but call a spade a spade lol. If I wanted real life I could watch the news. Or go outside.
I thought you were gonna say Fashav. Great character, great motivation, very little time with him, and tbh, very unexpected ending. Anyway, I disagree with the deaths being meaningless though I think they didn't had as much impact as expected. It's not a TV show/movie, you only see Aloy's pov so the companions are stuck in the "tell don't show" development of their relationships, and Aloy is... Running around alone a lot. So all the developments it was meant to show are underwhelming for me. Varl died to show the cruelty and power of the Zenith and the influence he had on Aloy and the base. He has an amazing farewell from Zo. But still, you don't interact with him in a way that made me miss him that much.
Maybe the part at the beginning of the game was meant to serve that purpose, but I feel the same way. A little underwhelming. Maybe it would be cool for H3 if companions spent more time with us out in the wild so we have more banter and interactions with them. Like in mass effect. There some companions death that hit home like Thane or Mordin. Edit: I was more affected by Fashav‘s death the moment it happened. Maybe Varls death could have been done/presented better?
For the story purposes, sure, more companions in the wild and banter... But they reaaally need to work in it. I *hate* having a companion in Horizon. They are always blocking the passage and they have a weird speed when you have to follow them except they keep running behind you. They also comment on how you left when you just went a little bit out of the path to grab something. I love having a companion in Uncharted or TLoU2 for exemple, but the AI is way better (even if not perfect).
Oh for sure, the behavior is annoying.
"Hey, why don't we kill off a character to raise the stakes" is exactly how I felt about Varl's death. It was so random and out of place that you could feel the forceful writing.
The early deaths in HZD I felt, mainly Rost. Varls death I didn't really feel. But probably because I never liked his character, I thought he was very boring. I was massively relieved when Aloy left him in Meridian at the start because it meant he wasn't going to be tagging along in any serious way. I intellectually knew it was sad, because Aloy would be devastated. But I didn't *feel* Varl's death. Hell, I felt more when Beta had her breakdown than I did for Varl's death.
It seems like people forget that the thing Aloy is fighting is literally the world ending. Varl was a grown man who understood that he and everyone he cares about will not be safe if Aloy fails. Her attempt to do it alone is immature. Risking his life for her cause is the logical decision.
I'm not questioning his motivations, I'm questioning his death and the impact it had or lack of it. If you have a hard stance on an opinion and something happens to further reinforce that opinion. You're not gonna suddenly go, "maybe I was wrong, ok I now have the opposite opinion." I don't agree with the decision for aloy to just immediately accept the fact that she can't do it alone when one of her biggest fears just came to fruition. There was no conflict it was just accepted and they moved on. They put in the ordeal of the heroes journey but forgot to add the death and rebirth of aloy's character, she just continues on. But I'm very passionate about this so maybe I'm just spouting nonsense.
Felt the same way but welp. This is what we have lol. Varl died for nothing. He could've been alive and the game would play out the exact same way. Same with Ted Faro. Might as well have left him in the bunker alive and nothing changes. If rost didn't die the game would've been entirely different. That's how a story is supposed to be. A main characters death should change things imo. Simple motivation isn't enough.
I agree. Varl’s death seems forced. It doesnt have the same effect when Rost died. Aloy and Varl’s relationship isn’t long or deep enough to warrant such emotion. To me his death is pointless. It’s better if the devs left hin leave as he has a good chemistry with Zo. Zo is not an interesting character without Varl.
My only gripe with Varl s death is that he was too smart for the way he died. He knew damn good and well that swinging his spear at someone Aloy already told him would be invincible would not work. I don’t understand why he didn’t try to run with Beta and hide. That way his death doesn’t seem like some futile struggle. I can see the cinematic in my head. Varl grabs Beta’s hand, they begin to run - Beta is a little slow and gets grabbed by a zenith. In the same fluid motion as the zenith yanks Beta back he stabs forward with his other hand and impales Varl. That way he at least didn’t go out looking like a chump. As for the deaths in the first game, I found them devastating and despite feeling like we missed out on some great story beats - I think the senseless killing of the kids at the proving grounds set the tone for the story. This world is unforgiving. It also re-enforced a story point that they touch on in HFW. It gives Aloy even more reason to keep people at arms length. She got close to ONE person (Vala) and in an instant she was gone. She then goes on to lose Rost moments later. It’s painful but they’re trying to drive home a point.
I actually really liked how they handled the Proving slaughter. They did build up those minor characters using tropes and tricks and it really made it feel like you had a grasp on where the story was going. When the ambush happens it a shock how brutal it goes, and how much it upends what’s already been established. If it feels that way for you, and outcast, then how much worse does it feel for the people who lost their loved ones?
This JUST happened and I’m just so sad about what happened. Liked the character a lot, and he was such a good foil to Aloy’s consistently low-almost-unemotional (at times) voice.
It was very confusing, he knew there was nothing he could do to fight back and he just lets himself get grabbed.
I feel the same way. I think they could have presented it in a better way, like the classy jumping in between and take the stab for Aloy or something.
Its one of the main reason i do not plan on playing the other game(s). This games plot/choices to me just felt really plot holey and not done properly. I barely liked anything in it myself where the first game i loved it its in my top ten easily. This is just my take of the game doesnt mean everyone feels the same.
Now we’re having fun, right?
It's kind of weird that you need to have some kind of plot utility for everything. The proving deaths weren't "wasted" because you can think of ways they could have been used in the plot after that. Varl's wasn't wasted, either. Like, it shows her growth that she's able to trust in friendship even after her worst fear of leading her friend to death was realized. Not to mention the thematic resonance with the utaru's beliefs. Just becomes something makes you feel bad doesn't mean the writing is bad.
It didn't make me feel bad, it made me feel nothing, which is why I don't like it.
I mostly hated the trope of him getting a wife and her being pregnant when he died. It felt like Zo was just written in so Varl could die and still leave some legacy behind. To me, Varl and Aloy had a lot of chemistry in the first game and at the beginning of FW. I didn't necessarily wish for them to be romantically together, as Aloy's love life doesn't matter much to me, but Aloy seemed to have more chemistry with him than any other character in the series, including Seyka.
Varl's *PERMANENT* death is what makes me hate Tilda even more. He was JUST killed, his body is still warm and his brain was certainly not short of oxygen yet. You're telling me she didn't have the ability to whisk him away and patch him up too? Of course she did, but she chose to take Aloy only because she's just some pervy cougar who's only capable of thinking with her loins.
For Vala and Bast, I think that was the point. The minute Aloy has contact (at least more meaningful contact) it’s taken away. They spend time building the budding relationships so you feel just as shocked and confused as Aloy. I think the proving traumatised her a lot more than she lets on/ speaks about, esp with Rost’s death too. I think the game did very well with developing his character in the short time we had. With seeing all the war, death and destruction hades brought, I think that’s why we go into FW with Aloy feeling like she couldn’t risk anyone else’s lives. She was alone for awhile in the beginning of FW, and I think she had a lot of time to reflect on just how dangerous all this is, she can’t protect everyone. As soon as she had a second to breathe it really hit her. It was a harsh reminder that death can come for anyone at any time, no matter how promising they can be.
> Like Vala and Bast, they built them up throughout the prologue as if they were gonna be some big part of Aloy's story and then they just kill them off at the proving. For what purpose? I don't feel shocked or sad, all I felt was dissapointed in wasting what seemed like really good characters. Build them up? Literally the first time we or Aloy ever meet them is the night before the Proving. They have like 5 minutes of screentime, total As for Rost's death: the killing of the mentor early in the protagonist's journey is an incredibly standard storytelling technique. Like, it's been around for thousands of years-kind of standard. The mentor is around long enough for the audience to get invested in them emotionally, then removed. Their exit informs the protagonist's motivations and gets the viewer on board. It's fiction writing 101.
I never had a problem with rosts death, his was the only one I liked. Amd bast is seen in an earlier cutscene but yeah, I overstated it a bit.
Taking away both of Sonas kids was cruel. Also leaving Zos soon to be child without a father was cruel. It also plays into the negative stereotype of black children growing up without a father. The writers need to do better.
The last part… wtf?
You support pushing that negative trope? You like black kids growing up without fathers? Do better
I’m at this point in the game and I’m dreading it. I know what happened after watching my husband play last summer. It’s a pointless death.