aubergion: a glowing blue blupee, an owl-faced feather-eared rabbit creature (blupee)
[personal profile] aubergion
Once more, I return to the Great Plateau. Not to the Shrine of Resurrection, but to Mount Hylia, and specifically, the rift there. I've been avoiding the Depths for ages. But mysterious power is hard to pass up.

Immediately, I land on some kind of Zonai platform. And there's one of those fish guys again! Good sign for Josha's quest. There is also a fan-powered lift, leading to a mine cart and a whole mess of Zonai devices - lamps, rockets, things like that. Stick together a rocket sword just for posterity, then we're off! I'm mostly avoiding using the lamps - they drain my very limited battery, so I'm using Brightblooms instead. Eventually, the weird fish-dude statues (I feel like they're some kind of proto-Zora) and the mine carts lead me to what I suspected was there - the Great Central Mine mentioned by the Steward Construct, underneath the former location of the Temple of Time.

After all, significant locations in the Depths may be echoed by locations above, and vice versa.

There's another lift here, as well as a HUGE statue that echoes the same message the Goddess statue told me, about being trapped "under the water, behind the stone gate". Ok, well, I'm under the bloody water. That's why I jumped in that rift right next to the pond. I don't know what else you want from me. The map declares it's a Bargainer statue, so at least when I do figure out what it wants from me, per the loading screen, I'll be able to give it Poes. But for now, I'm stumped.

Down below, there's some more Yiga! Not surprised. Disguised as researchers but come on. And they're bullying another Steward, which has the convenient green-hand logo. Upon activation, it grants me the final ability - Autobuild. I can recreate Ultrahand constructs??? Holy shit. Whole new world. The Yiga encourage me to use this to make a cart, and I'm so excited that I put the cart together with the last wheel upside down. They yell at me when I try to fix it though. so the other one gets put together the same way. Oh dear. And then - Kohga! I knew he wasn't dead. He's rather more of a chump though, and is easily dispatched even with a giant crushing motorcar.

Freed, the Stewards start giving me new things - a schematic of a wing-plane with rather more fans than I normally use, as well as a place to refine Zonaite into charges. Hey, I remember something about that. I do a quick fast-travel up to the Steward in the Great Sky Island and confirm  - 100 Crystalized Charges for an upgrade. Nice! I liquidate all my Zonaite for charges and get two more bars on my battery. I feel much more powerful now. And there's another set of statues -a long-haired woman with a sword, looking off to the west, towards another abandoned mine. She must be a proto-Gerudo. I remember seeing some other statues when I was down near Hateno too. Follow-the-statues must have a consistent payoff of Yiga mines. Nice! Poor Master Kohga though - downgraded from a mandatory miniboss on par with a Lynel to a sad little side-adventure in a bumper car.

Ah well! Bargainer statue is a problem for another time. I did want to head back to the desert - I may as well do it underground! Koradat Lightroot is new - but Kawatik brings a smile to my lips - after all, I was just at Kitawak Shrine. I know I'm going the right way now. I find some device stashes and assemble some things I want for later -  a steerable dual-fan wing glider, a hot air balloon, a fan-sled, some experiments involving wheels. You can't assemble a portable fire though - it bursts into a tiny spark but no lasting fire. Sisutom Lighroot likewise implies the presence of Motusis Shrine, I suspect in the sky labyrinth - and that's right where I spot Farosh again. But now I know I can ride dragons. And dragons go up. I hop on Farosh's back to achieve what I wanted for so long in Hateno - a non-fast-travel method out of the depths. We emerge at East Gerudo Chasm (I can only assume that the big guy I flew over on the way down the first time is West Gerudo Chasm) and from there, I know where we're going - right back to the Desert Skyview! I hop off of Farosh and head over to the geoglyph - Ganondorf, kneeling.

I have to say, the racism baked in to the portrayal of the Gerudo really jumps out. The combination of the exaggerated features, skimpy clothes, dark skin and palette very contrasted with blond Zelda and Sonia (who does have brown skin, but much lighter, and without the facial exaggeration), the very sinister voice acting (Matt Mercer does villains well, not faulting him for that), and Rauru's description of his "evil nature".... wow. It's a lot. It was touched on in BotW with the stuff about their attitudes towards voe, but this is the first time I've really heard it all laid-out in game just like that. That can't have been a good look in Ganondorf's first appearance, and this lore has aged like shellfish since. Especially since, as far as I'm aware, the only Gerudo men have been various Ganondorfs. That's going to be interesting to tangle with as the Gerudo quest proceeds. I wonder if they'll address it at all.

Interestingly, this is memory #7, so it comes after the Molduga attack but before Sonia mentions Zelda wanting to help in that time. So Ganondorf's already made some aggressive moves by that point, but he is not yet revealed to be the progenitor of this huge cycle of evil - except of course, to Zelda, who's already done this song and dance once and is actually like, a hundred and twenty years old or so. I am VERY interested to see how Gerudo Town handles now. But of course, I need to get dressed first. Last time I went to Kara Kara Bazaar to get the right getup. May as well head back, especially since there's a shrine.

So the sandstorm from the far Gerudo desert has encroached upon the town, similar to how Hebra's cold turned Rito Village into a popsicle stick. Thankfully, I can fly, so it's basically a non-issue. There don't seem to be any girl outfits anywhere in stock, which is really interfering with my whole genderfluid twink aesthetic, but I pick up the desert voe hairdo and jet out.

Turns out I don't need an outfit. No one's stopping me. Gerudo Town is abandoned.

What happened?

(no subject)

Date: 2023-06-18 20:46 (UTC)
canadian_jay: Top down over the shoulder view of Zethuri, half-drow monk player character from BG3. (Default)
From: [personal profile] canadian_jay
Ooh I am interested to see Gerudo Town from your perspective! I was exploring some caves and ruins before heading into the city and ran into Riju out in the ruins practicing her lightning, so picked it up that way.

And yeah, if that memory is the one I think it is, the racism in Ganondorf's design -- that hugely prominent nose, mostly -- REALLY jumped out at me. :/ The Gerudo in general have been horribly Orientalist forever, and I *know* there was a lot of criticism of them in BotW so its disappointing, but not unsurprising to see they... have not improved.

Also, I reckon Sonia is either just a dark-skinned Hylian or one specifically from Lurelin, tho she doesn't have the Lurelin-ese(?) other markers, so, probably Hylian? They do seem to have more design variety in this game than I remember in BotW.

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aubergion

August 2023

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