Text/Echo
It's strange that it's the second weekend in March.
Obviously I feel that yesterday is still the appearance of the 26th, obviously I feel that I just ransacked the stone cave Weier on a business trip yesterday, but when I open the map, I see a map that is more and more alarming, and I am not going to lose to Ubisoft, a dense blessing point...
Then came a headache characterized by excessive fatigue, as if the game had triggered some strange defense mechanism, which was able to regain the sensation in the secretion gap of endorphin mixed with adrenaline, and made me realize what a harsh mental work it was to live in the world of the old thief.
But sadly, just before writing this line, I reopened the Eldon Ring, unlocked an area despite the headache, found some blessings, killed a few monsters, and harvested thousands of lunes, until I was beaten by some elite monster to lose these thousands of lunes, I quit the game in anger, and my head naturally hurt even more.
Can't go on like this anymore, both physically and psychologically are almost overwhelmed; but it is not realistic to "ring" like this, do you say? And in case of any withdrawal reaction, wouldn't it be worth the loss? That being the case, I think I have to compromise myself: still enter the game and enjoy the BGM like a fluttering wind, let go of the boss elite (and myself) for the time being, and focus on the cute animals in the wilderness forest.
Compared to the Dark Soul World, where even a mushroom wants to kill the undead, the same decline into the narrow space is really thriving:
Under the grace of the golden giant tree, the water and grass around the royal city are abundant, which not only feeds flocks of sheep and deer, rabbit squirrels, turtles and dung beetles, but also allows small groups of wolves and storm eagles to stay away from the battlefield bones and maintain their wild but pure noble image; and it seems to be also derived from some of the grace of the golden tree - the dragonflies here are huge, the jellyfish here are brightly colored, and the bats between the cliffs have completed some kind of strange evolution, not only with the head of a noble woman. He also learned the natural sound of lost civilizations.
And if you explore carefully enough, and walk a few more times with an old friend, then I believe that among all these animals, the first thing that impresses you should be the giant bear in the fog - after all, at this time, the player is often shocked and even angry because of the inexplicable teleportation, and will be afraid because of the low visibility can not see the old thief's tricks, at this time, a huge black shadow appears in the moonlight fog accompanied by a scraping sound, and whoever sees it will fight in two battles, decide to retreat first, and choose a day to come again.
Maybe it will be better during the day, but with higher visibility, you will also have a contrast to find out how huge these guys are, and the imprints on their bodies like magic spells also hint that they are not easy to mess with... So although they are no different from the familiar bears, such a large size also gives these giant bears a boss-like sense of oppression, strength and impact.
So the question arises: What are these giant bears?
Obviously, it cannot be part of the natural ecology of the Narrow Land, nor is it the product of the distortion spawned by the Golden Tree, nor will it drop any special items to show its particularity, but it also leaves some evidence outside the main line of the game, enough for imaginative players to find a complete answer to their own reasoning.
Specifically, first of all, near these giant bears is the elevator to the underground ancestral land, which seems to have something to do with this Celtic ancestral settlement; secondly, the pattern on the chest of the giant bear is very Celtic circle, which is also a further confirmation of the relationship between the giant bear and the Celtic myth; and finally, according to the Celtic myth that gives the giant animal a divine character, I think we can think of the giant bear in the game as the heir of artio, the goddess of the Celtic bear, or even the goddess herself.
Unfortunately, we know very little about this goddess, so little that if it were not for the excavation of related artifacts in Bern, this goddess who seemed to be inextricably linked to Rome would only slowly and forever be sealed in the memory of the old people.
No way, who made the Celtic Druids explicitly forbid the written recording of wisdom in those stories? Word of mouth between master and disciple did select the most talented (or best remembered) druid candidates at the first time, but when the more powerful Christianity began to take most of the druids' apprentices around, instead these Christian missionaries became the recorders of Celtic mythology — needless to say, the mythological stories compiled by them naturally had a lot of "fine-tuning in details" and omissions in content, so that today we are unlikely to see the "bear goddess" in existing Celtic mythology. Whether it was a sacred animal, a cursed king, or some highly respected legendary great druid.
That being the case, we might as well broaden our horizons and see what role these giant bears play in the mythological stories of other peoples.
In the former great lakes, shamans, keenly aware that every time the brown bear in the harsh winter forest will disappear completely, and will miraculously reappear in the spring, they think that this creature has the magical ability to revive the dead; further north in ancient Scandinavia, the warriors who aspire to be invincible believe that bearskins can give them endless power, and naturally have an almost adoring fear of this creature; and back on the East Asian continent, the wise men prefer to see the calves of giant bears in their eyes, thinking that they are the most competent mothers of nature, so " The folk tale of "Mother Bear" thus began to travel in the world.
Among them, the ancient Korean people believed that they were the descendants of the bear girl - she was willing to endure hunger and hunger for the incarnation of a human being, and twenty pieces of garlic were cut into the valley for twenty-one days in the dark cave (as if it was still hibernation), which not only fulfilled the request of Huan Xiong, the son of the sun god, but also won the favor of the king of heaven with her beauty and sincerity, and after marrying her, the ancestor of the Korean nation, Tanjun, was born.
In addition, because the bear's poor eyesight rarely takes the initiative to attack like the tiger wolf, many hunters who understand its habits tend to affectionately call this animal "bear blind" after retreating from the whole body; because the bear is large and can stand on two feet for a short time, at first glance it looks a bit similar to people, and many areas also have the terrible legend of "human bear"; and apparently for the same reason, the people of Nagano Prefecture, Japan, were once convinced that the older black bear would "evolve" into the intelligent ghost bear onikuma, and they were more accustomed to walking upright. They would sneak into villages to steal food and livestock, and even learned to ambush in the valley and throw boulders at hunters at the bottom of the valley—yes, exactly like some thick-haired mountain thieves.
These stories may be imaginative or creepy, or funny or warm, although their various varieties seem to be completely unrelated, but it is not difficult to summarize some common characteristics of the bears in the eyes of the ancients:
First of all, this creature is incredibly large and physically large, so it not only attacks high blood thickness, but also has an extraordinary vitality - or the ability to resist blows;
Secondly, although this creature is benevolent and does not want to take the initiative to hurt people, it will also transform into a violent beast to protect its cubs, which is simply a glorious model for all guardians in nature;
Finally, these creatures are quite similar to humans in some ways, even more honest than ordinary people, but they are really not very intelligent...
Combining the above points, when the ancient mythological story becomes the more mature folk minor key in the mouth of the bard, regardless of the north and south of the world, the giant bear that appears as the protagonist often ignores the differences in culture and religion, and miraculously takes into account the above three characteristics:
In Russia, for example, after the influence of romantic thought, people's perception of bears quickly changed from fear and taboo to ardent love for "honey eaters", so in those after-dinner stories, the semi-anthropomorphic giant bear Mikhail Ivanovich (or simply Misha) is respected by his own strength and character, but it will also be played by the cunning fox because of its almost stubborn integrity - no matter what the story is intended, At least the humor of the contrast is enough to make the crops laugh for a while.
In contrast, the story of Jean de l'Ours is more traditional and legendary. In all the larger folktales that are popular in France and Spain, the half-bear, half-human protagonist tends to follow the rules of Dungeons & Dragons to get a rustic iron rod and form a small team of three or four people, defeat the enemy in the castle and follow him into the cave, and rescue three beautiful princesses in the underworld. However, after this, the companions met with Se (or Lee) and intended to leave the protagonist in the cave to return to receive the reward himself, but they did not expect that the protagonist could still escape and confront them face to face, and finally married three princesses after completing the king's final test, and lived a happy and happy life from then on.
Speaking of "half-man, half bear", we also need to mention the legendary Latvian folk hero "Bear Slayer" Lā plēsis, who is said to have exaggerated his strength so much that he easily tore the blood basin of a giant bear, so he has the heroic nickname of "Bear Killer"; but in the end he found that the reason why he is so powerful is precisely because his mother is a giant bear...
The epic ends abruptly, so we don't know whether this is a distortion of human nature or a moral decay; but after so much nonsense, although we still don't know what the status of artio, the goddess of the bear, is in Celtic mythology, through these familiar stories, I believe that everyone should be able to have a self-justifying setting for the function of this goddess.
What's more, what we are discussing in the final analysis is the setting of Hidetaka Miyazaki, this guy has always been regardless of the era and region, throwing all the real and false mythological settings, religious symbols, and cultural phenomena into the game to serve his world view, with the original unique style of the game, which makes his completely empty world view have a rough and simple sense of reality like a rough house.
Isn't that the charm of Hidetaka Miyazaki's work?
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