Ico

Tarot meme

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 02:40:55 GMT

You scored as 0 - The Fool. The Fool is the most complex and most contradictory of all the Tarot cards. "I am not a number, I am a free man". The Fool represents naivety and childlike innocence - yet the Fool is wise. He carries only what possessions he really needs. He journeys through life, tasting everything it has to offer then letting it go and moving on. The Fool is a risk taker, often shown with one foot over a cliff showing us every new beginning has a risk. Whether the Fool represents opportunity or danger one thing is clear: this world needs more fools.

</td>

0 - The Fool

100%

VI: The Lovers

94%

XI: Justice

88%

XIX: The Sun

81%

VIII - Strength

69%

II - The High Priestess

63%

I - Magician

56%

XIII: Death

56%

XVI: The Tower

50%

III - The Empress

50%

XV: The Devil

44%

X - Wheel of Fortune

44%

IV - The Emperor

13%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

Quotations Meme

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:06:22 GMT

Go here and look through random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe.

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Agnes de Mille (1909 - 1993)

A hero is one who does what he can. The others don't.
Romain Rolland

The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror.
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Don't look back: Something may be gaining on you.
Satchel Paige (1906 - 1982)

Permission/Stats Meme

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 03:44:13 GMT

Age: 12
Hair Color: black
Eye Color: brown

Medical Info: Ico is a completely normal little boy… except for those horns growing out of his head.

Physical Traits: Well, the horns. They come out a little above and behind his temples and sweep up and out, and are sharp and sturdy enough to serve as weapons in a pinch. Ico wears a bandage-like headband to hide where they emerge through his scalp and hair, so they could be mistaken for some kind of headdress.

Ico is ethnically Asian.

What’s OK to mention: Nothing springs to mind that’d be a no-no. If you were to tell him he’s from a video game he wouldn’t know what you were talking about, and will just brush you off. Still, I’ve taken him from before the finale, so spoiling him just wouldn’t be nice.

Note for the psychics: Open book. Kid’s got some abandonment angst and is touchy about his cursed heritage (see below), but beyond that, he’s sunny.

Abilities: Ico’s supposed to be cursed (check out the game Shadow of the Colossus for the origin-related, spoiler-tastic details of said curse), but nothing’s really ever made of it beyond “Congratulations… You’ve got horns.” Still, kids from that same cursed bloodline have been sacrificed to an evil sorceress for generations, so there’s evidently something special about them. Maybe their blood makes good furniture polish..?

Ico’s also a bundle of energy, always running somewhere, climbing something, or exploring someplace. He’s very agile and surprisingly strong—a wiry, tense strength less suited to lifting large weights and more suited to supporting his own bodyweight while climbing or swinging or what have you. He’s very bright, very good at figuring out how things like mechanical devices work through simple observation, and has an intuitive ability to find solutions to puzzles and logic problems.

Hugging/kissing/other non-violent physical contact: Ico’s not used to a lot of physical contact and might find those kinds of thing awkward. Puberty hasn’t hit, so girls are still icky… (except for Yorda).

Can I shapeshift/bodyswap/spit at/step on/etc?: Ask first, please.

Fighting: Ico won’t fight except to protect himself or someone else, and if you push him that far, watch out—he’s scrappy and has no concept of discretion being the better part of valor. Although he’s not too physically impressive in his own right, he’ll use whatever he has at hand to try and ruin your day—canon has him using big sticks like 2x4s, swords, torches, a big freakin’ mace, and throwing jars and even grenades to defeat enemies, and if they’re not available, he’ll try and gouge you with his horns. He also won’t give up, so be prepared to finish what you start with him, because he’ll only stop if you back off, put him out, or put him down.

Maim/Murder/Death: Injuring Ico’s alright if you clear it with me first, but I’d definitely appreciate advance warning. Murder and death aren’t part of my outlook for Ico’s future, so consider those a “No,” … unless it’s for something cool. Either way, ask.

Gigantic Essay... thing.

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:39:12 GMT

So democracy was on my side, but just barely. Because of this, and because of the many valid points and concerns which were brought forth by those folks less than convinced by my app, I feel it’s only proper that I respond with an essay to explain in greater depth my views of the game, story, and characters of ICO before I begin playing. I hope to address several of the various concerns in this essay, but please understand that I do have a life beyond CFUD, so it may not be entirely comprehensive. However, I do owe courtesy and a great deal more to the players who were willing to either let me pester them for votes or give me the benefit of the doubt, and so with any luck this essay may prove me worthy of such confidence.

Please note that for the sake of clarity I will adopt in this essay a technique I’ve seen employed elsewhere in dealing with this game—when referring to the game itself I will capitalize it as ICO, while its eponymous character will be, simply, Ico. Please also note that this essay will unapologetically contain SPOILERS, because it’s nearly impossible to discuss any aspect of the game with any depth without mentioning the full context. My apologies.

ICO as a Game

So. What kind of game is ICO? I once read of it described as “a game without a genre,” and I think that’s a fair assessment. The best way I can describe it is as a puzzle-solving adventure platformer with a decidedly minimalist bent. By this I mean that it contains elements from other games in the puzzle-solving, adventure, and platform genres—it even has an element of combat and some strategy—but all have been pared down to their essence for the purposes of gameplay, and then combined to form ICO. The controls are basic, the background music is sparse and subdued and reserved for key events, there are no menus or on-screen heads-up displays, the visuals are washed-out, and the dialogue and explicit story details are kept to a minimum.

The object of the game is simple—to escape from a castle with a companion in tow—but achieving this is made challenging for several reasons. For one, the castle is both massive and in poor repair, requiring frequent and lengthy detours in order to traverse a geographically short distance. Further, the game requires you to solve complex puzzles in order to bypass certain obstacles presented by the castle’s dilapidated condition and Rube Goldbergian machinery. Also, both you the player-character and your companion must navigate the castle together, which becomes difficult as there are certain obstacles your companion cannot unaided cross and certain doors you cannot open without her. Enemies periodically appear to abduct your companion, requiring you to defend her, for the game will end with her death or capture. But because the two of you cannot traverse the same obstacles in the same way, the game requires you to frequently leave your companion undefended in order to clear a path for her to follow you into the next area… Meaning any time you’re alone, you’re on the clock, waiting for another attack.

And that’s the gameplay in a nutshell—a simple objective requiring a series of convoluted solutions.

ICO as a Story

Here we reach SPOILER country, as I will attempt to summarize the game’s storyline. It begins with a captive Ico being transported by members of his village to the castle, which is situated on an island just off the coast. The party gains access to the castle by use of a mundane boat and a magic sword, and once inside, the villagers confine Ico inside one of many stone sarcophagi and depart. Evidently, at some point in the past it was deemed necessary to sacrifice children born with horns like Ico’s in this fashion—the number of other sarcophagi, all sealed, indicate other unfortunate victims.

The villagers’ departure, however, triggers a tremor in the decrepit castle, the end result being that Ico’s coffin is jarred open and the boy is loosed from his immediate confinement. Now lost in the cavernous structure, Ico experiences a dreamlike vision of a tall, hollow tower with a cage suspended from its ceiling. His exploration eventually reveals just such an arrangement, with one addition—there is a girl confined inside the dangling cage. Releasing her triggers a series of revelations, most immediately being that shadowy wraiths inhabit the castle, and that they seem bent on recapturing the girl. They only pay Ico any mind as an obstacle to their goal. After driving the shadow creatures off, it next becomes clear that Ico and the girl speak different languages, and are capable of only the most basic communication—come here, follow me, stand there, etc.—and it’s mostly on Ico’s part, for the girl doesn’t seem to have much to say. The final revelation is this—the girl is somehow able to magically open doors throughout the castle which are otherwise sealed to Ico.

The former captives then make their way to the castle’s main gate, with Ico solving puzzles and defeating wraiths all along the way, for the girl seems functionally helpless and also unfamiliar with her surroundings. Their attempt to flee is thwarted however, as the gates suddenly grind to a close and another dark figure appears behind the children. This woman seems nominally human, but is cloaked in the same dripping shadows as the wraiths. She reveals that she is a sorceress, the mistress of both wraiths and castle, and that the girl is actually her daughter, Yorda. After telling Ico not to presume any further upon her patience, she departs with a cryptic warning to Yorda, expressing to her daughter that she will be unable to survive in the world outside the castle.

Undaunted, the duo journey through the rest of the castle, attempting to release the mechanisms that hold the gate closed. The journey is more of the same—solving puzzles, opening magic doors, and battling wraiths. Eventually they are able to trigger the gates to open, and also succeed in extending a bridge which spans from the castle to the mainland. As they start across the bridge, however, a beam of light lances from the castle and strikes Yorda, knocking her to the ground and sending Ico sprawling. It also causes the bridge to separate, with Ico on the landward side of a widening gap and a prone Yorda trapped on the span still connected to the castle. Ico attempts to leap back across to her, but falls short—only for his hand to be caught by Yorda. Weakened by the beam of light, she struggles to pull him up and nearly succeeds—until the shadow of the castle falls across her, blanketing her in darkness and causing her to go rigid release her grip on Ico’s hand. As he falls towards the sea below, the sorceress appears out of the shadows behind her daughter and the screen goes blank.

Ico, however, awakens quite alive on the cliffs of the castle’s island, and begins a journey back through the bowels of the rock structure in an attempt to uncover what happened to Yorda. His path takes him back to the very cavernous entrance by which he initially entered the castle as a captive—the dock his former neighbors landed at when they came to sacrifice him. In addition to a boat, the cavern also holds the same magic sword which the villagers employed to get inside, but now Ico takes up the blade to reenter the castle.

Once back inside, Ico comes to the chamber of sarcophagi only to find it populated by another series of shadowy wraiths… But these dark specters bear an uncanny resemblance to Ico himself, for they all seem to be the shades of other horned children and dispatching each one with the magic sword causes a corresponding sarcophagus to glow. He makes another unpleasant discovery at the far end of the chamber—Yorda, apparently turned to stone, frozen in the same pose she held while trying to haul Ico back to safety on the bridge. Leaving the girl-turned-statue, Ico uses the sword to open another magically sealed doorway which leads into a gloom-filled throneroom—the sorceress’ seat of power.

Confronting her, Ico demands that she release Yorda from the spell, but the sorceress claims that Yorda is gone forever, her form now an empty shell that the aging sorceress will seize as her own in an act of enforced reincarnation. She bids Ico to set down the sword and depart, as Yorda would ostensibly have wanted… But instead Ico attacks. The sorceress’ counterstroke sends the boy sprawling with such force that one of his horns is snapped off upon impact with the wall, but Ico regains his feet and continues the battle. The sword’s magic protects him from the sorceress’ other spells, and finally enables him to dispatch her with a thrust of the blade through the heart. Dying, the sorceress again states that Yorda will not return, and could not survive outside the castle in any event. She then vanishes, and the sudden release of her power again knocks Ico across the room, snapping off his other horn and sending him into unconsciousness.

With the sorceress dead, the castle and island begin to crumble to pieces. Outside the throneroom, more beams of magic stream from the glowing sarcophagi, focusing upon the still-frozen Yorda. With a final display of power, the magical effect vanishes to reveal Yorda, now depicted as an inky black silhouette. Now coruscating with the same darkness as her mother and the wraiths, Yorda proceeds into the slowly collapsing throneroom and comes across the unconscious Ico. Lifting him up, she carries him back to the cavern dock and lays him to rest in the remaining boat, then pushes him out to sea and freedom… while she remains behind as the island and the castle vanishes beneath the waves.

Ico awakens alone, again, now inside the boat which has drifted to the nearby shore. Stumbling out of the craft, he wanders down the length of the beach, only to find Yorda, back to her familiar, human self, washed up by the waves—but lying motionless in the surf. As he approaches, however, her fingers curl, her eyes open, and she speaks… And there the story ends.

Ico, the Character

So. Those preceding sections comprise summaries of the canon material which I had available to concoct my characterization of Ico. As both a game and a story, ICO is (IMO, at least) a work of art… Specifically, a minimalist work of art. Both game and story function on the basics, the bare-bones elements required for them to function. The game’s objective, look, soundtrack, sound effects, controls, etc., are all simple. They’re all spectacularly well done, but they’re not terribly complex. The story is the same—all in all, it’s a fairly basic fairy tale, complete with enchanted castle, wicked witch (sorry, Elphie), terrifying monsters, damsel in distress, and heroic young protagonist. It’s not fancy, but then fancy isn’t (again, IMO) the objective. Bring all of these elements of gameplay and story together, though, and you’ve got something special enough to make me want to pretend to be a part of it in this RP. I wanted to spell all of this out in order to establish the basics of how I envision Ico as a playable character. What, then, do these elements tell me about Ico?

Well, starting with the basics, I know that he’s 12 years old. He was born with horns that seem to be from a bull. His features are, ethnically, Asian. He’s short, and slightly built. The people of his village considered him to be cursed, and as a result effectively sacrificed him to die inside a haunted castle. All of these are evident from the game manual and the opening cutscene.

Admittedly, what the gameplay and story have to add to this initial sketch is sparse. Gameplay shows that he possesses great reserves of tenacity and both physical and mental agility and dexterity. He’s capable of such physical feats as climbing and swinging from ropes and chains, clambering hand-over-hand along pipes and rails, shimmying along ledges and your basic running, jumping, and swimming. Heights don’t seem to daunt him, and neither do hordes of monsters twice-again his size and far more numerous in number—for he will continually attack them even armed with only a stick, or as a last resort his horns themselves. He’s also capable of great patience (even if you, the player, are not), loyalty, and self-sacrifice, for Yorda is not the most… self-sufficient of traveling companions. All that puzzle-solving, running, jumping, climbing, swinging, fighting, etc., are done on her behalf—because she evidently can’t do them for herself. Story adds even less. The nature of Ico’s supposed curse, the story of how and why horned children came to be sacrificed within the castle, the benefit the sorceress evidently derives from such children’s sacrifice, the history of Yorda, her mother, and their island stronghold home… all these and many other things are never made explicit.

What these two elements do provide is an opportunity to see Ico in action and watch him respond to events which, for a child abruptly sundered from his family, must be terribly frightening. He has more than legitimate cause for serious trust issues, as his people—possibly his own family—abandon him to die for their sake, and yet despite this, he reaches out to help the very next person he sees—Yorda. More, he manages to forge a friendship with her despite having no commonality of language—and it’s a bond of friendship strong enough that he’s willing to repeatedly risk life and limb to protect it. Twice, he’s presented with opportunities to abandon Yorda and save himself, yet instead he sacrifices his own well-being to help her. Once, on the landward side of the separating bridge when he, on the verge of securing his own freedom, makes a hazardous jump to try and rejoin her. Then, in the throneroom, when the sorceress offers him the chance to just give up the struggle and walk away from everything, and he instead continues the fight. These two instances tell me plenty about Ico’s character.

Yes, that particular characteristic is a heroic stereotype—self-sacrifice. His bravery, tenacity, physical fitness, ingenuity, kindness, devotion… All stereotypical. The gameplay and story depend on the recognition of stereotypes—they’re what tell us Ico is the hero, Yorda is the damsel, and the sorceress is the villain. But the fact that these aspects of Ico’s character are stereotypes does not preclude their relevance to defining his character. Perhaps I don’t know Ico’s birthday, or his favorite food, or his favorite color, or what have you, because the source material never states them. But those are items of trivia, and what those stereotypes tell me is the nature of his soul.

How will Ico react to Camp? I can’t predict that with any confident degree of accuracy. But it is clear that Ico is a brave, capable, and caring young boy, who can make friends and places great stock in them, who is not easily cowed by displays of eldritch power or sinister threats, and who will fight with everything that he has, everything that he is, to protect what he holds dear.

I don’t know his birthday, but I think it’s clear that Ico is a Taurus.

How exactly these elements of his character become manifest through CFUD gameplay, fellow players, we’ll find out together. I hope that this essay, long and convoluted though it might be, has addressed some of your questions, assuaged some of your doubts, and at the very least demonstrated the degree to which I am familiar with this character and his source material. More importantly, I hope that it has demonstrated the degree to which I care about this character and his source material. If it has succeeded in achieving none of those aims… Well, I apologize. All this is merely my interpretation of a character and canon that were deliberately painted in the broadest of possible strokes to increase their appeal. I happen to think it’s a valid one, but I’m arrogant like that.

If you have any further concerns, please feel free to contact me with them. I will assume that you read this essay beforehand, since I took the time to write it, dammit, and fair’s fair. I’ll gladly answer your questions and address your concerns to the best of my ability.