Analyse This: The Story of Hyper Light Drifter... (Part 5)

Four lands surrounding a central plan upon which a crown sits...

I think I've covered a lot of things so far in this series. It's really a testament to how much there is in this game to dissect and absorb. Here in this final entry, I'm going even further than last time into mythical and historical parallels that I have seen on display in the world of Hyper Light Drifter. Stay a while and listen...

Just a reminder: this series discusses aspects of the game Hyper Light Drifter and will veer wildly into spoiler territory from the get-go.

I feel like I should make a quick note, here. Like the last entry, I wrote a good strong portion of this post way back in 2016-17, with some updated portions after that fourth entry in 2021. Since it's been such a long time, I figure I should give people the opportunity to find those entries more easily. So here they are:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Please bear in mind that a lot has happened over the last seven years or so, and I'm practically not the same person who wrote that first entry. I feel it's a little clumsy and I wouldn't have written it in that manner these days.

Anyway, on to the now...

On dogs and deities...

I got started on this line of thought when I found that a lot of people were talking about the dog AI as if it were a god. Specifically, they called it Anubis or a jackal. But that just didn't make sense to me. This game spoke to me as an allegory about the relationship between technology and nature, not about the relationship between the unknowable divine and the relative (un)worthiness of humanity... Specifically, Hyper Light Drifter's imagery does not include any divine elements to it - it is very grounded, apart from what some might call the "halo" around the dog's head... which, if you look closer is just the image of the immortal cell's light indicating the origin of this being. Let's backtrack a little...

The opening of the game shows the world at peace, crowned with something that looks like the style of a diadem.

Crowns themselves have a lot of meaning:

• Power/dominance/legitimacy
• RoyaltyPain/suffering
• Glory/achievement/victory
• Immortality/divinity
• Strength/bravery/wealth
• Dynasty

Given that I believe that this crown is not a literal lightshow over the central city, I think that it symbolises that this civilisation is at peace and has claimed victory and/or power over everything... or almost everything. This is a civilisation at their zenith where their crowning achievement is about to be completed. This is shown in the very next scene, whereby the offerings of each of the main four races come together to activate or create the dog AI. This is not stealing the power of an already existing being, this (in my opinion) is clearly creation.

Further to this, it seems that the immortal cell was not meant to make everyone in the land immortal, but to connect them, give them knowledge and guidance. We see that people are literally dying in this world so it seems weird to say that the god of death has had his power taken from him when you'd think that would result in the opposite case. In fact, we've seen other media* that explored the idea of the power of the god of death being stolen resulting in people being unable to die - a sort of mastery over death which was usually then found to be a curse...

*Which I can now not find an example of...

This got me thinking, if this dog does not represent death what might it represent? What is the game trying to speak about?

At the end of the game, the crown dissolves as the cell AI is destroyed. The rising specs of light also fade to leave a clear sky...

I believe that one of the central themes of the game is healing. We see the crown dissolve at the end of the game, insinuating that the land itself is healed, that the sickness that has been plaguing the peoples is defeated. The dog is leading the Drifter to heal the land through its own destruction... it has been the mediator of this whole process. The problem with this is that, in religious mythology, Anubis is not associated with this role. Nor is the Egyptian jackal/wolf actually black or really look much like the stylised Jackals from the Egyptian iconography, they are more like coyotes or wolves. 

Plus, the symbolism of the Jackal itself does not really align with the way the dog is portrayed here. The jackal is more of a trickster, an opportunist and a loner. Their symbolism is tied to these traits - not healing or guidance like we see for the dog AI in the game, though the colour black, itself, is associated with regeneration and life.

So, which other type of dog looks like this and which deities are symbolised through the imagery of a  similar dog and have aspects of their power devoted to healing and guidance? The only dog I found was a depiction of a shepherd's dog in ancient Mesopotamia. Given the similarities between depictions, overlap in time and geographical closeness, the assumption is that this symbolism was shared by both Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures and that cross-polination of ideas was ongoing throughout the time period. However, to my mind, the depiction of the dog AI in the game is more bulky and muscular-looking than the typical depictions of the Anubis jackal.

It looks a little like an Egyptian representation of Anubis but seems too muscular to my eyes... more like a Doberman.

Focussing on Mesopotamia, I found the goddess Bau and from there my journey really began.

Bau has a dual nature, not only does she have aspects of healing, being known as "the lady who restores to life", and curing of diseases but she has an aspect known as Ninkarrak that was known for inflicting disease; a merged deity from from a slightly different period or different region within the same culture*.

*It seems that a lot of dog goddesses converged into a sort of merged ideal in this culture, including Gula and Nintinugga, etc. 

As has been said for Bau:

"After the Great Flood, she helped "breathe life" back into mankind. She is often spoke of as "the great physician," and accordingly plays a specially prominent role in incantations and incantation rituals intended to relieve those suffering from disease."

"Since mediating between angry gods/demons and their human prey was a task that often fell to healing goddesses, they neeeded to have close connections with the Underworld"

And Ninkarrak: 

"May Ninkarrak [sic], the daughter of Anum..., inflict upon him in his body a greivous malady, an evil disease, a serious unjury which never heals, whose natures no physician knows which he cannot allay with bandages, which, like a deadly bite cannot be rooted out, and may he continue to lament (the loss of) his vigour until his life comes to an end!"

The fact that the different goddesses of the Mesopotamian culture ended up merging and almost becoming interchangeable through their similar aspects parallels the duality and merging/infection of the immortal cell. Not only that but Judgement (the alien AI) has inflicted upon the peoples of the world an incurable disease, a cure for which many (including the Pink Drifter) are searching for.

I think this makes a strong argument for Bau/Ninkarrak being the deity that this dog AI/alien AI represents.

In addition to the dog symbolism are the three statues within the game, one at the starting point, one at the end and the other in the Eastern Area:

Only located in these three areas. It makes sense that they are there at the start and end but in the Eastern Area?

What is interesting here is that the four-eyed dog is a thing! Having four eyes is often seen to be the representation of a being that straddles the boundary between worlds - indicating a person or animal that has a dual nature (like life and death). Accordingly, the first record of a four-eyed dog appears in ancient Indo-Iranian culture, not far from the area of Mesopotamia and was associated with a guard dog for hell, which would guide the dead to the underworld. Very symbolic of the journey that the Drifter must undertake to visit the location of the immortal cell.

Historic Symbolism...

So, if we are thinking that the deity that is represented by the dog AI could be Bau, are there other links to Mesopotamia?

Imagery that was foundational in the Mesopotamian region...

I brought it up before but the symbol of the double-headed eagle that adorns the Hierophant's throne originated in the Hittite empire and near East regions of Assyria.

Another symbol that is thrown in throughout the game are the electronic ravens or crows that appear after the Drifter wakes up from their brushes with Judgement after pulling the fourth power node in each region...

Raven or crow? Either way, they're digital AR insertions...

Crows and ravens are very important symbols for bearing messages between the world of the living and dead. They are omens of change, transformation, transistion and of new beginnings. It is especially pertinent that they are included in the sequences following the Judgement visions as they symbolise the coming confrontation... Unfortunately, the original websites that I gathered the following quotes are now dead but this is what I originally had quoted for this part of the analysis:

“They have often been associated with being the “messenger” between the worlds of the living and the dead. But, they are also steeped in much more mysticism. Crows are an omen of Change. Crow lives in the void and has no sense of time, therefore, it sees past, present and future simultaneously. Crow merges both light and dark, both inner and outer.”

“The crow or raven also features in the ancient Mesopotamian mythology. We have an important reference to the bird in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells us how vital its role was in the creation of humanity. Utnapishtim, one of the primary characters from the epic, sends a pigeon and a raven to find land; however, the pigeon fails in the mission and returns empty-handed. The raven, on the other hand, does not return at all, which makes Utnapishtim conclude regarding the latter's success. Therefore, like the Aborigines, the ancient Mesopotamians also held crows/ravens in high esteem.”

And:

"Crow functions to turn an auspicious prediction into an inauspicious one and the reverse."

I think that this last part is important because each of the Judgement visions ends with the Drifter's death, with the crows/ravens appearing afterward as the Drifter is unharmed in the real world. So, if the prediction is that Judgement will prevail and kill the Drifter, the crows are there to suggest that the player will prevail in the end...

It's also clear that these entities can also be linked to Mesopotamian myth and mysticism.

While not "cuneiform", they are certainly logically similar...

Another thing I find interesting is that the writing systems in the game are very similar in logic to cuneiform. Yes, these are not triangles and lines but they are building blocks of geometric shapes that are combined to make at least one working language that can be translated to English. 

Again, cuneiform originated in Mesopotamia... another potential link to the area.

... and speaking of the language used in Hyper Light Drifter, the Monoliths are also another aspect which ties us to the region of Mesopotamia. Stele, stone monoliths that relayed information through cuniform inscriptions, were common in the regions of Mespotamia; Babylonia, Egypt, Canaan Urartu/Mitanni, and Assyria.

"Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, sometimes they were located within temple complexes, or set within monumental rock-cut niches or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele, had a commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection."

A Babylonian stele contrasted with a "monolith" in the game...

These free-standing stoneworks were used to convey information to the reader or observer (in the instances where imagery was used instead of writing) about history, mythology and more mundane matters such as land ownership and these particular styles and uses were not common outside of the area - as far as I can tell - further narrowing down a historical link to Mesopotamia/Egypt. Other types of stele are common in certain parts of the world but are more decorative/ornamental in style.

The lay of the land...

Taking all of this into account, is it possible that the game can be understood as simulacrum of the ancient Mesopotamian world? Is this a game that is drawing influence from the idea that Mesopotamia was one of the cradles of civilisation? (Specifically, the so-called fertile crescent)

Taking a look at the game world against the real world, I think this could possibly be true.

The general shape of the layout appears similar...

Mountainous region in northern Iraq, the Euphrates in the east, forested regions in Turkey and the desert in Egypt... coupled with a flat area in between them all.

Let's take a look at each area of the game world from fhe standpoint of the beginning of the game story:

Aside from the general geographical agreement with each area corresponding to Hattusa (West area, modern Turkey), Mitanni/Hurrian/Urartu (Northern Mountains, modern northern Iraq, eastern Turkey), Sumer/Babylonia (East area, modern southern Iraq), Egypt (Southern area, modern Egpyt) and finally the central area being Canaan and Syria, more widely known as the Levant (modern day Lebanon, Jordan and Syria), we can see several environmental parallels that we can make.

Now, I've done my best to try and align all the correct dates and then-current empires/city states and countries here but please forgive any mistakes as this was quite a complicated and busy period in history... and not entirely well-understood by historians! And adding to that - I'm no historian!!

The most obvious to me is the parallel of the Egyptian desert area with the southern area. The period leading up to the beginning of the game could be said to align with the New Kingdom of Egypt; a time of prosperity, building and diplomacy:

"The New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan."

This time period encompassed some of the most notable and powerful Pharohs that we are all familiar with in modern popular culture and it shows the power that the Southern race were said to be wielding before the war in the game.

The west area would be representative of the Hittites/Hattusa, which was a heavily wooded region, mirroring those found in the game. Also of note in the game are the three large gates which are flanked by stone carvings of Racoons. It's very interesting that these gates could be said to mirror the Sphinx gates found in Hattusa and Alaca Höyük... 

The Racoon gates. Could the Sphinx gates have been an inspiration... or just a coincidence?

The northern area could be ascribed to the Mitanni/Hurrian empire (later Urartu), with their capital at Washukanni/Wassukanni/Rusakina which was on the main tributary to the Euphrates river which supplied the waters of Babylon. This is the weakest supposition on my part because the main part of the Mitanni empire was not in the mountain region to the north of their lands. In fact, the bulk of their cities were on the same plains from Aleppo to Babylon and beyond... However, it is theorised that the Mitanni culture sort of ended up in a retreated enclave high in the mountains that later came to power in the 9th century called Urartu... though this is quite temporally removed from this pre-catastrophic period.

But we'll get back to this later.

Given that, in the game, there are ruins down the slope of the mountain, heading into the mountain city, it's possible that this general retreat and "formation" of Urartu in the mountainous region is complete by the time the players are able to experience the game world.

The other possible parallel with real life could be the fact that the ruling kings and aristocracy of Mitanni were likely not Hurrian in origin which could tally with the Hierophant in Hyper Light Drifter being something non-bird-like, in reality.

Since the bird races in the game have a strong centering around religion and religious practices, I felt that perhaps I should look for a connection to historical reality in this aspect. Accordingly, it appears that Haldi, the head deity of the pantheon, and Tushpea, the sun god's wife, both featured as winged entities and could possibly have inspired the bird race nature of this faction.

At any rate, this is a more tenuous link than other animal race areas but I will live with it for the time being - unless there is something more appropriate to link to that I've missed in the historical context.

Artistic depiction of the hanging gardens of Nineveh... though when the game was designed, this information was not yet brought to light.

The eastern area does appear to be visually inspired by the Hanging gardens of Babylon in style. With aqueducts and water shelves supplying the verdant gardens with plentiful irrigation. If we can rely on the Mitanni being the northern area in the game, then the river flowing into the upper part of the eastern area could be said to be the Euphrates and this would line up nicely, if true. This would mean that we would be comparing the relatively stable Kassite dynasty period that was heavily influenced by Assyrian interference after their conquering of the area and installing their vassals as rulers.

This connection also works if we take Nineveh as the hanging gardens' location as Tushpah was near a tributary of the Tigris that fed the river slightly downstream of Nineveh... but as I mention in the caption of the picture above, this is even more of a coincidence that everything else in this post given that these details did not come to light until either after the game was released or shortly before.

Finally, the central area could generally be said to be Assyria and Canaan in the application of this theory.

Greatly contested by all other states and kingdoms mentioned thus far, this area was home to many wars and conflicts during the time periods I've been speaking about and this trend pretty much continues to this day...

Unfortunately, this is where the theory sort of falls apart.

Assyria is quite a war-like nation in this time period and it seems that the middle assyrian empire conquered and fought with most of the other nations I envisaged as begetting the four races in Hyper Light Drifter.

In the same vein, I don't find much information on the events or situation in this time period.

Forward, unto Death...

Ultimately, we reach the post apocalypse period that the player-led plot of Hyper Light Drifter takes place in. My theory of parallels would mean that the Titan and blue-skinned aliens' invasion was the real world equivalent to something like the bronze age collapse, mirroring the multiple invasions of the sea peoples and (ex-)phrygians that tore the region apart. 

South:

Egypt was considered a technologically advanced race at that point in time but was greatly weakened by the invasions and upheavals of the bronze age collapse.

"Egypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a conjectured confederation of seafarers from the Aegean Sea. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Canaan, much of it falling to the Assyrians."

 

West:

"The Sea Peoples had already begun their push down the Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean, and continuing all the way to Canaan, founding the state of Philistia—taking Cilicia and Cyprus away from the Hittites en route and cutting off their coveted trade routes. This left the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, and Hattusa was burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BC following a combined onslaught from new waves of invaders: the Kaskas, Phrygians and Bryges. The Hittite Kingdom thus vanished from historical records, much of the territory being seized by Assyria."

We can see that the western area of the map is desolated, with all settlements being in ruin.

In fact, the majority of large cities in this part of the world were razed during this period, accurately reflecting the events in game and the Hittite empire was largely forgotten until relatively recently. 

East:

"Meli-Shipak II (1188–1172 BC) seems to have had a peaceful reign. Despite not being able to regain northern Babylonia from Assyria, no further territory was lost, Elam did not threaten, and the Late Bronze Age collapse now affecting the Levant, Canaan, Egypt, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Mediterranean, North Africa, northern Iran and Balkans seemed (initially) to have little impact on Babylonia (or indeed Assyria and Elam).

War resumed under subsequent kings such as Marduk-apla-iddina I (1171–1159 BC) and Zababa-shuma-iddin (1158 BC). The long reigning Assyrian king Ashur-dan I (1179–1133 BC) resumed expansionist policies and conquered further parts of northern Babylonia from both kings, and the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nakhunte eventually conquered most of eastern Babylonia. Enlil-nadin-ahhe (1157–1155 BC) was finally overthrown and the Kassite dynasty ended after Ashur-dan I conquered yet more of northern and central Babylonia, and the equally powerful Shutruk-Nahhunte pushed deep into the heart of Babylonia itself, sacking the city and slaying the king. Poetical works have been found lamenting this disaster."

What's interesting here is that Babylon was sacked and burned multiple times over the 500 year or so period that the Kassites/Assyrians were in charge but was left relatively unharmed from the events of the bronze age collapse - mirroring what we observe in the game. However, the Elam finally invaded, sacked the city and killed the king.

 

If we look at the area in game, it's in relatively good shape, with only the recent events of the toad invasion causing any problems to the (very recently) populous otter race. We could even say that perhaps the toad king is the embodiment of Shutruk-Nahhunte, with the otter we observe being eaten being the equivalent of Enlil-nadin-ahhe, ending the period.

Major cities destroyed during the late bronze age collapse...

North:

Over time, the regions I spoke about above for the Mitanni/Hurrians/Urartu, essentially formed part of Middle Assyria:

"Assyria and its empire were not unduly affected by these tumultuous events for some 150 years, perhaps the only ancient power that was not, and in fact thrived for most of the period. However, upon the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria went into a comparative decline for the next 100 or so years. The empire shrank significantly, and by 1020 BC, Assyria appears to have controlled only areas close to Assyria itself, essential to keeping trade routes open in eastern Aramea, South Eastern Asia Minor, central Mesopotamia and north western Iran.

New West Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Arameans and Suteans moved into areas to the west and south of Assyria, including overrunning much of Babylonia to the south, Indo-European speaking Iranic peoples such as the Medes, Persians, Sarmatians and Parthians moved into the lands to the east of Assyria, displacing the native Kassites and Gutians and pressuring Elam and Mannea, and to the north in Asia Minor the Phrygians overran that part of the Hittites not already destroyed by Assyria, and Lydia emerged, a new Hurrian state named Urartu arose in the Caucasus,"

Here's where it gets interesting. The Assyrians weathered the storm and survived the collapse that occurred further back in time but then their kingdom slowly fell apart afterward. This mimicks the events in the game, somewhat, with the bird people's kingdom showing signs of continuing decay after the war was won against the titans and blue-skinned people. 

Centre:

Now, I didn't really cover the central region in the "past" but it seems likely that the hotly contested main plains of the Mittani empire, around the central city of Washukanni and the lands between it and Egpyt (such as Canaan) seem to fit and the areas that connect it to each of the four directions in the game.

What is also an interesting parallel is that the central city in the game has many different races living together within it, something that, in this heavily contested region with control flowing back and forth between various factions, would likely have been the case in reality; a melting pot of cultures. 

That's it...

It's a god-awful small affair...

I know that the chances of the similarities I've noted here being true are slight but, once I saw them - stemming from the association with the dog AI to a mesopotamian goddess, the parallels with the story told in Hyper Light Drifter to our better understandings of the period before and around the late-bronze age collapse - even extending to the imagery or physical objects used in those societies - really drew me in.

I hope you enjoyed this final entry on the series and the game I really loved (perhaps a little too much!). Let me know in the comments or over on Twitter if I've made some glaring mistakes in the theorycrafting.