I love Macaque, LMK's soundtrack and having too much time on my hands so take this (please tell me someone else didn't make this video before me) I know missed a few moments (especially in s1e9) but these stood out the most to me :)
My favorite thing about his soundtrack is how it shifts with the scenes, on s1ep9 and when he fights the crew in s3 its sounds dangerous, loud, scary, in the shadowplay episode it sounds more quiet and mysterious, since we have no idea why he was doing the things he was, yet in the last episode when he fought sun wukong it sounded epic, it sounded less malicious and almost heroic and he "redeemed" himself by helping MK :))))
his theme when he first appears sounds heroic too, yet still carries the same sinister feel from when he's being malicious, hinting at his pretender nature
oh my goodness thank you, i was searching for Macaque's theme thinking i could find the soundtrack easily, but of course it wasn't that easy 🥲 -I also love your little notes and commentary, I didn't realize he got a heroes theme at the end!-
I've noticed that there is a particular tone on macaque's theme like two strings on a low note (you can hear it clearer in 1:17) , I think the instrument for his theme is a guquin a chinese instrument that exists since 3.000 years ago (fitting for the imortal emo monkey) I've heard it a few times but am 50% sure is that instrument
OKAY SO that piano motif you pointed out when macaque briefly mentions his death in the winning side? it also plays at the end of shadowplay after macaque releases mk's friends and they have that confrontation in the alleyway. but also, and this is spoilers for the season 4 special that recently aired in china. that same soft piano motif plays again in the special - or at least one that sounds extremely similar. it plays right after a flashback to an argument mac & swk have when swk is trapped under the mountain, and then it plays again when macaque talks about how swk met the holy monk and went down a path of redemption - mk chimes in that he became a good person, but macaque responds with this: 'each cause has it's corresponding consequences. and the corresponding people.' (and you can tell that there is a lot of weight and emotion behind those words) -- that soft piano motif plays when he says this. my current theory is that this piano motif is DIRECTLY referencing the tragedy that was swk & macaque's final fight during JTTW which ended in macaque's death.
Also one thing to note is that MK understood Macaque's subtext and asks him what it was that caused their falling out. Mk knows that they couldn’t have stopped being friends over one simple argument but Macaque stays silent... hes not ready to debunk it just yet
His theme sounds to me like he's from Egypt. Even his enlarged version (without armor, of course) resembles the "curse of the pharaoh" because of his ribbons. Well, you know. Well, it looks like someone stole things from the pharaoh's tomb and this thing is following him.
Spoilers for S4, but I noticed that MK, Wukong, and Macaque's themes have the same motif, a nod towards them being powerful celestial monkeys and a hint of MK's true form.
