The nuanced contestants of Termina - Fear & Hunger Analysis 

😂

I know right? It might be the best theory on her Moonschorched form. A mockery of a man... Perhaps she was neglected in the same field too, as a woman she might have seen as less valuable or talented as her male counterparts

What's interesting about that is - Daan's diagnosis for Chaugnar is that the head might be a parasite- BUT Daan's diagnosis for the woodsman, is that it's.. probably a part of his body? He doesn't sound very sure either time. Perhaps the assumption is that you see the woodsman before Chaugnar, so he's subscribing more to the "Parasite" theory as he sees more of it. I *do* like an explanation for why she turns so fast... other possibilities are that it's related to her getting anxious about her NLU work in the tunnel (as you see a bit if you say no to jumping in the tunnel- she goes down first and is jumpy when she sees you.) or perhaps to do with Needles! Maybe she gets chained to a wall in the tunnel, just like needles can do to you. Perhaps she'd turn into Chaugnar as she struggles to break out.

​@@Confused-Rockmost common consensus is that she was the closest one to activate Logic, the only thing that can deter the festival as its one of the endings where you can save everyone.

I know is my opinion but at this point, is no longer a theory, it's the only thing we know for sure about that Moonschorched form

isnt that actually not a theory? and the new gods confirm that?

it would be interesting to see what august would look like moonscorched.

Actually, He'll only join in if he DOES figure out where the Kaiser is, from you, if you tell him about the confrontation between The Kaiser and Pav if you reach the tower while Pav is still alive.

I LOVE Caligura. He just sucks so much. He's SUCH a bad person. if his sprite and name didn't change, I'd see Caligura jumping out of the sewers, hanky pankying me, and throwing up everywhere while going "choke on my baaalls" and I would think - "yeah, classic Caligura. I wonder when he'll transform?"

🎉 yes!

O'saa says she's attractive in the confessional if you say you've been looking at another contestant. He assumes you mean Abella unless you are playing as her

NGL the museum stresses me out when the mechanical dance is active. I know it'll spook me when I run into it.

It was Needles for nme.

@@miticaBEP07needles is absolutely horrifying. hearing that voice in the distance must be something else

De jure reason: not a contestant De facto reason: I HATE this goat he is BAD. using Kalev is like carrying gnome chompski through dark carnival. man gets hit by 1 attack and goes family guy death pose. Here's your Kalev lore- you don't have to give him the carrot. when he leaves your party, just let him touch grass for a while. he'll rejoin your party if you meet him at the same spot after sleeping.

i don’t think you have to sleep, if you just leave the area and come back he’ll be done

@@Confused-Rock SOOOOOO TRUE

@@EltonBroll Just tested- you're right, I'm wrong.

Sorry about that, If you ever come back to this, I edited the subtitles/closed captions to be accurate to what I'm saying to help with it being unclear.

@@Confused-Rock Dont be sorry, the video was great. And I saw the subtitles and they really helped.

I wouldn't go so far as an asshole- what I meant was, Henryk is, by nature, just a bit rough and bad with people. He doesn't *want* to be that way, which is why he does try to be nice and helpful, and why he tries to be so "civilized". Henryk poisoning everyone makes sense considering the circumstance, and I hope it didn't come off as if I meant "The poisoning shows Henryk is an asshole". My point was more "The poisoning is a sign of how dangerous Henryk *can* be". Henryk isn't more violent than the other contestants, but he seems better at it.

Well put sir

Marcoh was quite a struggle for me, I admit. He's fun, I like him, but I guess I just miss him a lot. There's one thing I *almost* put in the video, but I couldn't quite figure out well enough for it to fit in the video, which is Marcoh's "berserker rage". No matter what options you pick in your backstory, there *will* be a line about Riccardo sensing "your killing intent". And he's pretty brutal in killing both him and the boxer. When you fight the mutant Marcoh it feeds off its own rage, and there's the thing where his head "pops out of its socket"... I think his adrenaline rush skill is also related to this rage of his. The problem is, I didn't really understand what his rage represents. It doesn't show up *too* often, and if it's related to guilt, would he be having it *while* killing the boxer? Lastly, I will warn- this video was exhausting to make :P so much bigger than I thought it'd be. I'm probably going to do some smaller videos... current plans though are to cover new character stuff in the coming update, and I might actually make singular videos on each character so I can talk about everything, including their gameplay (definitely gotta mention how ironically Marcoh doesn't need his arms as much as other party members do. But first, I ought to get a better mic :)

@@Confused-Rock great stuff cant wait for the new content and ur mic sounds fine

@@Confused-Rock I get you, the amount of research and editing that must have been required for this single video must have been insane. Concerning his killing intent, from Marcoh's backstory, playthrough, and mind read interactions, I'd say it's just that he's extremely aware of the brutal nature of the world, despite being a softie, friends and family guy. This, I believe, led him to separate his personas, one being the incredibly effective and ruthless boxer brawler, the other being just, ya kno, Marcoh. Without doing that, as a good guy, it would have been hard to be a good enforcer, going around claiming money for the mafia ; you have to have a cold face and mind when dealing with your prey, and your superiors. It worked for him at first, he'd be tough guy sometime but would still stay true to himself. But little by little, the ruthlessness and violence seeped deeper in him, and he had to start fighting back to repress it. Which he probably managed to do decently... until he was forced to kill. Then that, combined with the stress, lead him to becoming unstable, yet he realises it. He's dreadfully afraid of snapping and hurting good people around him. He wonders if he, himself, is good on night 2, saying that he feels the corruption corroding him, but that's he's still fighting back against it, albeit with difficulty. He then says it must be the town affecting him, but obviously the town is just, as with every other participant, pushing every character and every trait they have to the extremes... As such, Giant is the extreme of both of these tortured sides ; the softie core of him that is more scared of hurting others than getting hurt, that feels bad when he does bad things, and the ruthless, violent side that he developed out of response to his environment over the years.

To add to this. I think you're a little off with O'Saa. He's a simple character, but you still got him wrong. Nash'rah and the Yellow Mages are very upfront and direct about their ideology: Power. They care about power above everything else. It's the same motivation as they had in the first game. They go to places closest to the supernatural and the gods in the hopes of obtaining a form of personal enlightenment. And they particularly favor Gro-Goroth, becuase as they say in the first game, they think Gro-Goroth is the most active of the Old Gods. And the thing that pleases Gro-Goroth the most is _destruction._ I also don't think it's an accident that blood magic is the favored magic of so many Dark Priests and Yellow Mages. And I don't think it's a mistake that Nash'rah, the wizards and Gro-Goroth themselves are masculine figures. I didn't understand the motivation of these characters at first until it clicked. For whatever reason, I, and many other men, are _exactly like this._ We're drawn to danger merely for the adventure of it. We like weapons. We have a streak that is both outwardly and inwardly destructive. Conquering and exploring and testing with a reckless enthusiasm. It's a kind of chimpanzee-brained unga-bunga that I find sometimes confuses girls. Because _why_ would a Yellow Mage sit in a dank and disgusting hell dungeon, meditating in the darkness, only to rouse themselves to blow off the legs of intruders? And it clicked. _Why wouldn't I?_ I enjoy the intellectual challenge of exploring the dungeons of Fear and Hunger. I'm not really that different from the Yellow Mages or Dark Priests. Gro-Goroth, the Dark Priests and Yellow Mages are basically the human instinct to place things into a hydraulic press, to see what would happen. There's a kind of Zen joy in the yolo mindset, where you yeet yourself off the face of a mountain, screaming all the way down. There's a dark side in this mindset: It can manifest as cynical nihilism, glorifying isolation and the allure of a "noble suffering." It's basically just Rick Sanchez -- the drunk asshole that uses his intellect to destroy everything around him. That's Nash'rah too. The Dark Priests and Yellow Mages are that made into a cult. These characters seem simple because they are. Don't expect great poetry or sophistication from the people who basically hear cautionary tales about the Wendigo and go, "If I turn into a Wendigo, maybe I'll get super powers." Thematically, this makes it appropriate that Marina is transgender. She was supposed to be the male heir, except her mother hid her. And unsurpisingly, the male-dominated cult views expressions of feminity as weakness. It's particuarly subversive when your patron god is Gro-Goroth. She's basically breaking away from a destructive cult that only glorifies chewing at oneself and everything around you in the pursuit of power. She's an occultist, but only begrudingly so because of her upbringing.

I think the song you're thinking of is Ashes of war - fearandhunger.wiki.gg/wiki/Soundtrack_F%26H2 All non-henryk music I used is from the funger series.

@@Confused-Rock Thank you so much for this! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! And funger series?

yes

The sulfur god is mysterious enough that I'm not sure either way, but the pocketcat is at least a servant of the moon god originally. They've been working for Rher since the first game, and in that game there's no doubt about it - their goal (get the girl) is the same goal as that of the lady of the moon, which DEFINITELY is from Rher.

@@Confused-Rock yes but their common goal doesnt prove his own master. We know sulfur does not like any other human to transform either. Mainly pocketcat's talk at daans transformation is a solid proof but we dont know when pocketcat and perkele started to work for sulfur instead of rher or even they were all sulfur cultist from the start...

By transform i mean ascend of course

Yes MORE

i mean, it’s said in-game that marina feels fine with being raised the way she is. she doesn’t mind being a girl, even when it was done by her mother in order to prevent her from joining the priesthood.

Marina is a trans woman, not a crossdresser, according to the dev's Twitter. She is internally satisfied with being a woman, so she likely was born into that position, but she was lucky enough to have that position align with her gender identity (because the refusal of the dark priesthood in her backstory is likely symbolic of her refusal of gender norms). I think it's more interesting that way. This also aligns with how Samarie describes Marina and how Marina is referred to throughout the game, and also her father's disapproval of her not in not living up to male-centered standards.