Freya asks Lenneth if the foggy valley, what with its bare trees and the oppressively low and murky sky, reminds her of anything. Lenneth tells Freya that Midgard couldn’t possibly remind her of anything, because she’s never even been here before. Freya, seemingly reassured by Lenneth’s innocence, suggests that they keep on keeping on, and they ripple out. Hm. Foreshadow-y.
Freya and Lenneth ripple back in, this time floating miles above the Midgard landscape. Freya randomly asks Lenneth if she hears anything. When Lenneth, understandably, doesn’t seem to follow what Freya means, Freya explains, “You have a power that is yours alone. Close your eyes and open your heart. Concentrate and listen. You will understand.” Then a random text box completely blows through the fourth wall and announces that I can “Press [the] START button to begin spiritual concentration.” Okay than, START it is.
As Lenneth lowers her head and begins to concentrate, the landscape below begins to spin beneath her and some sad, chime-y music hits the soundtrack, accompanied by several voice clips and sound effects, such as fires crackling and swords crashing. A woman screams: “Ah! Arngrim! It hurts!” (dirty!) A man screams, “I-it’s a monster!” Another man says, “You think it’s foolish brother, because you’re content with what you have.” Yet another man screams, “You’re wrong!” During these audio clips (which sound surprisingly similar to an 80’s porno soundtrack, what with all the obvious references to the size of one man’s manhood), pieces of artwork featuring Lenneth, deep in concentration, fade in and out over the spinning landscape. After all of the porno voices have stopped, the world map fades in, and a glowing green dot appears to show the location of the voices’ owners: “Artolia.”
‘Lenneth! Wake up! This stuff’s important! Jeez!’
Lenneth, way less freaked out than I would be if I had just been mentally assaulted by crazy screaming 80’s porno voices, calmly tells Freya that, yes, she can hear something, and asks what it was. Freya cryptically tells Lenneth that hearing crazy voices is her power: “The power to hear the sorrow, anger, and hopes of humans near death. The power to hear their souls cry out.” Wow. This game is so morbid. Can you imagine being told that your job is to fly around looking for dying porn stars people, like some kind of heavenly vulture? Kinda makes that cubicle job at Globotech look a little easier, eh? Anyway, Freya makes it sound much more appealing, I guess. She tells Lenneth that a Valkyrie’s role is to “take the souls of those chosen departed within [her]self” and send the ones worthy of being heroes up to Asgard. So, less of a vulture and more of a sexy recruitment officer, then? I guess I could live with that. As it were.
Anyway, Lenneth takes the news that she’s condemned to an eternity of ferreting out the most prized of the dead warriors pretty well, all things considered. Freya suggests that, if they travel closer to the dead warriors Lenneth just found during her spiritual concentration, she will “be able to synchronize [her] soul with theirs.” Hot. Freya and Lenneth ripple to Artolia.
Before we get there, however, we see a shot where Lenneth thinks to herself, using the magic medium of white text on an entirely black screen: Human Souls? Take them into myself? Lenneth kind of makes it sound like her new job is prostitution. Man. Nobody seems clear on what Lenneth’s role is like, eh? I guess I’ll just leave it up to you guys.
Loading ...Oh, I guess we’ve “synchronized our soul” with the dying hero in question, because battle music wells up in the background as we see two warriors, one in armor with fabulous hair and a poleaxe and another with a really gay-looking shirt that doesn’t even cover his stomach (but he’s got a huge gauntlet on his arm, for some reason), run onscreen. Poleaxe guy lays a smackdown on some random purple ape that was hopping in place in the middle of the path, clearing the path for several generic knights to trample through onto the next screen. Poleaxe guy, who I’m just going to call Heath from here on out, because he looks like the poor man’s Heath Ledger from A Knight’s Tale, turns to gay shirt man: “Arngrim, help them out, won’t you?” Arngrim wordlessly follows his fellow generic knights onto the next screen.
Man, these knights suck! During the three seconds since we saw them run through the last frame, three or four have already been struck down and are sprawled across areas of the screen, and the surviving knights are all holding their swords at the ready, but rather than fighting, they’re all just rocking back and forth. As the camera pans to the right, we see the fearsome adversary that laid waste to the knights… and it’s a Harpy. (No, not Rinoa.) You know, one of those scaled women with claws and wings? Anyway, I hope this is like, Queen of the Harpies (No, not Shion) or something, because it’s kicking these knights’ asses. Arngrim, cool as a cucumber, enters the scene and, after calling the Harpy a nuisance, orders his fellow knights to get out of the way. As Arngrim approaches the Harpy, Heath appears and announces that he’s gonna help, too. So I guess that part five seconds ago where Heath sent Arngrim to help was just one of those “I’ll go after you; it’ll look less conspicuous” moments.
The Harpy opens the battle by casting Thunder Strike on Lawfer and Arngrim and– HOLY SHIT! Arngrim has the largest, most penisy sword I have ever seen. It looks like what you would get if Sephiroth’s Masamune and Cloud’s Buster sword had a phallic sword baby and then that baby grew up to play center for the Knicks. Seriously. Wow.
PENIS!
Anyway, Arngrim and the King of All Phalluses make short work of the Harpy. Heath helped too, I guess. After the battle, we cut directly to Arngrim’s house in Artolia, and as the camera pans past the main room of the house, we see a young man (Arngrim’s lover brother?) sitting on a chair, painting. When Arngrim enters, the man, Roland, greets him and confirms that the two are, in fact, brothers. After Arngrim doesn’t say “hi” back (or maybe he’s making an awful face that doesn’t translate into sprites?), Roland asks Arngrim if he’s okay. He begins to stand to getter a better look at his brother, but Arngrim tells Roland to make like a tree and sit the fuck back down. Arngrim crosses to Roland’s easel and scoffs: “You’re still drawing that stuff?” to which Roland replies that his “art” is different from “just killing people” like Arngrim does as a mercenary. This strikes a nerve, and with a blip about how he fights for the love of battle, Arngrim storms off to his room in a huff. Roland looks back over his shoulder and closes his eyes all forlorn-like.
After a fade to black, we return to the same room, only this time, it’s covered with a rose tint, which I guess suggests that this scene happened sometime before the scene we just watched. Arngrim asks Roland what’s so fun about making art, and Roland, (using one of the lines from the spiritual concentration, no less) retorts, “You think it’s foolish brother, because you’re content with what you have.” Roland says that art helps him to escape the confines of his weak body. Geddit? One of them is brawny and crass and the other is sensitive and frail? It’s, like, the exact plot of the movie Twins. Except Roland doesn’t look like Danny Devito. But I know somebody who looks a lot like the Governator!
Fade to black and we again return to the same room in Arnold’s house, this time sans rose tint. We’re back in the present? Roland looks over his shoulder and apologizes for hating on Arnold’s fighting. “I know that part of the reason you fight is to support me,” he says. Arnold’s still mad or whatever, because he ices back that he’ll just leave the money he brought home on the table. As Arnold starts to frost his way out of the room, Roland calls him back, inquiring about the random statuette that Arnold brought home, too. Arnold tells his brother that the King gives a statue to the guy who kills the most people in battle. So… the one Harpy Arnold killed was more than any other knight could manage? I mean, I saw how they fell like a house of cards up against the Harpy, but still. Let’s just assume that Arnold, like, killed a whole mess of other people before we picked up his storyline. We fade to black as Arnold exits.
While we’re on the black screen, waiting for the next scene to load, there’s a weird tinkle noise. We fade up to see… Hey! We’re in a room other than that same one in Arnold’s house! As a regal fanfare starts up, we see a priestly-looking man retrieve a golden scepter from the floor of a large bedroom (complete with phallic pillars and flying buttresses — Hot!) and approach a young woman. The man, Lombert, informs the woman that “it is unseemly for such a lovely young princess who will one day rule the country to lose her temper in such a disgraceful manner.” And now that you’ve seen how Lombert talks, you’ll understand why I’m both going to rename him Longbert and resolve to simply paraphrase his lines from here on out.
The Princess, Jelanda, screams at Longbert and tells him to STFU. I’m torn between being frightened by her scary face and wanting to cheer for her very healthy backbone. Then Jelanda tells Longbert that she’s torqued because she “cannot allow such behavior from a boorish mercenary…” but Longbert cuts Jelanda off before we can hear what the mercenary did, exactly, to piss Jelanda off. Longbert tells Jelanda that she needn’t concern herself with the peasantry and assures her that he will set things right. Jelanda, placated, (she even gets a new, significantly more attractive portrait to demonstrate this) acquiesces to Longbert’s long-winded instructions. Longbert returns Jelanda’s scepter to her and takes his leave. Then, because Jelanda is je-spoiled and has to have the last word, she chucks her scepter after him again. It makes the same tinkle noise as it bounces across the stone floor.
Holy shit!
We fade up in the King’s throne room, with Jelanda standing at his side. Scores of generic knights kneel before the king, and the entire scene is covered with the rose tint from earlier. I guess this is Jelanda’s flashback about the “boorish mercenary.” Try to look surprised when you find out who it is. The King addresses his knights: “Thanks to your meritorious efforts, the barbarians have been driven back. I salute you all! And among you I believe, is the greatest warrior of all! Sir [Arnold]!” As the camera pans to the left in search of Arnold, the rose tint inexplicably lifts. I think it’s still a flashback, though. Arngrim grunts and approaches the throne. Each of his footsteps echo loudly in the crowded room. The king announces that he shall reward Arnold with a cash bonus and a statue displaying his royal likeness, and then thinks to himself: Although I’m sure mercenary taste is no different than that of a barbarian.
The knights cheer. Arnold thanks the king “from the bottom of the gaping void in [his] soul.” So, Arnold is thanking the king from his vagina? I’m so confused by this obscure language. Arnold thinks to himself: You think this makes everything all right? This cheap little statue’s nothing but a lie. It’s weird that the King and Arnold are talking to themselves. Are they actually whispering to each other? That doesn’t seem very likely, but each man seems to know exactly how the other feels about him. Whatever. Arnold grips the statuette that the king gave him and begins to chuckle. “Ha ha ha… you’re such a feeble little king!” he taunts. Are we supposed to be liking Arnold? Because he’s a real jerk to everybody around him. But not in a funny way. He’s just all… disaffected and grouchy. Arnold turns to the knights and declares that he doesn’t have time for this “farce,” then he uses the handle of his gigantic phallus blade to smash the statue’s face in. And now I feel a little disgusted because I know that got somebody out there kinda turned on by that mental imagery. The king cowers like a baby in the face of Arnold’s fierce manliness. Hell, even Jelanda stepped forward, like she was going to protect her father from Arnold. That girl has moxie. Arnold starts to leave. Jelanda orders the knights to apprehend him. Nobody moves, either because they agree with Arnold’s actions or they’re afraid of getting their asses kicked. Jelanda screams that “10,000 deaths are not enough” to punish Arnold for his barbarism. As Arnold leaves the room, the rose tint reappears, I guess to reinforce that the whole thing was, in fact, a flashback.
We rejoin Jelanda in her room. Her scepter has mysteriously disappeared from the floor. Jelanda plots: “That arrogant lout, there must be some way I can get him.” After spending a moment deep in thought, Jelanda adopts a mischievous face and sings to herself: “I’ve got it!”
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Part 2 to see Jelanda put her grand vengeance plan into action. Who knows, maybe we’ll see Lenneth and Freya again, too. And somebody still has to die, remember. Oh! The suspense! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the Stairmaster. Don’t you just love New Years Resolutions? Have a Happy January, and hopefully I’ll see you sometime before 2007 for Part 2!