Profound Darkness Parallelism

[Feistygandhi]

So, my fiancee and I have made an agreement that if I read the Hunger Games, then she will play Phantasy Star IV. Haha. Anyway, as I've been playing and thinking about the game again, something interesting occurred to me about the Profound Darkness.

SPOILER ALERT (I guess that's appropriate, right?)


The Profound Darkness (and its spawns) are virtually a manifestation of evil itself. Well, during the last fight, it seems that its 3 forms become progressively more complex life forms. The First stage is just a mass of mouths and eyes, the second stage is an insectoid creature, then the third stage has a definite humanoid form. It seems to me that the first stage represents the simple presence of evil... without specific intent or intellect. Then the second stage has more instinct and will, as an insect will deliberately hunt and kill, though not necessarily maliciously. Then the third stage is the full materialization of the Darkness's potential, in humanoid form. It's as if now there is full intellect and will to destroy. The Darkness's physical form matches its mental concentration and capacity for malice.

Also, the 3 Dark Force encounters match the 3 stages as well! The first form is a purple chunky mass of meat on the wall, without much structure. The second form is a huge spider, and the third form is humanoid. The fact that dark force becomes more powerful each time you encounter him makes sense! Each time, he has a more structured and intelligent form, and thus he represents a manifestation of more structured, more deliberate evil.

The similarities must be intentional. I mean, even the colors match (DF/PD form 1 is purple, form 2 is metallic teal, form 3 is bluish)! Makes you think!

Has anyone else thought of it this way? Or am I crazy?

[BenoitRen]

I've never thought about it that way, but it makes a lot of sense! Thank you for this insight.

[Black Sword]

So humanoids are the ultimate concentration of evil?

[Feistygandhi]

Humans are not the most inherently evil... they have the most potential for evil. They also have the most potential for good!

My point was more about how the later forms have more focused intent.

[Zucca]

Wow.
Never noticed that. :O Great post.

[Feistygandhi]

Thank you!

Making that connection prompted me to join the forum... I thought "WHOA THAT IS SO COOL but I have no one to talk to about it... I'll bet the people on PS Cave talk about deep stuff like that all the time!"

[Mono]

Well observed. The relationship between the advent of a human-like conscience and the increase of potential for a greater evil seems clear in Phantasy Star. The last and strongest Dark Force is not only humanoid in his natural aspect, but also appears disguised as a human in appearance and behaviour.

It can be observed even in our real world, even though the first acts of extreme violence and hatred against others, like ethnical slaughter and mass assassination of our own species occurred only after the first agrarian settlements according to archaeological evidence, and human-like conscience is evidenced way before that... well, it could be discussed further with strong points supporting or attacking this thesis.

[Feistygandhi]

I hadn't even considered Seth! That is the most humanoid form of all! ...And it also introduces a very "premeditated" evil - deception. The other forms didn't hide their presence as directly as the third.

It's interesting that you point out that humans had a conscience well before they had genocidal tendencies. That may be true... but the way I see it... genocide is not directly the root of the evil - it's more a symptom. The fruit of a culture of selfishess at the expense of others. Even ancient human sacrifice is a kind of scapegoating, as if the sacrifice will calm the angry gods down and the people won't have as many problems. I hope I'm making sense haha.

I guess my point is that sometimes in our history, we have been genocidal... but even when it wasn't that extreme, we have always had a tendency for selfishness. And unique to humans is deliberate self-indulgence and malice at the expense of others, or deliberate altruism and selfless love. You can't, for example, hold animals to the same standard, as they don't have the intellect or will to do good or evil.

Anyway, I really appreciate your insight! I actually love talking about stuff like this! It makes my day!

[Nezia]

...wait a sec. I just noticed something. If you play Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, the last boss is the opposite of PD. Starts off humanlike... turns into a giant spider... then becomes a mass of tentacles. O_O Could it be that they take place in alternate dimensions that are somewhat parallel? ............

No. Why would you even think that, dummy? Though, it is interesting, now that I think about it. O.O To me, Profound Darkness is a lot like Lavos from Chrono Trigger, the one difference being Profound Darkness evolves before your very eyes, and has not been farming the planets for power from the inside, but the outside.

[Mono]

In PSIII, we see a thowsand years old Dark Force (if we leave the 2000 years timespam in the japanese chronology out) that looks fairly human and intelligently talks perharps too high for such a whimp boss he actually is :^P It's been proposed in the past around the phandom that he could have developed physical human-like characteristics due to the long time trapped in our dimension, stuck in a palman world, thinking only about the destruction of the last palman refugees.

Since we don't know for sure what that Dark Force would look like originally, it's just plain speculation here. And if the PSII DF is actually the PSIII one that went to the past and was brought back by humans before the PSII era, then it would screw up everything :^P

[Zucca]

Uh...
You make me feel dizzy. O_o

Someone should draw a time map with arrows pointing to different space/time places and so on... I guess all the arrows would eventually form a whirl... hm. singularity!