The Insane Thing About Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice pt.2

in the previous post I briefly wrote about Senua and the visuals of the game. In this continuation, let's go through the internals.. baggage, yayyy.. -_-

DISCLAIMER: None of the photos here are mine. I will link all photos to the source where I got them; Googled most likely. GIFs came from GIPHY.

Personal, Internal Struggle

Senua's journey is undoubtedly an uphill scramble; a strained effort to do what she feels she must despite her circumstances. Her battle is centered on defying her own condition and the will of the gods or, more accurately, society's belief system.

Anyone can relate to this on some level. We have internal struggle and all own a part of ourselves that others can't relate to or even accept. There's this unspoken standard that surrounds society; you are too loud, hyper, meek, quirky, mischievous, inquisitive, kind...it goes on. And the trouble is, wherever you look there's always an opinion about what you should be and who.

This is suffocating in a way but with friends, loved ones and people who do understand, it's tolerable. Senua had nobody and if you think society today is unforgiving, earlier civilization burned people at the stake because they didn't understand Herbology or Science. Just so you know.

Therefore, Senua's struggle is magnified by her environment; the people around her and their belief system which dictates what is acceptable.

Enter Insanity 
Senua is crazy. She isn't a tad bit hallucinating or just depressed, she is absolutely batshit crazy. It becomes more evident as the game progresses. The sad thing about all of this, I think, is she probably wasn't that crazy before.

A f*ck ton of things happened to Senua before this particular adventure occurred, but it's the one involving Dillion (the love of her life) that sent everything down the drain.

• Her mother was burned at the stake in front of her
• She was isolated all her life
• She found love but something came up.
• That something is a plague that everyone thinks is her fault, which also btw kills her lover's dad, causing her to leave.
• When she did come back *poof* love of her life is now a mutilated meat of a sacrifice, and everyone else is also dead.

Enter psychotic breakdown.

I mean, honestly. Senua is this meek, reserved person (given her life of isolation, obviously) all these events were bound to trip her mental wire soon.

The Tricky Bit About Senua's World

Herein lies the enigma; Senua's world. It's been made obvious, especially by the developers, that Senua does in fact suffer from mental illnesses.

EXHIBIT A

What makes the world she lives in feel more elusive is that there's no indication whether or not the gods themselves are real. I mean, in God of Wars the player knows for a fact that Kratos actually combats titans. Icarus' wings are real; you beat it out of him. To top it off, Kratos is well established as not cray-cray. Okay maybe a little too vengeful to be considered mentally stable but what he sees and encounters does exist.

Like, what's up with this tree? Is it representational? Physical? Not to mention; what's Inside it too.

In Hellblade, you can't help but wonder; how much of this is all in Senua's head? In her world, society believed in and worshipped the Norse gods but there's no clear evidence of them existing in the external reality.

Did this shit even really happen? Or was she pulling out a branch all that time? Or worse, someone's femur???

You see altars, symbols and runes erected in honor of the gods but the gods themselves only seem to appear to Senua. And let's be honest, knowing she's slightly lose in the screws, there's no way of telling if what she sees is actual or just hallucinations.

One more thing to mull over is Senua's mum. Supposedly, Galena was a priestess and healer, a fairly high enough position in society don't you think? She also had visions but is it the same in character as Senua's? Was Galena prophetic by nature? Or just also insane.

Not to mention her dad. Dude's got some serious control issues, honestly.

Like i said, there's no indication on the scope of Senuas world. What are the rules of her world, did shamans with prophetic visions exist or was everyone just truly bland and boring?

In a way, the entire game may not be all in her head, and it's definitely something to wonder. Or am I just driving myself crazy on this? Overthinking much??? Nevertheless, whether or not these monsters do exist in the external reality, Senua went through a harrowing kind of hell to gain peace with herself.

Some Unlikeable Things In the Game
Okay, game review thingy time. I find this game beautiful, on the story side, but on the gaming side there are some... errr moments, luckily I was too engrossed to take notice until later when I ran it again from the beginning.

• There is a significant amount of dramatic angling. I'm referring to the camera circling Senua, pan-zooming, through cut scenes. It does provide the desired effect but  it became quite tedious after 3 consecutive scenes.
• Predictability. There are shocking occurrences in the game, but the thing is, like the pan view zoom of the camera it kind of got repetitive. The number of times they "killed" Senua is almost as tiring as AMC's early attempts to scare viewers on Glenn's fate. Except AMC really did deliver the final blow in Season 7; courtesy of Lucille........ excuse me I just need to cry again.
• The game isn't as hard as it's supposed to be. The fight scenes are relatively easy to adapt to, for average players, on highest difficulty. The game did imply that when you die a lot your game could be erased. If the rot on Senua's arm reaches up to her head your save will be lost and you'll  have to go back to zero. But it seems like you'd have to die 20 times for that to happen first since I died like 5x already and it never moved up her arm.
• The story isn't that long and Senua could use some additional life goals like go spit on your father's grave or something. I finished the game in a total of 10 hours with around 5 deaths or so. That's just 1 day of my life, and compared to Titanfall 2's story, Hellblade lacks the gut-punch for an ending.
• The boss fights are... hm. Let's just say after Valravn's shocking appearance and ninja-esque fighting style, all the other boss fights felt underwhelming. Sutr looked like Raider from For Honor, in flames, and I didn't do much but dodge, roll and... dodge. Fenrir was basically hide and seek with a big-ass dog and Hela; did we battle? at all?
• The ending is satisfying enough, I guess, for me at least.  However, knowing a lot of gamers who are into sense and sensibilities, (not to mention that fulfillment value) I fear that Hellblade's ending isn't "award-winning" for some invested players. It's no NieR: Automata but... what game is? Lol.

Points! Representation and Simulation

The developers went through years of research and worked closely with people who suffered mental illnesses to give that insane experience. The game isn't loosely portraying random internal debates we all get sometimes. It's literally a simulation of what it is like to be psychotic. Exhibit B below:

Psychosis is a mental disorder where the person is so mentally and emotionally impaired that he/she becomes detached with his/her external reality. Senua is unable to tell which is real or not.

This leads to  you, the player, being just as confused but a little more focused on the goal: finishing the damned journey.

This game is personal. It takes you into a life of someone who may or may not make sense. You walk in Senua's shoes not knowing what you are up against, much like her. It's difficult to put together the pieces of what you are seeing, feeling, hearing and know. Therefore, everything is a threat.

There is no assurance in this game, only the fact that you, as Senua, is cray-cray.

Half-hearted Conclusion
I honestly want to discuss more on this game, for so many reasons but I honestly feel a part 3 would be a run-on. This post alone is too long I might be the only person left reading this part. Or, there was nobody here to begin with.. O_O

Drama aside, anyone can go through some life-threatening, mind-wrenching experience and come out different, much like Senua. Not everybody was born, raised or treated the same. Some of us are lucky, some not so much. And whatever god-damned crap life gives you, you change and learn. Maybe you get strong or sometimes... well... you know the saying: