Suda 51 is on drugs when he writes this bullshit. How the fuck does a Hyena's eyes make you immortal? Are the hyena's immortal too? Who knows? The game never elaborates on it. How did those Hyena become special, with silver eyes? Are they Alien Hyenas, oh I know, they're God's Hyenas. (DERP!) I see silver eyed Raccoons out in the wild, silver eyes generally mean that they're blind & lost all sight in the eye, LOL!
A breeding ground for silver eyes of immortality that came from some random ass Hyena that's native to some randomly magic island. While I do believe that the world is controlled through the Occult, masqueraded as politics. In real life you could substitute silver eyes with womens' fetuses since a lot of superstitious rich retards believe that the blood & sacrifice of children will make them immortal. In a way you could also say that this moves them closer, inch by inch to their God.
I get all that, it's just when I see a video game depiction of that, that's as outlandish as Silver Case/FSR, I just can't take it seriously at all. I was able to take K7 seriously since I just view the in-game events as canon, & I ignore all of the weird retarded shit that didn't make into the final product. K7's in-game events can easily be rationalized as psychopolitical. SC/FSR is beyond psychology & politics.
Is it really though? While I can summarize what we are told about the Sundance clan traditions & lifestyle, it is quite clear it's rooted in half truths and myth. The history of the Sundance people has been bulldozed & a summer resort has been built over it. We'll never know the whole truth about them.
Which is why I assume Silver Eyes only seem magical, because they were built by a technology we have no way of understanding. I don't even know wether the Hyena story is true, you only see one hyena with Tokio and it's not like you jack into it or anything that could prove it actually has an immortal silver eye lol. Even if it were though, I never assumed it was actually a breed of a hyena. More like an artificial animal meant to house silver eyes for Sundance tribesmen. The presentation is just as abstract as Killer7, which is why I can summarize events but I don't necessairly take them literally.
Even Kamui is described both as God, and as a program. As in a program that exists within the silver eye architecture.
By the time the 25th ward takes place (2005), Silver Eyes are used as massive data repositories, and the story about immortality is considered superstition. Observers are given silver eyes so that they can record the activities of Divers and postal workers (the 25th ward's thought police).
Hell as much as I'm not a fan of these games all taking place in the same timeline. By the time no more heroes rolls around, even cloning machines are acknowledged technology (Bad Girl has one in the basement just so she can stream herself murdering people on the equivalent of liveleaks LOL).
The CIA has a game console that is actually a psyop to steal genetic data from random fucks in TSA. The cartridges are actually shaped as eyes too.
In kurayami dance, Akari Tsukiyono has an eye that is just used to record her life and experiences and it's just referred to as a memory device.
https://mangalove.org/kurayami-dance/chapter-12?page=22
My personal take on all of this. Is that the Sundance clan history/myth is the equivalent of what Alex Jones is going on about when he says modern technology comes from interdimensional aliens that commune with the elites.
Modern technology does have a mystical allure in that we went from horse and carriages to smartphones within the span of 150 years.
I know I have a smartphone that is actually a more powerful computer than what occupied half a room when I was a little kid, that can connect to 'the internet' (an invisible web of connections that exists everywhere and nowhere) to grab information at any point and that can also be tracked via GPS by satellites.
On some level, my brain knows this is not normal. And for all I know about its functioning, it may as well be magic.
Now I could disassemble my smartphone and study each of its components and its history, but whatever they did to build it, can you really deny an absurd claim such as that technology was imparted upon humans by interdimensional aliens? LOL.
In the Suda timeline, there's artificial eyes that connect you to a web of stock bodies, that contain a program called Kamui whose purpose is murder. Does it really matter, if they come from a mystical ancient people or if it's just very advanced technology that seem magical to us?
The Lospass Guidebook even has a fable about the Sundance people, which is very clearly allegorical.
The Story Carved into the Ruins
It was a time before mankind possessed tools. A black-robed man who commanded five crows arrived and bestowed upon the people knowledge and tools. However, the foolish people used the gifts he had given them to wage war upon each other. Greatly upset by their actions, the man begged the gods for their forgiveness. The gods ordered the daughter of the black-robed man to be placed in the Tower of the Gods and to spin the two divine wheels found within. When the two wheels were set to spinning, the people laid down their weapons and ceased their fighting. Many years passed, and yet the people of the land lived on in peace. The daughter of the black-robed man grew old.
One day, a young girl felt sorry for the old woman of the tower and her continued spinning of the two divine wheels. She clutched a bouquet of flowers to her chest and prayed to the gods, telling them that man had become truly wise, and vowing that even if the divine wheels were to stop turning there would be no wars. The people of the land saw the girl and they gathered around her and began to pray in front of the tower.
As the sun appeared over the eastern horizon, a man arrived from over the seas carrying a box made of metal. The man looked over the praying people with a wordless smile, then stood in front of the tower. He turned to his left and began circling the tower, his footfalls making no sound. After circling the monument twenty-four times he gently placed his hand on the tower's stone plate, opened his metal box and started to chant.
With that, the tower was transformed into the form of a giant man, and a gentle rain fell across the land. When the rain fell upon the old woman it washed the years from her form and she became young once again. The two divine wheels ceased their spinning and faded away. The people whom the rain touched lost their knowledge and their tools.
After the man with the metal box watched the change in the people, he vanished into the west with the setting sun. To solve all problems, the man took everything away. Despite this, the ideal of nothingness he left behind led our ancestors to greatness.
The woman who has to spin two "divine" wheels and grew old, I believe is actually Sundance Ritz. An old woman who is the sole survivor of the genocide of her tribe, who is condemned to spin the wheels because she's stuck in a wheelchair. So we already know the fable is not meant to be read literally. There's no magic rain making her young again. The closest thing she has to a second youth, is having Sumio Mondo (someone who is not even a Sundance) inherit the history and will of the Sundance people, in order to pass it off to Step (who is also not even a Sundance LOL! The only surviving Sundances are Ritz and Osato from the 25th Ward, Sundance Shot doesen't seem to have a physical body at all).
It's really no different from how american indians were mystified through the ages here in the west. There's been so much literature spinning their history both positively and negatively that truth and fiction may as well be one and the same at this point. Nowadays you have people who are 1/16th cherokee claiming they deserve reparations because of the suffering of their people.
In the words of tony soprano, it was so long ago it might as well have been a fucking movie
Perhaps it's a left over from Moonlight Syndrome. I actually like the supernatural aspects of that game though, but even in that game there's still lots of specualtion as to whether it were all psychological, or supernatural.
Ghosts are definetly factually real in Suda games though to be fair. In the 25th Ward they are described more as remnant thoughts or feelings that linger after death.
That does not break my immersion because, I'm not gonna go into detail but I do believe something is left behind of human conciousness after death. You may call it a ghost as the closest approximation we have to that concept in pop culture though I don't actually believe in a fucking floating sheet with eyes LOL. But I know what I know and I know I can definetly tell the difference between a place that is 'haunted' and one that isn't. I only had what I would describe as a close encounter once and it was enough for me to just accept this as a fact from now on. Though I wouldn't blame anybody for considering me fucked in the head or just a retard. It's just a reality that is manifest to me.
I actually remember someone (I think it was you, but I'm not positive) discussing how in japan they often demolish old buildings specifically so they don't accumulate hauntings over the decades. That makes sense to me as that definetly happens. Ancient houses in particular are fucked up.
Though knowing that, it's interesting how it ties in with Moonlight Syndrome where the very first scene is the old school building being demolished.
Bit of an off topic but the twilight syndrome games are being translated on youtube these days and I think they contain the best character writing in any Suda game.
(I don't know why there's this rumor among Suda fans that he barely had anything to do with Twilight/Moonlight syndrome nowadays. He was brought in when development of the first game was already underway, but he was still director of the entire trilogy. He was clearly already involved in development by the time they were recording dialogue as per this interview.
http://fftranslations.atspace.co.uk/syn/twint.html)
Through the two TS games, you really do see the friendship between Yukari Hasegawa, Chisato Itsushima and Mika Kishii develop. Yukari can't even stand Mika at first. In a very realistic bit of character writing, she only hangs out with Mika because her household situation is fucked up (her dad left, and her mom doesen't really know her because she'd rather look at television broadcasts of what teenagers are doing and believe those than talk to her own daughter. My mother is similar in that she doesen't really know me, and just has a vague idea of what I must be because she grew up listening & believing to television programs telling her all about younger people.) and she'd rather have something to do than be at home.
(Yukari is also in a relationship with a student teacher, which must be kept secret, explaining why she doesen't have much to do in her spare time to the point where she'd have to hang out with a girl she finds obnoxious just to be out of the house.)
The way they actually grow close to each other is quite realistic and well developed, which makes it all the more tragic that Yukari and Chisato both die in order to save Mika who does not in fact get saved at all.
