#and there is hints that the Sarkaz's prophesies are actually born from the originium's intelligence

[shuttershocky]

I have wrathful cerulean flame brainworms again so now I'm thinking about how Amiya's confrontation with Kaschey subverted how Amiya's destiny as the Lord of Fiends is treated by the story.

It's established very early on in Arknights that Amiya's powers are abnormal even within Terra's fantasy setting, and that the rings she wears that restrain her are for her own good. We were not quite sure yet what her powers really meant at that point, but it certainly looked like more of a curse than an ability.

Later on, we found out just what Amiya really is. The Lord of Fiends is the title of the Sarkaz king, which she inherited from her adoptive mother Theresa, the deposed leader of Kazdel and founder of Rhodes Island.

The Lord of Fiends is known by some as the mythological enemy of humanity, a harbinger of death who will bring about total annihilation. One of Silverash's lines to the Doctor has him saying to put Amiya in chains before they end up crowning her. Kal'tsit has Amiya's body sealed under ten rings at all times, demanding that Doctor must prevent Amiya from unsealing the rings at all costs lest she fulfill this destiny. Even a Sarkaz like Buldrokkas'tee sees a vision that the surface of the world will be blanketed with bones should Amiya be allowed to live and grow up.

These moments are meant to be sad and foreboding (obviously), not just acting as grim reminders of Amiya's place in the world being set even when she's still just a child, but as the alternative to the fact that Amiya and Rhodes Island might not even have a future at all, with Amiya being infected and Rhodes Island being an infected organization created and still partly run by the Sarkaz, the most oppressed group of peoples in Terra.

But this gets turned on its head during the confrontation with Kaschey.

Kaschey believes he lives an existence beyond that of humans. He is an impossibly ancient being of innumerable faces and names, wearing people as masks and their lives as clothes. They are nothing but cattle (uh, burdenbeasts,) to him, lower beings that, in his own words, were born to be ruled. He is not a person, because people die, and he is The Deathless, he is the one who loves Ursus, the very meaning of Empire itself. In his own words, "people were born to be ruled."

No one can touch Kaschey when they can only fight the face he currently wears, hate the name he hides behind. His invisibility is the source of his invincibility, and in turn it is the root of his ego and self-belief as a higher power.

Yet, just like the humans he believes to be above, Kaschey feels fear — fear of the Sarkaz kings. Unlike those who fear the Lord of Fiends through reputation or prophesy alone, Kaschey fears them from something they've actually done.

The reigning king of the Sarkaz has the ability to look into the hearts of people. The kings of old could /see/ him, hiding inside the shells of his victims. They could fight /him/, and not just the people he uses as puppets. The Sarkaz Kings destroyed the idea that the Deathless Black Snake was untouchable.

For Amiya, who is so young, whose lungs were on fire and who was so scared she could burst into tears, Kaschey's fear of the Lord of Fiends was Amiya's moment of courage—a reminder about whose legacy she was upholding by taking this fight, and who chose her to do it. A reminder that part of Theresa is still with her, and can still make the great and terrible shrink back from her name alone.

Amiya may have pulled a magic sword, but it was Kaschey's fear that truly legitimized her as Theresa's heir. If she's just a stupid kid and illegitimate heir by a lunatic king like Kaschey claimed

then why be scared at all?

If Amiya must live her life caught in a vicious cycle of oppression and discrimination as an infected and as someone adopted by a Sarkaz, then why not own it and do exactly as her adoptive ancestors did centuries ago, and what Theresa would do if she were here now?

Call for the Snake by name. Challenge his mastery over the world. Let him know you can see him.

Let him know you can beat him.

#arknights #Also I have this theory that the fear of the lord of fiends is created by Originium itself #Patriot gets the vision about Amiya only when he meets her #and there is hints that the Sarkaz's prophesies are actually born from the originium's intelligence #Originium calls the Lord of Fiends the world destroyer because they will one day defeat Oripathy #but that's a whole other post for another time