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hamaonoverdrive · 2 months

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How to get into Hokuto no Ken, A Guide

Hokuto no Ken, localized as Fist of the North Star, is the wildly popular and influential series penned by Buronson and drawn by Hara starting in 1983. It is a timeless tragedy about the power of love that taps into imagery from both Catholicism and Buddhism, while also being an homage to a variety of western 80's pop culture from Mad Max to Blade Runner to Rocky.

In the current anime fanscape, HnK is perhaps best known for being one of the key influences behind Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Berserk, however it should be known that the series' influence permeates the entire Shonen genre. Traces of the tropes and dynamics that it popularized can be seen throughout Shonen today, from Naruto's drive for love and friendship that contrasts with Sasuke's rejection of the idea and desire to sever any bonds of love, to the implementation of Haki in One Piece.

So with all that in mind, let's get into the specifics.

The place to start with this franchise is very straightforward: read the original manga or watch the anime adaptation. There are a number of movies that retell parts of the original story, but they all have different downsides and cut important aspects of the source material and thus are a bad place to start.

This primary canon is broken down into two (three) parts, as follows:

HnK or "HnK1" is the core of the series, starting at the Shin arc through the originally intended ending at chapter 136/episode 108. Most of the time if someone is referring to HnK, this is what they are talking about. The beginning of the series is a bit of a slow start, bouncing between villains of the week before actually kicking off the primary conflict (especially in the anime, more on this later). This is somewhat typical for the era-- these early arcs were written while the authors had no idea if they were going to get dropped from Shonen Jump. For this reason, I highly recommend sticking with the series until the Fang Clan Chieftain and Jagi arcs even if the beginning hasn't clicked with you yet.

HnK2 is the continuation of the series, where the authors were pressured to continue working on the series because of the money it was raking in. This naming convention comes from the title of the anime for this portion of the story, chapters 136-210/episodes 110-152. Quite frankly, the fact that this is past the originally intended ending is very evident; Buronson has been quoted as never re-reading it after publication.[1] It's very much worth checking out at least once if you enjoyed HnK1-- there are absolutely memorable characters and fights, as well as some of the best art in the series-- but be prepared for a general drop in writing quality.

"Post-Kaioh HnK" or "HnK3" is the last leg of the original manga, which has never been adapted elsewhere. Chapters 211-245.

Content Warnings

Explicit Sexual Assault

The elephant in the room when discussing this series is that some social aspects of it are very of-the-era. There are two instances of explicit sexual assault, which get dismissed as "well the perpetrator didn't have the best execution, but he did have the right idea..." The pages/timestamps to avoid this are:

Manga volume 02 pages 287-289; volume 03, pages 063-066 (Ultimate Edition numbering)

Anime episode 24, 13:04-13:53; episode 26 08:29-09:22

Mild Gore

I almost feel like it goes without saying, but this is famously the series where the protagonist makes baddies heads explode. While this is never depicted in graphic detail, HnK as a whole is going to be a bad fit if this distresses you in any way.

An early example of the aforementioned head asplosions.

Photosensitivity

The anime makes period-typical use of flashing lights in nearly every episode. If you are photosensitive (and can't take measures to mitigate the flashing), you should read the manga instead.

If you want to read the manga...

The manga is the way that I personally recommend getting into the series due to Hara's absolutely gorgeous art.

The manga is also generally seen as the true 'canon'; For example, colorschemes used in subsequent works typically draw from colored chapter/volume covers rather than the Toei anime. For this reason, this version of the series is what the Japanese audience usually thinks of when they think of HnK.

I know some people are very passionate about redhead Mamiya and crest toothpaste-head Rei, but the Toei colors functionally exist in their own separate continuity.

Reading the manga in English is far better now than it was even three years ago, as there are multiple English versions now available.

The official VIZ release is the defacto highest quality out there (support the print copies if you can). While there are a few odd translation choices and the SFX have been replaced with English ones, it has the highest fidelity copies of the original art and even has the original color pages that have not been published since the original Shonen Jump release.

To think that these wonderful colored pages were completely inaccessible, even to JP audiences, until Viz started rolling out the English volumes.

However, the Viz release is ongoing and only covers until volume 11 at the time of writing. If you want to read the rest of HnK2 (or highly value the original SFX and a smoother translation), you should seek out the official eOneBook release. This is sometimes labelled as "Digital - 2018" and is a rip of an official English translation that was released for a specialized eReader, copies of which been floating around online since about 2020.

There is also an older set of scanlations out there, which I would not recommend reading; The image quality is low-resolution and muddy, and there are a number of edgy translation choices such as inserting a homophobic slur that was not in the original text. I only mention this translation because it's the one on many online manga sites. Please love yourself and look elsewhere if you realize that you are reading these scans.

(left) English-language scanlations (right) Viz release from 2022. I distinctly remember first reading these pages and then immediately scouring the web to find a version of it that didn't have the contrast blown out, only to discover that this quality was all that available. Now, newcomers to the series don't have to worry about this at all.

There are two different versions of the complete manga, the original tankobons (27 total volumes) and the Ultimate Edition (17 volumes).[2] Both the Viz release and the eOnebook release are derived from the Ultimate Editions while the old scanlations are from the original tankobons, so this can be an easy way to identify which version you are reading.

As to what makes these versions different aside from chapters per volume, the Ultimate Editions clean up some of the art in the last few volumes and also includes "Last Piece", a one-shot by Buronson and Hara inserted between HnK1 and HnK2. This was written as a part of the 30th anniversary celebration, and Hara's art looks quite different 30 years down the road, making the abrupt change in style rather jarring-- consider this your heads-up.

TL;DR Read the Viz version for volumes 1-11, and the eOnebook rips for the rest.

If you want to watch the anime...

The 1984 anime adaptation of HnK is an all-time classic. It's often what western fans will think of first, between the manga being legally inaccessible in English until very recently and constant anime reruns in some markets (especially parts of Italy and France).

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Toei has a tendency to copyright-strike anime clips on Youtube, so hopefully this clip of the opening will stand the test of time.

The anime genuinely excels in a few departments, namely: music, sound design, and voice acting. Even if you don't decide to watch the anime, I highly recommend looking up the OPs/EDs and putting on the OST while reading the manga.

That said, there are definitely some downsides to the anime, a lot of which were typical for Toei animations of the era. Character models and direction are all over the place, some of the animation itself aged like milk, flashing light effects make the series difficult to get through for photosensitive viewers, and stock footage gets reused many times. There also isn't a complete English dub of the show, as it got cancelled after episode 36.

And the biggest caveat to the anime: Filler episodes. Oooooh boy, early HnK filler episodes are baaaad. They don't match the rest of the series tonally and completely botch any sense of pacing. Remember how earlier I said that the series takes a while to get its footing because of early bad-guy-of-the-week format? The anime drags this out for about twice as long by adding new bad guys of the week.

The infamous "Nanto Cannonball Fist", where users are launched from a cannon and descend on their opponents with a sword. Yeah, I don't know how this counts as a school of martial arts, either. [img source]

For a first watch through, I highly recommend following a filler episode guide to skip these episodes in the Shin arc and get a better feel for what the series is about. Post Shin-arc filler tends to be a lot better, as these episodes match the manga's original tone and often fix pacing problems in the source material rather than worsening them.

That said, there are a few early filler episodes that are well-liked by fans for one reason or another, which I will detail here.

Episode 17: A (non-canonical) view into the internal politics of Shin's army.

Episode 18: In which Kenshiro fights a tank.

Episode 19: The goofiest of the goofy filler episodes. If you want to watch one filler episode to get a sense of what they are like, watch this one.[3]

Episode 21: A continuation of some of the conflicts from episode 17.

Episode 38: Features one of the best-written woman martial artists you'll see in this franchise. (This is after Shin arc, but I had to point her out. Watch this one.)

Rage Quitter 87's fansite also has an excellent episode-by-episode guide covering anime and manga differences, which can be very useful for highlighting some of the more subtle differences between the two.

An anime remake that more closely follows the manga has been announced, but we have no further details on it at the time of writing. (I wouldn't hold my breath for this, it could be several years before we know more.)

TL;DR skip the episodes listed here under "Shin arc".

So I got through the main canon, what next?

The sheer amount of secondary content for HnK out there can be overwhelming. It's one of the most profitable IPs of all time, with the bulk of those profits coming from pachinko machines that will never make it to the west outside Youtube phone clips and asset-flip games (more on this later). When the series isn't being used to sell soap, there are a number of supplemental works that are absolutely worth checking out. In this guide I will focus on works that are currently available in English.

The Official Gaidens

A series of manga with different protagonists and created with different creative teams, the Hokuto side-stories fill in some of the gaps in the primary canon. Most of them are very loving additions to the continuity and are a good place to go after finishing the primary material.

Toki Gaiden: Silvery Savior follows Toki starting from the founding of the Village of Miracles and ends after his climactic final fight, providing his lens on the events of the series and his relationship with Raoh. This gaiden does a good job of understanding what fans like about the series, and has a lot of secondary character interactions that were missing in the original work such as conversations between different Ken-oh underlings.

Jagi Gaiden: Flower of Carnage follows Jagi through his childhood, interspersed with the events of canon. This gaiden does a lot to explain why Jagi ended up the way he did, provides additional context to what the Hokuto children's training looked like, and how the world changed when the apocalypse happened. cw: rape

Yuria Gaiden: The Affectionate Mother Star follows Yuria before the apocalypse happens, giving us a snapshot of domesticity with Kenshiro, a better understanding of her abilities, and illustrating how her life was always influenced by those who had fallen for her.

Juza Gaiden: The Wandering Clouds follows Juza as meanders around canonical events, giving insight into what he was like as he shifted from wandering without drive or purpose to becoming a sworn guardian to the Last Nanto General.

Rei Gaiden: Bloody Wolf's Darkness is one that I wish I could leave off of this list, but that I will include for completeness' sake. It follows Rei before his appearance in HnK as he goes through the exact same character arc that he has in canon. The city that he wanders into has a setup directly out of a porn plot, thoroughly justifying the manga's ecchi genre-tag. cw: sexual assault. repeatedly.

Souten no Ken and Souten no Ken: Regenesis

Souten no Ken, otherwise known as Fist of the Blue Sky, is a prequel series that follows Kenshiro Kasumi, 62nd successor to Hokuto Shinken and uncle to the Kenshiro from HnK, as he has martial arts adventures and tumbles with gangsters in 1930's Shanghai. The series revisits many of the character archetypes from HnK and plays around with the same plot points in different contexts, ultimately dealing with themes of friendship and fate.

Souten no Ken is a complete manga, drawn by Tetsuo Hara with plot supervised by Buronson. Souten no Ken: Regenesis is a direct sequel that is currently ongoing, drawn by Hideki Tsuji and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu. Regenesis has been on hiatus since 2020 due to Hideki Tsuji's ongoing health problems.

While there are animes with both of these names, here I am referring specifically to the manga-- neither anime is worth your time.

There. Now you've seen the only things that matter from both animes.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Released in Japan as "Hokuto ga Gotoku" (Like a Big Dipper), Lost Paradise is an action-adventure game from the studio behind the Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Ryu ga Gotoku series. Fans of the RGG franchise will immediately recognize the game structure and mechanics, which balance advancing the main story thread with a semi-open world where the player can stumble into comedic sidestories and play assorted minigames.

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Bartending is just one of the jobs that Kenshiro can take up in Lost Paradise.

The core story of the game features an entirely original cast, but most of the main characters of HnK show up for just long enough to have fights and cutscenes full of loving references to the source material. It's pure fanservice, in the non-horny sense of the word.

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Team RGG really knows how to nail dynamic fight intros and epic QTEs.

Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage and Ken's Rage 2

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Even though some of the character design choices for this game are painfully mid-aughties (looking at you, tribal tattoo pattern Ken), this intro still goes hard.

For many years the Ken's Rage series were the definitive HnK games, and with good reason. A Musou game much like the Warriors series, you can play as most main characters from the series and mow down waves upon waves of bandits. Some may find the gameplay repetitive, but it can also be relaxing depending on how you look at it. (If you've played a Warriors game before, you know what you're getting into.)

Ken's Rage 2 in particular brings "Dream Mode" to the table, which is a "what if" story mode told from the POV of each playable character. This gives us a lot of interactions that we didn't get to see in canon (such as the delightfully shippy Jagi story featuring Amiba) and also expanding on some characters that should have gotten more screentime in the original material.

Hokuto no Ken (1986 animated movie)

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It's the movie produced by (largely) the same team as the anime, created simultaneously to the show. If you want to know what the anime would look like if it wasn't trying to stretch every yen as thin as it could, this is your ticket.

That said, there are some odd choices made to carve a 110 minute long arc out of the early manga. The movie starts with Ken receiving his iconic scars, and ends with the first confrontation with Ken-oh.

DD HnK

This officially kicks off the "HnK comedy series" part of this list. I feel like comedy in particular can be subject to personal tastes, so keep in mind that each of these projects approaches the series from a different angle and that some may resonate better than others.

DD HnK is a comedic take on what the Hokutobros would get up to if the world didn't end. They end up working at a convenience store managed by Ryuken (voiced by Akira Kamiya, the original VA for Kenshiro), where hijinks ensue when other characters from the series show up.

It's worth noting that there are two animes and a manga with this name. The first anime is a Flash-based ONA (which is hard to find nowadays, for understandable reasons) and the second anime is the TV anime; Both of these series as well as the manga are very largely different. All series are complete, although the English fan translation for the manga is ongoing.

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DD stands for "Design Deformation", evidently.

Ichigo Aji (Strawberry Flavor)

An average day with the Holy Emperor.

Ichigo Aji follows Souther on his quest to make some good friends. :) No really, that's more or less the premise of this spinoff.

While there are animated IA shorts at the end of every episode of DD HnK2, the meat and potatoes of this series are in the manga. The manga is ongoing (albeit on long-term hiatus) and the English fantranslation is currently incomplete (also on hiatus). Each volume of the manga also has a serious chapter following different characters from the series, serving as "mini gaidens" of sorts.

Genius Amiba's Other World Overlord Legend - Even If I Go to Another World, I Am a Genius!! Huh? Was I Mistaken...

In what originally started as an April Fool's Joke, the Amiba Isekai is perhaps one of the most unexpected additions to this franchise. The story begins after Amiba's death at Kenshiro's hands, where he finds himself transported to a fantasy realm where magic and creatures like dragons are real. He decides to use his self-proclaimed "genius" to learn magic in lieu of the martial arts that he studied earlier.

This manga series started in 2021 and is is still ongoing, although the English fantranslation is incomplete and has been on hiatus.

End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc

The End of the Century's Drama Shooting Arc, more colloquially known as the Actor AU, is a retelling of the series as though it was a live-action TV show, covering the efforts and foibles of the actors and production crew as they struggle to produce the series.

The manga for this series started in 2021 alongside the Amiba Isekai and is ongoing, although the English fan translation is currently incomplete (Noticing a reoccurring trend here? a12 and Sakura Leaves, if you're out there, we really miss your work 🥹). If you can navigate the points system (new chapters are free within a few days of release) and use Google Lens, you can get a rough translation from the official Comics Zenon website.

The Winckler Dub

While not intentionally a comedy spinoff, I'm including the Winckler Dub in this section. There are apocryphal stories about this dub being produced as a means to teach Japanese schoolchildren basic English, interviews point to this dub being a sincere project to create a version of this series palatable to an English-speaking audience.

Please, just unmute this series of clips.

The only editing I did here was to append the files. They just. Speak with pauses like that.

With several downright bizarre directing decisions (Raoh is a pirate now, evidently?) and some of the strangest line-reads I've heard in an anime, this relic of an older localization industry can easily fall under "so bad it's good". Watch this with a group of friends after having a few drinks or late night at an anime convention, ideally.

The dub does not cover the whole series, instead bundling sets of 4 episodes into a series of 6 movie-length "sagas": Shin, Ray (sic), Souther, Toki, Raoh, and Kaioh.

Hokuto no Ken: Legends ReVIVE

I feel like it would be a bit disingenuous to finish this list without mentioning Legends ReVIVE, the current ongoing gacha for the franchise. (Worth noting: I am the admin for the unofficial discord server for this game, which is also the largest and most active English-speaking community for HnK.[4])

This game is possibly one of the biggest lovenotes to the franchise as a whole, with character releases that reach into the most obscure pieces of fiction, from Last Piece to (formerly) Pachinko-only Gento practitioners. Early character models and story cutscenes were entirely asset-flips from pachinko models, but things have grown far past that in the game's past 4.5 years.

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As a part of the 40th anniversary celebration for the manga, it was mentioned that there would be a new continuation of the manga's plot featured in-game, but at the time of writing we have little elaboration on this.

For a gacha, the game is relatively F2P friendly and doesn't ask much of your time on a day-to-day basis. But at the end of the day, it is a gacha that relies on predatory monetization and exploitation of gambling addictions. Caveat emptor.

But what about [x]...?

Legend of the True Savior: this movie series is another adaptation of the manga's plot, but this one doesn't really bring anything novel to the table. The same caveats about making a movie out of the manga apply, in that some odd choices get made to get arcs to fit in a movie timespan. It's there I guess, if you can stomach the artstyle.

Shin HnK/New Fist of the North Star: is victim-blamey rape apologia. There really isn't any reason I can recommend watching it, outside maybe looking up the final fight (where Junichi Hayama's direction really stands out) and the closing song (Oasis by Gackt).

Animated Gaidens (ex Ten no Haoh, Kenshiro Den, etc): these are one of the few things I haven't seen, and for the most part they don't come up in discussion. They're probably fine, but I just don't have the knowledge to comment on them.

Live Action Movie: don't. It's not even so-bad-it's-good, just don't.

In Conclusion

I hope this guide helped take the edge off of trying to figure out how to navigate such a sprawling series, and that it was genuinely informative about both what each work entails and the general context around it. This franchise is something I've really enjoyed digging into over the years and I did my best to convey that love and enthusiasm in this guide.

I may write more meta about HnK in the future, because I absolutely have a lot more to say. There's a lot for me to go on about regarding what the series means to me and why more people should pick it up, as well as putting together standalone character analyses from assorted ramblings on Discord.

Thanks for reading!

References

[1] From running the provided link through DeepL:

Buronson: By the way, I don't read much when a work is published in book form. As far as Fist of the North Star is concerned, the second part has never been published. Interviewer: What? Not even once? You didn't read it at all? Buronson: That's right. But I read the whole book from the beginning the other day.

[2] Not to be confused with the unrelated Master Edition, which was the first attempt to bring the manga to the English market. This version is a full-color version of the original tankobon release, of which only the first 9 volumes were completed. It can be a neat novelty to check out once you're familiar with the series, but the non-Hara colorings can be a mixed bag.

[3] There is a story that this episode was so goofy that it made Hara and Buronson visit Toei in person and tell them to cut that shit out. This claim comes from the book "Our Favorite Fist of the North Star" , which is a fanbook that featured some interviews with members of the anime studio staff, with absolutely zero input from Hara and Buronson themselves. Between the fact that Hara and Buronson were both stated to have been incredibly busy with producing HnK and did not have time to watch the anime and the fact that this claim directly contradicts how they barely met in-person during the production of the series, it seems likely that this bit was made up as a gaff and/or hyperbole by the interviewee.

[4] There are also smaller, more fandom oriented, centers for discussion-- but I'm not about to link them on a post that gets recirculated publicly.

Special Thanks

@/KiliHito (discord) for helping me source the interviews, digging into the truth about the fabled Nanto Cannonball episode, and giving me context for some of HnK's influence in modern shonen.

@takis-breathing-dragon for having the Winckler Dub clips on hand and spotting some typos.

#hokuto no ken #fist of the north star #anime #manga #hnk #anime and manga #retro anime #if I've ever rambled about HnK in your direction or caught your eye with HnK posts on the dash #I'd really appreciate a rb <3

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djsherriff-responses · 1 month

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okie dokie @quixtrix

Gonna also tag @dextraicarus1994 since he’s a splinter cell fan and most likely has information to add to this discussion

We've heard the phase "everyone is the hero of their own story" at least once and while it's debatable if that is really true of everyone , there are some people who genuinely and unquestionably believe themselves to be the hero

And Sarah Fisher is one of those people

Unlike my Jade post, I'll be working somewhat backwards when it comes to evidence of my theory, primarily because one of the things that convinced me that Sarah has a hero complex was something that happens closer to the end of the first season

In the last episodes of CLH, we learn about Sarah's name and backstory. Her childhood where she got her father arrested , her military education and finally the death of her father

Sarah is a confusing character and until we get season two , theres so many questions surrounding her and very few, if any, answers to those questions

Did Sarah plan everything that happens in the show? If not, how much was Sarah's plan? Was her conversation with Dolph and Marcus genuine or an act? Or some combination of both?

What does Sarah really want out of all this? Did she have any involvement with Rayman becoming Ramon? If so, she's now the last of the board of directors and thus is in complete control of Eden, so what else can she possibly want?

And despite knowing first hand Eden killed her father , why did Sarah forego her human body and become a cyborg spider , essentially another cog in the machine that murdered her own father?

Is Sarah even "Sarah" anymore?

Then it clicked into my head that, the entire sequence of Sarah inside the VR , experiencing her past mistakes and trauma?

Can be read as a test of Sarah's convictions

Or other words, from her perspective ,she was on the hero's journey

And what's a common trope heroes experience? Challenges against their beliefs

Now obviously Sarah's character doesn't actually fit into the hero's journey , at least not without some twisting here. That is not important, what's important is that Sarah believes herself as the hero regardless of her actual circumstances or position in the world

Take note of how the hero's journey is about transformation specifically, as I want to draw a parallel to the anime/manga known as Land of the Lustrous. I don't want to spoil too much of that series as this is meant as a CLH post (I also need to catch up) but there is three pages from Land of the Lustrous I want to share

People who know of this series knows exactly what I'm implying about Sarah with this comparison, but for those who don't know what this manga is about: these three pages only has one character in them

Land of the Lustrous (or Houseki no Kuni) is a story set in a world where humans went extinct, but other humanoid lifeforms evolved from that extinction with one of those being immortal and genderless beings made of gemstones

The main character is one of these gem people called phosphophyllite ,phos for short, and their story is basically:

"what if the ship of theseus was a living being with a conscious?"

Keeping spoilers as minimum as possible, Phos , physically and mentally, undergoes drastic changes throughout the narrative both from circumstances beyond their control and the choices they've made

I believe , much like Phos, Sarah herself is a conscious ship of theseus

I want to bring attention to the connections between Bullfrog and Sarah , both in design and in narrative

Sarah's hair is the same colour as Bullfrog's hood , as well as being styled in a way that resemblances said hood. Both of these characters have colour palettes that share similarities with each other , in that they both primarily wear a monochromatic uniform with silver

They both also happen to have eye colours that's some shade of gold . Dolph's mother in the manga also has gold eyes. Coincidentally, both Bullfrog and Sarah are characters Dolph began to trust after he killed Alex for his betrayal

Bullfrog however leans more into wearing white while Sarah leans towards black, which happen to be colours used to represent themes of conflicting opposites , such as yin and yang or good vs evil

The other difference between them is Sarah has green accents while Bullfrog has red, which makes Bullfrog's palette more warmer while Sarah's is colder , fitting considering their personalities

Funny enough Bullfrog is a cold blooded frog hybrid. Meanwhile Sarah was is a human with a warm skin complexion

Red and Green are also opposites on the colour wheel, much like how Bullfrog and Sarah are opposites in the conflict between Assassins and Templars

Red and Green however, are complimentary colours too

As of season one we have very little regarding Bullfrog's life before the events of the show, but I'm betting my kidneys his life has some uncanny similarities with Sarah's

Remember how I said Sarah doesn't fit the hero's journey without twisting some things?

Bullfrog is an undeniable loyal, genuine character who does what he does out of the kindness of his heart. Bullfrog's heroism comes from caring for others and wanting justice

Sarah however, I believe has a hero complex that drives from her ego and a desire to control others

You can even say Sarah is a twisted remix of a hero

We can actually take a guess what experiences Bullfrog may have had in his life by comparing Sarah's life itself to the hero's journey set up, but let’s just focus on Sarah

I just want to have it at the back of our minds that Bulfrog’s life has likely paralleled with Sarah’s when we go down these points

Call to adventure: This is obviously when Sarah leaves the wasteland with Sam, her father , into Eden

Supernatural aid: Sam meets up with Marcus, who hacks the systems to help Sam and Sarah out

Threshold, beginning of transformation: Sarah snitches on the watch dogs

I want to put some attention to this moment of Sarah’s life as it has had a significant impact on her. Not only did her father loose custody of her and she was placed into Eden’s child care system (or whatever they do with Ray kids who expose their parents doing anything illegal) and was exposed to even more brain washing propaganda without any outside influence (her father) , but more importantly this was the first time in Sarah’s life where she had power over someone else’s fate

When Sam asks why Sarah did what she did, she replies “we have to do the right thing”. Looking at her body language , Sarah is not happy to be doing what she’s doing but fully believes, with no doubts despite her pained expression , it’s what she has to do , it’s the right thing to do

It seems odd, that Sarah was this heavily brainwashed and Sam was unaware of it up till this moment. Considering the wasteland is well, a literal wasteland I doubt there was much after school activity programs to influence Sarah this much. Sam seemed like a very attentive single parent so I can’t imagine the guy would let such pro Eden propaganda influences, such as the Rayman kids’ programs, anywhere near Sarah. Considering how young Sarah is in this flashback as well , she wasn’t exactly at the age of sneaking off and hanging with the wrong crowd

Unless Sam wasn’t Sarah’s only parent

Having a quick skim of the Splinter Cell wiki, Sarah’s mother in the games is a woman called Regan burns. Regan and Sam were on opposing sides during their military careers but that didn’t stop them from having a stormy affair, which lead to Regan becoming pregnant and having a troubled marriage with Sam. In the games Regan is cryptanalyst for the NSA , but who is Regan in the remixed universe?

During his introduction Bullfrog rambled about how his ancestors memories live on in his DNA , which is a reference to how in the assassins creed games people can use technology (or other means depending on game) to travel through the memories of their relatives (both close and distant) and learn information from them, it’s even how some get their assassin training

In some stories of the franchise, the main character is the direct child of an assassin, which puts further emphasis on bloodlines and their importance in the assassins creed

Just so happens, the templars use technology to travel through memories and bloodlines play an important role in their organisation , just like the assassins they’re up against

So it’s possible that, in this universe , Regan was a Templar and how she raised her daughter is what influenced Sarah “to do the right thing” and how Sarah was exposed to propaganda such as Rayman’s shows right under Sam’s nose

If Regan was a Templar, that could explain how Sarah not only knew about the order, but managed to get into the position she currently has in show. Regan’s influerence may also have given Sarah (and to some degree Sam) some advantages other people could only dream off, such as an opportunity to have a comfortable life in Eden and her military education

Thanks to Regan, Sam was still allowed to communicate with his daughter despite being a traitor

Dolph , as a fellow soldier in comparison, was taken from his mother and not even allowed any contact with her. He suffered so much just by virtue of having “good genetics”, Dolph and his mother in comparison did not commit any crime and yet ended up with a worse life than Sarah and Sam

If Regan is alive or not in the show does not matter now, what matters is that she was present in Sarah’s life long enough to make an impact on the girl

I do want to say while this was the beginning of Sarah’s transformation, the little girl wasn’t beyond saving at this moment in time

But Sarah, as stubborn as she is, doesn’t want to be saved

Sarah wants to save others

Challenges and temptations: Sarah’s years in the education system and her military training

Revelation , death and rebirth: Sam dies and Sarah makes the choice to become a cyborg

During their last conversation, Sarah brings up that thanks to her good grades, she’s been given the opportunity in becoming a cyborg. Sam is heavily against it , the two argue

Something interesting to note here is how defensive Sarah is of Eden , telling Sam “if Eden was so bad, you wouldn’t be in probation you’d be in jail” , and that he should be grateful Sarah is being given this opportunity at all “despite being the daughter of a traitor”

Sarah does not trust Sam to know what’s best. Not only for his daughter, but also not even for himself

When talking about how Sam died and her grief over losing her father, Sarah asked herself “was he right?”. Worth noting, Sarah never tells Dolph the answer to that question

That’s important because while it shows that Sarah did have doubts about Eden , no , herself , when it comes to how the world works, her behaviour in the last episode tells us exactly what the answer to that question is:

Sarah decided the answer doesn’t matter

What mattered was protecting her father from HIMSELF, and she failed

This was the moment Sarah’s fate was sealed

This was the moment Sarah shallowed her doubts, made the conscious choice to become a cyborg that would set her on the path to become sigma and never looked back

Regardless if she was influenced by Eden propaganda or her mother, Sarah came to her own conclusion about something that day: “order and peace will come through control and rules”

Sam , and all those innocent people, would still be alive if they just did what they were told

If Sam just did want Sarah told him to do

Before I talk about the last two points of the hero’s journey, transformation and atonement , I want to go back to that moment in Sarah’s childhood. The one where she had power

At an incredibly young age , even if it was just this one moment, Sarah had power over the lives of others and influence over what happens to those lives. This likely also made Sarah feel responsible for those around her , particularly feeling strongest towards her own father and his well being. This is where Sarah’s hero complex stems from

I’ve talked a lot about the hero complex, but what exactly is the hero complex?

“Noted author Laura Berman Fortgang, described the Hero Syndrome as a phenomenon affecting people who seek heroism or recognition, usually by creating a desperate situation which they can resolve and subsequently receive the accolades from. This can include unlawful acts, such as arson and attempted murder.” (Link here for further information about this)

We can actually see Sarah display this behaviour early on in the show, particularly in her treatment of team Ghost. The planting of bombs into their skulls under her control is the most obvious example but there’s two others I want to talk about

In the ending of episode 3, Sarah swoops in to rescue Dolph from his own suicide attempt. What she tells Dolph in this scene is damning evidence of her need for control over other people

“I’m the one who decides where and when you die”

Knowing in hindsight that she’s a Templar cyborg , she likely purposely planned it so that the news would catch her “saving” Dolph and label her as a traitor

Why exactly? Can’t really say, but I bet some part of it is just to give Sarah a little ego boost , convince the world she’s the underdog hero she sees herself as

But we can go further than that , in that Sarah wants control over how people live their lives, not just when those lives end in how Jade is treated by her

It’s really easy to assume Jade’s role in the show is due to sexism , and that’s possibly very much the case still

But comparing the role Sarah assigned Jade to the other ghosts, it really makes no sense that Jade was made to play the femme fatale

Dolph and Bullfrog were given jobs that they already do on the regular (Dolph stealing an item using his cyborg tech and Bullfrog sneaking into the building) and while Cody was (presumably) meant to be the one wrestling, Pey’J has the strength and body build to fill in Cody’s absent despite his lack of skills and experience in wrestling

Jade though? She clearly has no clue how to be a seductive temptress, and Sarah must have checked over the ghosts’ profile. Meaning she seen Jade’s profile and seen what she’s actually capable off

Unless Sarah didn’t actually want Jade to do her job

You know what else is common in hero stories? Damsels in distress

I think much like what she did for Dolph in episode three, Sarah’s plan in episode two was to rescue Jade. That obviously did not happen , but my point stands Jade was made a femme fatale so that Sarah can boost her own ego

It’s been brought up on Reddit that Jade’s hair (especially when styled by Sarah in the femme fatale look) resembles Sam’s hair

The two also have green eyes, and wears a hat that casts a shadow over those eyes

We could go a shippy route with this, but this post is already extremely long and I think there’s more interesting things we take from this than Sarah’s weird sexual fantasies

Whether it’s a subconscious thing or something Sarah is fully aware of, Jade reminded Sarah of her father

or rather , how Sarah views her father

I’ve talked a lot about Jade already over here but the point I want to bring to this is that Jade is a passive character in this show. Sam in contrast is not a passive character, but it’s likely Sarah wishes he was

I don’t think Sarah was ever intentionally ableist towards Sam , but combined with her having power over him which makes her feel responsible for his well being from a young age and her believing in the Templar belief that control is the path to keeping everyone safe, I do think Sarah doesn’t respect Sam as a capable adult, especially his life choices that lead to him taking part and dying in the wasteland war

I don’t know what this really means for either Sam or Jade as characters or if these similarities will play a part in season two. What I do know is that this shows Sarah isn’t above trying to mold people to her liking

Which brings me the final two parts of the hero’s journey

Transformation: Sarah becomes a cyborg Templar

”The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object is the same object after having had all of its original components replaced”

Since almost Sarah’s entire body is fully robotic , is it still Sarah’s body, or Eden’s property?

On the off chance that Sarah's brain is also robotic, is the things going through her head Sarah’s thoughts , or Eden’s programming?

Is Sarah even Sarah anymore?

Throughout this whole post I’ve spoke about Sarah , her hero complex and what may have influenced her behaviour. I don’t think Sarah came out of her transition into a cyborg member of the Templar order unscathed

While the ground work for Sarah’s hero complex were present, Sarah was once an innocent little girl who deeply loved her father. Sarah was not born into this world with an ego , she wasn’t born with an intense desire to control other people

Sarah wasn’t born with blood lust in her smile

It was not just Sam who died that day in the wasteland, Sarah’s humanity and connection to other people died with him

There’s something odd about the fact Sarah is the only member of the board of directors who is a cyborg , we know this because Ramon killed the rest way too easily. We also know from Ramon , that people who make it to the top don’t stay at the top

Much like Phos in HNK, Sarah is very much a victim of drastic change due to her own choices and circumstances beyond her control

and finally

Atonement and return: ???

I don’t really have anything to add to this part , mainly because Sarah’s story isn't finished yet

We’ll have to see how things play out in season two it seems : )

#captain laserhawk #captain laserhawk spoilers #hnk spoilers #sarah fisher #rambles #tw suicide #tw abuse #tw death #tw violence #this took me so many hours oh my god #This was gonna be a ship post but it completely derailed into this #I don’t know if Sarah is intentionally meant to be a fucked up version of the hero’s journey #But I do think her hero complex is on purpose

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