The Complete and Unabridged Lore of La-Mulana

Slides: docs.google.com/presentation/...
00:00 - Intro
16:16 - First Children
31:05 - Second Children
44:02 - Third Children
55:56 - Fourth Children
1:04:18 - Fifth Children
1:21:18 - Sixth Children
1:53:02 - Seventh Children
2:04:27 - Mantras
2:29:24 - History Mural
2:37:02 - Eighth Children
2:54:27 - Thank You!
Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at / authorblues

[@authorblues]

Corrections: - A few times (12:37, 2:19:40) I mentioned BAHRUN and made some connections to Bahrain. The logic was sound, but BAHRUN actually seems to be indefinite nominative declination of the noun "bahr" (which I mentioned) meaning sea. The connection to Bahrain, while perhaps etymologically related, is ultimately incorrect.

[@YAPPOsc]

There's a novel "Viy" by Nikolay Gogol, where Viy is a creature that has eye lids so heavy that his minions have to open them for him. When eyes are open, he can kill with his look or some sort. Not sure how connected it is but I can see some similarities with La Mulana

[@authorblues]

Yeah, I believe this was the origin of Viy for La-Mulana, but I only knew it as a movie, not the novel. Thanks for sharing this!

[@chucklebutt4470]

Wow, just read the synopsis of that novel, that's some crazy shit! Very cool!

[@papanovember80]

This was really interesting! I hope you do a follow-up re: La Mulana 2.

[@yggdrasil325]

One idea I had about the Mother is that her true identity is not the ruins; instead she is a non-physical entity, such as a sentient idea or a sentient desire that implants itself in her "children" (the desire to return to space). It frankly explains why the 7th children have the power to manifest her, but can not physically kill her (you can't kill your own knowledge), and how she could exist prior to the ruins being built by the various races. The guardians, then, could be similar entities created from portions of the mother's will by the 7th children to serve as trials, yet still would logically return to power up the true form of the mother.

[@asherhawkins362]

This could be seen as a sort of metaphor for how once you know all the knowledge to a puzzle there's nothing to figure out. Like the 8th had no knowledge so could then "kill the mother"(beat the puzzles) as opposed to the 7th who knew because they created all the puzzles. Idk if thats intentional but fun to think about lol

[@mangler103]

For the record, if you framed this as "Storytelling methods in gaming" and connected it to classic lit, or perhaps hero's journey, and then used examples of other games with complex stories (Thinking Souls games, but could be others), you could 100% get a PhD in gaming lore.

[@andrewferguson9309]

*please* do not connect things to the hero's journey, academia was full up on that decades ago

[@enragedkonchu7422]

@@andrewferguson9309 KZbin academia is always a few good decades behind on actual academia anyway. Mooooostly because most video essayists are just ripping off established ideas anyway lol. Edit: using the term KZbin academia VERY loosely here btw.

[@Thornbloom]

Speaking of La-Mulana 2, it's fully apparent that Lemeza has all the stuff he picked up in La-Mulana; making you play as Lumisa cleanly avoids the Bag Of Spilling trope.

[@azekeprofit]

"The Mother Lemeza fights was created by philisophers" -- is a fantastic theory. And the fact Xelpud knows so much about the nature of the ruins might imply he is actually the head philosopher, which might mean he wasn't kidding when he said he IS the final (of La-Mulana 3?..). Nature of Mother's body/ruins. I always thought the ruins as we perceive them are just sides or even reflections of mother's interdimensional body. Mother is an incomprehensible Ctulhu-like being -- tentacles and all. That is why "knowledge of the Mother" is such a big deal because it changes the perception of the ruins, also see Eden -> Gate of Illusion, Shrine of the Mother -> Awakened Shrine transformations.

[@Hypercecil9010]

La-Mulana was one of the few hidden gems that I always hyperfixated over, especially for it's lore and storytelling. This video is exactly what I needed to fully understand every ascept of one of my favorite games (even if I can't beat it 💀)

[@Sifeus]

I can't believe I'm gonna watch this whole thing

[@italianh8r593]

I’m currently pursuing anthropology, so all of the connections to real life mythology and religion were absolutely fascinating to me. Palenque’s fight being directly from that ancient drawing is so fucking cool. You did such a great job with this whole slideshow, I can only imagine all the time that you put into it, fantastic work!! :)

[@arkturiamordio]

some of the best content on youtube. extremely well done and interesting, would love to see more like this

[@Ripperley]

I've watched like a half-dozen playthroughs of this game and never managed to absorb any of the lore between watching all the lost running around puzzle solving, so hearing it all laid out in a digestable manner was really cool even if I am horrified I just lost three hours without even really noticing any time had passed.

[@FusashiYuraka]

I personally believe that the lack of knowledge of the mother was so important because all the others that came before tried to mimic the mothers power in some way. Like trying to cure poison with poison, it wouldn't work. We needed to cultivate our own knowledge and power that was apart from the mother. That the strength to endure the body's inhabitants and the wit to solve the puzzles before is easy to achieve, the philosophers managed that. But they lacked the will to stop her, and thus the eighth children would be the philosophers of will, and eventually rival her own, allowing us to strike at her very essence. They feared and submitted, working behind the scenes. We were naive but that gave us the ability to stare that fear in the eyes and overcome.

[@FusashiYuraka]

On phone, can't edit original post: On the topic of the red light, since it's stated that the children of the mother who knew of her know of her power... what if the philosophers made the Ankhs in a way to harness the power of the mother to create the guardians. Like shadows empowered by the mothers energy for us to overcome? That the red light on the mothers head is what the mimicked in the process and the only true enemy with a red light was the mother?

[@cryogenical_]

The likely reason for snakes being prevalent in mythology around the world is that they were one of our few natural predators on the African plains 300000 years ago, together with the large cats and birds of prey. This could also be why so many cultures independently came up with dragons which include aspects of all three of our predators. The proposed theory is that we have some genetic memory to fear snakes, and this genetic memory is then worked into myths.

[@GlennMagusHarvey]

Wow, I actually sat through all of this. It is quite fascinating. I actually watched this video trying to figure out what happened in the Chamber of Extinction. Like, what could have happened that basically glassed all the people there. It is probably one of the most horrifying mysteries in La-Mulana lore. Something really powerful hit it and just wiped out everyone, and even now, long after they're gone, it's still so powerful that even the lights are permanently stuck off there (until you fix them of course). (There's no outside lighting in the ruins so whatever light source normally illuminates the ruins is somehow getting sucked out or forcibly kept off there, unlike everywhere else.) As a tangent from that, I feel that "MU" meaning "nothingness" is essentially what happened in the Chamber of Extinction. The area name implies that basically an entire civilization/race perished there, and I've heard it suggested that the Mother, disappointed in the sixth children not serving the Mother's wishes, wiped them out there. (Perhaps they were getting too rebellious for her liking?) Whatever did them in, "MU" (as both the mantra and the track name) represents the erasure of a civilization, the rendering into nothing. The fact that the bodies didn't just burn up but instead turned into solid figures that melted somewhat actually makes me think that the 6th children *are* the clay creatures. Clay hardens when subjected to fire, and I'm not sure but I think at least some of its components will melt a bit when subjected to extremely high temperatures. And of course, I think they were wiped in the battle that took place in the later-named Chamber of Extinction. Going further with mantras, I think each of the mantras is something that's historically important to whatever is in the field pairs. The philosophers picked them because they knew of this historical significance, albeit in historical retrospect. What we know of them outside of LM lore could be a distorted idea of what they "actually" are in the lore. Another weirdness that's always intrigued me is the TV screens in the Tower of the Goddess. This is extremely advanced tech compared to the kind of stuff going around pretty much anywhere else. The Tower in general looks very modern. As for the things the 2nd children did, my usual interpretation is that the Spring provides the water, the Inferno Cavern heats the water, and the idea was to power the spacecraft with Steam. I don't see the Graveyard factoring into the physical mechanisms, but instead my thought on it is basically that the whole Mausoleum story might actually be a misaccounting, possibly intentional, of the history of the giants. The Mausoleum takes a very respectful, if tragic, perspective of the history of the giants, but what happened to all those giants in the Graveyard? It seems they were intentionally left out of the recorded history. They are completely anonymous, and that "respectful" history may be a whitewashing. Perhaps the giants (or at least one) did build the Mausoleum, to provide an "official" account of their own history, while anyone who got in the way of what they were trying to do was killed off and unceremoniously dumped in the back. Something bad happened, but we only get to see one side of the story because the other side has been intentionally left out. Meanwhile, if the giants were capable of making televisions, then they had the tech to mechanize Sakit's body. However, sending the Mother back out to space was too big a task, even with their technological skill, and the infighting drained them of resources and energy to continue pursuing this goal. Anyway, I had a few different questions but I can only remember one of them: what generation do you think Poseidon is from? Specifically, Poseidon-with-a-fish-tail. Clearly honored by someone in area 7, which you say is mostly the 3rd children, but the fish-people is the 4th children, so...alternatively, Poseidon never existed but was a creation by the 3rd children in imitation of the tailed bodies of the Mother and/or the 1st children.

[@GlennMagusHarvey]

The way I number the fields personally is as follows: 0. Surface 1F. Gate of Guidance 1R. Gate of Confusion 2F. Mausoleum of the Giants 2R. Graveyard of the Giants 3F Temple of the Sun 3R. Temple of Moonlight 4F. Spring in the Sky 4R. Tower of the Goddess 5F. Inferno Cavern 5R. Tower of Ruin 6F. Chamber of Extinction 6R. Chamber of Birth 7. Twin Labyrinths 8R. Endless Corridor 8F. Dimensional Corridor 9. Shrine of the Mother 9'. True Shrine of the Mother (And yes, 8R and 8F in that order.) and then there's 1'. Maze of Galious/Gate of Time.

[@chaldeman21]

This was really interesting. I've never played the games but I've been interested in them for ages, and I feel like this helped sate some of that while also making me want to play the games that much more. It's also just fun to listen to people talk about something they care about and try and share that. Well done and now I want to go check in on those Melvins

[@wingsmash0]

i was at the edge of my seat watching this live as a casual la-mulana fan. very happy to see it uploaded here

[@AbbySTWrites]

I would add, and I mean, it's been ten months, that 'Ishtar' is more 'Akkadian' and 'Assyrian' than 'Sumerian,' Inanna would be the Sumerian equivalency of Ishtar, with the same symbology and everything. The name Inanna is used for one of the surviving First Children in Eg-Lana, most likely following the resurrection myth of Inanna, where she traveled to the underworld through what later became known as the Ishtar Gate you mentioned, and was killed there for her pride, and resurrected with the help of the god Enki, returning three days later. The gate you mention is literally called Ishtar Gate because Inanna and Ishtar are the same person, and that gate is where Inanna is said to have descended to the underworld in written myth :) This myth is what informed the Christian resurrection myth.

[@authorblues]

Yeah, that was definitely not an area of expertise for me, so your corrections are greatly appreciated. It was just a reference that I researched at the time, and this was the best summary I was able to manage. I wonder if Inanna's trip to the underworld is the foundation for the apocryphal Harrowing of Hell in Christian mythology.

[@AbbySTWrites]

@@authorblues It may very well be! Inanna is the youngest goddess of the Sumerian pantheon and notably was the most popular of them all; I myself worship Her. As it goes, Inanna decked herself out in the finery of a goddess, but her sister Ereshkigal stripped her of these things to teach her a lesson. The underworld in Sumerian mythology does not distinguish between man and god, so she was punished for her pride as a Goddess, as if she were truly only a mortal. Inanna in La Mulana 2 is likely in Eg-Lana to denote that fact, that she was reviled by the rest of the pantheon. Upon her return, she sent her husband in her place, as he was the only one that did not weep for her. Notably, Inanna and Ishtar are the same Goddess, indeed, the Akkadian cuneiform for Ishtar is the exact same as the Sumerian cuneiform meaning Inanna, so there is a Trio of Goddesses thing going on here, when you also add in that the Egyptian Isis is *also* a corruption of Ishtar. All three are the same Goddess. The Assyrians worshipped Ishtar, and Ishtar and Isis wwere the basis of the Phoenician Goddess Astarte. Astarte was the basis of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite and Roman Goddess Cybele, as well. Throughout the entire history of this Goddess and the many borne from Her, one thing is repeatedly seen: Trans people! Inanna and Ishtar were believed to have the power to make men into women and women into men, and kept as priests and priestesses trans men and trans women, respectively. Aphrodite is said to make men who gaze upon her into women, Cybele is said to be Mother of motherhood, allowing those born erroneously as men to become women and mothers. Isis is said to have made men into women so they may be with their lovers who loved only women. Throughout all of the cultures surrounding these Goddesses there were men who took female names and roles, and women who took male names and roles, and in some cases, became eunuchs in order to do so. There are some stories where "men" took concoctions in holy rituals that used pregnant mare urine as part of them in order to feminize their bodies; pregnant mare urine was later, in the 1900s, used as the basis of the estrogen drug Primarin. One more fun fact: Primarin was routinely sold as a purple or red pill, and that is called back to in the Matrix where Neo is offered a red pill, to wake up. The Wachowski sisters--they are both trans women--tell us today that the Matrix was always trans allegory. History is grand, and mythology surrounding trans people was often erased with *extreme prejudice* as Islam and Christianity began to gain popularity, because their foundation takes literally the phrase "Man and woman he made them," for 'Adam and Eve,' as true for ALL people, and ANYTHING against that was viewed as heretical. Judaism, where this phrase originates, however, holds that there are multiple genders, and that only the original creations were male and female. It's incredibly interesting to dig into, and I only really did so because I'm trans. Haha.

[@goorooschlum]

was waiting to get home for days to watch. amazing!

[@houraisheperd9721]

I’ve been meaning to watch this for a while now, and I greatly respect that you openly admit that you’re trying to do what we have first, and will explicitly state when something is speculation. Way too many people are willing to avoid doing that, and it makes for a worse experience. I got into La Mulana because of you, and I had a great time with it. Thank you for introducing me to it.

[@GhERM2SOIED72]

There is an actual skull inside the Sakit-bot, and I do believe that is the actual Sakit skull. Also, Abuto's corpse is the first Giant's corpse seen after entering through the gate- surrounded by treasure. His name is written on his belt.

[@authorblues]

No clue about whether the skull in the Sakit-bot is Sakit's, but that is the most obvious answer and I see no reason to think otherwise. I *think* I mentioned Abuto in Graveyard, but I may not have. It's been a while since I made this.

[@GhERM2SOIED72]

@@authorblues It was a worth it! There's a hole in the community where LORE-MULANA should be.

[@Araneus21]

in regards to Sakit boss in Mausoleum of the Giants... there is a skull inside the mechanical suit of armor. imagine that the 6th children would take the remains from the graveyard of the giants, stuff them into a walking, mobile mausoleums that are the giant statues of the mausoleum of the giants, as means of preserving them, and the mechanical suits of armor would be not only used for preservation of corpses, but also to emulate actual giants for religious warship and be given defensive capabilities to make them able to defend themselves to avoid being destroyed like other children. Think Immortals from Starcraft 2 but with actual corpses inside and an A.I. to run them.

[@authorblues]

That's a really cool thought. I never really focused on the skull inside Sakit's helmet and I think that's a really great theory!

[@Araneus21]

@@authorblues have another theory: Mother planned no further children after the 8th, and she actually conceived the 9th child, which is the one she is holding in her arms in her skelatal madonna form. This is the direct result of Lemeza using the woman statue and impregnating it in the temple of the sun. The role of the 9th child would be mother's protector and companion, since she had learned of the plot to kill her spirit. The 9th children would be used as weapons to annihinlate the 7th and 8th children

[@IJethrobot]

Fantastic work auth, I loved this deep dive. This was a lot of fun to listen as someone with some casual interest in anthropology and someone with a just a little experience playing La-Mulana. Looking forward to any follow-ups like this!

[@mastergame1311]

This is one amazing video. An instant classic. I hope future projects will even surpass this one.

[@Kyfow]

Awesome video, love it!

[@CrappyBlue]

i can only hope that auth deletes any comments on this vod that point out the amogus. you have to find it yourself.

[@3-headedmonkey27]

Thanks very much for this, incredibly interesting, It's wonderful to see how this game has captured your imagination the way it has mine.

[@CircleOfTheSeptagram]

This was fantastic. I'd love a part 2.

[@volpe2077]

YOOOO this is the BEEEEST!! I hope you'll consider making a follow-up with LM2 added onto the mix :D

[@CrappyBlue]

DAMN wish i could've been there for this!! this is such a cool presentation!

[@CrappyBlue]

"hello, eighth children reading this" shdfgffgvfcd

[@cowsarewild]

Thank you for this!

[@subi7o]

Just beat this amazing game. Thank you for this presentation.

[@XxguaxinimxX.]

That was a great video!

[@houraisheperd9721]

A possible reason for the eighth children needing to not know of the Mother is that the seventh children were predicting a war if someone were to do something, akin to how the second children did so and wiped themselves out. By hiding the knowledge and having seventh children protect the ruins of La Mulana, they can ensure she doesn’t become known before a champion kills her, since the only exit is through the village and anyone who would want to share would trust the humanlike seventh children and tell them of what they discovered, allowing the children to dispose of them.

[@aperson1822]

Something interesting to note re: Temple of the Sun and Temple of Moonlight is that there exists Mesoamerican structures called the Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon respectively, which I think might have acted as inspiration in at least an abstract way. Tangentially related, something interesting about those irl pyramids is that that's just what the Aztecs called them, we don't know what the civilization that built them called them. Something else worth noting is that, while Freya is labeled as a 6th child in La-Mulana EX, the fairies you summon are labeled as 7th children. I think someone on the La-Mulana community server speculated that it may be because (La Mulana 2 spoilers) Freya reveals that the fairies in the La-Mulana ruins (excepting herself) were imitations of the fairies of the 6th children, using the tree of life? I checked the text dump and it looks like the text is there.

[@FROZENbender]

oh wow this is gonna be a ride

[@AstraKiseki]

As an aside, Iran and Iraq both have forests! So it's possible that it could still be in the Middle East.

[@jorgesanzana4262]

THANK YOU for this video, it scratched the very specific itch i had for knowing the real world inspiration for all the names and myths and stuff. feels like it was made for me. thanks for hyperfixating with it to make my hyperfixation easier lol

[@jorgesanzana4262]

also i was halfway through the video when i realized you were the same cool guy that speedran a mulana randomizer (i couldnt even finish the game lmao) at a gdq video, which is extra nice

[@nerdzone]

I am currently making a less involved and more plot-centric video for Axiom Verge. You video was such an inspiration!

[@suhr3303]

Great Work!

[@colin5227]

Great explanation!

[@DOCKKING]

I cannot wait for part 2 :)

[@LuciPls]

Now I feel ready to finally play La-Mulana

[@doricdream498]

I have a theory about the war in Chamber of Extinction. (Well, two actually, but one of them involves LM2 so i wont bring it up here.) My theory is that the war had nothing to do with any of mother's children - Fobos had left the tree of life on to continue to create clay men in order to serve as a challenge for Lemeza. However, the clay men of the frontside and backside began to fight, and ended in a fiery death with the clay men in chamber of extinction. Keep in mind that Ba is mentioned for having turned off the tree of life to prevent *something* from occuring again. I have a feeling he saw the pointless war between the front and back clay men and decided it would be best if the tree of life was turned off. One of the fascinating things I've noticed about la mulana is how the monsters fobos created as a test went on to form their own cultures within the ruins, and proceeded to have a significant impact on the ruins and the puzzles after the fact, whether fobos intended this or not. It's entirely possible that many of the traps and puzzles were created by the monsters after the four philosophers and mulbruk turned themselves to stone.

[@pja1cc]

Regarding Mushussu in Spring in the Sky, there is this connection in the mythology that Tiamat has with water (which you pointed out yourself) - she is the goddess of the sea, and one of her attacks is even that wave crashing down on you, and Mushussu is of course the Tiamat's child, and Spring in the Sky has water. Although I will admit that it's a bit convoluted of a connection, and Mushussu even breathes fire in this game, which is very much not water :P

[@Neopolis3]

Love that Wedjet theory! I did always think the mantra description was strange, specifically the plural of "those eyes"...

[@Einherj3r]

The amogus in the history mural acutally looks a lot like viy. Or was viy pretending all along?

[@authorblues]

Somebody at the end mentioned that it might be Viy, and I like that answer as well!

[@Dracoape]

Excellent, I caught this live up to Mantras, so really glad to catch the end part of this. Now that I have all the knowledge, I have ideas about Mu. We know that the 6th Children loved the 2nd, and built things like Palenque's ship, which flies and looks like a spaceship. And obviously, they failed to return the mother. So I believe Mu could have arisen as a cultural curse word as it were. A short dismissive phrase to dismiss the idea that they could even return the mother. And what if, the supporters of Mu were the ones that instigated the battle that became the chamber of extinction? Just like the Giants, divided upon the wish of the mother. Anyway none of this is really new information, it was all in your presentation, but it's interesting to think about.

[@authorblues]

I certainly hadn't worked out a possibility like this, and I find it totally fascinating. Almost like MU was just some cultural touchstone that caused them to divide down the same line that split the second children in the first place. I genuinely like that idea (and wish I had thought or heard of it to share in the presentation, because I think its wonderful to consider!)

[@CreativityCurve]

@@authorblues I had a similar thought while watching this, but slightly different. I believe it may be as simple as Mu being the 2nd children's general term for the concept of returning the mother to the skies, or a term for the unknown person who will make this dream a reality. Mu is nameless because they're a hypothetical future entity who will fulfil the goal. If the 6th children sougth to continue the work of the 2nd, it makes sense that this cultural artifact would be of great significance to them, and especially to Palenque if he had the ambition of "becoming" Mu. I agree on the Chamber of Extinction angle with this as well, where the significance of Mu there could just be that those who followed the ambition of Mu lost the war and are buried there, perhaps even as a way to warn anyone else of pursuing the same path? This is all speculation of course, but I find it interesting. Something else I was curious about is how LAMULANA (the mantra) is written in Mulanese? Does it have the same MU character as discussed in the video? As far as I know, the only tablet in the game that specifically mentions this name is the one that gives you the mantra, so it begs the question where that name actually comes from.

[@auaurorau]

A different take on this idea is that Mu could be the reason for the war. Essentially, the sixth children interpret Mu as 'extinction', regardless of what the giants meant. This is (what I see as) the logical conclusion to auth's theory on the sixth children fixating on the second children. Normally war sounds like a clearly bad plan, right? But the giants did it, so it must be good. How do the sixth children square that circle? Well, they read about Mu. It's the nameless one who rises into the sky. Mu is nonexistence. The giants went to war and no longer exist. Realizing that, the sixth children go inflict some nonexistence on the surface through war. But that doesn't seem to help. So they imitate the giants again, but do it properly in the ruins this time. This would also seem to explain why the chamber of extinction's track is called MU too.

[@mangler103]

I am blessed to be one of the first people to see this.

[@incobalt]

I'm so glad this got made! I greatly enjoy the theory that the 7th children created all of La-Mulana, and I think that is confirmed by things like you mentioned (LM 2's baphomet etc.). I also think that the stray fairy being imprisoned against her will, practically begging for you to complete the trials so she can be free points to that. Of course we know from LM2 that Freya played a part in it, shown in fairy locks and such to get through puzzles. I think, even, the "you can't know who the mother is in order to defeat her" could be an orchestration to explain why 8th children do not know of her. She doesn't really exist, at least not in La-Mulana. If all of La-Mulana is then a trial made up by the philosophers, how can we know any of it is true? Basing the ideas on something they knew already would help lend a sense of credibility to the stories they created. It raises the question, what was their true goal? With the knowledge of LM2, I wonder if all of this is at the service of some purpose the 6th children found? Then again, that's based on ideas presented by the 7th children. Freya, in LM1, doesn't really say much about her role, except to say she will help when the time comes, but she's the only other part of the puzzle we know is a real entity (owing to LM2). I just love speculation like this.

[@Nodjia]

I'm super duper late to the party, but I have a take on why the 6th children revered and wanted to bring back the 2nd children (giants). 1:30:00 Around this point in the video. Auth mentions an almost 'vocational' relationship or connection between the 6th children and the 2nd children because they were builders. I take this a step further in my head cannon by connecting the dots that the 3rd children, 4th children, and 5th children aren't specifically mentioned as being "creators" or "inventors", so if the 6th children want to learn 'sciences' they have to look back to the 2nd children's era for 'real knowledge'. Since it was explicitly stated that the 2nd children had the knowledge required to return the mother to space, and were great builders (probably because the ability to move vast amounts of resources comes with being quite large), they are the best source of inherited knowledge that the 6th children can learn from. The third children are angels/devils/flying things that seemed to create nations, politics, and civil war "on the surface". Which implies to me that these children seemed to focus on mysticism and social developments more concerned with their own existences than the desires of the mother. The 4th children seem to have been expressly been created to inhabit a severely damaged world caused by the 3rd children's bickering, and their 'genetic design' was meant to simply survive in the harsh flooded environment long enough to pass on their knowledge to the next children. (I know that in many cases there are indications and references that the 4th children are comedically dumb, but I actually interpret the line about 'inheritance and passing on knowledge' to imply that they are simply not designed to be creative and instead meant to be repositories of knowledge collected from the remnants of the prior children. So they might not be "dumb" but just uncreative, simple fish people who study the efforts of the prior children to keep their "knowledge" alive until the world becomes habitable for more complex life again). The 5th children went right back to mysticism and social pursuits, fancying themselves gods and wanting to create life (like the mother, like tiamat and the first children) and invented religion, though they do create the 'tree of life' machine to be able to create life which has not directly inherited 'power' from the mother. The 6th children, being creations of the 5th children inherited a direct belief in various gods, but being born with the capacity for invention and creativity outside of what 'the mother' specified, they really have no one to learn from. This I feel is why they revere and seek to restore the giants, because they are the last known scientifically minded individuals of the prior generations. The giants knew how to make machines, how to build, how to fly (presumably well enough for long distance space travel). I feel like their devotion to recording the history of the 2nd children in the mausoleum and the reference we see to 6 on Sakit's robotic body is almost a point of pride that the 6th children owed their achievements to what they learned from the 2nd. They may have even wanted to "restore" the 2nd children to learn from them directly. Since we don't know what the 6th children really looked like or how they were transformed out of clay, I find it interesting that their creations all appear to be made of inorganic matter. Skanda appears to be golden and muddy, while palenque appears more robotic, and sakit is certainly very robotic (whether he is a 6th child or simply a machine left to guard the mausoleum is up for debate). I almost feel that the 6th children may have been references to 'golem' of Jewish folklore, that the tree of life doesn't produce 'real life' so much as it animates non living matter, which also falls in line with the mysticism and religious pursuits of the 5th children. Only when the mother injects her own power, spirit, knowledge, etc. does the tree of life then produce living beings which are more 'complete' in the form of the 7th children. As a side note, I also agree that the mother was weakening over time. Functionally speaking, her greatest creations were her earliest creations. The first children inherited divine power over space and time, the creation of life directly, etc. The 2nd children inherited physical power, size, and knowledge. The 3rd children could fly, and practiced magic and were strong individuals. At this point she clearly weakened, and only sought to preserve some of the knowledge and practices of the earlier children by using the 4th children to survive. (it is possible that the damage caused by the 3rd children also damaged the mother since she 'is' the ruins... or it is possible that with each successive creation she weakens herself.) By the time the 5th children are created, they are more or less anthropomorphic humans (egyptian gods, with mostly human parts but animal heads, etc) and they idealize the power of the first children and the mother, which kind of implies that their own power is significantly less and they they seem almost covetous of the gifts of tiamat. For the 6th children to be considered a proper "generation" in the history of la-mulana despite the lack of the mother's influence or power is quite odd. They seem to have been made in numbers significant enough to warrant that consideration, like mass produced workers or machines of war. If we go back to the 6th children having some special connection to the 2nd children, and we take into account the (quite possibly incorrect) theory that the mother's power and knowledge are finite resources that are expended as she 'births' each new generation, the 6th children may have literally viewed the knowledge of the 2nd children as a finite 'harvestable' resource or means to recover some of that power she expended in the form of knowledge given to the giants. ----further along thoughts---- Regarding the relationship between MU, the 2nd children, the 6th children, palenque and the chamber of extinction. I almost feel like the more esoteric japanese interpretation of MU as being nothingness and promise, maybe ties into the concept of the death of a dream or the death of hope. Extinction to some degree represents the absolute finality of death, how it claims entire generations of the children who have displeased the mother. Mu, as nothingness, and extinction being a return to nothingness, emptiness is a probably link. I have no idea what Viy is supposed to be related to mythologically, but it reminds me, rather horrifically due to the... hairs or tentacles... to the giant monster that can be found in SCP stories revolving around the blackness in the earth that was meant to be the final weapon of the fey, a curse. Related to the hanged king stories. My personal theory on the philosophers creations defining their status, I feel like dracuet really is meant as a joke implying that he created the bikini. Because he is related to LM2's version of the 'hell temple', and the bikini is the 'treasure' of the LM1 hell temple. Since he specifically mentions his creation "not being recognized" I feel like there is a joke there about his aesthetics being misunderstood. As far as the mother's body being the ruins. I like to ponder how the 2nd children being the "builders" of most of the fields fits into it. I agree the mother is likely a soul, spirit, or deity trapped in a meteor or a space ship or some kind of drifting space prison which has crashed to earth (Though sometimes I like to think of it as just a really advanced machine which has lost its mind). Because of the information about the giants having built several fields, I like to think that all the pieces of herself that went into building these places were connected, that anything built from a part of her remained and integrated with its surroundings to still be a part of her. In that way, the machine idea, networking itself, connecting remote pieces of machinery or the idea of a spirit binding the place together kind of makes sense. Sealing 8 key fragments of the mother to bind her to a physical form makes more sense there as well, like using magic to isolate networks from a central data hub.

[@daniellewasdelayed8921]

I like this comment a lot :) The connection between the 6th Children and the Jewish golem in comparison to the 7th Children is an astute one. Some writings have the golem given animation through the inscription of words (I believe the symbol for "truth"?) into its clay forehead, and we see that aspect represented in-game... through Xelpud and the Four Philosophers, who all have the symbol for 7 on their forehead. While that may sound contradictory seeing how the golem (6th children in this metaphor) is the one with the writing upon its forehead, given false life, we can instead look at what happened when something is infused with actual power, the power and agency and strength given to the 7th Children that were not inherited by the 6th. This also touches upon the idea of the Mother being weakened by creation, what it means that there is an entire generation that is held to the same level as her, the Sixth Children untouched by her, and that comes in the form of the Seventh Children being a response. In this vein, many emotions can be read into her with this action; notably, betrayal not being met with direct destruction but by a dismissive "This the best you could do? Pitiful." followed up with birthing a Children who ultimately are powerful enough to rival her at her lowered power level. ..... actually hey, that's a cool thought I only thought by typing the other stuff. As it turns out, speaking to/with/at someone about something allows you to make connections you never could've made on your own! Even more evidence that Mom is weaker than before since she had the power to (mostly) destroy entire generations but isn't able to muster another world-ravaging flood to wipe out the children that explicitly want her dead.

[@zenlucas-divers4652]

I would think that the reason why knowledge of the mother prevent them killing mother is simply down to love and being unwilling to kill the one who made that which you are. Not knowing of her means you cannot love her.

[@VileLasagna]

3 hours of analysis with a pinch of speculation on La-Mulana lore? Why, thank you so much for making a video exclusively for me, even if you did so on the sly, without telling me =P Without having played La-Mulana 2 yet, some of my thoughts are: With regards to why the 8th children needed to not have knowledge of The Mother, I seem to remember that when this is explained to the player by Xelpud, the general idea was that having an understanding of the nature of the mother gave the 7th children too much of a sense or love and respect for the mother and that this is what prevented them from actually pulling the trigger. It's also mentioned that this gap in understanding is what enables the 8th children to perceive La-Mulana as this mountain full of ruins, instead of as the body of the mother. This COULD all be metaphorical or straight up dishonest but I'm willing to accept that this is a real disconnect and that it persists, even as the driving of the wedges injures the mother and manifests her spirit. It feeds into why the 7th children came to the conclusion that they actually never would be able to take The Mother back to space, she's a frikkin mountain, yo momma just too dang big, the ultimate rock thot. Even as Lemeza learns of all of this, he never gets the actual visceral understanding that the 7th children had and this was always my takeaway. We, as players, end up completing this task without ever fully understanding The Mother as an entity; she is, well, too alien for us, being 8th children ourselves.

[@daniellewasdelayed8921]

"She's a frikkin mountain, yo momma just too dang big, the ultimate rock thot" produced a horrid cackle out of me and I want to thank you for that gift

[@VileLasagna]

@@daniellewasdelayed8921

[@zennistrad]

1:56:39 Just a minor correction here: Dracuet isn't part of any DLC, since La-Mulana 1 didn't have any DLC. The place he appears in was an optional bonus dungeon that was included in the original game. (Not the 2012 remake, the 2004 Freeware original.)

[@authorblues]

It was DLC for the WiiWare version, but included with future releases. www.nintendolife.com/news/2011/07/la_mulana_dlc_announced

[@zennistrad]

@@authorblues Huh, that's fascinating. Hell Temple and Boss Rush were definitely included in the original PC release of the game stateside.

[@AShriekingCloudOfBats]

thank you So Much; I've always been very interested in the total collected la mulana lore but I just did not have the memory to retain it or keep at analysis for long enough to get a satisfactory answer. It doesn't help that there's a lot of misconceptions about the game plot, for the longest time I felt like I'd heard that the mother destroyed all her children, and not just the first set via flood.

[@TheBLBShow]

I never understood the concept of the Ruins being the Mother's Body when it is also known that her children built most of the fields. Also I always thought the Tower of Ruin was called that because there is a Rocket just like in Tower of the Goddess but this was either an early attempt that failed or the last attempt

[@WildMatsu]

When you were asking us to do the hunt through the mural, I had a guess where you were going with that that proved wrong: I thought you were going to say that the mural depicted all eight of the mantras. It makes sense for a few reasons: First, in the "MSX" version, the items depicted are mostly items directly related to killing the mother: the magatama, the djed pillar, the key sword. Several of the mantras are in fact depicted: 1. The Mother is obvious (LAMULANA). 2. There's obviously a giant, and you argued that it's probably not Sakit, but ABUTO. 3. You labelled MU. 4. You argued the eye of judgment this mural depicts is the true form of WEDJET. 5. The figure you called an "amogus" (which, if anyone else is curious, is to the right of the giant's left shoulder) is quite possibly VIY. That leaves just three: BAHRUN, SABBAT, and MARDUK. 6. To stretch things slightly, the fish could be representing the sea, and therefore, BAHRUN. If Marduk or Sabbat is represented, though, I wouldn't be able to guess with any confidence.

[@jackbloom6062]

Between the seventh children corrupting the trees of live to make "evil life" and the clay man in Skanda's room forming when you walk in, I feel like that would imply that he is a corrupted copy of the original Skanda made to challenge whoever enters that room.

[@stinkystink9830]

"This game takes place in a desert by the Persian gulf" which is why it takes place in a rainforest huh God damn missing the forest for the trees

[@GhERM2SOIED72]

When/where is it confirmed that Tiamat isn't Tiamat? Not every red stone has to be an Ankh Jewel. The idea behind the Ankhs is that Great Spirits get pseudo-immortality by becoming light- like being in a different dimension. Hence the big light beams when they're summoned. Tiamat imprisoned herself to live longer. The ultimate robot of the 6th Children that was close to bringing the giants (specifically Sakit) back to life, the two snake beings that may just be what's left of the twins, etc...- All immortalized by the powers that be in their own times.

[@GhERM2SOIED72]

The Guardian Spirits are tied through the Ankh's to the wedges/to the ruins/to the body of the Mother. That would be why she can draw on their power. Bringing LM2 into it, that's why even a member of the Annunaki can be mimicked by the 9th child.

[@DijaVlogsGames]

Well, here goes my evening…

[@slouch186]

woah awesome!!! I've been looking for something exactly like this on and off for a while now. la mulana has such an interesting world, but it's way too difficult for me to play lol. if you haven't already, is there any chance you would do something similar for the sequel? it would be a lot of work so i would understand not wanting to. regardless, i am very excited to watch and enjoy this now. thanks so much!!!

[@authorblues]

I'm working on the LM2 one right now.

[@slouch186]

@@authorblues hooray! super hype to see it and i hope i get to join in live if you happen to do it that way. just finished this video this morning and wanted to thank you again. it's so hard to find information about all of this stuff presented in a single source. you rule!

[@Demortixx]

I really wish I liked puzzle games like this. I really like the lore and the idea of all these puzzles I just suck at them so bad I can’t play these games

[@colin5227]

I love that green

[@Thornbloom]

I don't believe the reptile headed statue is Ellmac, but may in fact represent Sobek. Sobek was often combined with Ra, hence the sun disk behind the statue's head.

[@RubieKanary]

This is what happens when dad leaves for milk 😭

[@gadellomagnollo1810]

Any chance for that La Mulana 2 video?

[@kaimalakh1011]

I like how you misspoke and switched from talking about the Vanir and said that the Valar live in a different World. Entirely correct, but not for the Reason you intended. Given the mayan Influence with Regard to the 6th Children, the Mayans believed that Time was a giant turning Wheel, so maybe they saw themselves as the 2nd Children come again, expanding the Ruins and building flying Machines, so it was their Fate to war against each other as had been done in an Age long past and in an Age still to come. Also, I'm curious about the Towers of Oannes shown on the Map being what's on either Side of the Mother in the final Fight. Like, it's a weird Backdrop for something that was shown once on the Map at the Start of a new Game.

[@carlphilippgaebler5704]

I'm at 2:14:00 with the question about the connection between MU and the 6th Children... then it hit me... What if the Tower of Ruin was the 6th Children's bootleg Tower of the Goddess? We even see a structure much like the ones in the Tower of the Goddess... so maybe they tried to finish the work and couldn't due to all the infighting.

[@GreenTengu97]

I have a theory: Abuto survived to the time of the 6th Children and guided their development down a similar path to the Giants. Which is how the 6th children could have worked on the Mausoleum and Abuto wrote the history.

[@rabbitking3633]

Regarding MU: According to Zecharia Sitchin, the paleocontact and conspiracy theorist, MU is a sumer word for rocket or flying ship. Naramura stated in one of his interviews that he "centered his studies around sources like Wikipedia and occult-like materials", so I think it's just a reference to the Sitchin's "The 12th Planet", as well as Annunaki and Nibiru thing from second La-Mulana. So MU means rocket.

[@authorblues]

I never knew this. This is a great reference, thank you!

[@Zaurthur]

Wouldn't Mu make sense referring to the mother?

[@nintendomaster2024]

How does La-Mulana 2 confirm that the guardians from the red jewels aren't real?

[@Ronin11111111]

La Mulana is probably just "The Mother" in lamunlanese. So yeah, she does and does not have a name.

[@jacobwilbers9852]

Myths are "stories about divine beings, generally arranged in a coherent system; they are revered as true and sacred; they are endorsed by rulers and priests; and closely linked to religion. Once this link is broken, and the actors in the story are not regarded as gods but as human heroes, giants or fairies, it is no longer a myth but a folktale. Where the central actor is divine but the story is trivial ... the result is religious legend, not myth." [J. Simpson & S. Roud, "Dictionary of English Folklore," Oxford, 2000, p.254]

[@crosswire40]

2:48:30 Maybe the red stone or red light is simply indicative of some sort of power originating from, or originally related to The Mother rather than a sign that the mother fought in La Mulana is just an artificial construct? After all, if the Philosphers did set up all these traps and guardians specifically to find someone to kill The Mother, wouldn’t it make sense to model those ‘tests’ off the Mother in at least some way? Even if the Guardians couldn’t, or shouldn’t have been for practical reasons, as strong as The Mother, by having them draw power from a similar source or have some connection to her, it’d better prepare the Hero to fight her at the end. As for the Anhks and the Keysword having a similar red light, I think that’s further credence to the idea the red light is related to power rather than artificiality. Since the Ankhs were vital to sealing/releasing things and the Keysword was a vital item in reaching and ultimately destroying The Mother. Plus, given that after the defeat of every Guardian some sort of eye-spirit thing flies off, maybe The Mother's soul was fragmented? With each piece being placed into one of the Guardians. And by releasing all of them one by one as part of this ritual, The Mother herself would become vulnerable. It would also explain why she manifests their powers during the boss fight, since they're ultimately aspects of herself in a way. From a 'test' perspective it would also work, since the Hero would (in a sense) be fighting The Mother from the start, if only separated pieces of her. So instead of The Mother being related to the Guardians, it's the other way around, they are related to her.

[@authorblues]

Yeah, I've had a lot of time since putting this together to work through my ideas about the Mother being "artificial" in some sense, and I feel like that was a bit too far of a reach. I do think there is something really interesting and strange going on with the red jewels seen throughout the ruins, but I think I came to the wrong conclusion about it in the end. Thanks for your thoughts on this!

[@crosswire40]

@@authorblues No problem! And honestly even if your idea was a bit of a reach, it was still interesting. The idea of the Mother we fought being an artificial construct and everything in La Mulana basically being an insanely elaborate tourist scheme is both funny as it is kind of horrifying.

[@clareta3010]

relatable

[@arempy5836]

•The winged skeleton's in the shrine of the mother reminded me of the Vril-Ya from the book The Coming Race. The Vril-ya were described as a race of winged humans that once lived on the surface but fled underground into networks of Tunnels after a great flood. They can influence a substance called "Vril" which has the power the power to both heal and destroy. The concepts in the book were very influential to the western Occultism and New Age movements, so it's not impossible for the work to have inspired parts of La-Mulana's world building concerning the third children. •Not folklore related, but I think Palenque is clearly also inspired by the Space Jockey from Alien.

[@gadellomagnollo1810]

Vril is real and I have it. It is expelled from the body during copulation, draining the spiritual energy of the male and infusing it into the female. Or smthn Idk

[@TreuloseTomate]

Where does it say in LM2 that Baphomet and Tiamat are fake? I don't remember.

[@authorblues]

Typhon says they are constructions of the 3rd children. "Fake" is probably not 100% accurate, but as they are presented, they aren't fully 1st children

[@shingshongshamalama]

I think the way La-Mulana lore nerds talk about the tesselation of the fields is always kinda poorly explained. It'd be a lot more intuitive if you actually show the whole map being fully tessellated, instead of doing the thing where you cut parts off and stuff them in a 4x5 rectangle. It makes it so much simpler to understand for anyone who doesn't already know what tessellation is.

[@aristedes9449]

2:45:00 That's stupid. The statue is obviously just the man-made shell sealing the mother's spirit.

[@authorblues]

Weird energy you're bringing, but yes, that is a perfectly viable answer.

[@lukejackson2354]

I believe that the red light is influence of the 7th children. It is all a ritual, so Tiamat and Baphomet are more representations summoned and each of the guardians is supposed to originate from one of the children each with the exception of the 7th and 8th with the Mantras focusing on a core idea of the race’s era and lastly(1st we’re exterminated due to how inane all else about them was, 2nd is left a chronicle of sorrow, 3rd are to be characterized by the one thing they refused to do, gather in joy, 4th was characterized by the one thing they never truly had “a home” 5th Are characterized by the knowledge that they harvested not being able to protect them(I don’t quite get Ellmac but I guess the mother used it to destroy them(taking control of them which may also be what caused the 6th to have no great achievement), 6th by the nothingness of their purpose or meaning as a race(they likely killed the 5th and themselves due to the mother but fairies either could hide or weren’t affected somehow to survive), 7th put Viy and put the order as a first progressive then after a regressive burst towards the mother using Amphisbaena as creature that aren’t children but symbolizing a ln inevitable end(like the opposite of an ouroboros) to drive the ritual to extermination and allow the 8th performing the ritual to kill the mother.

[@woomod2445]

Only bringing in my knowledge of history and theology. 6th children, Hinduism, and gods. In the Sanskrit religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) the gods are beings further along the path of enlightenment(and thus release from Samsara) than you, but not who have yet to obtain it. Which is why they are worth revering/emulating, and specifically in Hinduism this is liberation and a return to cosmic oneness. I find this appropriate as they come after the the Egyptian 5th generation, The Egyptian faith is fascinating because it's one of the first religions to preach universal morality while still maintaining a pantheon. It has the concept of Ma'at, divine order, that there is a right and true way things should be. The 5th generation also was pretty obsessed with becoming gods. Spitballing 6th generation viewed the mother as a god, figured there must be others, and saw she suffered and was imperfect like them, and sought to obtain a higher level of being like their forebears. But rather than immortality and powers like the mother they sought to "become one with the cosmic order" to escape the suffering even she endures. This even ties into their manta "Nothingness", the term nirvana means "Extinguishment"(and pre-hinduism/buddhism split Nirvana was used interchangably with Moksha "Liberation"). So the great one with no name = The cosmic all/one.

[@Krendall2]

"Pretend La-Mulana 2 never happened." That's going to make the lore about the giants pretty inaccurate.

[@authorblues]

Yeah, that's kinda the point of the caveat.

[@lukaerd6258]

58:09 You know you've suffered when you can tell exactly which room is depicted in that illustration, I sure as hell know. Edit 1: As someone with scarse knowledge of spanish i could immediately tell that "La-Mulana" was the Mother's name. its just sounds like it would be. "La" being a word denoting a female subject and "Mulana" sounds like "Mujer" or "Mulher" meaning "Woman". so it was obvious to me. Funnily enough the Mother's name in my head would be just "The Woman". I guess it also fits the theme of the woman statue, starting as a woman statue and becoming a maternity statue. Idk. Edit 2: Oh yeah in the classic mural of la mulana history the frontmost philosopher is holding the key sword.

[@Aogami20]

Never played this game before. 6 minutes in and I'm like oh. This is Xenogears and the whole gnosticism demiurge thing where God is just an alien that wants to consume humanity for its own goals. wrt giants being builders that's a common folklore thing as well. Hecatoncheires, all the giants in greek and norse myth are legendary smiths of some sort.