(REPOST) Ariel Might Know More Than We've All Considered

[Umah Bloodomen]

This is yet another interesting topic that I snatched off the "old" forum. My compliments to RAZKAIN for heading up this debate. I will throw in a couple of other people's theories just to give you a taste of how this debate went. (My compliments to those individual's as well). Enjoy!

Originally Posted by RAZKAIN

From talking to Amy, she loves to research and is heavily into mythology. So, I looked into the subject and began to pry into the area of Biblical mythology. We all know many of the characters are based of there Biblical counterparts (for example, Raziel was the archangel that listened in on God's secrets and Kain although spelled Cain was the first murderer). Upon prying into the subject area, I ran across something interesting.

Ariel, the archangel of beasts. Could it be she let the demons into Nosgoth?

Well, we all know she played a crucial role in Nosgoth as the Balance Guardian. Although I don't really have any idea what her motives might be, it is possible that she intentionally let the demons into Nosgoth. Power can be a dangerous thing. Maybe there is something that was offered to Ariel that tempted her to betray her guardianship.

What do you guys think?

Originally Posted by Sade Lyrate

Personally, I've doubted Ariel's sincerity ever since BO...
I mean, "Seek the Oracle of Nosgoth", and all the rest...
...the lady's been at the Pillars for quite some time, and
I'm pretty certain she knows about that Squid in her basement...

...have kept this file in which I've marked every nice little
detail and some thoughts while playing LoKs...
And in it reads more than just once "How much _does_ she know?"

Considering what she says to Raziel in SR just makes my hair bristle...

"...No, child, all I may do is watch, and remember, ceaselessly conscious
as this wretched world’s history unfurls. Ghastly past, insufferable future,
are they one and the same...?"

And

"...Ariel remembers what others have forgotten..."

...yes indeed... obviously, her observations are
clearly _not_ limited to the Pillars' area... No wonder
if she's lost it...

Originally Posted by KnightWing-Reaver

yeah, I wonder can she descend into the pillar chamber? or not? if so she definitely knows of the elder god

Originally Posted by Gorechild

well she is a specter, but that doesent mean she can, or does it?????

Originally Posted by Sarah

Oh--and did anyone else get struck by this!---
In the final boss battle, the Hylden General calls Kain a "petty nobleman"---remember the false ending of BO1? Ariel describing Kain as a "petty nobleman"?
That just struck me, for some reason. And Amy H. has mentioned that Ariel knows more and means more then has been revealed yet.

Originally Posted by Sade Lyrate

HaHaa! So now we know that it is _Ariel_ who's behind it all!

_She_ planned her own murder! _She_ seduced Nupraptor!

_She_ took control of Mortanius!

...okay. Another one of those moments again.
But despite the threat of sounding misogynist (in case
of which would have a serious identity crisis... ), I honestly
think Ariel's got her two-faced spirit nose stuck into this
business more than it seems...
...our resident * queen... just playing innocent victim...

Of course, there's also that not many mentally unstable admit
their state. And now... who's claiming to be free of Nupraptor's
patented mind blast (tm)?

Originally Posted by Time Streamer

Yes, Ariel is definidently a two-faced manipulator. She plays the part of tragic victim so masterfully that it fooled both Kain and Raziel on their first meeting. She's up to something, I can feel that.

[Umah Bloodomen]

Originally Posted by Umah Bloodomen

I am really enjoying these "conspiracy theories" concerning the specter Ariel. What if, in her manipulative ways, she drove Nupraptor mad because she and Moebeus had a thing behind his back? What better way to manipulate Kain than aiding in the manipulations alongside the key manipulator?Moebeus is the time streamer, therefore he should know if, when and how Kain will die thus releasing Ariel from her prison. I feel that in order to secure her freedom, she too will play the time streamer's wicked game of chess, pawns against pawns. As far as Mortanius & Ariel, perhaps even they are hooked up and planning on not only taking Kain out, but Moebeus as well. Perhaps Ariel is destined to eventually reign as an elder god herself? And the theories continue....

Originally Posted by RAZKAIN

haha well im glad to see u thinking umah...although the thought of moebius or mortanius attracting any ladies doesnt seem to likely...but welcome to the forums and i think you raise some interesting questions

Originally Posted by Umah Bloodomen

Thanks for welcoming me Raz.. ..as far as the big M's attracting ladies, I think it's a matter of Ariel playing her own cards right
not a question of "getting some". LOL. To obtain the power and the glory, you have to hook up with the powerful and although Kain himself is powerful, Ariel's flaw seems to be herself being naive is "assuming" that Moebeus and Mortanius are going to stay on top forever. Everyone has a flaw and Ariel strikes me similar to Umah, although she doesn't act on total impulsiveness. Afterall she does have eternity to get what she wants... (sheesh, everywhere we turn, another soap opera eh?)
As the Chronoplast Turns..LOL

Originally Posted by the13thJedi

Seeing as how Kain changed the course of history BEFORE Ariel's murder, I'd bet that her assailants may differ as a result.
Hell, I'd even be willing to question whether or not she will even be murdered because of this.

[Jeffers]

I think she knows a hell of a lot more then she is letting on.

1. She didn't tell Kain that he was the balance guardian in Blood Omen.

2. She has been bound to the pillars for so long, she has bound to be know a lot more then she has said.

3. Who is to say that restoring the pillars wasn't yet another cruel rumour devised by Mobious as a back up plan in case Kain didn't sacrifice himself to restore the pillers, so that Arial could provide more fuel to the fire in an attempt to get rid of Kain.

Jeffers.

[Azuriel]

guess what i voted

[Umah Bloodomen]

Hmmm...I wonder Azuriel.


All I can say is that I don't blame Kain for not taking the path of being naive and sacrificing himself just because some ghost told him to. I would've followed the same path and explored all of my options (and their consequences) before making that decision.

The Soul Reaver series clearly allows us to believe that he has found the true path of restoring destiny. And if has to go down, he's taking who he needs to, with him.

[Jeffers]

Lol at Azuriel.

Jeffers

[Time Streamer]

My reason might sound a little selfish but I would've taken the same path as Kain did. After all the trouble he went through, only expected to sacrifice himself for those who pulled his strings all along for one reason or other. My view would be "hell with them" and make Kain's choice just to put their plans into disarray and benefit myself for once. Kain didn't owe nothing to the world after humans had decimated all the other vampires. Why would he want save/preserve a world like that.

Ariel certainly knows more than she lets on, but what she knows, she deciphers that only from her POV. I bet she's willing to say anything as long as her wishes/dreams/visions get fulfilled.

[Vampmaster]

I don't think Ariel is involved in planning the demise of Nosgoth. I think her main priority has become to escape the pillars. She is hiding things from Kain and Raziel because she beleives that Kains death will free her. She is also looking for someone to blame for everything and found Kain. I'm not saying he's completely innocent, but it's not all his fault and he is trying to fix things. I think the main person she's been lying to is herself about Kain's death freeing her. I think she started to tell more after Raziel made her cry!

[Sade Lyrate]

...can't help but wonder what I'd been nipping writing that...

But indeed, Umah's right, this was a nice topic, and it would've
been pity had it been lost...

Time Streamer & Umah: agree with you about what to do in Kain's
position. Didn't have second thoughts when first playing BO through...
...sorry, but at that time, I couldn't really care what consequences
'my' actions would have had, and still lack the patience for long
moments of thought...I guess Kain couldn't have cared less if
someone'd come along and told him that his choice would lead
into the death of Nosgoth itself back then, either...

But back to Ariel's little manipulative behind...
Vampmaster: never thought Ariel would really want to see Nosgoth
descend into a not-so-nice place.
I like how near-everyone of LoK's characters acts so human... including
Ariel. Like anyone else, yes, she is looking for the scapegoat.
And Kain's the easiest and the most obvious choice.
But I cannot believe that the years she's spent at the Pillars have
left her mind untouched. Even if she is dead, locked in a limbo
of her own, I fail to grasp the idea that everything she knows, all
the time she spends seeing Nosgoth descend into decay, unable
to do near-anything about it wouldn't have tortured her, twisted
her mind.
Oh, she may be free of NPMB(tm), but of the ravages of time...?

She wants salvation, or at least, finally, be allowed to rest, forget
everything, cease to acknowledge and exist... and undoubtly is ready
to do anything to gain that. (I know I would, after spending a couple
of hundred years watching something I care about fall into a
disarray and fail....)

[NosgothicGod]

i do believe she does know a lot more than they're letting us know, and i was a bit dissapointed on her appearence in sr2, cause it was too short even though i loved that scene whit her and raziel.

[chuffy]

If the scenes in the time streaming device are to become true. (The one where raziel strikes Ariel, and the reaver gains more power). Then i think that maybe Raziel finds out some underhanded backstabbing by Ariel. Then makes that choice that Ariel needs to pay for her atempt to twist everyones actions. And strikes her down and reaves her soul?

But when i first saw the scene of Raziel striking Ariel. I thought it was to grant her what she always wanted, rest from haunting the pillers. And in the process help Raziel up-grade to reaver to continue ferther on his journey. But who knows?

chuffy

[keepittrue]

Ok first off we have to look at Ariels point of view here. I think Ariel obviously knows more than what she lets on but thats really about it, I think other than that she just wants balance to the pillars. She may not know the origin of the pillars (but than again she may know) and maybe she just wants to be freed and the pillars restored and thats it. Just Maybe.

[SirRaziel]

Well I have never taken Ariel seriously. Mainly due to the short scenes she's getting. It's obvious Ariel has been through alot. Despite her manipulative skills. She still has the common goal in mind which is restoring Nosgoth. And she doesn't care how. So long as someone gets the job done. But even she knows there is no easy way out. And that's the impression she gives. She wants the easy way out.

[Lady Kreliana]

So...what DOES the Little Mermaid have to do with LoK? (JK!)

[Angel of Music]

It is very possible that Ariel is just playing the part of the tragic victim(Time Streamer). However, she never actively lied to Kain, or Raziel for that matter. I don't think Kain needed to know that he was the Balance Guardian until his quest was over. No matter what happens, Kain is corrupted, if events were changed to alter this, Ariel would never have died, and the entire history from that point on(i.e. these wonderful games that we keep talking about) would be rendered false. Therefore, Ariel must die, and in turn so must Kain in the end. Ariel makes this point clear in her first conversation with Kain: Ariel:
"Even so, I can provide the answers you seek."
Kain: " I seek only a cure."
Ariel: " There is no cure for death, only release. You must destroy the sorcery, the sorcery that is now poisoning Nosgoth. Only then will you realize peace."
This is an excerpt from the first meeting between Ariel and Kain at the pillars. Neither she nor Mortanius ever promised Kain a cure. She tells him he has to die from the get go. In his haste, he heard what he wanted to hear. However, I am not sure why she went Kain to Moebius.
As for Mortanius, I highly doubt he was cooperating with Moebius. Mortanius, even though his methods were subversive and uncouth, was still acting righteously. He was tryng to undo the mess caused by Ariel's murder.

[Lady Kreliana]

In Blood Omen 1, Ariel had her own agenda. She manipulated Kain into killing the circle of nine and kept him ignorant of his true destiny: the guardian of balance. I think that if she kept something like this from Kain, and from gamers for that matter, that there's a whole lot more that she's not talking about. Whether she's playing along with the Hylden, some other unknown party, or is out for her own goals is anyone's guess. All in all, I do believe that Ariel's not the unfortunate, relatively ignorant, helpless, victim spectre that she wants us to believe.

[darien_specter]

Very interesting... I originally avoided this topic because I thought it involved BO2 spoilers. I could have commented a long time ago... alas.

Something is definitely up with her. From SR2, we can see that she's been chanting this "I hate Kain" mantra for over 3000 years. So she must be a little goofy... The question, though, is one of with whom (if anyone) she is allied. Is it Mortanius? She gives him the same directions, sends him to the same places; but Kain clearly never took the sacrifice, even without Moebius sending him back to cause the genocide. Why, you ask, do I say this? Because Kain still has the Soul Reaver, and to have the Soul Reaver, you have to have Raziel, and to have Raziel, you have to have Kain... (Unless they made the Soul Reaver another way, which I would highly doubt.) I have on occasion wondered if Mortanius deliberatly raised Kain as a vampire in an attempt to return the Pillars to the heirs of the ancients in some fashion, expecting him not to take the sacrifice. This has problems, though; Mortanius does tell him, "My death will leave one more to take" (or something like that). But what if he meant Ariel? What if she's corrupting the Pillar of Balance? Because it's not just Kain who's tied to that Pillar till SR; Ariel is apparently always there, too, haunting Kain's palace. Now how Kain would have destroyed Ariel's specter, I don't know; and there's still the question of the Pillars falling with Kain's decision. But what of that? How is it that Kain refusing to die at that moment brings the Pillars into ruin? I mean, he could have said, "Well, I'm not going to kill myself just yet, I mean my savings bonds mature in two years, and I'm not going to give that up." Or, more seriously, he could have noticed the continuing rot and have had a guilt attack, gone back and harikari-ed himself on the spot. So more is at work than just Kain and Balance in bringing down the Pillars... what does Ariel gain from his death? Release?

Or is she in league with Moebius? He's the evil mastermind of the Circle... and she knowingly sends Kain to "the Oracle." She would have to know who that was. Is she coauthor of "Moebius' Big Book of Nefarious Plots (c)"? Yet she does dispatch Kain to kill him along with all the others... Perhaps she just uses them both to achieve her own ends. Perhaps she, too, knows Kain will refuse, and hopes the destruction of the Pillars will free her. After all, if she's tied to the Pillar of Balance, and the Pillar of Balance is destroyed, then she should be free, right? And when it doesn't work, Kain becomes the scapegoat, and object of her mad obsession...

[Naja]

I just had a thought (don't hurt me...):

Ariel is bound to the pillars, right? Every guardian must restore their link to the pillars if they die, right? What of Ariel's link? Did they ever try to set her free by setting before the balance pillar her link to the pillars? I mean, if the pillars are restored, she could still remain there. I don't know.... maybe I just need some sleep... but this thought was bugging me. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but be nice.

[TempySmurf]

darien just made me wonder, if kain did kill himself at the end of BO1 then there would be no kain and since there's no kain there's no raziel and without raziel there's no soul reaver. Not sure how that would change things exactly, but his death at the end of BO1 would have had "supposedly" two effects. He would have closed the paradox that is raziel. Or would have created another paradox cause raziel wouldn't exist, yet the soul reaver did. Depending on the different theories you buy on time travel, it could have meant everything in the universe should have stopped existing.

[Naja]

.. yeah, Tempysmurf, but they didn't plan on the rest of the series back then; it was only supposed to end at BO1, hence the two endings. So when they added more games to the series, they spun off of the one where Kain lived so that everything would make sense and be in-line with the rest of the story they developed. But, if I were to get picky on the whole soul reaver idea, I would point out "why wasn't Raziel released when William broke the sword?" (we already know how come Kain's blade wasn't broken as well - considering he had a future soul reaver blade - because of the events in SR2).

[Justified_n_Ancient]

Ok...while we are all making comments...I have to make another.

Personally I think that Williams sword was the empty one, somehow not containing our blue little guy. And the one that Kain had, had the half version of raziels soul. So, when Kain went to strike Raziel, it broke, unleashing Raziels other part of himself, unto himself.

Now, the question of how William comes in possesion of a souless reaver and when, is what I want to know. I really hope that they clean up the timeline in the next version. I would really like to see things start making some more sense.

Ok...those are my two cents. Ok, well one more thing...my impression of Ariel was that she just wants to be free..and perhaps she has been mislead, just as much as everyone else. I think there is a bigger game player in all of this...(can we say "Elder God?")

[Naja]

There was a room in William's castle - in the past - where Kain overhears a meeting between William and Mobius, in which William is given the soul reaver. I think it is the actual soul reaver because of how it acted during the battle; I mean, what with it having the trail of energy behind it and the same screaming effect to it... Besides, Kain mentioned in SR2 that they were "two incarnations of the blade meet in time and space.." -the same sword.


Oh, yeah.... I think Ariel is a * and should fess up the info she's hiding. (C'mon, she's got nothing to lose - she's only got two options: stay bound to the pillars, or oblivion. If she would only give up the info she has, someone might be nice and set her free).... hmmm..... I think she already has the chance to escape but, after so long, she gave up trying; what I mean is: the pillars are broken, so what is still tying her to that place? The pillars are no longer standing and are completely useless now, so shouldn't she be able to fly away? I think she just thinks she can't get away since she was bound for thirty years, and when the pillars fell, she still assumed she was bound to them.

[TempySmurf]

You have to wonder though, is kain really the representative of the pillar of balance? Or was he just told that he was, and ariel is still balance, but she just won't .. go away... so to speak. This would even fit into the happy ending of BO1, because it's only ariel's word that everything was restored. That might be stretching it a bit, however, I don't think the happy ending to BO1 could even exist with the current story.

Another question about ariel.. why is she a ghost anyways.. why is she "tied" to the pillars? I figured it's the classic, I am at unrest and my spirit will remain until ... yadda yadda yadda.. but I'm not sure if I buy that anymore. Maybe Kain just needs to stuff her little soul inside the pillar of balance (in a kain like manner of course). Or perhaps Raziel needs to stuff her soul into the pillars using the soul reaver. It is the key, right?

okay.. perhaps it's a little far fetched.. but I don't trust that woman and it'd just be damned amusing.

naja... I agree that william's soul reaver does have raziel's soul, else it wouldn't be the soul reaver, but why does he have to be released when it's broken? There's no evidence that it would work like that in the LOK universe.

[Umah Bloodomen]

I don't think Raziel needs to stuff Ariel's soul into the Pillar using the reaver...I think he (being the reaver and the key) needs to reave her soul which would return it to the lock (the Pillars).

If Raziel reaved Ariel -

1. She wouldn't be tied to the Balance Pillar any longer
2. Kain would still live and could assume his place as guardian.

I think the only way to test your question of Kain's purpose (as being the supposed representative of the Balance Pillar) would be to remove the other Balance Guardian from the equation.

I don't feel there will be a "happy ending" to the story. There will be a hella-ironic ending to it. People are going to get hurt (emotionally and physically) and others will simply perish.

There is no indication as to what else would happen if Ariel were reaved (even from Blincoln's site). Just that Raziel would get the Aerial Reaver and go off to end the story at the Silenced Cathedral.

[TempySmurf]

That's basically what I meant.. I just liked the visual of her being stuffed inside the pillars is all..

Wow.. umah almost agrees with me.. I must be onto something..

Oh.. and someone in this thread almost mentioned something similiar and got me thinking once again.. I'm sure someone's made this connection somewhere before.. what's the likelihood that ariel is the dark entity? I don't remember seeing ariel chanting "Go Kain, it's your birthday" when he was fighting it in BO1. She was no where to be seen.. kinda like clark kent... leaving just before superman arrives then showing up after he leaves.. cept different.. and in SR2.. correct me if I'm wrong here... but didn't the demons that were talking to Raziel originally start showing up at the Pillars.. not sure about this one.. but wasn't it right after he talked to her that the big ole demon showed up.. coincidence? And isn't the elder right below the pillars.. wouldn't ariel know about him... Are they the same? Lovers (ha)? You can't be that close to someone for a couple millenium and not talk to them...