Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an action hack and slash video game developed and published by Ninja Theory for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. Written by Tameem Antoniades and Elizabeth Ashman-Rowe, the story is based on Celtic mythology and Norse mythology. The game is focused on Senua's (Melina Juergens) point of view, as she embarks on a very personal journey through a hellish underworld made up of Senua's psychotic manifestations of her reality and mind.

Quotes

Narrator

• [first lines] Hello, who are you? ...It doesn't matter. Welcome. You are safe with me. I'll be right here, nice and close so I can speak without alerting the others. Let me tell you about Senua. Her story has already come to an end but now, it begins anew. This is a journey deep into darkness. There will be no more stories after this one.

• Look around and you will see them. The drowned, the sick, the slain. Here they lie, rotting in the field and river of Hel. But the dead don't always lie still here. This is not a place of rest.

• What is she thinking? I can tell you. She is afraid. Wouldn't you be? You'd think she would get used to it by now after so many years. But the darkness...it just builds onto itself, growing stronger, towering over her. You might try and ignore it, turn away, but it's always there just out of sight, where you are most vulnerable. It's like it knows that just enough light...is all you need to see it's suffocating power.

• You might think she's brave to go on this journey on her own. But it isn't bravery that drives her. Bravery only means something to those afraid of death. Senua's fear runs far, far deeper.

• Stormy seas and lost souls. She's dreamt of this before... They say dreams are visions of our memories, thoughts and fears as seen by our inner eye. But what if each one of us is always dreaming even when awake? And we only see what our inner eye creates for us? Is this what Hel is? A world shaped by Senua's nightmares? Maybe that's why people feared seeing the world through her eyes. Because if you believe Senua's reality is twisted, you must also accept yours might be too.

• Senua pushes away a world that conspired to cause so much suffering. There is nothing to go back to and worse to look forward to.

• The darkness is coming. It yearns for life, hungers for it - like a pack of wolves on a hunt. But she's not stopping. Not this time.

• A vision, of what's to come? Poor Senua. The darkness does not bargain. It does not reason. It is rot. And now it has taken hold, it will spread towards her head, the seat of the soul, until there is nothing left of her. All of her suffering will have been for nothing. It's just a matter of time.

• The hardest battles are fought in the mind. That is what Dillion taught her. With every defeat, the dark rot will grow and soon it will take her soul. But, for now at least, she still has control of her mind. And she will fulfill her vow, whatever the cost.

• Have you died before? It's a serious question. When the illusion of self is shattered, you simply cease to be. Though it may not seem that way to others, you know when it is true. You can feel it, a stranger in your own body, an imposter and nothing is the same ever again.

• Why go on? When you give everything and face that which torments you, only to find that it is worse than you could have imagined...why go on? Is it really so weak to ask this? Or are we just so afraid of the honest answer, that we do not dare pose the question? Sometimes the answer lies in a memory...a feeling...a song.

• It's funny. We all want to see behind the veil, don't we? But once we do... we mostly just close our eyes again and pretend what we saw was never really there.

• This is the price she pays for seeing things differently. Because once you gaze into the relentless darkness, all that lurks within it can see you too.

• The worst kind comes without warning, a deep and primal signal from within. A reminder that just because you cannot see the threat, it doesn't mean that it's not already here.

• When darkness speaks, it changes everything, turning home into a foreign land and loved ones into strangers. Exile makes sense when you realise that you were never really home in the first place.

• The further she saw into the darkness, the more she struggled to see anything at all.

• Where are we now? ...a burial mound. So strange that we go to such lengths to bury death, something so very ordinary, inevitable. It's as if we conspire to hide death, because we have no answer for it.

• The world once seemed so simple: black and white, darkness and light. Narrow dividing lines of our own making.

• Dillion... she can't help but think of him. A tender guiding flame in a world so black. The longer it burned, the more she convinced herself that there was nothing beyond its reach. How little separates us from what we fear.

• People think of evil as an unnatural invisible force, and so invoke the gods for protection. But evil can come from the hand behind the gods: a familiar hand, cold and cruel.

• Never forget what it is like to see the world as a child, Senua: where every autumn leaf is a work of art; every rolling cloud, a moving picture; every day a new story. We too emerge from this magic, like a wave from the ocean, only to return back to the sea. Do not mourn the waves, the leaves and the clouds. Because even in darkness the wonder and beauty of the world never leaves. It's always there, just waiting to be seen again.

Senua

• [tries to bargain with the darkness] You. You took him from me. I beg you. Let him go. I'll give you what you want. I won't resist anymore. Just give him back.
• [confronts the fire giant Surtr] You destroyed everything! Everyone! But not me! Fight me now!
• [before killing Valravn] I never beat you in the wilds, did I? It was an illusion! But not this time!

Dillion

• I learnt the hard way to not be afraid of death, Senua. Because a life without loss is one without love. Turn your back on death and you only see the shadow that it casts. The longer you hide from it, the longer the shadow grows, until all you can see is darkness. When our time comes, we must look death in the eye and embrace it as a friend. Only then can we let go fear, and emerge from our darkness.

Druth

• Hel will not give you the answers you want. But you mustn't look away from the horror it does offer, because you cannot overcome suffering if you refuse to look at it.

• Like you Senua, the man I once was has died. And when that happens, even gods you worship can die with you.

• For every battle won, a greater battle takes its place and so it goes until we fall. And in the end we all fall. Even the gods have their time.

• In blindness there can be wisdom; only by giving, can you receive in return.

• In the end, it is not the gods who cause so much suffering Senua. It is those close to us.

Zynbel

• In this waking nightmare where all dreams come true, you searched for control. A way to pull through. When you were in love you left him in tears. To smother your furies and banish your fears. But in darkness they came, through stormy black seas they raided these shores. Do you still hear his screams? And now that you're home he's so far away. They've taken his soul. To these gods you cannot pray. They can break you, but not your promise. Even death won't keep you apart. Through this darkness you will find him. In your sword still beats a heart. You fought for love unspoiled by your darkness within. You fought for your dreams, now there is no way to win. In the head of his corpse lies the seat of his soul. So you must carry his vessel to bring him back home.

• The darkness touched you. Everyone could see it in the hollows of your eyes, a gaze averted from life. You ran from it but brought it nearer. Led it to him. An endless suffering worse than death. And you wanted to surrender? Abandon him to find peace with the gods? No. The darkness won't allow it. So you will walk into the lair of the beast, look it in the eye and you will go to war. This is your mission. This is your quest. There is nothing else left.

• This is what happens when you listen to the voices of the underworld. They crawl into your soul and rot you from the inside.

• Only suffering brings salvation. It is the way of the gods.

External links

• Official website